Unsubstantiated (and False!) Accusations of Cheating

All Things Chess
1

I recently had the misfortune of becoming embroiled in an incident stemming from the Pittsburgh Open in which I did a favor and played a ‘house game’ against an opponent (who was out of the running for prizes). I was not playing in the tournament, was ineligible for any prizes, and was there at the event because my young son was a competitor.

I won the game handily but afterwards was accused of ‘cheating’ and ‘swindling’ the player when a incident involving a potential ‘touch move’ violation occurred. At the time of the incident, I voluntarily (and unnecessarily) offered to move my piece to the square the opponent claimed my hand had come off (to avoid a confrontation) and after this move and a subsequent capture by my opponent, a position arose which which was identical to the one I had originally intended. My hand never left said piece but my opponent at the time was upset that I moved it to one square and then without releasing it, placed it on another. At the time he claimed I was unfairly and illegally analyzing by moving the piece to multiple squares (his story has since changed and morphed and now he claims I did take my hand off the piece. Regardless, I moved it to the square he claimed was the square where I had 'originally intended" it to go.)

At that specific time during the game and before continuing and without arguing, I offered to get a TD at the time and my opponent declined. I told my opponent I was willing to put the piece on b2 as he wished instead of c7 (it was the Queen and was coming from e5). I shook his hand and told him I meant nothing improper and would honor his request, as silly as I thought it was at that time. I again offered for us to get a TD and he again declined and stated the incident was over.

We finished the game, which was already lost for white at that stage (as the game score clearly indicates).

A few days passed and when I got home I learned that this opponent started to lobby the TD’s that the game should no longer count as he was the victim of a cheat and had been swindled.

A big dust up followed.

I definitely lost some composure and was not too happy that I had won a (relatively meaningless, for me) game and was now being accused of being a liar and a cheat. The issue then started to focus on my use of language in handling said accusations instead of focusing on resolving the original dispute. Much silliness occurred but things were eventually mitigated (or so I thought) and arbitrage followed and after a few tense days it seemed to be resolved. Parties involved decided and agreed to move on and I even told the TD I was willing to allow them to post whatever results they saw fit and had no qualms to how the game result would be recorded.

However, now, at a recent tournament I am playing this player has shown up and has taken to telling anyone within ear shot that I am:

~ a drug addict
~ a cheater
~ a liar
~ a swindler

None of which are true and all of which are 100% unsubstantiated. He has gone out of his way to tell potential opponents that they need to “watch me” because I will “cheat them” like I did to him. It became such a distraction at the recent Chicago Open that I was forced to get a TD to intervene in the pairings room where this ex-opponent was eventually issued a warning and summarily told to no longer keep making such accusations.

To no avail.

He has not stopped. It is true that he did lower his voice and has become more circumspect at who it is he now decides to tell his side of the story to. But, the damage has been done and I fear that in the future he will continue to slander me and my chess integrity.

In addition, he has taken to even attacking the integrity of my young children making claim they too are cheaters as the ‘fruit does not fall too far from the tree.’

This has left a serious bad taste in my mouth with regards to how the USCF and its TDs deal with these types of outrageously improper accusations. These types of slanderous accusations are harmful. Making false accusations in real world comes with serious consequences. In chess, the label of ‘cheat’ is as serious an accusation as one can level against another player, but it seems there is nothing in place to penalize this type of outrageous and unethical behavior.

This allows the accuser to tarnish people with no consequences forthcoming for their misanthropic behaviors. There is no penalty for doing this! And there is no penalty for people that continue to do it!

Tournament directors need to do more than take up an arrogantly neutral position of mitigating a ‘he said/she said’ type of dynamic and need to have both the compunction and the authority to penalize people that make, and keep making, these types of egregious accusations.

While I respect and continue to respect the TD’s involved in this now too-long-lived incident I am also quite disappointed in the way in which they feel the need to create a neutral position and impose no serious or punitive action against such people.

Indeed, it was not a Toilet-Gate level incident, but it was and has been most stressful and has made it hard for me to focus on games at hand after being barraged in the pairing room by him and his friends that will not stop with their crazy accusations.

I strongly suggest and recommend that there needs to be a protocol established for future incidents so that TD’s have a clear cut path to stop such silly and unwarranted poor sportsmanship and can levy penalties against such people for making such horrible and damaging statements about other players.

Leaving it up to the players themselves to resolve this issue is only going to beget another set of problems, antagonizing situations, and will only cause future disruptions at these large money tournaments.

TD’s need to be more ACTIVE in STOPPING and penalizing people that level such accusations.

Sincerely,

~ richard decredico

2

While in high school I was playing a guy in a 30/30 tournament. In a flurry of moves with both flags ready to drop I unintentionally(??) made an illegal knight move forking opp’s king and queen. Opp resigned. I got the point. I still get harassed by him 50 years later. But I never lost a moment of sleep at night. It’s only a game.

PS coincidentally it happened in Pittsburgh too.

Dan

3

Full agreement on that … until it stops being just a game because someone starts attacking someone else’s children over it and it starts bleeding over into real life.

I have been taken to task all too often for my use of colorful metaphors and the verbiage that comes out of my mouth and I think a system needs to be put into place to address verbiage from others that is disparaging and slanderous. In short, one can get kicked out of an event for dropping an ‘F Bomb’ but nothing happens to a person making outlandish and slanderous accusations.

I suggest that this skewed and bizarre practice needs to change.

4

This is something that should be brought to the attention of the USCF ethic committee. I would hope that the TD would threaten to bring the offending player(s) to the notice of the ethics committee if they did not stop spreading rumors and false information about others. Remember that a complaint to the ethics committee can result in the supension of USCF [i.e. playing] priveledges.

It is understandable that cheating is a serious and important issue with chess. I refuse to pay for online chess play due in part to potential concerns over the possibility of cheating. Also, I do not like the excessive online trash talk from some or the innuendos and outright accusations. Rating online play as part of your regular USCF rating is a bad idea. Others at my chess club feel the same way about this issue. In the past I have stated at USCF Delegates meetings that my club would cease to be an affiliate if online play was rated as part of the regular USCF rating system. I am no longer a USCF Delegate, so others will have to carry on the banner against rating online play as part of the regular USCF rating. I do not know what is wrong with the idea of having online play as a seperate rating, but there are a number of people out there pushing for including it in with regular USCF ratings!

KEEP OUR RATINGS PURE!!

Larry S. Cohen
former USCF Delegate from Illinois

5

It used to be the case that the Code of Ethics addressed this. Item 5g. in the 4th Edition of the Rulebook states:

I have not been able to track down when or why this was changed, or who was responsible for the change.

I have long advocated that USCF should have rules on member decorum, similar to rules that other membership organizations have (MENSA, the Elks Club, etc.) USCF has been resistant to enforce any sort of membership disciplinary or dispute resolution procedures.

Given that we have removed rules with respect to member behavior from the Standards of Conduct in the Code of Ethics (see main.uschess.org/content/view/7538/35/) on what basis would the Ethics Committee rule against the person making accusations?

6
7

Uh oh… :open_mouth:
Does the preceding, combined with the following, mean that your chess club will quit its affiliate status on June 8?

(Enlarged bold blue emphasis was applied by me, only to direct the eye to the crux of the issue.
Some quotation copied from forum thread: Will chess ever be popular )
.

8

Do you know what the logic was for eliminating the idea that cheating complaints had to be made privately to officials - as opposed to being bandied about on the Internet for example?

Does the USCF Standards of Conduct fall under the auspices of the Rulebook? That is, was it possible to change this without some sort of separate action by the Delegates or EB?

9

It’s unfortunate that the June 1st deadline for submitting ADMs is past. I hope there might be a Delegates Resolution made at this year’s Delegates Meeting in Vancouver, effective immediately, restoring this important provision of the 4th Edition USCF Rulebook. In fact, this would be something that ANYONE who attends the Membership Meeting could propose. If that motion were to pass the Membership Meeting, it would then actually be considered by the Delegates directly, even before the items on the Advance Agenda are considered, I think. And it would look pretty impressive if that resolution were to pass by a large margin as well.

10

With a little research I was able to confirm that this change had already been made before the publication of the 5th edition of the Rulebook in 2003 (a year in which I was the Ethics Committee Chair). My best guess is that the change was made in 1997, when the Ethics Committee became Delegate appointed and the new Standards of Conduct for the Executive Board were adopted.

I remember that then Chair John McCrary wrote the first draft of the Standards and circulated it for comment to the Committee. Changes to the Code may also have been discussed at that time. Unfortunately, my e-mails from that time are on a very old computer and are not easily accessed (assuming the machine still works at all). So I do not know exactly when or how this change occurred - or even if it was deliberate, rather than a copying error.

To answer Kevin’s other question, neither the Code nor the Standards could be changed by the Rulebook authors. Such changes may only be made by the Delegates.

– Hal Terrie

11

Thank you.

12

This behavior is not acceptable (not condoning the rest either, but this crosses a big line).
Report this to the ethics committee if it can be substantiated. For obvious reasons they will need evidence in order to take action – perhaps statements from two or three independent witnesses who directly heard the individual slander your children at a USCF event.

13

I suggest that you have an attorney send this fellow a cease and desist lettter warning him that his making of such false and defamatory statements is actionable.

During the Polgar litigation, the defendants continually joked amongst ourselves with the catch phrase, “Chess. It’s just a game.”

14

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. USCF isn’t a fact finding body to any great extent. But courts are.

And it makes sense to put some provisions back in our rules to contain this sort of thing, so the next incident is less likely to land in the legal system as the only recourse.

15

Agreed. The flip side of our litigeous society is that too streamlined a process within the organization itself leads to litigation. Maybe trial by fire for such disputes…

16

At trial the offender must admit that he has no direct knowledge of the children’s activities, but that he is generalizing from the example of the parent. With that door open, he will (perhaps) have to admit that his remarks about the parent are opinions, not facts, and that the parent timely offered satisfaction which was declined. Demand then that the offender recant and abjure, and publish as an advertisement in the state organization’s paper.

17

May as well throw in “full-page ad, with the publication’s standard advertising rate to be paid by the offender”. :slight_smile:

18

It would be nice, but I don’t really see it happening. This is why people resort to the self-help remedies that the law abhors.

19

I agree that people should have the right to expect an environment where they can play without being harrassed.

However, there is a limit to what a TD can and can’t do.

Personally, if I had someone tell me that a player was cheating, I’d ask them how they knew it and in what manner the player was cheating. Even if there was no additional proof, I’d still keep an eye on the accused player. However, I wouldn’t confront the accused player until I had some indication of my own.

If that person started to be disruptive (such as making additional accusations without any proof, or being disruptive in general), I’d tell the person that if they felt that strongly about it they could make an ethics committee complaint, but my tournament was not the time or place to be dealing with this, and they should stop discussing it publically. If I observed the person doing it again, I’d issue a warning that I wouldn’t tolerate any further disruption over it, and if I observed an additional incident I’d eject the player.

Now, that is all a TD can do. They can’t physically make a player stop talking. They can’t follow the player to another tournament and enforce their ruling at a different site. (However, if they know other TDs in the region, the TD can give the others a ‘heads-up’ about what happened, which helps the other TDs not start from square 1.)

In your case, it seems like the TDs were doing their job by pulling the player aside and warning him to cease the behavior. You say that he continued in the tournament in a more quiet manner. Did you go back to the TD staff with someone who witnessed this player continuing after being warned? The TD staff can’t take further action unless they are aware of the problem continuing; i.e. they see it themselves or they have enough credible witnesses to protect themselves if the player levels an accusation at the TDs for ejecting them when, “I didn’t do anything!”

20

Could you see it happening if a credentialed Tournament Director testified that the behavior described by the slanderer did not violate the Rules of Play?