Today’s chess video
Here is a cute little commercial using chess to sell a type of chicken nuggets…The young boy cheats at one point, but his grandfather is not fooled. It is all very innocent.
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But cheating at chess is NEVER innocent! This past November FIDE updated their guidelines to prevent cheating and developed a new set of punishments for cheaters. The guidelines were prepared in co-operation with FIDE’s Rules, Arbiters, and Ethics Commissions. To read the updated document: FIDE Anti-Cheating Guidelines
While I appreciate the hard work gone into creating a working document that will now be used all around the chess world, several things in the document make me feel a bit uncomfortable. First, the committee that wrote this document on cheating has deliberately REFUSED to define what cheating is!
‘Rather than try to define “cheating” and “cheater”, the ACC opted to define concrete criteria for identifying violations and ensuring fair play’
Am I missing something here? Cheating should be , first and before any further discussion on the matter, not only defined, but CLEARLY and UNAMBIGUOUSLY defined. By preferring to avoid this fundamental task, the committee members seem to pursue another agenda and leave open questions as to their competence. Cheating, if it takes place, is REAL and MUST be treated as such… It deserves to be defined.
Another aspect of the document that I don’t feel right about is the so-called ”FIDE internet-based game screening tool”, which is discussed–but not REALLY explained– at several different places.
Apparently, the arbiters are supposed to submit each and every game (in pgn format!) after it is played to this tool. The committee is a bit vague on its purpose…
‘By “screening” it is understood that this provides only a preliminary test with no judgment value…’
If that is less than illuminating, the document then goes on cryptically: ‘The results of the screening test are to be kept confidential …’
I suggest the interested reader take a closer look at the document and draw his own conclusions. In a nutshell, under the new rules every player becomes a potential suspect. Information is collected on them by the ‘tool’. To me it is better to just define what cheating is, catch them and then deal with them. AND , in the process, leave everyone else (the honest players) alone. But, I suppose, in these times of NSA mass-surveillance and the resulting inevitable intrusion on our privacy, the committee members could not not resist the temptation of also playing Big Brother….
