PERSPECTIVES 
by Burt Hochberg

How Can I Cheat Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

Remember Grandmaster Milan Matulovic? During his game with
Hungarian GM Istvan Bilek in the 1967 Sousse Interzonal,
Matulovic, after making a move, realized immediately that it
would have lost the game and hastily retracted it. When Bilek
protested, Matulovic said "*Ich spreche j'adoube*" ("I said
j'adoube"). Bilek complained to the referee but to no avail.
Matulovic got his comeuppance, however, not that he cared. He
was derided by the entire chess world and shunned even by his
own countrymen. His flagrant cheating has been memorialized in
the nickname by which he will forever be remembered
"J'adoubovic."

("J'adoube," an archaic French term, has an interesting history. In
France in the Middle Ages, if a servant while dressing his knight in
shining armor inadvertently touched his master's actual person, a
serious taboo, he would hurriedly say "j'adoube" to explain that he
meant no disrespect but was merely making an adjustment and
would appreciate it very much if the knight would be gracious
enough not to eviscerate him.)

Chess is an "open" game. Since all the forces for both sides are
exposed and the moves of each player made in full view of the
opponent, the game would seem to offer few opportunities for
cheating. But in fact cheating in chess is common at all levels and
in myriad ways, on the board and off, by amateurs, professionals,
organizers, and officials. By cheating I mean not only over-
the-board chicanery like not moving a touched piece but all forms
of dishonest or dishonorable behavior designed to unfairly
influence the outcome of a game or tournament.

Even Benjamin Franklin, one of the most deified of American
statesmen-heroes, was being less than honorable when he
recommended (in his 1786 essay "Morals of Chess") that a player
should try to situate himself so that the light shines in the
opponent's eyes. Is this cheating? Maybe that's too strong a word,
but because it attempts to obtain an unfair advantage by distracting
the opponent, Franklin's suggestion is at best unsportsmanlike.

Other examples abound. Tigran Petrosian liked to waggle his legs
nervously under the table, and the more annoyed his opponents
became, the more he waggled. Rubbing it in, he would turn off his
hearing aid so that their complaints fell literally on deaf ears.
Mikhail Tal used to glare intensely at his opponents, and if you've
ever faced those huge maniacal eyes and wild hair you know how
unsettling his stare could be. Kasparov's fierce stare is said to be
similarly intimidating. Emanuel Lasker's cigar-smoking infuriated
some of his opponents. (Quite understandably, I might add. The
current idiotic fad of sucking on $10 Stinko Grande cigars because
it's supposed to look cool infuriates *me*. Why anyone would
want to smell like a fetid swamp while endangering his own health
and that of everyone around him is beyond understanding.)

A certain American international master who was known for his
opening erudition had some tricks of his own. Though they
wouldn't work against experienced players in serious tournaments,
they found more than a few victims in amateur open events. After
obtaining a lost position against a much lower rated opponent (this
happened to him often enough, since he never learned that
memorization of the openings isn't much help in the middlegame
and endgame), the IM made his move, stopped his clock (starting
his opponent's), said to his opponent "Nice game," picked up his
scoresheet, and left the table. His opponent, befuddled by his good
fortune, left the table to post his win. Not long afterward he learned
that he had lost by time forfeit! The poor dope had failed to stop
his own clock.

The same IM also had a cute method for circumventing the rule
regarding draw offers. The rule in effect thirty years ago (it may
have changed since then) went something like this. A player may
offer a draw only when it is his move and his clock is running.
After stopping his clock, his draw offer remains in effect until the
opponent either accepts it verbally or declines it verbally or by
making his next move. The player may not offer a draw a second
time unless the opponent has in the meantime offered a draw
himself. Our friend, inventively disregarding this rule, would ask
his opponent, "Are you playing for a draw?" Since this was
technically not an actual draw offer, there was nothing to prevent
him from harassing his opponent by saying it repeatedly.

I have had opponents who constantly adjusted the pieces to distract
and annoy me. I have often seen players blatantly disregard the
rules of competition by talking to their opponents ("So you play
the Dutch, eh? It's been refuted, you know.") or to other players. It
is *very* common for players in open competitions to ask for and
receive advice from their friends during play. Any experienced
tournament director can tell you stories about players who retire to
the bathroom to consult their notes during a game.

Cheating is neither new nor secret, though it isn't much talked
about except when it's done by high officials or when the stakes are
high. Reports about "block voting" in the ice dancing competition
at the Nagano Winter Olympics reminded me Bobby Fischer's
claim of "block cheating" by the Soviet players at the Curacao
candidates' tournament in 1962. "There was open collusion
between the Russian players," Fischer said. "They agreed ahead of
time to draw the games they played against each other. Every time
they drew they gave each other half a point." Fischer, for his part,
struggled against the unfair disadvantage of having to fight for a
win in every game to keep abreast of the leaders.

Institutionalized cheating has become so common that almost no
one protests anymore. GM Larry Evans, in an article about the
1987 FIDE Congress in Dubai, wrote"The USSR was embarrassed
to discover that their women's world champ Maya Chiburdanidze
was rated behind Hungarian prodigy Susan Polgar. How to solve
the problem? Simple. Vote to raise all women's ratings by 100
points--*all except Polgar*, who was frozen at 2495 while the
Soviet star surged past her to the top of the rating list at 2530
without pushing a pawn.... The rigged ratings apparently were part
of a deal between the Soviets and FIDE president Florencio
Campomanes of the Philippines, who desperately needed their
support in a bitter reelection campaign."

The result of Evans's protest? Nada. Life goes on. Business as
usual.

How many international grandmasters "earned" their titles in weak
local tournaments set up by FIDE to bring organized chess to
chess-deprived countries (and to fill its own coffers)? How many
of those titles, and others, were obtained by prearranging games or
in exchange for cash money or other considerations? It's all in a
good cause, supposedly, so who cares?

Do you?

Copyright 1998 Burt Hochberg. All Rights Reserved. 