Penalties in Chess

by Billl Wall

In 1624, playwright Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) was arrested in London after producing a play, A
Game of Chess, which satirized the proposed marriage of Prince Charles of England with a Spanish
princess. After Middleton’s arrest, the play was censored and was not allowed to be shown again.

In 1649, Tsar Alexei (1629-1676) banned chess in Russia. The penalty for playing chess was whipping
and imprisonment.

In 1848, the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution banned chess clubs in Hungary until 1864.

In 1870, Joseph Henry Blackburne (1841-1924) was arrested in Baden-Baden as a French spy for sending
chess moves in the mail. The British government thought they were coded secrets. It also turned out
that Blackburne’s carriage driver was a French spy.

In January 1880, at the 5th American Chess Congress in New York, Preston Ware (1821-1890) testified to
the tournament committee that his last-round opponent, James Grundy (1855-1919) of England, offered
him $20 if he agreed to play for a draw in their game that had been adjourned. A draw would give
Grundy at least 2nd place prize money. Ware agreed, but complained that Grundy then reneged on the
deal and went on to win the game in 64 moves, and tied for 1st place (with George Mackenzie). 1st
place was $500 and 2nd place was $300. Grundy lost the playoff match with Mackenzie to take
2nd. When Grundy admitted his guilt, he was forbidden from ever again taking part in an American
tournament. Grundy played in other tournaments, but under false names. Ware was suspended for
one year from playing chess.

In 1891, William Steinitz (1836-1900) was arrested In New York as a Russian spy after someone in the
telegraph company thought that his chess moves being sent over telegraph was code. He was held for
24 hours and released. At the time, Steinitz was playing Chigorin in Havana by cable.

In July 1933, all Jews were banned from the Greater German Chess Association. The penalty was arrest.

In 1940, German Nazis arrested all the Jewish chess players that were meeting at the Kwiencinski Chess
Café in Warsaw. The Germans had banned Jews from playing chess there. The Jews were all taken to a
concentration camp and were later killed in a mass execution. Those killed included Polish masters
Dawid Przepiorka, Achilles Frydmann, Stanislaw Kohn, and Moishe Lowtzky.

In 1942, during the U.S. chess championship in New York, Samuel Reshevsky was playing Arnold Denker
when Reshevky’s flag fell. The tournament director (Walter Stephens), who was standing behind the
clock, flipped it around and, looking at Reshevsky’s side of the clock (which he mistakenly thought was
Denker’s), announce “Denker forfeits!” He refused to correct his error. This erroneous ruling by the
director allowed Reshevsky to tie for first with Isaac Kashdan. Reshevsky then won the playoff match
against Kashdan 6 months later.

After World War II, Alexander Alekhine was not invited to any chess tournaments. He was accused of
converting to Nazi racial doctrines and accused of actively collaborating with the enemy. He claimed
that the Nazi articles under his name were rewritten by the Germans.
In 1954, the Argentine Chess Federation called off its national chess tournament after a chess player
punched one of the tournament directors.

In 1955, Norman Tweed Whitaker (1890-1975) was banned from chess tournaments sponsored by the
US Chess Federation (USCF), due to his shady past. Whitaker sued the USCF and the ban was revoked.

In 1961, Bobby Fischer was playing a match in Los Angeles with Samuel Reshevsky, sponsored by
Jacqueline Piatigorsky. She asked Fischer to rearrange his schedule and play his match earlier so that
she could attend the match and her husband’s concert that evening. Fischer refused to play earlier and
was forfeited.

In 1967, the organizers of the Sousse Interzonal forfeited Bobby Fischer one of his games when Fischer
requested that several of his games be rescheduled due to conflicts with starting times and his
observance of a Sabbath that ran from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. The organizers had him
scheduled to play Aivar Gipslis at 4 pm on Saturday. After an hour of no show, his game was
forefeited. Fischer returned to play the next day, but was later forfeited again for not showing up. The
organizers finally dropped him from the tournament.

In 1971, when Mark Taimanov (1926- ) returned to the USSR after losing to Bobby Fischer 6-0, he was
banned from playing outside the country for several years and was stripped of his title ‘Honored Master
of Sport.’ He was a concert pianist and was not allowed to give any more performances. He was also
banned from writing any articles and was deprived of his monthly stipend.

In August 1971, Trevor Stowe, a London chess dealer and owner of The Chess Centre, was arrested and
charged in court for indecent exhibition on display in his shop window. He was displaying 32 chess
pieces which showed couples in sexual positions. Stowe was fined $132 and had to pay court costs. I
guess it was a pawn-agraphic window display.

In July 1972, Bobby Fischer forefeited his 2nd game after failing to appear at the playing hall against
Boris Spassky. He was now down 2-0. Fischer objected to the presence of cameras, though he could
neither see them nor hear them.

In 1972, at the World Student Team championship in Graz, Austria, German Grandmaster Robert
Huebner was playing American Ken Rogoff. Huebner did not want to play the round so that he could
rest as he still had several adjourned games to play. So he played 1.c4 and offered Rogoff a draw after
the first move. Rogoff accepted. Both players signed their score sheets and presented them to the
tournament director, who refused to accept a one move draw. So the players went back to the board
and played a game where they sacrificed all their pieces, leaving just kings. Again they signed their score
sheets and handed them in to the T.D. The matter then went to the tournament committee, which
threatened to declare a double forfeit unless the players apologized and sat down to play a real
game. Rogoff agreed, but Huebner refused to comply and was forfeited. The Russians wanted a double-
forfeit, but Huebner insisted that he alone bore the penalty.

In 1973, a tournament director in Cleveland was arrested for organizing a chess tournament. Police
confiscated the chess sets on charges of allowing gambling (cash prizes to winners) and possession of
gambling devices (the chess sets).
In 1974, FIDE temporarily banned South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) from the chess Olympiad
in Nice, France, due to their apartheid practices.

On April 3, 1975, Bobby Fischer forfeited his world chess title to Anatoly Karpov because he did not like
the FIDE conditions for the match.

At the 1976 World Open in New York, a stronger player used the identity of a weaker friend in one of
the lower sections. The stronger player was winning all his games until his identity was found
out. Director Bill Goichberg had a talk with the person who disappeared before the end of the
tournament.
In 1977, South Africa was banned from FIDE events because of its continued apartheid practices. The
ban remained in effect until 1992.

In 1983, Anna Akhsharumova was playing the final round of the Soviet Women’s Chess championship
against her main competitor, Nana Ioseliani. Anna won the game on time forfeit and should have won
the title. But the next day, Ioseliani filed a protest alleging a malfunction in the chess clock. Ioseliani
demanded a new game be played. Anna refused to play, so the result of her game with Ioseliani was
reversed by the All-Union Board of Referees in Moscow (the tournament itself was being played in
Tallinn), thereby forfeiting her title. Anna went from 1st place to 3rd place over this decision.

In 1985, Nick Down, a former British Junior Correspondence champion, entered the British Ladies
Correspondence Championship as Miss Leigh Strange and won the event (and 15 British pounds along
with the Lady Herbert trophy). He then signed up to represent Britain in the Ladies Postal Olympiad. He
was later caught when one of his friends mouthed off about it and Nick confessed. The whole thing had
been cooked up by Nick Down and a group of undergraduates at Cambridge, where Nick was a
student. Nick returned the Lady Herbert trophy and was banned from the British Correspondence Chess
Association for two years.

In 1986, Israel was banned from the chess Olympiad held in the United Arab Emirates.

In 1987, Grandmaster Miguel Quinteros (1947- ) of Argentina was suspended from FIDE events for three
years for violating the FIDE ban on South Africa twice. He played a 6-game exhibition match in
Johnnesburg in 1988. Other players banned because they played chess in South Africa included Ludek
Pachman (1924-2003), Karl Robatsch (1929-2000), who was banned for one year, and Hans Kestler
(1939- ).

In 1987, Spanish writer and International Master Dr. Ricardo Calvo (1943-2002) was condemned by FIDE
and declared Persona non Grata (an unwelcome person) by a vote of 71 to 1. The penalty was imposed
for his racial attack on Latin Americans in a chess magazine. He admitted that he violated election ethics
by offering free Kasparov simultaneous exhibitions to certain countries in exchange for their voting for
Mr Lucena for FIDE president (Campomanes’ opponent) in the recent FIDE elections. He also
erroneously charged that a Latin American woman was beaten up by supporters of FIDE President
Campomanes.

In 1988, at the Saint John International, GM Kamran Shirazi was forfeited while he pondered his next
move. An arbiter reminded him of his obligation to record the moves of the game when not in time
pressure. Shirazi forgot to write down the last move and a half. Under FIDE rules, players must keep
score unless under dire time pressure. Shirazi had ½ hour on his clock. Shirazi was reminded again, and
he balked, arguing he would think first and write later. The arbiter then deducted 5 minutes from
Shirazi’s clock. Shirazi then stormed over to another arbiter for second opinion. By now, he was
forfeited and the appeals committee upheld the arbiter’s decision to remind Shirazi and deducting 5
minutes from his clock.

In 1988, undercover police arrested a chess player at a park in New York City after he won a marked $5
bill against a cop posing as a construction worker during a blitz game. The chess player was jailed for 3
days, his medication was confiscated, and he had a heart attack. The arrest was finally tossed out by a
judge. Five years later, the city settled the wrongful arrest lawsuit out of court for $100,000.

In 1989, the police raided a chess tournament in Los Angeles. The L.A.P.D. vice officers raided a nightly
chess tournament held at Dad’s Donuts. They cited three men for gambling after finding $1.50 on the
table. The police staged the raid after an undercover detective tried unsuccessfully to join a blitz chess
game. The detective then pulled out his badge and said “all of you are under arrest,” as the L.A.P.D.
swooped in.

In the 1980s, Jaan Ehlvest (1962- ) of Estonia was once banned from playing chess by the Estonian Sports
Committee after a drinking incident in Tallinn.

In the 1990s, life prisoner Claude Bloodgood (1937-2001) organized chess games in his prison in Virginia,
playing fellow inmates. He rigged the ratings of the players, and then beat all these top players in
match after match over the years. By 1996 he had a rating of 2702, the second-highest rated player in
the USA. The U.S. Chess Federation changed its rating system to prevent “closed pool” rating inflation.

In 1991, Arkady Flom, a 64-year-old grandfather was arrested in Manhattan after a young man sat down
to play chess with him in the park. The young man played so poorly that Flom would give him pointers
in exchange for $2. The young man agreed. They played for 20 more minutes and the young fellow paid
his money. As soon as Flom put the money in his pocket, four NYPD officers approached him, slapped
him in handcuffs and read him his rights. He was arrested for promoting gambling in the second degree
and for possession of a gambling device, his chess set. He later received a $100,000 settlement in a false
arrest suit against New York City as the judge ruled that a chess game was not “gambling” since it was a
game of skill rather than chance and the chess board was not “gambling equipment.”

In 1992, Grandmaster and former world junior champion Pablo Zarnicki of Argentina was disqualified
from a Dos Hermanas Internet Chess Club tournament, accused of cheating by using a computer, which
he denied.

In 1992, police in New Rochelle, NY, arrested a Louis Taylor, age 41, in a library for playing chess. Taylor
was asked to put away is chess board and pieces. He was reading a chess book and was following the
games with his own set. A librarian told him to put his game away, and when he refused, the police
ware called and arrested him. The cuffed Taylor and charged him with trespassing.

In 1992, Bobby Fischer was threatened with a fine and arrest for playing chess in Yugoslavia. Playing
chess in Yugoslavia violated George W.W. Bush’s Executive Order 12810 that implemented sanctions
engaging in economic activities in Yugoslavia. Following the match, the US Department of Treasury
obtained an arrest warrant against him. Fischer never returned to the United States for the rest of his
life.
In 1993, chess was banned from American River College in California because of disruptive behavior on
people playing in the cafeteria and library. Campus police ordered some chess players to stop playing
chess. The players refused and the campus police confiscated the chess board and pieces.

In 1993, Tim Trogdon was playing in a chess tournament in San Antonio, Texas. After the end of the first
day, he got so mad at the tournament director for poor pairings and bad tournament conditions at the
hotel, which he tore down and ripped up the pairing sheets that were posted for the next day. The
police were called and he was arrested. I bailed him out.

In July 1993, an unrated African-American player named John von Neumann (the name of a famous
computer science pioneer) was accused of cheating in the Open section of the World Open after
defeating a 2350-rated player and drawing his game with a grandmaster. The player wore headphones
and seemed to have a suspicious bulge in one of his pockets, which appeared to be making noises at
important points of the game. When he was quizzed by Bill Goichberg, the tournament director, he was
unable to demonstrate very much knowledge in some simple chess concepts. He was accused of using a
chess computer and cheating, so was disqualified. He was never seen again.

In 1993, FIDE forfeited Gary Kasparov and Nigel Short as world champion and challenger as they
organized their own chess association, the Professional Chess Association. Both players were ejected
from FIDE and their ratings no longer appeared in the FIDE rating list.

In 1994, chess was banned in Afghanistan by Taliban edicts. Anyone caught playing chess were beaten
or imprisoned. Chess was banned from 1994 through 2001.

In 1996, during a Karpov-Kamsky match in Elista, Russia, Kata Kamsky and his father, Rustam, were fined
$2,000 each over Rustam’s claim that Vasyikov and another international master, Vasily Gagarin, were
providing illegal extra help to Anatoly Karpov by feeding him game analysis. The Kamskys were ordered
to write letters of apology to Karpov and the two observers after failing to backup the accusation. When
they refuse, the appeals committee fined them.

In 1999, at the Bobingen Open, a German club player Clemens Allwermann used an earpiece linked to
Fritz to win all his games. He was subsequently exposed and returned his prize money.

In 1999, world woman champion Susan Polgar refused to accept the match conditions between her and
Xie Jun, and forfeited her title. She did not want to play the world championship match in China.

In 2001, the Oregon Department of Prisons prohibited chess books and magazines in the prisons
because it “contained code throughout.”

In 2001, Grandmaster Alexandru Crisan was accused of faking his Elo rating of 2635 (number 33 in the
world) by fixing chess matches for his own benefit and falsifying chess tournament results.

In 2002, at the Lamperthein Open tournament, a player was suspected of cheating. He was found in the
bathroom using a handheld computer which displayed a running chess program. When confronted by
the tournament director, he claimed that he was only checking his email. When he was asked to show
the computer to the T.D., he refused. He was then immediately disqualified from the tournament.
In 2002, at the World Open in Philadelphia, a Russian player was caught going outside and getting advice
from another player. His opponent followed the Russian player outside and caught him speaking in
Russian to the same man intently watching the game. They had been discussing the last move of the
game, which was heard by 30-40 onlookers. The Russian then said he would forfeit the game.

In 2003, a player was caught in the bathroom using a handheld PC with a chess program on it. He was
disqualified and the tournament director asked his chess federation to ban the player in other
tournaments.

In 2003, an inmate in Utah was prohibited from subscribing to a chess magazine because he was under
“intensive management.”

In October 2003, Grandmaster Ruslan Ponomariov and former world champion became the first GM to
forfeit a chess game because of his mobile phone. It rang during his game in round 1 of the European
Team Championship in Bulgaria. He lost his game to Evgeny Agrest (who lost a game in 2004 when his
cell phone rang) in his Ukrainian team match versus Sweden.

In 2004, FIDE vice-president Zurub Azmaiparashvili was arrested by a group of security men during the
final ceremonies of the 36th chess Olympiad in Calvia, Spain. He was approaching the stage to get
attention of FIDE President Ilyumzhinov for some chess awards that had not been given out. The
security people stepped in front of him. The Calvia police said that Zurub hit one of the security agents,
so they arrested him.

In 2004, top seed Christine Castellano was playing in the Philippine Women’s National Chess
Championship when her cell phone rang. She was disqualified from the event.

In 2005, Grandmaster Mato Damjanovic was banned from tournament play for one year for pretending
to play in a chess tournament (Kali Cup) which did not exist.

In 2005, at the HB Global Chess Challenge tournament in Minneapolis, a player was caught repeatedly
talking on his cell phone during his game. Published rules for that event prohibited the use of cell
phones during the tournament. The tournament director suspected that he was receiving moves over
the phone from some accomplice. His results were expunged from the tournament and an ethics
complaint was lodged.

In September 2005, chess master Robert Snyder was arrested in Fort Collins, Colorado on charges of
molesting his chess students. He later escaped, but US Marshals tracked him and arrested him in Belize
in 2009.

In 2006, a chess master resigned from the U.S. Chess Federation executive board after being accused of
ethics violations. He was accused of fabricating or manipulating chess tournament results to keep his
master’s rating by playing repeated games within a closed group of friends that either did not exist or
never played chess anywhere else.

In 2006, during a tournament at Subroto Park, Umakant Sharma was caught receiving instructions from
an accomplice using a chess computer via a Bluetooth-enabled device embedded in his cap. He was
banned from playing competitive chess for 10 years.
In 2006, at the World Open in Philadelphia, Steve Rosenberg was leading before the final round in one
of the sections. He was playing for $18,000 if he won his last round. But he was caught using a wireless
transmitter and receiver in his ear (Rosenberg claimed it was a hearing aid) and was disqualified from
the event.

In 2006, Vladimir Kramnik was forfeited his 5th game of the match against Veselin Topalov in the world
championship match. Kramnik arrived for the game and discovered that his bathroom was locked. He
staged a sit-in and after an hour, FIDE forfeited the game to Toplaov. Topalov had earlier filed a written
protest with the organizers charging that Kramnik was going to his private bathroom too many times
during the games. The insinuation was that Kramnik might be cheating by consulting a computer while
in the bathroom, the only room with no cameras.

In 2006-2007, many forged email posts were made on the Internet targeting several U.S. Chess
Federation members and candidates in the upcoming USCF election. The fake identities were alleged
to come from Susan Polgar, former world women’s chess champion and a board member of the USCF,
and her husband, Paul Truong. In 2009, both were removed from the executive board of the
USCF. Their webmaster, Gregory Alexander, was indicted by a federal grand jury on 34 counts of email
hacking and one count of aggravated identity theft.

In 2007, a team of home-schooled students who won the 2006 Arizona Scholastic Championship was
banned from the 2007 championship. Rules were changed to not allow home-schooled students from
participating. Only public and private schools were allowed to participate in the event.

In 2007, during a Dutch League match, the team captain of one of the teams was caught using a
PDA. The player had walked outside the playing room, with permission, to get some fresh air. An
arbiter followed him and caught him using Pocket Fritz. The player was banned from playing in the
Dutch league for two years.

In 2007, Krzysztof Ejsmont of Poland was expelled from the Tadeusz Gniot Memorial tournament after 7
rounds for “unsportive play.” He was accused of using a chess program to make his moves.

In January 2008, GM Ben Finegold won his game at the Mid America Open chess tournament when his
opponent’s cell phone went off during their game.

In 2008, Ivan Cheparinov forfeited his game at Wijk aan Zee for not shaking hands with his opponent,
Nigel Short.

In 2008, at the Dubai Open, M. Sadatnajafi was caught receiving suggested moves by text message on
his mobile phone. He was disqualified from the tournament.

In September 2008, Nigel Short was penalized because his cell phone went off. Short (2655) was
forfeited from his game against Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (2448) after 26 moves. Short actually turned
off his cell phone, but there was a ring tone that went off when the phone had a low batter. The phone
played a theme to remind the owner to charge it.

In 2008, GM Vassily Ivanchuk was supposed to have been penalized for missing a drug test at the
Dresden chess Olympiad after the final round. Due to a procedural error, an official Doping Control
Officer was not present, he was not penalized. The penalty would have been a two-year ban from all
FIDE chess tournaments. Ivanchuk declined to provide a urine sample after losing the last round to GM
Gata Kamsky, saying it was an insult to his intelligence and honor. Ivanchuk then stormed out of the
room in the conference center, kicked a concrete pillar in the lobby, pounded a countertop in the
cafeteria with his fists and then vanished into the coatroom.

In 2009, during the Australian Norths Chess Club Century Year chess tournament , a 14-year-old boy was
caught using a hand-held chess computer in the bathroom. The boy was expelled from the tournament
and banned for 2 years by the Australian Chess Federation.

In September 2009, Grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev was playing in the Kolkata Open. He appeared for
his round 3 games in an intoxicated state, fell asleep at the board and forfeited his game.

In 2009, in a match between Bulgaria and England, the Bulgarian Grandmaster Alexander Delchev’s cell
phone went off, leading to an immediate forfeit of the game.

In July 2009, Gregory Alexander, an assistant to grandmaster Susan Polgar, was arrested in San Francisco
for computer fraud and identity theft in stealing email messages between US Chess Federation (USCF)
members.

In 2009, Indian Grandmaster G.N. Gopal was banned for one year in all India events for failing to appear
in the National Championship. The ban was later revoked.

In 2009, Grandmaster Susan Polgar and her husband, Paul Truong, were banned from the USCF after
being accused of posting nasty remarks on the Internet in the name of another chess player.

In 2009, at the Aeroflot Open, GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan, the top seed, lost quickly to
Igor Kurnosov of Russia. After the game, Mamedyarov accused his opponent of cheating, saying that his
opponent went to the bathroom after every move, taking his coat with him. Mamedyarov said he
examined the game against the computer program Rybka, and that every move in the game matched
the computer’s recommendations every time. Kurnosov’s pockets were searched, and the organizers
only found cigarettes, a lighter and a pen in his pockets. After the protest, Mamedyarov withdrew from
the tournament and Kurnosov was allowed to finish the tournament.

In January 2010, FIDE banned the Peruvian National Chess Team from all international competition
because of a debt of 7,800 euros owed to FIDE as membership dues.

In October 2010, seven chess players were fined $50 for playing chess in Inwood Hill Park in
Manhattan. They were playing on stone chess tables with a sign nearby saying that the chess tables
were off limits to adults unaccompanied by minors. The charges were finally dismissed in April, 2011.

In 2010, at the Khanty-Mansiysk chess Olympiad, three French players were caught in a scheme to use a
computer program to decide moves. IM Cyril Marzolo followed the tournament at home and used a
computer program to decide the best moves. He would then send the moves by SMS to another player,
IM Arnaud Hauchard. Hauchard would then signal to another player, GM Sebasstian Feller, to make a
certain move. Phone bill records were examined showing over 150 text messages to one player and
another 30 text messages to the other player. They were caught and Feller and Marzolo were give 5-
year suspensions. Hauchard was given a lifetime suspension. The players were accused of cheating in
two other tournaments in 2010, the Paris Open and the Bienne Open.
At the 2010 chess Olympiad, the Yemeni team lost scored 0-4 after refusing to sit down across from the
Israeli team.

In 2011, Rybka, the best chess-playing computer program in the world, was disqualified and banned for
the plagiarizing of two other chess engines, Crafty and Fruit. Its author, International Master Vasik
Rajlich, was told to return all trophies and prize money back to the International Computer Games
Association (IGCA), which governs the World Computer Chess Championships. On June 29, 2011, after a
5-0 vote, Rybka was stripped of its titles, and Rajlich has now been banned for life in playing in computer
chess championships. The ICGA disqualified and banned Rybka and its programmer, Rajlich, from
previous and future World Computer Chess Championships. Rajlich has denied using other code, saying
that Rybka is 100% original at the source code level. Further allegations have been made that Rajlich
violated the Gnu Public License (GPL ) based on a decompilation effort by chess programmer Zach
Wegner.

The ICGA has demanded that Rajlich return the four replicas of the Shannon trophy (World Computer
Championshop Trophy) and prize money of the World Computer Chess Championships of 2007, 2008,
2009, and 2010.

In 2011, during the German Chess Championship, FIDE master Christop Natsidis used a chess program
on his smartphone. He later admitted that he had cheated and was disqualified from the championship.
In 2011, FIDE suspended the Bangladesh Chess Federation following the unpaid dues of 35,000 Turkish
dollars. FIDE also removed all the rated chess players of Bangladesh from the FIDE website. This was
the second time that the Bangladesh Chess Federation was suspended for not paying their dues.

In 2011, Grandmaster Eshan Ghaem Maghami was disqualified from a chess tournament in Corsica after
he refused to play his 4th round opponent, Israeli FIDE master Ehud Shachar.

In 2012, 6 players from Soviet Georgia were all forced to forfeit their games at the European
championship. They failed to arrive at the boards on time after setting their clocks wrong at Daylight
Savings Time.

In 2012, Grandmaster Mamedyarov was forfeited his game at the European Chess Championship when
he arrived at his board 10 seconds after the officially stated start time. Later, he and his opponent were
forfeited for agreeing to a draw in 19 moves. Mamedyarov then immediately quit the tournament and
left.

In 2012, a player, Clark Smiley, was caught using a chess engine (Fritz) on a PDA during the Virginia
Scholastic and Collegiate Championships. The player was disqualified from the tournament, had his
membership to the Virginia Chess Federation (VCF) revoked, and had an ethics complaint filed to the
USCF. Smiley was given permission to use the PDA device to keep a digital record of each move using
eNotate – but only for that purpose. But he also had a chess engine installed on the device and was
using that to make his moves.

In October 2012, a German grandmaster, Falko Bindrich, was suspected of cheating at the German
Bundesliga team match by using an analysis program on his smartphone. He refused to be searched or
turn over his smartphone, whereupon his game was declared lost. Bindrich claimed that there was
private and corporate confidential information on his phone. The German Chess Federation issued a 2-
year suspension on Bindrich.

In 2012, GM Suat Atalik of Turkey was given a 15-month ban from international play by the Turkish
Chess Federation. The ban was a result of his refusal to sign a Turkish Chess Federation document
stating that he is responsible for all financial consequences of his participation in chess tournaments
abroad. Further, that he will “act in accordance with the responsibilities of a national athlete” and won’t
commit “any activity against the Turkish Republic.”

In 2013, Loris Cereda, a former mayor of Buccinasco, near Milan, was found guilty of cheating at chess
and was banned from the Italian Chess Federation. He was caught using dark glasses that had been
fitted with a hidden micro camera. The glasses sent live images of his opponent’s moves to a chess
computer that then dictated through a secret earpiece the strongest response.

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