Monday, October 11, 2010

Cheater no.8: Yelena Dembo

Cheater Yelena Dembo, former WGM and IM

I can't find proper words sometimes to describe cheaters. Well, how would you describe total trash using secretly computer against you on a chess site openly prohibiting it, moreover when she is in real life a FIDE titled player who should lead by example instead? Idiot or moron? No, because her brain has way stronger output and it would be seriously unfair towards mentally retarded people who aren't responsible for their poor condition and who are usually fair. Asshole? It looks better, however i am not sure whether this word can target women. Once i had a talk with my roommate about vulgarisms in English. He told me he had an English slang dictionary where the level of obscenity was expressed by the number of stars * behind the word or phrase. Only one word in the whole dictionary had the highest four stars **** obscenity level. Yes, this is endeed the proper word to describe Yelena Dembo's character in one word expression.

Our story can be seen from several perspectives. About four years ago, Dembo got busted from GameKnot chess site without publicly revealed reason, but it seems likely she used to cheat with chess engine to reach elite status. Why did she do that? She promoted herself as chess author this way: she wrote a book about Gruenfeld Indian Defense and she wanted to increase sales. After this "misapprehension", she became a Chess.com member. As titled player she immediately got free premium membership there and a place where she could promote her books, her's family Krinos hotel and offer coach lessons.

From my own perspective, it started in May this year. I had downloaded a cheat-analyzer a few weeks ago and i was curious how would OTB-skilled player's statistics look like. I downloaded her games, input them into analyzer and went to sleep. I couldn't believe my eyes in the morning! Yelena Dembo matched computer choices about 10% higher than expected! Just an explanation: +5% is widely considered as safe line to avoid false positives and some minor uncertainity coming from pre-game preparation with computer. I was stunned, but i reported her: I am realist in such cases and i don't believe in computer-like playing humans. Ms. Dembo simply let her Rybka play instead of her. Whether Chess.com took my report seriously, i don't know, but for the next 3 months, as usual, nothing happened. She became a target again later, repeatedly reported by other analysts and she was banned on 17th September 2010.

Her account - closed for cheating, unfortunately not available anymore

The end? No, because this puss was cheeky enough to threaten Chess.com with lawsuit! Just imagine! She got a free premium account, place to write her blog and promote herself, but she cheated and when caught she threatened with lawsuit. Chess.com owner decided to step back and removed the "for cheating" clause.

But let us remember forever:

YELENA DEMBO IS DESPICABLE ONLINE CHESS CHEATER!

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Cheater no.7: Emil Jenicek


Emil Jenicek

This blackguard is known as member of doubtful political party called ODS in the northern Czech city of Litvinov. Because i don't live there, i cannot give you detailed informations about his goings-on, but he is:

- executive head of TransControl group, quite fishy trading company without clear article, perhaps also interested in connection between municipality and shadow gangland via corruption

- member od ODS (Obcanska Demokraticka Strana -> Civilian Democratic Party), a doubtful party sponsored by shadow enterprisers and venal companies

- member and co-founder of civil society called Koreny (The Roots)

He used to be chessplayer with the strength of national Candidate Master, that means he was better than Sladovnik. His online chess activities are unknown until 1st September 2008, when he joined Chess.com under nickname ManuChena. What a surprise, this asshole decided to ignore the rule about computers and became cheater. Because he didn't play so frequently, it took whole year and half (!) when they finally banned him in February 2010.


Contact: Emil Jenicek,
Vrchlickeho 862, 435 11 Lom,
his phone number: (+420) 608 555 828
company phone number: (+420) 476 767 167

Monday, September 27, 2010

The polemics - Part 2

Some narrow-minded user calling herself (?) Annie K. (Annie Kappel, allegedly from Israel) wrote:

Why doesn't this crowd seem to notice a simple point that's been waving in their faces and screaming all along?
Um, did not practice and train constantly with computers as today's chess professionals do.
Professional players today have probably analyzed thousands of games during the course of their careers - postmortems of their own games, historical games, latest theory lines, anything interesting, etc. etc...
. Of course.
What do you expect them to do, FORGET everything they learned throughout the years, while playing a correspondence game?
They don't have to - and don't need to - "cheat" to remember optimal lines even 20-30 moves into a game - and once a less professional opponent "blunders" (relatively speaking, that is, makes a suboptimal move), the way to exploit that, and from there on, is often obvious.
Isn't that, uh, self-evident?

None of that makes comparison of pre-comp CC players with players who spent their whole careers analyzing with computers, and learning from them, valid.

This is utter nonsense. Moves appearing in theory are cut from testing ofcourse. Moreover, centaur databases aren't allowed on Chess.com. The idea that modern players play more in computer-style naturally is sheer blether spread by cheaters and their apologists. Just baseless and futile attempt to dishonest CC benchmarks data as obsolete. "Modern correspondence games" can't be used ofcourse, because honest play can't be proven, but it doesn't matter, because the ancient ones are still relevant and will be relevant forever, at least until somebody proves opposite and replaces them. OTB data don't show such trend, so there is no reason to expect it in CC, unless cheating takes place. The fact is that ICCF stopped producing new correspondence chessplayers in early 90' and started producing monkeys, so the opposite is true: there aren't strong experienced correspondence players around anymore.

Btw., article about Yelena Dembo coming soon ;o)

The polemics about very common opinions - Part 1

Following the controversy about cheating of Yelena Dembo, many users on Chessgames.com started even to dispute the sense of computer-free correspondence/online chess.

An unknown user Ezzy wrote quite long and inflammatory post there, so let me adress it.

Correspondence chess without computers is asking for trouble. It's near impossible to regulate whether someone has used or checked lines with a computer.
To single out individuals for cheating is pointless and stupid. While there is internet chess, this problem will exist forever.
 
The same problem already exists in athletics, it is called drugs. Yep, we still don't have drugs-allowed competitions, championships and Olympiads. Or maybe we have casual ones, without any credibility. Chess under ICCF rules is quite exceptional, most appreciated correspondence chess sites ban computers. The necessary thing is that ICCF must either vanish or adress computer use. It is improper to organize prize events or so-called championships and award titles to computerized trash. Today's computer monkeys really AREN'T successors of past correspondence chess giants.
 
Chess on the internet should be for fun.
 
Yes, whole chess should be for fun, because it is a game. What isn't fun: dealing with cheaters and talkative idiots.
 
If some 1600 Elo rated player wants to start an account with an internet chess site, and they decide to use Rybka at the start and get a rating of 3200, then he's stuck with having to play computer chess for his duration on the site. They will soon realise there's no fun in that.
But if a person changes and decides to be honest, then there's always someone to replace them who's just as dishonest. Round in a circle we go.
 
This is the reason, why dealing with cheaters should be the same as with drug abusers in athletics: long ban and lifetime dishonour.
 
Would you play correspondence chess for money if the rules say 'no computers.' I definately wouldn't.
 
Honestly, i will in the future, when there will be better detection methods in place. You can't prevent cheating, but you can detect it post-mortem.
 
The site owners are kidding themselfs that they can find and control the cheats.
 
Cheating detection methods are underdeveloped today. Compared to drugs: we are in test-tube + magnifier era now. We can catch the blatant ones.
 
Some cheat by picking computer best moves, some cheat by mixing the best move with the 4th best move, some don't pick computer moves but check their analysis with a computer.
 
All these cheating ways will be easy to spot. (They are detectable even today.)
 
Some may not cheat at all and then suddenly they have to go to a relatives wedding and they don't have time to analyse, so on just this one occasion they let the computer show them the way.
 
One single advice usually can't affect the outcome of a game. The problem is that cheating is addictive.
 
How do you control who's doing what. If you ban Yelena, then there must be hundreds more who at some level have had a snidy look to see what the computer says.
 
There are thousands of such despicable idiots. Getting rid of them, shaming them and slapping them around (in the case of real meeting), is necessary and beneficial.
 
Too much controversy. Allow computers in correspondence chess and be done with the flame wars and character assassinations.
Never take internet chess seriously, it could damage your health. You never know when it's a true game or not.
Accept it, and play for fun, NOT for money or prestige.

The opposite is true: casual chess is the computer-assisted one. It is allowed on ICCF, IECG and FICGS. Monkeys still have the opportunity to play it fairly and choose the 'unrated' option. There is no controversy: public dishonour is a necessary part of punishment.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Cheater no.6: Richard Hartley

Richard Hartley, a supercilious loser

Nothing good can be said about this dude. Loser in chess, loser in life, he joined The Dark Side and became an online chess cheater. Nothing special at all, there are many similar guys, however Hartley is unique in several ways.

He used to be a fan of both, chess and computers, and he understood the infamous potential of computers in correspondence chess. Years ago, back in late 80's, he started to play correspondence with mediocre success. Although computers weren't at their today's level and good unassisted players were able to keep up with them, Hartley perhaps used one and managed to beat unaware weaker players. This led him into wrong conclusion he is great player himself and his ego improperly boosted. Later the computer use became common and Hartley lost the ability to maintain his status, so he left official correspondence chess and joined online chess. He couldn't help himself and continued with computer use on chess sites, even though they explicitly prohibit engine use. His profile he created on Red Hot Pawn is really amazing: he calls himself "Correspondence chess master". I think sooner i become pregnant before Hartley becomes chess master! His life got ruined when he divorced, but this gave him enough time to become full time cheater.

In 2007 Chess.com started and Hartley joined in early 2008. Chess.com is weird site somehow. Engines are prohibited, but staff had for long time no clear measures how to distinguish cheaters from honest players. Some cheaters have been banned in the process, however in small amounts compared to increasing number of members, so Hartley used to be relatively in safe. However many other cheaters were so and step by step the site became spoiled by them as many really good players joined The Dark Side too. Hartley was a humble cheater: he never broke the 2600 line. Being a single, he joined the community of chessplayers with obvious intent to date women, but no luck: teenage girls are monitored by fathers, young women aren't naive to date older men on the internet and soon have real boyfriends, married women aren't interested in dating single losers and fake women are just fake. This didn't stop him and he continued in his attempts, pretending chess skills and satisfying his ego in unfair chess.

The whole situation started to change, when two great members of Chess.com, SteveCollyer and Costelus, tried hard to help people realize the truth. The Summer of 2009 was filled with discussions, whether former #1 player Ouachita was excellent honest player or cheater. Both sides had their arguments and the whole controversy seemed undecided, however now from retrospect, it seems clear. SteveCollyer introduced a method already used on Red Hot Pawn. Ouachita was indeed cheater. Hartley understood the danger and thus he decided to undermine Steve's and Costelus's efforts in the following cases: Achmatova and Wikstrom. While insistently disputing Steve's method, he reported Costelus for unfair behaviour towards Wikstrom and continued to push on staff to remove Costelus from Chess.com. When cheater Wikstrom left the site by himself, staff decided to act and removed Costelus too (in March). Now the Polar_Bear woke up angry. When i wrote that Wikstrom was indeed cheater, Hartley blocked me and blathered about unfair behaviour of "witch hunters", not bothering to hide his gloat about Costelus. That was the last drop. Needless to say, i got completely furious. Damn, is he idiot and wants Chess.com full of cheaters like Wikstrom, or is he cheater too? I downloaded a first version of analyzer and tested him. POSITIVE. Now i knew: Hartley is cheater. I sent a report (in May), but nothing happened and i had to remain silent. I waited and waited and waited... It took two long months, when Erik visited the cheating forum and started conversation with SteveCollyer. Erik Allebest, the head of staff and owner of Chess.com, had to realize, that some members aren't satisfied with cheating detection and decided to invite some members to indirectly participate. The problem: Hartley got by Erik's mistake invitation too. I repeated my analysis, now more precisely with more games and re-opened my report, followed by two other members. Our results were identical: Hartley is cheater beyond any reasonable doubt. The probability of statistical fluctuation and Hartley being honest fair player was in magnitude of atomic/cosmic proportions. Two or three days later, Hartley was finally banned.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Cheater no.5: Ramachandran Nambissan

Computer monkey and "astrologer"

Human's mind has its evolution as a person ages. A man slowly loses the ability to understand and remember new things, life gets into calm, repetitious lines and grey-beard enjoys a love inside his family. In ancient ages, when magical thinking was common and technical progress wasn't so fast, aged people were appreciated for their wisdom. Today the situation is different. Yesterday's pioneers can easily become useless narrow minds today even in their own professional domains. Knowledge and wisdom of olds have become obsolete, their way of thinking is considered incompetent. The pressure always evokes counterpressure however and people of all ages are searching alternative fields to fulfil themselves.

This booby from India is no exception. He used to be renowned computer scientist. He has written several publications about computer programming and applications. As the time advanced and he retired, his interests shifted towards Vedic Astrology and online chess. There is some relationship: astrologers calculate destiny from positions of celestial bodies, the modern ones even use computers, cheaters use computers to calculate moves from position of chess pieces. We don't know how succesful Mr. Nambissan became with his quackeries, but as online chess cheater he was succesful, because it took some time before he finally received ban from Chess.com. The astonishing reality is that he is still active player at GameKnot.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Cheater no.4: Dimitar Kacakovski

Dimitar Kacakovski

I always wonder what can make renowned titled player join The Dark Side and demote himself through all levels from respectable chess master to despicable chess cheater. It happens sometimes however, and it already happened to Mr. Kacakovski from Macedonia. He created an account with nickname Atlantischess back in 2008. I won't investigate whether he cheated from the early beginning, but his cheating was confirmed in games played year later beyond any reasonable doubt by several independent analysts using various methods. His stupidity and laziness were just astonishing: he simply let Rybka 3 play his games, not bothering to produce own "centaur" ideas or mask engine play somehow.

I understand that online chess is spoiled by cheaters heavily and it is depressing for serious chessplayers. But solution definitely is not join The Dark Side himself, what is exactly this weak-minded lazy guy had made. Having thought he could never get caught, he degenerated himself into total garbage.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Cheater no.3: Jasmin Nicoletta Goldmann


Jasmin is typical example of Homo internetus. She is online all the time: she talks on Twitter, she has her Facebook page, she maintains her blog, listens music and she also pursues shopping online.

Whether she ever played chess, it is not possible to determine. Perhaps yes, because she knows chess notation, but for sure it wasn't at any suitable level, because all databases of players have no match about her. Even chess club in Marburg (her own town) contains no match.

When you take a closer look at her online shopping, you find that she ordered Fritz & Fertig in 2006. What is it? It is a chess mentor containing lessons for kids and beginners. It contains also Fritz, strong chess engine, to perform rigorous analysis. Deuce, why she needed it? Was her intent to learn to play chess and then play online?

Three years later... In the autumn of 2009, all of sudden, Jasmin appeared as chess prodigy on Schacharena. Soon afterwards, she created an account at Chess.com. She managed to distract several naive honest chessplayers on both sites. They might think she is a master! Such clever cutie simply cannot be cheater, they thought perhaps. The miracle ended quickly: not everyone is that naive. She got banned for cheating with chess software from both sites within relative short time.

It had some consequences. Polar_Bear insistently continued to write notes at her blog mentioning her unfair behaviour and she insistently kept deleting it. Finally, she has taken her messenger out.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Cheater no.2: Pavel Sladovnik


Once upon a time, Pavel Sladovnik used to be chessplayer. Having been a member of chessclub Slavoj Vysehrad, he managed to reach 1st class. (1st class is high level, just only one step bellow national Candidate Master class, 1st class means strength in 1800 - 2100 Elo range.) New millenium brought new era, people lost their free time, many players played less and less and so did Sladovnik. Our nice game - chess - is addictive however and fortunately there is internet with many chess servers. Sladovnik went this way too and as many others he realized, that online chess is much closely related to correspondence than OTB.

Now, necessary intermezzo about correspondence chess. Correspondence chess was originally an alternative to normal chess for players who have their jobs or family obligations and thus they cannot travel long distances and be away for week or more. This worked and correspondence chess became popular among chessplayers. Correspondence chess has one serious disadvantage however: It is almost impossible to control what is an opponent doing. Some players want to win at any cost, especially in official events. In the ancient ages, "lost" postcards and backdated messages were quite common. New communication technologies have made classic correspondence chess obsolete. Postal chess organisations reflected these changes, allowed e-mail and finally accepted play on webservers. This erased these issues completely. Modern correspondence chess is played via electronic devices without such lag and increasing prize of postal stamps helped to overcome old habits. New era brought new problems however: third party. In the good old times, this problem already existed too, although it had been only minor issue. ICCF never adressed it in its rules. Players were free to consult their thoughts and analyse together. No big problem, because communications were slow, good players were rare and thus correspondence player rarely got permanent assistance. But new era brought except new communication systems also strong chess software and situation changed completely. Now for a few bucks, player gets a super-GM guide playing games for him. Opinions started to differ. Part of players demand ban of computers to maintain the original intent, arguing they want to play human opponents, because they can play computers without paying postal cards or internet connection. Second part promote "advanced" chess: "Let's use computers all of us, better player will still win." ICCF remained silent and correspondence events were soon flooded with computer abusers, usually totally unknown patzers. Some other correspondence chess organisations banned computers, however they were usually powerless against cheaters. Chess sites offering chess also soon had to choose: allow or ban computers. The first option means low attractivity for true chessplayers, the second means a lot of work with cheaters.

Pavel Sladovnik joined Hogan, Czech amateur chess site, in the autumn of 2002. He realized quickly that top players are in fact computer-backed trash and he understood he can't beat them. Thus, he decided to join The Dark Side himself. Hogan is an amateur site, it isn't moderated and has no written rules. Everyone is free to fool others with computer play and lie about it, create any number of puppet accounts as he wants to swindle his/her rating with fake games and use bad language in primitive forum, which is also there. In short: complete dunghill. Sladovnik put efforts together with his computer and soon things went better. Year by year, Sladovnik entered the "elite" and then he became the absolute ruler of Hogan server. Althouhg not necessarily bad person himself, he didn't realize the petty change: he stopped being chessplayer himself and became a robot operated by his own chess software abusing some minor Hogan's bugs (time management, stalemate) totally losing a clue about fair play.

Others Hogan players were envying him his success and soon many puppet accounts appeared pretending to be Sladovnik and spamming the forum with garbage talk. Unable to control it, Sladovnik searched for better chess site with moderated forums. Finally he found Chess.com. He created an account and started to play. Knowing only Hogan, he didn't bother with some trivial rules, maybe he even didn't read them, and fired up his Fritz, Rybka or whatever. Unfortunately, Polar_Bear smelled him from affar. Three days after report, Sladovnik aka Worff was banned.

And what is he doing today? He "plays" chess at Open Games. Is it him or is it Rybka? Lol.

Edit  11/07/11: Except Worff or Worf, he also uses nicknames Zpocenyveverky, OVranska26 and StarGate14.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Cheater no.1: Mårten Wikström

Mårten Wikström
Professor of Medical Biochemistry at the University of Helsinky, a Professor of the Academy of Finland and former cheater at chess.com

This untrustworthy future liar and cheater became a member of Chess.com in December 2008. Needles to say, at the beginning he played honestly and - badly. Unfortunately, perhaps another idiot gave him "cool" advice to fire up chess program and cheat anyway, because "it cannot be detected". It is interesting how this delusion is widespread among cheaters and such ignorants. After a bitter altercation with experienced chessplayers, Wikstrom closed his account to avoid shame and being exposed in the Hall of Shame.

If you wanna write him some kind words or call him, here is the contact:

  • e-mail: Marten.Wikstrom@Helsinki.Fi
  • fax:       +358-9-191 59920
  • phone: +358-9-191 58000
  • postal mail:
  • Helsinki Bioenergetics Group, Institute of Biotechnology, Biocenter 3, room 2313, P.O.Box 65 (Viikinkaari, 1) University of Helsinki FIN-00014, Finland

The main purpose of this blog - exposing online chess cheaters

Chess is a beatiful game, unfortunately things went wrong in the last 15 - 20 years. Computers have had great impact on chess in many ways, it can be discussed later. I have decided to expose the worst one: Cheating with move generating software (engines) and cheaters, the little unimportant assholes with their real names, photos, e-mails, adresses, jobs and each and every additional information I can get together.

Cheating with engines in online chess can be compared to - and should be punished the same way as - drug abuse in physical sports: long time ban and lifetime dishonour. So let googlebot find it and let cheaters be forever marked with their stigma.

OK, why haven't I created my blog on Chess.com as member there? The answer is simple: It is not allowed to name and shame cheaters there.