bulgarian chess player cheating Borislav Ivanov. Borislav Krastev Ivanov (Bulgarian: Борислав Кръстев Иванов; born 21 December 1987) is a Bulgarian chess FIDE Master. During 2012 and 2013 his results improved significantly, and he beat several grandmasters. This led to cheating accusations against him, and he was subsequently banned by the Bulgarian Chess Federation in December 2013 and excluded from FIDE's rating list in January 2014. Chess career. Ivanov currently mainly resides in Blagoevgrad, where he was born. He is enrolled as a pedagogy student at the South-West University. His first coach was Marin Atanasov from Victory Club in Blagoevgrad and his chess idols are Veselin Topalov and Tigran Petrosyan. In August 2012, Ivanov won the Balkan chess festival for non-professionals held in Belogradchik. His major breakthrough came at the strong 2012 Zadar Open chess tournament in Croatia held between 16 and 22 December, during which he finished in fourth place after defeating a number of higher-ranked players and also increased his Elo rating by 70 points. His tournament record against the grandmasters he faced was 3 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss. It was alleged that he had been using outside help, but no evidence was uncovered and Ivanov received an apology and an invitation to future tournaments from the organizers. At the time, Ivanov's achievement was lauded by key figures from the Bulgarian Chess Federation and he was personally congratulated by executive director Nikolay Velchev, who saw in him a future member of the Bulgarian national chess team. On 14 April 2013, Ivanov defeated grandmaster Kiril Georgiev in a tournament held in Kyustendil, eventually winning the competition after finishing joint first with Grigor Grigorov, scoring 7½/9 points (securing the victory due to tiebreaker criteria). Kiril Georgiev alleged irregularities in the nature of Ivanov's tournament play. In April 2013, in part due to accusations levelled against Ivanov during his previous tournament victory, more than twenty Bulgarian Grandmasters and International Masters signed a petition that they will not participate in chess tournaments together with Ivanov unless special anti-cheating measures are taken. Shortly after that the Bulgarian Chess Federation banned him for four months on ethics grounds - due to comments made about other chess players rather than the suspicions of cheating. In response to the controversy, Grandmaster Veselin Topalov, ranked No. 1 in Bulgaria, stated in an interview on 21 May 2013 that there is no evidence that Ivanov is cheating, and that "it's simply stupid to blame a chess player for performing well on the board". The validity of the chess federation's decision was disputed in court and Ivanov received support from Blagoevgrad city councillors (who sent out a protest note to the chess federation) as well as public figures from other cities. In June 2013, the administrative court of Sofia stated that the sanction imposed on Ivanov by the chess federation had violated proper legal procedures, essentially confirming that Ivanov is free to participate in tournaments. On 19 June 2013 the Bulgarian Chess Federation organized an event (including a lie detector) that was supposed to clear Ivanov from the cheating accusations, but Ivanov did not appear. In a letter addressed to the chess federation, Ivanov said that he had been unable to make it to Sofia on the chosen date due to his intended participation in the Varna Open chess tournament (enabled by the recent lifting of the four-month ban by the administrative court) in particular and his tight schedule in general. He also expressed a willingness to undergo all the necessary tests, but under the condition that he is notified of the next such possibility at least 15 days in advance and is accompanied by his lawyer Mihail Ekimdzhiev. However, in Ivanov's view, the Bulgarian Chess Federation has refused to offer him any further opportunities to subject himself to rigorous testing of that nature. Retirement from competitive chess and brief return to chess-related activities. On 4 October 2013, Ivanov announced his retirement from competitive chess. Ivanov's retirement came shortly after a controversial performance in a tournament in Blagoevgrad, in which Ivanov, among other things, voluntarily forfeited his games after refusing to be searched for suspected cheating devices, was observed walking in a "gangsta" fashion with a limp, and referred to one of his opponents, Grandmaster Maxim Dlugy, as a "clown". According to Ivanov's version of the events, Dlugy had brought his own personal security officer to the tournament room during the competition in question in violation of procedure (Dlugy's guard eventually heeded the tournament officials' request to leave the competition room). Dlugy is also alleged to have applied pressure on chess referee Dimitar Iliev to extensively search Ivanov and require him to take off his shoes, which the latter refused, resulting in a loss by default for Ivanov. On 26 and 27 October 2013, Ivanov participated in the rapid chess Nayden Voynov Memorial Tournament in Vidin, scoring 6½/9 points and finishing 7th out of 61 players. In early December 2013, Ivanov played in the classical chess tournament XIX OPEN INT. NAVALMORAL DE LA MATA in Cáceres, Spain. After five rounds, he had scored 4½/5 points and was tied for the lead, ahead of 19 grandmasters. Ivanov was then excluded from the tournament, amid conflicting reports about the circumstances. The organisers subsequently issued a press release. According to the release, Ivanov had agreed to have his shoes searched after round 4, and no suspicious devices were found. However, suspicions were expressed about an apparent bulge in his back; one of the participants reported that he felt the bulge and concluded that it was an electronic device. Before his next scheduled game, his opponent, the Azerbaijani Grandmaster Namig Guliyev, asked that Ivanov be searched. While he was being frisked, Ivanov became agitated and refused to allow the search to continue. He then withdrew from the tournament. Ivanov has expressed disappointment regarding the way in which he was treated by his chess opponents and the general atmosphere surrounding the tournament in Spain. Prior to that, he had not been granted permission to compete in a tournament in Milan. On 8 December 2013, the Bulgarian Chess Federation banned Ivanov permanently. The FIDE Ethics Commission opened case 1/2014 against Ivanov via a report from the Executive Director, but the case is curiously missing from the September 2015 commission report, listed neither in concluded cases nor pending cases. Other pursuits. Ivanov is presently also employed as a chess coach and since December 2013 has been considering a career in journalism. Media appearances. In June 2013, he discussed his situation on the popular Slavi's Show, during which the host Slavi Trifonov also engaged in a telephone conversation with the vice-president of the chess federation Plamen Mollov in an attempt to shed further light on the case. How do you cheat at chess? Young Borislav Ivanov seems to know. He soared from anonymity to notoriety in the chess world in a series of well-calculated moves, beating a slew of Grand Masters before his 25th birthday. But now a Bulgarian chess champion has left opponents enraged – and amateurs envious – following allegations he had been cheating the whole time. Dubbed the "James Bond of chess" by an excitable Bulgarian press pack, Borislav Ivanov has won top prizes in chess competitions across the continent from Croatia and Spain. But a number of grandmasters – those awarded the game's highest title – are now refusing to sit across the chess board from him. Ivanov, who strongly denies cheating, was ejected from the Navalmoral de la Mata tournament in western Spain earlier this month after players claimed he had used devices hidden under his shirt and inside his shoes to enhance his chess-playing skills. In a series of increasingly bizarre scenes, officials examined Ivanov's shoes at the end of the tournament's fourth round because it was "widely remarked that a hidden device could be placed inside his footwear". Finding nothing, they also used a mobile app to scan for hidden metal, but again nothing was found that, as the tournament's organisers said, could "imply the existence of a hidden device inside his footwear". Then, at the same tournament, competitor Andres Holgado Maestre spotted a "suspicious bump" under Mr Ivanov's shirt, officials said. He later grabbed the bump and claimed "he could touch an oblong object, similar to an MP3 player, attached to Mr Ivanov's body". After a third incident in which Ivanov was strip searched and officials spotted "a kind of strap crossing his chest", the Bulgarian left the competition – voluntarily. When asked in a recent interview with the website Chess Base how he reacted to the allegations, Ivanov said: "At first I wasn't surprised about the speculations but suddenly they turned very ridiculous. Some people accused me of using technical equipment that only Nasa has. I even heard that I had had my own satellite that transmitted moves during the games." Commenting on his strip search, Ivanov added: "Although they checked my pockets very slowly and my jacket, and after they found nothing. maybe they were a bit disappointed, [because] they were 100 per cent sure I was cheating and of course that's a total lie. I'm not a genius, nor a cheat, but just a normal boy that wants to have fun playing chess." Experts say that cheating in chess is not common but not unknown, and a recent spate of alleged incidents have prompted calls for the game's governing body to launch more thorough checks on players. Once considered pure folly, attempting to cheat at chess in tournaments has become more widespread than ever, as the relevant cheap technology becomes readily available. The most popular technique is to download chess engines, which use data from previous world famous games to help calculate the player's best possible moves. James Pratt, editor of the world's oldest chess journal, British Chess Magazine , said: "Boris Ivanov is not a well-known name in the chess world, nor is he even now a lovable anti-hero. Where cheating is concerned, chess is small beer; there aren't many big prizes, not really. Thus exposed as he now is, Ivanov has little more than shame to claim as his award. In one form or another, the problem is not new to the 64 squares." While the elite players are refusing to engage Ivanov in battle, chess amateurs have welcomed him as a cult hero. Dozens of chess forum threads are now devoted to analysing his games and investigating his tactics. In one thread, titled "Cheating is our religion and Ivanov is our god", fans rallied around the Bulgarian. "I'm officially an Ivanov worshipper from now on. I don't understand all the hate that he gets. You people ought to love him. He is a true legend. [He is] the man who never got caught," one user wrote on the chess.com forum. "I support Ivanov!" another user roared. "I hope he is out from this issue fast! We all know he didn't cheat." The game's governing body, Fédération internationale des échecs, said in a statement that it was "aware of the damage caused by this unfortunate incident" and was "now preparing a whole system of measures against all kinds of cheating". The Bulgarian Chess Federation said Ivanov has been excluded from its membership. Ivanov was unavailable for comment last week. Chess cheats: A brief history. Dodgy Glasses. Loris Cereda, an Italian former mayor, was kicked out of the Italian Chess Federation last January. Investigators alleged his unusually thick dark glasses concealed a secret camera, through which he received game advice from another player. Mr Cereda denies all the allegations. Master in a Box. Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen fooled 18th-century chess players with "The Turk", which purported to be a mechanical chess- playing machine, but which actually concealed a human chess master. Exposed as a hoax in 1820, the contraption was destroyed by a fire in 1854. Similar machines include the Ajeeb (1868) and Mephisto (1886). What's My text move? Three top French players were suspended in 2011 from the nation's chess federation after the body's vice president found a text message to one of the players asking him to "hurry up and send me some moves". Handy tips. Garry Kasparov, Russian former world champion, caused a stir when he changed his move during a 1994 match after momentarily taking his hand away from the piece. His opponent Judit Polgar complained, but video tape footage revealed Kasparov's hand let go of the piece for less than a quarter of a second. He went on to win the game. Join our new commenting forum. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Player Suspected of Cheating Is Suspended for 4 Months. The Bulgarian player many people suspect of cheating in tournaments over the past year — though the accusations have never been proved — has been suspended from playing for four months by his national federation. The player, Borislav Ivanov, was punished after he did not show up for a Bulgarian Chess Federation test of his skills at the board. The federation, which said most of Ivanov’s moves in recent tournaments had matched those of the leading computer chess programs, also wanted him to take a polygraph test. Ivanov has been a controversial figure among Bulgarian chess players, many of whom have been boycotting tournaments in which he participated. In his last tournament, in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, in early May, the organizers changed the rules to deny a prize to any competitors who won three or more games because their opponents refused to play. Three of Ivanov’s opponents forfeited, and although he finished at the top of the standings, he went home empty-handed. Ivanov has received the most attention as chess federation officials around the world have focused on cheating, but the crackdown continues, involving even the youngest of players. Last month, a 12-year-old Russian was expelled from a tournament in Bulgaria when he was discovered using a computer program on his cellphone during a game. Part of what has convinced top players that Ivanov, a master, was cheating was the way he behaved at the board. Axel Rombaldoni, who became a grandmaster just after the tournament in Veliko Tarnovo, lost there to Ivanov in Round 7. In an interview published on Chessbase.com, he said he knew of Ivanov’s reputation but did not want to forfeit. Rombaldoni said Ivanov played quickly and did not seem to take much time to think. Kiril Georgiev, this year’s Bulgarian champion, also mentioned Ivanov’s speed after he lost to him in April at the Second Memorial Bogomil Andonov tournament in Kyustendil, Bulgaria. “From the start of our game until the very end, it was obvious to me that Ivanov was not behaving as a chess player usually does,” Rombaldoni said. “He was looking at the board, the clock, his score sheet, but he never calculated moves and variations.” Rombaldoni said that Ivanov’s eighth move was unusual, but that it was the top choice of computer programs he consulted after the game. After his 16th move, Rombaldoni offered Ivanov a draw. “He said nothing, but just made a face, as if suggesting that it was completely winning for him and my draw offer was unreasonable,” Rombaldoni said. “I believe that it is possible for a very strong player to match top engine moves at a high rate in one, two or even three separate games,” he said. “But it’s impossible in every single game.” Italian chess player 'cheats' using Morse code and spy pendant. An Italian chess player has been expelled from one of Italy’s most important tournaments after he allegedly used Morse code and a spy pendant containing a hidden camera to communicate with an accomplice. Arcangelo Ricciardi entered the International Chess Festival of Imperia ranked 51,366 in the world, but astonished rivals as he breezed through the early stages of the competition to reach the eighth and penultimate round. Jean Coqueraut, who refereed the tournament in Liguria, northern Italy, said he began to suspect something was wrong early on in the competition. “In chess, performances like that are impossible,” he told La Stampa newspaper. “I didn’t think he was a genius, I knew he had to be a cheat. “I kept on looking at him. He was always sitting down, he never got up. It was very strange; we are taking about hours and hours of playing. But most suspicious of all, he always had his arms folded with his thumb under his armpit. He never took it out.” Mr Coqueraut said he was also “batting his eyelids in the most unnatural way”. “Then I understood it,” he said. “He was deciphering signals in Morse code.” The referee attempted to expose Mr Ricciardi by asking him to empty his pockets, but nothing was found. When the Italian was asked to open his shirt, he refused. Tournament organisers then asked the 37-year old to pass through a metal detector and a sophisticated pendant was found hanging around his neck underneath a shirt. The pendant contained a tiny video camera as well as a mass of wires attached to his body and a 4cm box under his armpit. Mr Ricciardi claimed they were good luck charms. It is thought the camera was used to transmit the chess game in real time to an accomplice or sophisticated computer, which then suggested moves for Mr Ricciardi through a series of signals received in the box under his arm. Mr Coqueraut said Mr Ricciardi constantly drank from a glass of water and wiped his face with a handkerchief to conceal the pendant around his neck. An investigation has been launched and the Italian Chess Federation is deciding whether to press charges for sports fraud. Allegations of cheating are rare at the top level of chess but increasingly sophisticated technology is being used among those who break the rules. In April, a disgraced Georgian Grandmaster Gaioz Nigalidze was expelled from the Dubai Open after being caught pretending to be desperate for the loo so he could use a mobile phone to cheat. The device was found to be logged into Nigalidze's social networking account and had one of his games being analysed by a smartphone chess app. The Imperia Chess Festival is the longest running open event in Italy and attracts some of the biggest names in the sport. Cheating in world chess championships is nothing new, study suggests. World Chess Championship matches now taking place in Kalmykia, Russia, were suspended late last month amid allegations that Russian chess master Vladimir Kramnik used frequent bathroom breaks to cheat in his match with Bulgarian opponent Veselin Topalov. When play resumed, new allegations surfaced charging that Kramnik’s moves seem suspiciously similar to those generated by a computer chess program. While it’s doubtful that these allegations will be proven, new research from economists at Washington University in St. Louis offers strong evidence that Soviet chess masters very likely engaged in collusion to gain unfair advantage in world chess championships held from 1940 through 1964, a politically volatile period in which chess became a powerful pawn in the Cold War. Chess championships offer an especially fertile research opportunity, say two Washington University economists, because international chess matches have been meticulously documented for decades, providing a wealth of solid data that’s ripe for econometric analysis. “We have shown that such collusion clearly benefited the Soviet players and led to performances against the competition in critical tournaments that were noticeably better than would have been predicted on the basis of past performances and on their relative ratings,” conclude study co-authors, John Nye, Ph.D., professor of economics, and Charles Moul, Ph.D., assistant professor of economics, both in Arts & Sciences at Washington University. “The likelihood that a Soviet player would have won every single candidates tournament up to 1963 was less than one out of four under an assumption of no collusion, but was higher than three out of four when the possibility of draw collusion is factored in,” the co-authors wrote. The study, presented at several academic meetings this summer, has sparked ongoing discussion on economics- and chess-related blog sites, such as Freakonomics, since it was posted on a popular site for economics working papers: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? abstract_id=905612. Titled “Did the Soviets Collude? A Statistical Analysis of Championship Chess, 1940-64,” the study includes a review of a growing body of research that uses the tools of economic analysis to explore factors influencing competitive advantage in a range of sporting events, including tennis, golf, soccer and even sumo wresting. Chess championships offer an especially fertile research opportunity, the authors suggest, because international chess matches have been meticulously documented for decades, providing a wealth of solid data that’s ripe for econometric analysis. What’s more, the longstanding format of chess championships — round-robin tournaments in which early-round contestants battle multiple opponents for either a win, loss or draw — allows exploration of interesting competitive strategies not often seen in sports such as tennis or golf, where contestants tend to play their individual best in each match, eventually reaching a decisive win or loss. Tilting the playing field. In chess tournaments, contestants get one point for a win, no points for a loss and a half-point for a draw. This incentive structure opens the door to collusion and other strategies that may tilt the playing field in favor of one or more individuals, providing economists with a working model of the sort of unfair competition and market manipulation that often crops up in international trade disputes and other business dealings. Nye and Moul used the tools of econometric analysis to demonstrate that players from the Soviet Union very likely acted as a cartel in international tournaments, intentionally playing into relatively quick-and-painless draws in early matches with each other. The strategy, perhaps orchestrated by communist leaders for political purposes, ensured that designated Soviet top contenders reached the finals relatively fresh and untaxed by the rigors of highly competitive early matches, a huge advantage in round-robin tournaments known to be emotionally and intellectually exhausting. The study’s findings offer interesting implications for the structuring of competitive strategies in business settings, such as the design of incentive pay packages. Salesmen, for instance, might employ similar collusion strategies to game an internal quota system, ensuring that each reaches a mandatory sales target. Nye, who researched the history of chess cheating as part of this study, would not be surprised if cheating were uncovered in the current chess championship. With the onslaught of computers and PDA’s, there are more opportunities for cheating than ever. That’s why there’s been so much fuss over Kramnik’s 50 trips to the men’s room during recent games. But the allegations by a member of the Topalov camp that Kramnik’s moves resembled those suggested by the program Fritz were also too crude to demonstrate cheating. In particular, it would require a more sophisticated analysis of Kramnik’s play both during and prior to the current championship for anyone to make a responsible claim that Kramnik had benefited from access to computers in the first few games, Nye said. The tournament is expected to conclude Oct. 12 with Topalov and Kramnik taking equal shares of a $1 million prize, regardless of who wins.