Sunday, January 06, 2008

Hungarian WIM in Lippygate

My friends over chessdom.com just emailed me about this. We'll call the story "Lippygate".

Twenty year old Hungarian WIM Anna Rudolf (rated 2242) recently competed in the Vandoeuvre Open, in France, where she scored both an IM and a WGM norm. One of Anna's victims was none other than the event's top seed GM Christian Bauer (rated 2634). After three rounds, Anna was on 3/3.

But now it seems that a big question mark has been placed over Anna's achievements after three players from the tournament accused her of cheating. Here's a remarkable quote from chessdom.com's correspondent.

The three players claimed that Anna was going too much to the bathroom and that her bag had a secret internet connection. To be more precise, they said that "the secret internet connection was transmitting the best moves with the help of Anna's lip balm.

Read more in chessdom's report. An interview with the accused is also available where she describes some near unbelievable shenanigans. Her opponent played an anti-engine opening system (e6-d6-b6-g6) apparently in an effort to thwart her secret weapon!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

After reading Rudolf's interview, I'd say it is highly likely she was cheating.
Anyway, a simple test of matching her moves with Rybka could help resolve the dispute.

Kevin Bonham said...

Anonymous, what is your reason for finding it highly likely she was cheating after reading the interview?

If you're going to say another player was probably cheating then you should make yourself personally accountable for that opinion by putting your name to it.

(I'm not saying she definitely *wasn't* cheating, I just think that an anonymous and insufficiently justified statement that she probably was cheating is not good enough.)

tanch said...

Yes, she was cheating using lip balm. It's very highly advanced technology. Can't trust these Hungarians. Next thing you know, they've got chips implanted in their heads too. She's part of the Borg collective. Kramnik has already joined them as Topalov himself can attest to.

If you believe the above paragraph, you have my sympathies.

Anonymous said...

As a parent of a junior player, I get very anxious about chess competitions and the ethical standards. This incident coupled with the recent disturbing report of a Belgian child being "forced" to play an "adjourned" game at 11 pm-12 mindnight indicates that the "adult" organisers and players/coaches need to consider their actions and as to what is ethical behaviour. (I don't know Rudolf's age and whether she is an adult (ie 18 yrs old and over.) The "responsibility" also lies squarely with arbiters as well. They need to ensure all aspects of the game and competition are observed within relevant ethical standards.
Coming from a legal background, there is a good reason why the legal system have a rule, namely, "innocence until proven guilty", (even though to some, this has its problems as well). Also, this kind of intimidating behaviour smacks of duress and coercion!
How ridiculous to say that you are going to confront another player at a future torunament and accuse them of cheating!
The chess world awards titles, such as Im and GM, seemingly based on purely skill alone. Perhaps, GMs and IMs need to be reminded of the social responsibilities these titles carry as well!!

BTW, to Anonymous: there is something in the English language (and other languages!!) called "irony".

Anonymous said...

Anonymous...there is no "simple test" of matching moves with Rybka or any other chess engine unless you know what engine she was using, what parameters were used, the hardware it was run on, and the length of time that was taken on each move just to name a few.

I've seen some of the "proof" for cheating in which the player lets the engine run long (or short) enough to come up with the move their opponent played, and then move on to the next move without checking to see if the engine would change it's mind with more time. They also start throwing around percentage moves matched with the engine without taking into consideration known moves from opening theory, forced recaptures, mid-game and end-game positions where you have only one or two moves.

Most people simply do not have any idea how to properly use an engine to see if someone is cheating after the fact.

--Daniel J. Andrews

Anonymous said...

It looks like a rather bad case of bullying tactics. I hope they get what is coiming to them.