Hasbun No Hasbeen

Really amazing story. If you go to to his FIDE rating page and click on 'Check world ranking' link it comes up with:

World Ranking
Not found. Only active players are listed

How can he be 'not active' when he played a few games rated in the Oct 2006 list??

Great write-up, Mig! I'm happy that America's old/new chess hope is a Latino/Palestinian construction worker.

About 10 years ago, I was playing some blitz games at a location which it was going to become what is now Miami Chess Academy ,Sammour Hasbun ( Zamora by then ) walks in.. blitzed the hell out of people so much that IM Blas Lugo had to intervene and started to play blitz with the guy..the end score i dont remember but i believe Zamora won the little match they played..

I have been friends with Jorge since he was 11 years old. a tremendous talent. sometimes real life gets in the way.

http://www.metrowestchess.org/Community/Pictures/Around_The_Club/Web_2007_Around_the_Club/slides/2007-02-06_P1030648.html

is a recent picture of fluffy and Jorge, with FM's Chase and Curdo in the background.

If you were lucky enough to watch the finals on ICC, you were unlucky enough to see the worst that the chess public has to offer with kibitzers virtually every second screaming 'cheater','good move by fritz','its not fritz, its Rybka...' ad nauseum.

I found the games in the final to be rather mediocre, but still find his stunning run somewhat of a miracle myself, and a big conreats goes out to Zamora for playing some great chess when he needed to.

I hope he reappears on the US Chess scene very soon. It needs some 'new' blood.

I believe you have to play just six games in FIDE-rated events in one year to be considered active. He played eight according to FIDE so he should be listed as active. Maybe something with the Palestinian federation? Or maybe it's a FIDE slip.

As a side note, the Palestinian federation recruited veteran Bulgarian GM Ermenkov to be their #1 a few years ago, apparently in order to get an Olympiad board prize, which he duly produced in Calvia (gold) and Turin (silver). They usually rested him whenever they were paired with another team with a strong player on board one.

I'm glad you posted this item! By the way, it's true that you have to be an ICC member to hear the audio interview, but you can get a free trial membership from www.chessclub.com pretty easily if you haven't had another one real recently.

The whole event was very exciting for people on the ICC. There were six days of big qualifying Swiss blitz tournaments, two per day, each with 300 to 500 participants or so, with all the well-known ICC blitzers participating and then a lot of GMs and other *Ms you hadn't heard of as well as other people taking advantage of the chance to get games with good players. And then two days of knockout rounds bringing the field down from 32 to 1.

What Mig says is quite true about there being a constant barrage of cheating accusations against everyone. Many people including some of the titled participants were just completely cynical: "Everyone cheats", "Only cheaters will win this", etc. Everyone who won an event or stage without exception including GM Nakamura came in for his share of cheating accusations, as if Smallville needs to use a comp or would do so or like his beating people at blitz is anything unusual. Whenever anyone lagged - and in fact GM Petrosian had very bad waves of lag here and there - observers would accuse him of "lagcheating" to get himself more time to study the position. (Of course, unless you re-engineer the timestamp in the interface, the effect of lag of either player is to give both players more time to think on the opponent's move, but just try to explain that to people.)

As for Sammour-Hasbun, it was taken for granted by hundreds of people that anyone without a title who was competing at this level must, absolutely, without question, be a comp cheater. And when people were told "There is a TD at his house," the immediate reaction by dozens of people was, "Then he's splitting the money with the TD." I understand from hearsay that Sammour-Hasbun really has met the IM requirements and doesn't have the title only because of some bureaucratic thing, about who pays the fee or maybe having to do with his change of federations, but try telling that to people. In any case many people have a simplistic idea that if an IM beats a GM there must be something shady going on, regardless of the fact that on-line blitz is not the same as FIDE tournament conditions chess, etc.

Of course, if (otherwise) reasonable people are arguing about which of the top players in the world are using comp assistance in public over-the-board events, then it's only to be expected that there will be high levels of suspicion when it comes to Internet events, in which the participants are playing at home in private, or at Internet cafés, in many parts of the world, and your assurance that the player really is who he/she purports to be, and not some other GM or piece of hardware, is based partly on the honor system and your general trust in people, and partly on your level of trust in the anti-computer procedures of the ICC.

The problem is that nobody knows or can know, and this includes ICC admins, exactly how well the ICC's anti-computer procedures really work. They don't have the ability to physically inspect people as over-the-board TDs can do. Without that, they really only have two sources of information: the moves and their timing, and whatever other information their proprietary interfaces can pick up. Now, if a cheater is stupid enough to cheat on the ICC by using Fritz in a very incautious way, such a cheater is probably going to get nailed. But we don't know what proportion of cheaters are that stupid, and I don't think we can be sure that there aren't smarter feasible ways of running the software. If there were such ways, the ICC certainly wouldn't talk about it, partly out of concern for their reputation, but also because of not wanting to tell everyone how to cheat and not get caught.

As for the moves and their timing, of course anybody can sit down and go over some game in Fritz and see what percent of the moves match and so on. However, is this "real science" or "junk science", or where on the spectrum between the two does it fall? Don't misunderstand me, I'm sure that the people who are doing this for the ICC are sincere and dedicated. However, there's an understandable temptation to believe that your procedures are more reliable than they really are. Some ICC computer-catchers can have a method which they think is pretty good, but there is no peer-reviewed Journal of Comp Chess Cheat Detection Methods in which they can share their theories and hypotheses with other people in the field who can critique and thest them.

Someone for example (not in ICC management) told me after DH that "X (a GM who lost) found a sequence of 20 moves by Y (who did better than X) which match Fritz's first or second choices." Well, how unlikely is that? How unlikely is that in the particular position or line that Y was playing in in that game? How does the fact that these are 4 1 games affect things? How is this affected by Y's style of play? How unlikely is it that one game out of twenty or forty or sixty games will show that kind of a match? And what degree of certainty do you need to have before you label someone as a cheater before all the world? Nobody really knows these things.

No system is perfect. Undoubtedly there is a chance of being a "false positive" in the ICC's system - someone falsely tagged as a comp cheat. It is probably a small chance, but am I sure it doesn't happen? No. Undoubtedly there is a chance, probably much larger, of being a "false negative" - a cheat who gets away with it. We hope these chances are low, but what are they really?

The ICC's task in dealing with these matters is intrinsically very difficult. On the one hand, people want and expect them to weed out cheaters. On the other hand, people are always ready to label ICC admins as The Gestapo and to complain about spyware and so on. And nobody wants to be falsely accused of being a comp cheater. Furthermore, the ICC has to be very close-mouthed about what they do and how they resolve these issues. They may be sure that A is a comp cheater, but they don't want to be sued by A for defamation or have their cheat detection staff hauled into court to explain their methods on the witness stand. The ICC may have enough information to satisfy them - and of course it's written into the user agreement that they can tag you as a (C) if they want, or deny you rated-game privileges - but it might not have enough information to satisfy a judge or jury. And it's not written into the agreement that they can publicly label you as a crook in statements to the chess world as large. So the ICC ends up trying to resolve these things silently, without public noise. Some of the people who apparently won the qualifiers were not on the scene when the 32-player knockout round began. Why? There might be any of several reasons. The ICC is not going to tell you what happened, and, really, they can't. But of course that leaves us all sort of hoping that things are pretty much okay. Of course, since Sammour-Hasbun actually played the finals with a proctor on the scene, we ought to be MORE certain that he didn't cheat than we are about anyone else at any stage in the event.

These are really not easy issues!

Theodulf

Really amazing story. I listened to his interview at ICC. I don’t know what it was but he sounded very insecure throughout the whole interview. May be he was intimidated by his newly acquired notoriety or may be he was insecure about his English or may be he is just too shy. I don’t know but this is really bizarre since he should have been full of self confidence, having just won such a prestigious blitz tournament. Without a realistic dose of self confidence he will not go far in chess I suppose. Anyway I wish him well on his return to chess.

It would be interesting to run a blitz free style tournament, moves to be entered by human player and not by computer.

http://www.chessclub.com/finger/NECF-InSchools for his finger information.

Poor guy... to have your first son at 17 reeeeally changes your lifestyle!

To have your first son at 17 is not 'poor guy' at all, it is just a kid pretending to be an adult - no need to feel bad for them at all. When you've made your bed, you must lay in it. And by the way, to have a child at ANY any age changes your lifestyle a bit - or at least it should. Congrats to the winner of the event anyway!

From Jorge's finger notes: "I was very lucky to be trained by my only chess hero, in Spain in 1991, the
best chess player of all time, the magician from Riga, Mikhail Tal !"

I am now a lifelong fan of Jorge Sammour-Hasbun.

The other guy in the MetroWest Chess Club picture is David Vigorito....

There were/are clearly those who feel the winner of DH cheated.

Unfortunately, I was part of a kib session on ICC the other day with a particular 2600+ GM who claimed there was no question in his mind that Jorge cheated. He even went on to say that he sees this thing OTB as well and he finds that cheaters are easily identified. Remarkable.

Of course, no data was presented, simply a string of rhetoric and logical fallacies which I won't go in to here. The root cause, in my most humble opinion, is that Jorge beat one of his compatriots late in the tournament (it was his blitz game which we were all kibbing). The bias is evident and it's very unfortunate when ego trumps all available data.

To have a GM over 2600, albeit very young, make sweeping accusations about cheating publicly is a sad state of affairs. In that conversation, it was clear that the "appealing to authority" fallacy was hard at work given some of the reponses from the other patzers present.

It would seem that this player is a real blitz specialist. Not profound enough to be competitive at top level in classical chess, but blessed with a super-sharp tactical eye and the ability to play strategically good (although not brilliant) moves very quickly.

Welcome to the US version of the late Valentin Arbakov, one of the kings of rapid chess!

I got absolutely spanked by him at a US Amatuer Team East Championship in 1991. I was quite embarrased to be beaten by a small kid until someone explained to me who he was... I didn't play well at all, as you can see...

[Event "Amateur Team East Championship"]
[Date "1991"]
[White "Noyb"]
[Black "Zamora, Jr., Jorge"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C89"]
[Annotator "Fritz 8 (10s)"]
[PlyCount "38"]
[EventCountry "USA"]

C89: Closed Ruy Lopez: Marshall Attack

1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. c3 d5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Nxe5 Nxe5 11. Rxe5 c6 12. d4 Bd6 13. Re1 Qh4 14. g3 Qh3 15.Bxd5 cxd5 16. Re3 Bg4 17. Qf1 Qh5 18. Nd2 {last book move} Rae8 19. Nb3 {strolling merrily down the path to disaster} 19... Bh3 0-1

There was a thread about Sammour-Hasbun on USCF Forums about a month ago. It started with someone (I think it might have been 2005 TD of the Year Steve Immitt) noting that Jorge indeed had been listed with an IM title -- not merely "qualified for" as Mig or someone said here, but the title itself -- in FIDE records under his previous name, Zamora.

With the combination of changing his name and changing his federation, evidently, the "IM" part was lost. A bureaucratic foulup, poor record keeping...or possibly the Palestinian federation didn't pay their FIDE fees (which I think would result in FIDE suspending the ratings and titles of all their players until paid up). That at least was the conclusion people drew on the USCF Forums thread.

Then the discussion started taking on unpleasant political undertones (someone asked why would a guy switch his federation to Palestine, and if he did why should the USCF then bother to stick up for him, etc.).... and as a result the moderators removed the entire thread.

So, seeing this item today strikes me as a little bit of deja vu. I was out of chess throughout the '90s, so the name Zamora hadn't even meant anything to me before I saw that USCF Forums discussion.

Jorge plays blitz occasionally on WCN where he's one of only 3 players to have cracked 3000, so no doubt he's a very talented player. I have vague recollections of Moiseenko beating up on him one night, but it was quite awhile ago.

So THAT'S what happened to that thread! Thanks, Jon, I thought I was losing my mind. I knew I had read something about Jorge's title somewhere, and I thought it was on the USCF Forums, but I couldn't find it anywhere.

That was a terrific post by Theodulf a ways up on this thread.

Being able to reach a confident conclusion about whether someone cheated is tough enough even in the OTB context, where officials can actually watch the player. So I definitely don't envy those responsible for policing important online chess events. (I'm also glad I don't enjoy playing online myself, since that renders the issue mostly moot for me. On the other hand, quite a few people are saying OTB chess will eventually wither away and the day will arrive when everything will be done online. It's kinda like skiing vs snowboarding: I've done the former but not the latter; yet is there anyone who thinks skis will still be manufactured and sold 20 or 30 years from now?)

ICC seems to be moving in the direction of using proctors to make high-level online play more respectable. A couple months ago when it was looking like major portions of the US Championship would be held via ICC (Erik Anderson/AF4C was pushing for an online, knockout Championship format in the final months before he withdrew his sponsorship), ICC took pains to assure people that any remote matches held as part of the Championship, would be proctored.

I believe that having proctors present is a complete solution to the (potential) cheating problem in online...provided the proctors know what they're doing, are of unimpeachable integrity, and there are enough of them to adequately oversee the number of games they're watching. (The latter is trivial if we're talking about a single head-to-head match. But proctoring can also involve policing multiple games at once, as when tournaments are divided over a number of locations where several players face remote opponents; that's what was proposed for the US Championship.)

Theodulf's remarks about quoting Fritz move-match percentages are well worth pondering. I said much the same thing in my March Chess Life story.

I have seen so many idiots quote such statistics so often, and so idiotically, that until recently I felt that anyone who ever used move-match figures as part of a cheating accusation could only be a fool, a liar, or an a-hole out to smear someone -- or all of the above (i.e., a Danailov).

Lately, however, I've begun to harbor some hope that engine move-match analysis can eventually be uplifted to a scientific footing. While as Theodulf said, "there is no peer-reviewed Journal of Comp Chess Cheat Detection Methods in which they can share their theories and hypotheses with other people in the field who can critique and test them," I am aware of some small moves in that direction, being made by people like IM Dr. Ken Regan (who posted here on Dirt about his work on Kramnik-Topalov) and one or two others.

Bringing knowledgeable people together to share and test ideas on all technical issues associated with cheating detection, is exactly what I've been shooting for from the moment I began to involve myself nearly 2 years ago.

ICC has a critical role to play in this. They do have a reputation for using state-of-the-art methods to detect cheating. They won't talk about their methods, for reasons that Theodulf stated. But ultimately, if progress is to be made, then the lead player (ICC) will have to share what they have learned.

I'm not talking about revealing their protocols or algorithms in public. Rather, private, invitation-only forums should be set up that would make it feasible for ICC's cheating specialists to meet and cooperate with their counterparts who work for other interested parties, such as big OTB organizers who are confronting the cheating threat (i.e., CCA).

The real-life security business offers many parallel instances of cooperation across different organizations -- both anti-terrorism security, and when industrial/trade secrets need to be communicated among different businesses or organizations.

To keep such sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands, governmental or industry-specific security organizations are set up that screen proposed members, meet in closed session, and often have attendees sign legally binding confidentiality agreements.

I see no reason why a similar infrastructure can't be created to ease the task for a few key people outside of ICC, who have a demonstrated "need to know" about the inner workings of ICC anti-cheating methods, in order to better perform their own jobs.

ICC itself would probably benefit too from lifting the veil slightly. It would let them get an external reality check, which they probably need. I agree with Theodulf's suggestion above, that ICC's anti-cheating method probably isn't as flawless as they make it out to be. Since it's all hush-hush, there's no way to know.

One of the problems is that online playing sites do not really have a problem with cheating. The same can be said about online players, actually. The problem they have is the *perception* of cheating. Whether or not casual players or GMs in online tournament with cash prizes use computer assistance doesn't harm the bottom line of the ICC (et al) in the least. It's the belief that people are, or may be, cheating that causes them problems.

This isn't just a semantic argument. I was one of the people running the KasparovChess "Playing Zone" for a few years and had this discussion many times. Servers have a vested interest in players believing the servers have mysterious ways to prevent/catch cheating and that they are taking action, etc. So a few public beheadings go a long way. We see this in action in different ways on different servers even today. I'm not saying they don't take it seriously. They do. And of course there is crossover between actually preventing cheating and preventing the perception of cheating. But from a business perspective the latter is far more important.

Of course there are ways to detect cheaters if they don't know what they are doing, but the bottom line is that someone who does it skillfully - i.e. inconsistently - will never dent a metric of being proven a cheater, at least not without relying on "Freakanomics"-style results analysis from a huge body of evidence, which of course couldn't be considered conclusive for purposes of punishment. Proctors are obviously required for serious online events - we realized this when we created the first online supertournament in 2000, the KasparovChess online grand prix. Otherwise some do cheat and, worse, everyone assumes everyone cheats!

Well, to supplement what Mig says about reality and perception, I am quite convinced that the active volunteer admins on the ICC really *WANT* to catch comp cheats in reality, over and above "ICC-corporate's" concern for the site's rep. How stable is this phenomenon, and will it survive when the Sleator cohort of admins ultimately gives way to new hires? I don't know.

I think that Fritz-match statistics *could* be used to rigorously demonstrate that someone is almost certainly using a comp (of course you would want to check other brand names as well). Suppose for example you found out that -all- of a person's moves matched Fritz's first choice at the time threshold for each move over a period of 200 games. You would be pretty convinced, wouldn't you? Nobody plays THAT much like Fritz, except Fritz.

Developing this intuition more rigorously, you could take a large sample of human GM blitz games and compute date on their "Fritzishness" (computed somehow), and then do the same for a large sample of computer blitz games. By "large sample" I mean, say, 500,000 games, a significant chunk of ICC's database, something that somebody with resources would have to do automatically in a huge batch, not something you could manually on your PC some spare evening. When you were done, you would be able to say that if someone Fritzishness at level F over a sample of N games at a given time control, this entity falls above the right tail of the human distribution, and is almost certainly silicon. (I am going to leave aside the issues involved with possible comp cheat games already in the "human" games you selected for comparison, but if they are in there they would only make your criteria more conservative.) But I have no clue that anyone has yet -really- devoted this level or resources to the problem.

Furthermore, as Mig says, this still only works as long as people use software in a way that's easy to detect. Unfortunately, in this arms race the potential producers of online cheating software haven't yet gotten out of the starting gate. There are all sorts of features which a program *designed* for online cheating would have which I won't even discuss, because I honestly don't want to help people even think of them, but let's just say that now that we have software that plays at the GM level, it's not too much of a stretch to design software to *emulate* the Fritzishness of a GM, or with a dashboard where Fritzishness parameters could be varied at will. As for proprietary interfaces, any program can be cracked, reverse-engineered, and emulated or subverted. (If the operating system itself were on guard for this sort of thing then it might give people some trouble - that is, if the ICC could buy the keys to some kind of uncrackable (?) Microsoft information pathway - but I don't see this in the cards.)

So in the long run - and who knows when that is? Ten years? Five? - I think we will more and more be just forced back into proctoring or "secure physical site" methods. Now, this would have its upside. A secure physical site (SPS) might be, what? a chess club. The ICC in conjunction with the USCF could maybe develop standards and procedures for certifying chess clubs as secure physical sites - installing some software on their PCs, for example. Of course players from these sites could be identified, and people who really wanted to avoid comp cheaters could go to these SPS clubs and play only with other SPS players. Now all of a sudden clubs would have an asset they don't have now, something to bring players back in the door. Throw in a nice coffee bar (or certify an Internet café with an espresso machine and a nice pastry selection as an SPS) and we are into the world of the Global Chess Divan! Hey, call me a dreamer :-)

Theodulf

Bravo to Sammour-Hasbun, and to ICC. An "unheralded" player is beating a string of GM's .. that has to raise suspicions. ICC took significant action .. sending an observer to the guy's home! Jorge, after a normal human reaction of being offended, put the situation in perspective, continued to compete under observation, and won. Thereby proving that his performance was legitimate.

Compare that to last summer's WO U2000 incident. The player in question refused to take off his sweater to be searched further, citing "moral reasons". Let's see -- you pay a $350 entry fee, travel several hunderd miles, pay for lodging, food, etc., play several grueling double round days successsfully, attaining a great score going into the last round - meaning you've achieved the goal that every one of the 1400+ other players has been dreaming about - having a final round game that gives you a shot at BIG money. Yet you decide that taking off your sweater is too much of an insult, so you withdraw. :)

Fascinating ideas. I like the SPS / Global Chess Divan especially for purely personal reasons, because it holds out the hope things might come full circle -- that is, online chess might eventually contribute to a revival of physical chess clubs, via the roundabout route Theodulf outlined.

Of course that would be a 180 degree reversal of the current (unhealthy from my personal perspective) trend, in which the superior economics of online play are slowly strangling physical chess clubs -- and even small to midsize (i.e., local) face-to-face chess tournaments -- to death.

So it would be doubly ironic (and sweet, for me), if concern about cheating ended up being the wedge that helps to make public, physical settings (i.e., what Theodulf labels an "SPS") once again indispensible for competitive chess events, both pro and amateur.

Just noticed rp's post of a few minutes ago with kudos to Sammour-Hasbun and ICC, which I agree with 100%.

His remarks about the contrast with the WO-Steve Rosenberg incident are also absolutely on the mark.

It's worth noting that -- as self-evident as rp's dissection of the Rosenberg case is -- when that incident was debated here on Dirt last year (and all relevant details were already known), we STILL found people arguing with seeming sincerity, that Rosenberg not only might be innocent, but was justified in resisting the demanded intrusion by "Big Brother" TD !!!

As I recall, one of Rosenberg's defenders then identified himself as a long-time personal friend of the guy. Well, ok; anyone is entitled to an honest and properly labeled defense.

But what makes me doubt the wisdom of banning words like "idiot" and "liar" on an Internet forum (which they are trying to do right now on USCF Forums), is that one or two other posters apparently unconnected to Rosenberg, went along with the same line of anti-thinking -- they asserted the guy had every right to NOT show what was under his sweater, without having to give up his right to keep playing for prize money! In other words, have his cake and eat it too.

From Theodulf:

"On the other hand, people are always ready to label ICC admins as The Gestapo and to complain about spyware and so on."

"(If the operating system itself were on guard for this sort of thing then it might give people some trouble - that is, if the ICC could buy the keys to some kind of uncrackable (?) Microsoft information pathway - but I don't see this in the cards.)"

You do realize that any countermeasures targeting other software running on the PC itself is easily defeated by using two computers - one to play the game and the other running the engine of choice?

From rp and Jon Jacobs:

"Bravo to Sammour-Hasbun, and to ICC. An "unheralded" player is beating a string of GM's .. that has to raise suspicions. ICC took significant action .. sending an observer to the guy's home! Jorge, after a normal human reaction of being offended, put the situation in perspective, continued to compete under observation, and won. Thereby proving that his performance was legitimate."

"It's worth noting that -- as self-evident as rp's dissection of the Rosenberg case is -- when that incident was debated here on Dirt last year (and all relevant details were already known), we STILL found people arguing with seeming sincerity, that Rosenberg not only might be innocent, but was justified in resisting the demanded intrusion by "Big Brother" TD !!!"

I think he very well might have been justified, unless all the other competitors were subjected to the same treatment. Or do you subscribe to the school of "you've got nothing to worry about unless you're doing something wrong" law enforcement?

I also think Hasbun had every right to tell them to stick it, unless there was some mention of proctors in the regulations or other competitors were saddled with them also. Or did I miss the day when only 'certain' GMs were declared to be of unimpeachable integrity with regards to cheating? That he didn't get rattled and played on to win the tournament is a tribute to his character, but I don't quite see how ICC should be congratulated in any way for implementing what might be called 'ratial profiling' (sic). Logistics aside, tournament organizers should really be trying to get their measures together in a formal way instead of being so ad-hoc.

Obviously a playing client program can monitor all sorts of things on the same computer, including CPU usage, window focus, even looking out for specific threads and engines. Such "spyware" is relatively trivial and is common. I refer only to the use of two computers, which can be done very effectively event at blitz speeds by someone with a lot of practice. We experimented with all sorts of heuristics and other things to detect cheaters, but the bottom line is that when two computers are used you are reduced to statistics and when two computers are used judiciously by a strong player with some common sense there is no way to catch him. Over time you might come up with enough circumstancial evidence to press a case or to refuse to invite the person again, but that's about it.

KasparovChess, in one of the many far-reaching ideas that were floated there that never saw the light, had the idea of setting up branded playing centers all over the world. Online/offline ches clubs where people could play OTB but also online. This was to be a way to compensate for the low internet penetration in many of the countries where chess is very popular (Eastern Europe, mostly). As ever, it's that third step, the famous "step three: profit", that is the problem with such plans.

Cynical Gripe wrote, referring to Steve Rosenberg in the World Open:
"I think he very well might have been justified (refusing to let a TD inspect him), unless all the other competitors were subjected to the same treatment. Or do you subscribe to the school of 'you've got nothing to worry about unless you're doing something wrong' law enforcement?"

Of course all the other competitors were subject to the same treatment. Had another player been caught:
1) using headphones to conceal a wireless receiver in his ear; then caught again:
2) lying by telling a TD it was a hearing aide when it really was something else; and
3) attracted complaints from one or more opponents about possible cheating after racking up a perfect score (he was 8-0 going into the final round, I think) -- not only in this big-money event but in his previous 3 or 4 tournaments which he won with perfect scores as well, and
4) wearing a bulky sweater on the 4th of July weekend, when the product literature for the wireless receiver that he'd already been caught lying about to TDs, specifically stated that the device must be wired to a nearby companion unit (amplifier?) weighing several pounds.....

....It seems obvious to me that, had any other player landed themselves in that situation, the TDs would have asked, nay, demanded, to search them as well.

If "Cynical Gripe" posits otherwise, then he is in effect saying the CCA officials by zeroing in on Rosenberg, had some agenda that differed from what it appeared to be -- that is, adjudicating what looks and looked to everyone here and elsewhere, like a reasonable suspicion about potential cheating.

I suppose conspiracy theories of the kind he suggests are theoretically possible...but the burden of proof rests decidedly on the person proposing the conspiracy theory. (Unless of course Bush is said to be one of the conspirators. Then, no proof, or even evidence, is ever necessary.)

What about Mecking?
When someone says "‘Not since Raoul Capablanca from Cuba has anyone from Latin or Central America generated so much excitement.’ "he forgets - or worst, is unaware of - the fact that in the 70's a player from Brazil - which was a Latin American country last time I checked - won two interzonals in a row and got to #3 in the rating list.
That player was Henrique Mecking.

"If "Cynical Gripe" posits otherwise, then he is in effect saying the CCA officials by zeroing in on Rosenberg, had some agenda that differed from what it appeared to be -- that is, adjudicating what looks and looked to everyone here and elsewhere, like a reasonable suspicion about potential cheating."

I wasn't positing anything of the sort. Voicing complaints about the way things are done hardly amounts to a conspiracy theory. But no, I don't consider attracting complaints from opponents a useful piece of evidence, and you must also admit that his lying about the hearing aid and it being discovered to be a wireless transceiver only happened after they decided to "zero in" on him. I actually believe the organizer acted reasonably given the situation, but it's hard to shower him with compliments when the situation was at least partly of his own making, i.e. heaphones permitted, no metal detectors, searches, etc. Fortunately for the tournament he was a no-namer playing so far above his rating the situation was obvious, and it was no problem to stomp on him. What exactly would have happened if a titled player had behaved in the same way? Or, what would have happened if he had been a bit less greedy and dropped a few points along the way?

And what do you say about the Hasbun situation? From your list, it seems the only circumstancial evidence here was the weakest piece of all - complaints from opponents. Apparently that must meet your burden of reasonable suspicion.

The Hasbun situation is inherently different because it involved online play.

I agree with the near-universal consensus that online play is inherently suspicious no matter who is playing.

I'm not saying that cheating is necessarily rampant even online (although there seems to be a consensus that it is). I'm simply saying that going without proctors in a serious online situation -- such as the final 6-game Dos Hermanas final match -- would constitute a "pure" honor system, to a degree that cannot possibly be equated with any OTB situation. Therefore, no player should ever be surprised or offended, no matter what his rating or history, at being asked to let a proctor observe him during an important online competition.

In face-to-face, a guy who wants to cheat has to at least subject himself to a little inconvenience to avoid being too obvious. If he's going to look at pocket Fritz or a laptop, for instance, he has to stroll to a bathroom; if he wants to use a Phonito to receive moves from an accomplice, there's that klunky companion device requires sweating under a bulky sweater in July.

In contrast, anyone playing online could simply sit in the convenience of their favorite room, and consult another computer right at the same table they're playing at. Without an official witness on-site, no one would be the wiser, as Mig noted in his posts above.

That's why I think proctoring probably is ultimately needed to make serious online competition (the kind where there is cash or other substantial reward up for grabs) respectable and respected. I'm very glad the participants in the US Championship who were surveyed voiced misgivings about playing any part of the tournament online, under the since-aborted AF4C plan. Their reservations might have been the spur for ICC (which was to have conducted the event as a sort of subcontractor to AF4C and USCF) to promise that all online matches in that event would be proctored.

Your issue seems to be that Hasbun was proctored while his opponent (GM Petrosian) apparently wasn't.

I do think that proctoring in these kinds of situations ultimately will have to be put on some kind of standard format that would make its application more even-handed. Still, there are two counterpoints I want to emphasize:

1. It's inevitable that when there is a sizable difference in rating or title, doubts will more likely arise about the lower-rated player than the higher-rated player. This is simply human nature. So, instead of viewing a request to be proctored as an accusation and taking umbrage, I would think any honest player in Sammour-Hasbun's situation would accept the fact that most observers will regard him as "having something to prove" (i.e. his strength), and welcome the opportunity to operate in the sunlight and thereby prove himself to everyone's satisfaction.

2. Both the threat of cheating, and the advent of online play itself, are of relatively recent vintage. Recall that a mere 18 months ago, I was being flamed here for suggesting any need for organizers to adopt any special measures to prevent cheating at all. "Ban headphones," I said. "Jacobs is a Bush-clone who wants to turn chess tournaments into Guantanamo Bay!," intoned the Josh Gutmans of the world.

So, mindful of the broad context that chess organizers and authorities are at last facing up to the need to re-examine the predominant cultural paradigm -- the honor system -- that has shaped tournament playing conditions for the past hundred years or so, I am prepared to cut organizers (ICC in this case, CCA in the World Open) some slack.

A LOT of slack.

CGripe: as to the ICC assigning a proctor to Sammour-Hasbun's games in the knockout rounds, the rules (easy enough to access from the ICC site) read:

"The ICC may request, at any time during the event, that an approved proctor observes the tournament games of any participant at the location given in the registration. If a participant cannot, either because of his remote location, or any other reason, have an approved proctor attest his/her play, ICC reserves the right to disqualify that player."

So they certainly had the right to do it. As to whether they had a reason beyond "complaints from opponents", how are we going to know or discuss it, other than irresponsibly broadcasting hearsay and speculation? It depends largely on whether you trust the judgment of ICC management. I kind of do, but I can't prove that you should. Maybe they had some "possible" indication of a problem during the earlier rounds or even from something earlier in Sammour-Hasbun's play on the ICC - he has had accounts there for years. On a brighter note, maybe they knew that if a non-titled player won DH without being observed there would be a wild chorus of screaming, and they wanted to be able to protect both their own reputation and Sammour-Hasbun's. Certainly Jorge is in a better situation now than if there hadn't been any proctor, and if he isn't complaining, why should we?

Theodulf

Jorge played in several tournaments in Bermuda about ten years ago and certainly showed a great talent. One night he played blitz with GM David Norwood, they played I think over 400 games with the score being about even. My big problem as Organiser was to get him out of bed to play at 9:00 at the Open.

He was also the highlight of John Donaldsons favourite closing ceremony, when he took on allcomers (security staff as well as chess players) at wrestling and beat them all!

Nigel Freeman

Good points Jon, but I still disagree with your first. I think the guy out on the sidewalk being hassled by the cops agrees with me too, as he doesn't feel the need to prove himself to everyone's satisfaction even though crime stats suggest otherwise. The question here is whether cheating stats indicate that untitled players are the worst offenders. This is not a rhetorical question, I've heard of at least a couple cases of GM online cheating, followed by open letters protesting innocence, but you would probably be better acquainted with all of this. I imagine there is not enough data available to draw any meaningful conclusions.

"The ICC may request, at any time during the event, that an approved proctor observes the tournament games of any participant at the location given in the registration. If a participant cannot, either because of his remote location, or any other reason, have an approved proctor attest his/her play, ICC reserves the right to disqualify that player."
"So they certainly had the right to do it."

OK Theodulf, but that's nothing more than a cover-your-ass blanket statement that you see on just about everywhere these days.

"As to whether they had a reason beyond complaints from opponents, how are we going to know or discuss it, other than irresponsibly broadcasting hearsay and speculation? It depends largely on whether you trust the judgment of ICC management. I kind of do, but I can't prove that you should. Maybe they had some "possible" indication of a problem during the earlier rounds or even from something earlier in Sammour-Hasbun's play on the ICC - he has had accounts there for years. On a brighter note, maybe they knew that if a non-titled player won DH without being observed there would be a wild chorus of screaming, and they wanted to be able to protect both their own reputation and Sammour-Hasbun's. Certainly Jorge is in a better situation now than if there hadn't been any proctor, and if he isn't complaining, why should we?"

He's not untitled, not that that should matter. You start by condemning hearsay and speculation, then you proceed to whip up a series of wild and illogical speculations concerning Jorge's play on ICC. Your argument amounts to nothing more than "they might have had umpteen (valid or imagined) reasons, we don't know, so let's not question their decision". George Bush adores good citizens like you. Protecting the integrity of the competitors and tournament is critical, but I just think that this must be done in a fair and impartial way. As for the outcome, yes, it all worked out nicely, Jorge is happy and so is ICC, but it could easily have been otherwise. For example, if his focus had been disrupted by the presence of the proctor, he could have lost badly and many would have branded him a cheat and the tournament ruined.

Cynical Gripe is arguing for fairness and equity in the application of tactics to prevent cheating, and with that I agree. I'm not sure, however, how that reasoning leads to saying that the way the Hasbun & Rosenburg incidents were handled by the event organizers were wrong. The chess rating systems happen to be a fairly good predictor of performance - not perfect, but very, very good. So when a player's performance deviates significantly higher from what their rating would predict, that raises legitimate questions - and in events where the reward for success are high, those quations need to asked about the player(s) in question. The answer to the questions may be positive, meaning we simply have a player who has worked hard, and taken their performance to the next level... as seems to be the case with Hasbun. Or, it could be something more sinister, as seems to be the case with Rosenburg.

This is no different than the statistical techniques that the financial markets officials use to detect potential insider trading. Atypically well timed trades, that yield instant and large profits, raise questions, and are therefore investigated. Perhaps that school teacher from Des Moines, who seldom trades, was just lucky when she purchased $50,000 worth of call options the day before a merger was announced that increased the value of her investment 3-fold. But its worth an investigation. Especially if it is discovered that her brother works for one of the firms involved in supporting the merger deal. And although others may have also cheated, or tried to, they aren't going to investigate every single trade.

CGripe's equating of ICC management to war criminals and of me to a fascist sycophant is upping the level of the rhetoric considerably, isn't it? There's obviously no point in trying to talk with CG civilly, but I will make two brief points:

Regarding what he calls a "cover-your-ass blanket statement", CG's original statement was, "I also think Hasbun had every right to tell them to stick it, unless there was some mention of proctors in the regulations or other competitors were saddled with them also." CG didn't bother to look to see if there really WAS some mention of proctors in the regulations. I did. There was. I informed CG. Don't bother to thank me.

As to people being "irresponsible", CG is trying to use Sammour-Hasbun's case as a club to beat up ICC management in public, WITHOUT, however, so far as I know, getting Sammour-Hasbun's consent or even having any indication that Sammour-Hasbun is unhappy with the ICC's action, much less that he would welcome a public in-depth inquiry and debate over every private exchange between him and ICC management. If someone complains in public of ill treatment, like Tim Taylor in his recent chesscafe.com piece, that's a different matter. But CG is in effect "selling wolf tickets" on a fight between Sammour-Hasbun and the ICC which I have no indication that either one wants. Doesn't Sammour-Hasbun have a right to manage his affairs privately if he so chooses? Who is being irresponsible here?

Theodulf

rp made a good analogy with certain situations that prompt authorities to suspect insider-trading (I make that observation from a standpoint of professional knowledge).

A more pointed critique of Cynical Gripe's argument, though, revolves around a subtle fallacy that he and a great many others who post here tend to fall into.

I am referring to a seeming inability to discern several critical differences between a competitor being questioned or observed by officials at a chess tournament, and a citizen being frisked by police officers.

Rather than expound on that subject here, I'll simply give a link to a USCF Forums thread where the topic was thoroughly aired (to access it you must be a USCF member and register using your USCF ID):
http://www.uschess.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2277&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Based on the tone of some of Cynical Gripe's remarks, I surmise that the tendency to assume an illusory similarity between being chess tournament "enforcement" and law enforcement, is often associated with a certain political persuasion.

For instance, in Daily Dirt debates about cheating enforcement a year or so ago, a certain individual used a series of increasingly bizarre political analogies to describe proposed tournament procedures. His language ranged from from "collective punishment" (an apparent reference to Israel's treatment of Palestinians), to fascism, concentration camps, and pretrial execution of suspects. (I later wondered aloud how he could have forgotten to mention female genital mutilation, and what was then the latest atrocity in the headlines, flushing the Koran down the toilet.)

As a corrective to the seemingly widespread readiness to view any chessplayer who gets questioned by tournament officials as somehow akin to Andy Dufresne (the hero of "Shawshank" -- who the brainwashed poster mentioned in my previous paragraph also brought up when discussing this subject), I would humbly recommend that Cynical Gripe and a few other people work at having a more open mind generally.

Liberting one's mind from narrow ideologies, however popular, and group-think soundbites of the "George Bush adores good citizens like you" variety, may have the ancillary benefit of helping to inoculate oneself against similarly shallow ideas when debating chess topics.

Here is a concrete suggestion to Cynical Gripe about applying the above advice:

The next time you're at a party, or around the water cooler at work, and somebody refers to how Bush or his father or the Mossad or the CIA or the Carlyle Group orchestrated 9-11....

Instead of giving your usual knowing nod, how about responding as you would if someone in the same group had casually used the N-word?

Yeah, you'll end up being invited to fewer parties after that. But I'm sure in a short time you will end up making newer, and possibly better, friends.

And I am confident you will also be able to view and discuss a variety chess-behavior issues from a more adult perspective, as well.

"CGripe's equating of ICC management to war criminals and of me to a fascist sycophant is upping the level of the rhetoric considerably, isn't it? There's obviously no point in trying to talk with CG civilly ..."

Yeesh...try looking up the definition of methaphor when you get a chance.

"Regarding what he calls a "cover-your-ass blanket statement", CG's original statement was, "I also think Hasbun had every right to tell them to stick it, unless there was some mention of proctors in the regulations or other competitors were saddled with them also." CG didn't bother to look to see if there really WAS some mention of proctors in the regulations. I did. There was. I informed CG. Don't bother to thank me."

No worries, I won't thank you. You're correct though, it is indeed in the agreement, and ICC was legally within their rights. Of course, in my internet service provider agreement it states that they may terminate my service immediately for any number of reasons, including late payment, suspicion of unlawful use, etc. So, they're perfectly within their rights to immediately terminate my service if they even think I downloaded some copyrighted music or video, or was a week late paying the bill. Don't you think I'd raise an eyebrow if they did though? Or, in relation to a more recent Dirt thread, maybe you think the Anand supporters should just quit their misguided whining?

"As to people being "irresponsible", CG is trying to use Sammour-Hasbun's case as a club to beat up ICC management in public, WITHOUT, however, so far as I know, getting Sammour-Hasbun's consent or even having any indication that Sammour-Hasbun is unhappy with the ICC's action, much less that he would welcome a public in-depth inquiry and debate over every private exchange between him and ICC management. If someone complains in public of ill treatment, like Tim Taylor in his recent chesscafe.com piece, that's a different matter. But CG is in effect "selling wolf tickets" on a fight between Sammour-Hasbun and the ICC which I have no indication that either one wants. Doesn't Sammour-Hasbun have a right to manage his affairs privately if he so chooses? Who is being irresponsible here?

I don't think I need anyone's consent to give my point of view. This is a chess blog after all. Should anyone wishing to criticize FIDE for their handling of a particular incident contact them and the involved players in writing to ask if it's ok first? Also, you may recall that I was merely responding to what I felt was your and Jon's unjustified praise of how ICC handled the situation. And really, don't you think you're being just a tad over-dramatic with your clubs and wolf tickets?

Thanks for your condescending sarcasm and stereotypes Jon. Perhaps you too should consult the dictionary for metaphor. It is a pretty cheap way to try and discredit people by lumping them into some sort of paranoid conspiracy theorist politically liberal category.

it was 4-1 not 4-2

Howcome everyone is talking about the cheater u2000 at last year's world open who got caught but no one mentioned the cheater u2200 -Mike Clark who did not!

Jorge's a known blitz monster. Has been for decades (hard to do when you're 28).

Curious how Mike Clark cheated, as alleged.

This seems to have dropped down the collective memory hole, but Sammour-Hasbunseems to have previously been accused of cheating in Blitz play on ICC. The controversy took place at the end of 1999. Apparently, Sammour-Hasbun caught the attention of the ICC admins when he defeated GM A. Shirov (Who was, at the time, one of the top rated blitz players on ICC) in a 6 game Blitz series, by a score of 3.5-2.5 The result itself was what was suspicious; an insider claims that Shirov never complained about his defeat, and had nothing to do with the accusations which were levied.

For some reason, the admins suspected Sammour of using a chess engine (according to the rumors, it was believed to be a version of Chessmaster). Sammour-Hasbun had his account suspended by ICC, right about the time that he dropped out of chess. Among the contentious items was Sammour-Hasbun's demand to have ICC delete all of his games, associated with his handle. One of those "You can't fire me--I quit" situations, perhaps.

There is one other mysterious aspect to Sammour-Hasbun's stint on ICC: Some people have claimed that Sammour-Hasbun was GM Lembit Oll's final opponent on ICC, when they played a series of games shortly before Oll committed suicide.

Irrespective of that, it is not surprising that ICC is suspicious of Sammour-Hasbun, especially when he achieves better than expected results.

I have no idea whether there was ever any validity and accuracy to the earlier accusations that were made, although one can draw one's own conclsuions about ICC's decision to refrain from taking any action against Sammour-Hasbun, even though he has certainly achieved a more surprising and unexpected result in the recent event.

Isnt anybody else thrilled that a disciple of the great Tal is playing so well??? Man I hope Jorge plays serious Chess. We surely need a reincarnation of Tal right about now..

Interesting post DOug. Wouldn't it be fair to say that Hasbun's results in this tournament (with proctor looking over his shoulder) constitute fairly strong evidence that he was wrongfully accused in 1999? About his better than expected results, I think it should be realized that this was a blitz tournament, and there can be quite a huge difference compared to rating at long time controls. I've seen on many occasions IMs and even GMs get schooled by untitled players in a short series of games, so I don't see how it's so alarming for an IM to go through a few GMs. Anyway, one would hope that ICC's reckless accusations did not have anything to do with him stepping away from chess. Guess this sort of thing happens occasionally when people have "A LOT of slack" to hand down discipline as they please.

Theodulf, thanks for your long and interesting post(s) back up at the top.

It was indeed difficult for us to run that event with all the cheating kibitzing. It is refreshing to see your unbiased (and another poster) about the ICC process.

I'm commenting on my own. I am a volunteer ICC Admin who ran half of the DH qualifiers and I appreciate those who see that we took enormous steps to see this event came off properly.

If you could have seen all the behind the scenes strategies we were doing you would
have been amazed. I think we had 10-20 people going during each round. I can not
say anything more because of ICC policy.

The kibitzing was horrid. But what shall we do? Muzzle 200 people? It seems these
guys know this and come out of the woodwork. All we could do was have an ICC
owner there in the channel TRYING to explain things.

My views and opinions are my own and not in any way associated with the ICC.

Thank you.

Anybody who knows Jorge and has seen him play blitz knows he would not have cheated. And wouldn't need to. I believe he was the first player to break the 3000 barrier on the ICC. He's won every blitz tournament I've ever seen him play, and he beats GMs in speed chess so one-sidedly it's as if they don't belong on the same board as him.

And I'm talking about OTB play, not just internet. Those of us who know him are delighted by this result, but not surprised.

Congratulations Jorge! I am glad to know that he is doing great in chess. Congratulations on your wife and kids as well!

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