Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011
Hello everyone,
A German player cheats at the chess team championships... and then, admits it. Just the thing that spoils our beautiful chess world.
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| Christoph Natsidis | Photo © official website |
According to a news item by www.chessvibes.com, a participant of the German Championship, which concluded on Friday in Bonn, was caught cheating. FM Christoph Natsidis used a chess program on his smartphone during his last-round game against GM Sebastian Siebrecht to analyse a position from the game. The 23-year-old player from Bannewitz, Germany admitted that he cheated, and was excluded from the tournament, missing out on an IM norm he had scored after 8 rounds.
This is what Grandmaster Sebastian Siebrecht - at the receiving end of this disturbing event - told the news website:
"We had reached a complicated position. I had taken on b2 which was a bit risky. However, in a very concrete position where calculating was necessary, he was constantly away from the board. Three times, I made a move and it took 8-10 minutes for him to show up at the board. Naturally I started looking for him and I even waited for a while in the toilets. One toilet was occupied, but I didn’t hear any typical ‘toilet sounds’.
During the game [Igor] Khenkin came to me and asked: ‘What’s going on? Where is your opponent?’ I decided to go to the arbiter and try to find Natsidis together. Then, indeed, we did find him in the toilet, but the arbiter did nothing, which made me very angry. I could not play a normal game anymore and in a position that was still complicated, I decided to offer a draw, which he accepted.”
"We had reached a complicated position. I had taken on b2 which was a bit risky. However, in a very concrete position where calculating was necessary, he was constantly away from the board. Three times, I made a move and it took 8-10 minutes for him to show up at the board. Naturally I started looking for him and I even waited for a while in the toilets. One toilet was occupied, but I didn’t hear any typical ‘toilet sounds’.
During the game [Igor] Khenkin came to me and asked: ‘What’s going on? Where is your opponent?’ I decided to go to the arbiter and try to find Natsidis together. Then, indeed, we did find him in the toilet, but the arbiter did nothing, which made me very angry. I could not play a normal game anymore and in a position that was still complicated, I decided to offer a draw, which he accepted.”
Eventually, a smartphone with the game position was found on the cheating law student who admitted he did it. You can read all the details at this link. It is beyond us why chess players can even bother to put their mind to even consider cheating. Chess is such fun and so beautiful who wants to ruin it.
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Makes no sense. Pathetic act.
ReplyDeleteAttrocious. I think only a life ban should be the punishment not one not two not three years. Such people are unnecessarily spoiling our sport of chess and making things bad for the rest of us. Strict action should be taken. Also why are players allowed to bring phones to the tournament area at all?
ReplyDeleteWhy is strict action not taken against all cheaters?
ReplyDeleteWhatever is going on. This is just too much.
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote before the problem with cheating can be corrected chess coaches need to reach small children 5-7 before they develop inflated egos and bad morals send them the right message about winning the right way and the importance of honour.
ReplyDelete