Saturday
May152010
Want a High Rating in Correspondence Chess?
Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 10:27PM
Here's how. It's basically an adaptation of an old trick, a clever adaptation of which can be seen here*. I'm surprised that someone would take the time and effort do it in correspondence chess, though, especially for no obvious gain.
HT: Alex Herrera
* (N.B. For those concerned, there's a mild profanity early in the video.)
Reader Comments (5)
No gain -- that's exactly what I thought when I read it. I'm not that naive to be surprised by the fact that people cheat each other; they do for thousands of years. But really, CC? There's absolutely no money there, and while theoretically you can even reach 2500 (or 2600, or...) if you play 2500-rated (or 2600-rated, or...) opponents, you still won't win any title with 50%.
Usually you cheat to gain something. Maybe some people just take pleasure in the very act of cheating.
"Some readers may recollect the possibly apocryphal anecdote about two friends who played Alekhine simultaneously, one with white and one with black. In effect they made him play himself. Of course he noticed and so he "composed" a special position. Having created a suitably complicated position in which White had two options for a capture, he chose a move so outrageously bad that the opponent's friend ceased to copy and made the other capture. Now Alekhine had two lost positions but from now on he was playing the amateurs not himself, and so he duly won both games."
That's an amusing story. I wonder if it actually true.
There was a case about a year ago where someone got caught doing this on chess.com in a CC tournament (a double round robin). They decided it was cheating (receiving aid from an outside human party) and banned them.
That's a clever expedient, Wildman, but a dubious one - how can they do that without banning databases? And there are also players who are happy to be on either side of a variation. Are they going to make a cutoff, that you can only have the same position with both colors up to a certain move? I suppose chess.com has more or less unlimited power to do what they want on their server, but I don't think "normal" CC organizations can do it.
As the first comment at Chesscafe mentions team events, something similar happened in the German Bundesliga in 2003 when Anand-McShane (board 1) and Hracek-Shirov (board 2) had the same line of the Sveshnikov. Long quote from Shirov's "Fire on Board Part II" [game 45]:
"14 0-0 Something extremely funny happened at this point. While I was thinking, I noticed that the same position had appeared in the game Anand-McShane played on the top board! It was also visibly clear that Luke McShane was not in a hurry with his move, as he possibly trusted my preparation more than his own. (At least it seemed that way to me during the game, because at some point our eyes crossed and Luke started laughing.) That gave me very mixed feelings. I had decided to employ this particular line because I'd analysed the game Anand-Kramnik, Cap D'Agde 2003, played a month earlier, and had a possible improvement in mind. But my plan was to try it against Hracek that day and not yet against Vishy himself! Besides, if the games continued along the same path, Vishy and I would only score one point in total and I was afraid that the team managers would expect more from the top two boards. Nevertheless I had no choice but to play the planned move
14.-f4
and almost immediately Luke did the same against Anand."
On the next move, Anand deviated (from Hracek's move) choosing a second-best continuation, and in the end both rating favorites won their games. Actually the games were still within rather established theory, so there is no evidence that McShane was "cheating" - but I can imagine Shirov's "very mixed feelings".