Did anyone go to the HB tournament? Since I’ve never done a tournament with that kind of prize fund, I’ve never had to deal with some of the issues on cheating that were dealt with there.
I’m especially interested in the (quite possibly) confusing section assignments. I’m still not sure how or why some of them were done. Also, the anti-cheating provisions. Were they effective? How many directors did they have?
Thanks a lot,
Alex Relyea
According to Walter Brown, who was one of the TDs on site, they had 4 TDs in the back room and around 12 on the floor.
Looking over the results of the HB Global, there seem to be a lot of forfeits, especially in the early rounds. It seemed unlikely that there were so many people who paid their $300 and failed to show. Was there a major problem with the early pairings, perhaps not taking into account different schedules? Why were there a lot of full point byes?
There also seemed to be a large number of later round forfeits. The high entry fee doesn’t really discourage people from just walking away.
I was one of the lower section td’s at the event. I did not hear much about cheating or attempts, although there was a rather violent accusation by one of the players in the unrated section (of all places).
In all, I thought the tournament went very well. Carol J and crew were on top of all situations and kept order.
50 GMs, 1503 players.
Many forfeits in the first round (or first round full point byes) are common in large tournaments where most of the participants are travelling. Mix-ups occur when a player requested a half-point bye and it was not recorded (opponent getting the forfeit), or a player who had registered for the 5 day schedule and was mistakenly placed in the 3 day (full point bye, if not known until pairings are made), and other errors of this type.
Or either of the above, and it was the player’s mistake on the form.
With the exception of a few players (those expecting a perfect score) this has little impact on the final outcome.
There was also a plethora of opportunities to re-enter, therefore being able to “bye” half-point byes for the early rounds. (pun intended).
Again, this actually helped a few players, but not many (there were 118 re-entries including at least two who reentered twice).
It was a great time, and you should have been there!
The only cheating report I’ve heard was that one player was caught consulting with someone via cell phone between moves. He had 2 losses at the time, it doesn’t appear that he was getting very good advice. 
I wasn’t there, but it sounds like there were some communication problems between the people handling advance and/or onsite registration and the TDs.
Unfortunately, that’s not unusual in large events. I’m hoping to bring out a new tournament registration system on the USCF website later this month or in early June that I think should improve communcation between the players, the registration desk and the TD room and thus reduce section and scheduling errors at national events.
The player caught cheating was working with a person on the second floor of the convention center that was using a laptop.
Hi,
I played in the U2000 section at the HB Global Chess Challenge.
Does anyone know the scoop about the results in the U2000 section?
The closing ceremonies were held up until after 11:00 p.m. Even at
that hour, Ashley had results from all the other sections, but did
not have the results for the U2000 section. I also notice that Sam
Edelstein finished tied for 2nd-5th by having a full point bye (-B-)
in the final round. The winner, Ochoa, had a full point bye in round
7. I thought I overheard someone in the crowd at the closing
ceremony say something about “cheating” and “electronic device” in
the same sentence. I also notice that the “pairings” do not have
anyone playing on board 306 in that section, which starts at 301.
This circumstantial evidence would suggest to me that a player got
booted from the tournament in the last round.
Dave, do you know anything about this?
Thanks,
Tom Ewers
I know someone who played in the U1400 section. My friend had an opponent who, in a losing position, left the playing area with his scoresheet, returned 20 min later, and immediately launched a 15-move mating combination. My friend later complained to a TD & was told that nothing could be done without proof of cheating, and that a TD should have been summoned immediately upon the player’s departure with his sheet. If cheating actually occurred, it didn’t help, as the player in question won nothing.
Besides the normal first round forfeits, 5-day schedule rojund one forfeits for people that had intended to play the 3-day schedule and bye mixup forfeits, there were also some forfeits in rounds 3 and 8 when the schedule changed (from a 6 PM round 1 on Wednesday to a 5 PM round 3 on Thursday and from a 11 AM round 6 on Saturday to a 10 AM round 8 on Sunday) and players came an hour after the round started. The final round had its forfeits also.
In an attempt to avoid bye mixup forfeits, the standings always included all nine rounds so that players could verify that their future byes were set.
Huh ??
If a player has a mate in 15, how can you say he is in a losing position?
That’s for sure, and it’s good advice for players any time – get a TD as soon as your opponent does anything suspicious. Don’t wait till later.
Bill Smythe
Good policy, especially if accompanied by a prominent sign next to the wall chart, saying, “Please check your wall chart entry for future byes. No corrections will be made after the bye-request deadline for each round”, or some such.
To help avoid schedule mix-ups, there can be a slightly different entry fee for the different schedules – something like $202 for the 2-day schedule, $203 for the 3-day, $204 for the 4-day, etc. That way, if a player neglects to specify a schedule when advance-entering, the organizer can still figure it out.
Bill Smythe
The player caught cheating was in the Under 2000 section. That missing board number was probably his.
Once the player was caught (he ran out the back door) the chief TD gave all the opponents he had played and beat 1/2 point towards prizes and 1 point for rating purposes.
To make that work on paper his opponents that beat him were given 1 point byes for a win against him and 1/2 point byes for any loss. He was withdrawn from the event (completely deleted from the records of the U 2000 section). This makes the paperwork right for prize and MSA purposes.
In the extra games section he was entered along with all his opponents. He was given a rated loss for all of his games. This gives his opponents some compensation without messing up prize distribution.
Tim Just
U2000 Chief TD
so this player caught cheating (and verified it himself by running out), will he be removed from USCF or something like that? what happens to cheaters other than being removed from the particular tournament they were caught cheating in.
planned to play at HB, but my wife is due june 3rd (1st baby) and had no idea if baby would have come early. i really hope they hold it again next year.
some possible suggestions for next HB… schedule for summer (kids out of school will attract more of them and their chess playing parents who couldnt make it for this reason alone). i hear the event was super nice, but overly expensive (big digital board, the venue itself, etc). cut out some of these nice, but unnecessary things to save money i think. reduce prize fund to 450k or even 400k (still biggest tourney held). maybe with some of these things and others the sponsor wont lose money next year (fingers crossed that itll even be held). i wasnt there so i cant make too many suggestions. its too bad the sponsor lost money this time.
I think my friend simply meant that no Class D player could have found this combination on his own, and would otherwise have lost. Several GMs were later shown the position and said they might have missed it.
As to sandbagging in this section (U1400), two of the top finishers had ratings of 1171 (8 pts) & 871 (7.5 pts). The former was someone who hadn’t played a rated game since Jan 2000, and the latter since last April (though in all fairness, his last unofficial rating was 1166 & I don’t know why that never became official with the following ratings supplement – a rerating anomaly perhaps?) Anyway, there’s no evidence that either of these players were sandbagging (in the sense of intentionally sloughing rating points beforehand).
I doubt it has anything to do with rerating. The most likely causes for an unofficial rating not being included in a rating supplement are:
The event was not rated until after the cutoff for that supplement. (That should mean it gets in the next supplement, though.)
It is based on fewer than 4 games.
Without knowing the ID, I can’t research it.
I don’t see anything unusual in his rating history.
814 was his published rating for both the February and April 2005 supplements, though rerating his October 2004 event for the June 2005 supplement changed his post-tournament rating from that event to 816.
The March and April 2005 events he played in were after the cutoff for the April supplement, of course.
In my opinion, consideration of accusations of cheating should not be limited by the end of the game. Remedies will have to be restricted by the time that the complaint was filed however. Rule 21F1 allows protests if based on evidence not previously available. Suppose that after the game ended, the player when to stronger friends and they said finding the mate was suspicious when considering all the circumstances. I would consider a late appeal as it is unfair to the opponent to allow a suspicion of cheating to exist and unfair to everyone else in the event to allow a cheater to get away with something. In my opinion, charges of cheating should always be in order as a cheater should not be allowed to get away with unethical behavior on a technicality.
In cases where a tournament’s TD staff have ruled a player guilty of cheating, there should be a requirement that a report has to be made to the Ethics Committee by the Chief TD.
Ernie, would you agree that once the game is over it should require much more conclusive evidence to overturn the result based a claim of cheating?
Further, if the party making the ex post facto cheating claim does so on the basis of analysis by higher rated chess players, isn’t that somewhat contrary to the philosophy that chess should be a game between two players and ONLY those two players?