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Lyle Craver
08-09-2020, 03:16 PM
This has been a big item both in chess internationally and in society generally. I look forward to your feedback

Vladimir Drkulec
08-16-2020, 11:49 AM
Over the board chess activity has come to a grinding halt because of a pandemic that ultimately came from a cave in China. Small world with big consequences.

We hope that there is a vaccine on the way but there is nothing that is certain at the moment. If the pandemic continues and persists for more than a few more months it could have some long-lasting effects. The first priority has to be safety and good hygiene. We don't want to lose any chess players of any age but especially at risk are the older ones and the ones who have underlying conditions. We have to wear masks and refrain from customs like shaking hands that were once a central feature of the chess ritual. We are in a good position financially because we were fiscally prudent when things were going well for us. We have moved to online CFC rated play and we have created a path to rating gains through online play but the first steps have been fraught with some challenges including some cheating scandals. We are on it but when we start dealing with that we must tread carefully as careless actions can lead to needless legal expenses.

In a financial crisis we need to understand as our governments do that the financial equations at least temporarily change. We need to pay closer attention to our financials but not our net income which is a bit of an accounting fiction. For instance we lowered net income by moving more money from that number into a reserve to pay for the Olympiad. The key thing which is important is our cash position which we will need to continue to operate with much less money coming in. The greatest sin in such a turnaround situation is to run out of cash.

Before covid we were talking about moving money from our current accounts and into the foundation because we have about $90,000 (or did at the end of the last fiscal year) in our accounts. If covid continues for eight months and disappears we will burn through much of this cash because there are still expenses and Bob Gillanders has to eat and we have to pay him. We can use this time to prepare for when OTB chess reopens and we can get ready and build infrastructure. If the crisis persists much beyond this we will have additional problems to solve but we are in a battle for survival here and we need to win.

We should be able to secure some money from the government which will help in the form of a $10,000 grant and a $30,000 loan and there is $45,000 or so held in trust in the foundation and administered by the foundation trustees. We might need to access this if the situation drags on but if we are contemplating that we will probably need to take some more drastic actions at that point. If we pay the loan back on time we get to keep $10,000 which will cover about one month and a half maybe in expenses. We should apply for the loan even if we intend to repay it immediately.

Roger Langen
08-16-2020, 11:59 AM
Can you elaborate a little on the cheating scandals or direct me to where information exists about it?

Vladimir Drkulec
08-16-2020, 12:48 PM
We can't elaborate too much for legal reasons. I am aware of three or four situations mostly involving young children. Two admitted their cheating when confronted. One situation is ongoing and I believe there is one new situation which was dealt with by the policy which we have developed. Also the online chess servers have been suspending players when cheating is detected. In some cases there is some doubt about their criteria but in other cases the cheating is a bit obvious like someone who is a 1000 rated player losing pieces left and right and not taking pieces when the opponent blunders and that player suddenly playing at master level. While there is a possibility of rapid improvement with the right training it is not likely to happen that someone goes from blundering every other move to beating a master or expert in the course of a week.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-16-2020, 12:50 PM
The following thread on the CFC forum deals with this online cheating topic. The first post is quoted here.

http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/showthread.php?5416-Preliminary-Policy-on-Online-CFC-rated-games

The CFC is continuing to work on details of Online Chess regulations. Especially troubling are the allegations of cheating. The following is our current policy.

Any player found guilty of violating a site's Fair-Play policy during a CFC Rated tournament is subject to the following standard suspension from CFC rated online play.
Age under 12 = 4 months

Age under 16 = 8 months
Others = 12 months
Some organizers may have a Fair-Play Committee consisting of strong players to assess games in place of or in addition to the above (relying on a site's policy). Any players found to have received outside assistance by such a Committee will also be subjected to the same penalties.


Any player who has their account closed for a fair-play violation will not be able to play in CFC tournaments in the future on that site, by simply creating a new account, without permission of the site.
There is an Appeals process. The appeals fee is $100 to be paid to the CFC Business Office, and will be refunded if the appeal is successful. Exact details will be determined case by case but will involve the game(s) being re-evaluated using anti-cheating software and expert opinion. The player may be asked to play supervised games to evaluate his ability, and assess his claims of innocence. Any additional costs involved in the appeal will be the responsibility of the player and are non-refundable.

Nikolay Noritsyn
08-16-2020, 03:38 PM
Regarding cheating - I would suggest that chess.com can be trusted to catch the obvious cheaters with their program. lichess - not so much. CFC should also have a team of volunteer experts that can be asked to look and analyze the games to see if cheating is a possibility. "Some organizers may have a Fair-Play Committee consisting of strong players" is not good enough - how strong and experienced with computer cheating are those strong players exactly? I would argue that ~2000 CFC is not enough.

Re what the CFC is doing/not doing... CFC could certainly organize, lets say - online Canadian blitz championship, other events. Why not?

Roger Langen
08-16-2020, 05:04 PM
Okay, thanks.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-16-2020, 06:58 PM
Regarding cheating - I would suggest that chess.com can be trusted to catch the obvious cheaters with their program. lichess - not so much. CFC should also have a team of volunteer experts that can be asked to look and analyze the games to see if cheating is a possibility. "Some organizers may have a Fair-Play Committee consisting of strong players" is not good enough - how strong and experienced with computer cheating are those strong players exactly? I would argue that ~2000 CFC is not enough.

Re what the CFC is doing/not doing... CFC could certainly organize, lets say - online Canadian blitz championship, other events. Why not?

We could but it might be hard in the middle of this 8 day long meeting. There are projects being discussed and that have been approved which will be announced shortly.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-16-2020, 07:01 PM
I don't know about Lichess but we have been getting a lot of possible false positives on chess.com though having nothing to do with CFC events so not in our wheelhouse.

If you are volunteering for such an assignment we'd love to have you.

Nikolay Noritsyn
08-16-2020, 09:20 PM
I don't know about Lichess but we have been getting a lot of possible false positives on chess.com though having nothing to do with CFC events so not in our wheelhouse.

If you are volunteering for such an assignment we'd love to have you.

If you are able to set up a system of clear rules on what happens when "Any player found guilty" but where the player does not concede that he has indeed cheated - I will gladly volunteer to analyze games and give my opinion on possible cheating. Until then, I don't feel comfortable of being responsible for someone who is possibly not guilty being banned.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-16-2020, 09:24 PM
If you are able to set up a system of clear rules on what happens when "Any player found guilty" but where the player does not concede that he has indeed cheated - I will gladly volunteer to analyze games and give my opinion on possible cheating. Until then, I don't feel comfortable of being responsible for someone who is possibly not guilty being banned.

We will keep that in mind. Thank you.

Paul Leblanc
08-16-2020, 10:06 PM
I only have experience with chess.com screening for cheating in our BCCF tournaments and they seem to do a good job.
I think we're asking for trouble if we set up our own complaints department. Why not accept the service provider's
judgement and spare us the agony of arguments and appeals?

Vladimir Drkulec
08-16-2020, 10:19 PM
I only have experience with chess.com screening for cheating in our BCCF tournaments and they seem to do a good job.
I think we're asking for trouble if we set up our own complaints department. Why not accept the service provider's
judgement and spare us the agony of arguments and appeals?


Right now if the chess server bans the player for play during a CFC rated event they are automatically banned for a period of time from CFC online events. The problem is that they go elsewhere on a different server and play and possibly cheat again. They can't do that because they are banned for a period of time. If we don't take this action, we can't have online play CFC rated. No one will play online if cheating is rampant.

Aris Marghetis
08-17-2020, 08:28 AM
I only have experience with chess.com screening for cheating in our BCCF tournaments and they seem to do a good job.
I think we're asking for trouble if we set up our own complaints department. Why not accept the service provider's
judgement and spare us the agony of arguments and appeals?

So at first I thought similarly, but then I got access to some documentation (not chess.com specific) that explained the statistical approach more thoroughly.

Now, I am not a stats guy, but it seems the challenge is that whereas such processes work quite well at the upper end (like someone playing at a 3000 level is clearly unlikely), people getting auto-caught at the lower levels may include false positives. I know of at least three Canadian cases that are currently escalating through American tribunals to get their online suspensions overturned. In all of those cases, we're looking at juniors who seemed to be improving too quickly.

Finally, in regards to your last sentence regarding arguments and appeals, well as soon as we start taking online platform suspensions and extending them into CFC suspensions, well then we are going to be hit with arguments and appeals. So, as I've previously provided internally, we need some kind of appeals process:

from an internal email of mine last month:

SOLUTION: This is something that the pending CFC Online Committee could develop fullycompletely. In a nutshell, when someone is "caught" cheating based on"statistical evidence", that they can appeal to have theirskill level ratified. The most obvious way is that they provethemselves at an OTB event. However, even without that, we could set thefollowing online:

1) player must be on a Zoom call (or equivalent features)
2) with camera on for video
3) with microphone on too
4) with sharing of full screen
5) allowing Zoom Host "RemoteControl" (for random Task Manager checks)
6) absolutely no headphones nor anything else near/in ears
7) second camera behind the player, capturing most of the room, under desk, etc.
8) no more than one bathroom break per hour

Vladimir Drkulec
08-17-2020, 09:13 AM
Regulation of bathroom breaks is a bit iffy and might violate human rights laws against discrimination against people with certain disabilities. When you gotta go, you gotta go. Some people have to take diuretics for high blood pressure or other reasons and one break per hour might not be enough. As an IT person the only way I would hand someone control of my computer would be if I had a computer that I used only for playing chess and nothing else ever. I would probably wipe the computer and reinstall the operating system after each tournament which might not be feasible.

None of those cases in that appeal involve CFC rated chess so they are not even within our jurisdiction.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-17-2020, 11:28 AM
Due to a rash of account closings in April I posted the following:

http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/showthread.php?5354-Chess-com-and-allegations-of-cheating-resulting-in-account-suspension

With everyone going online to play chess when regular over the board play is largely impossible, a trend has emerged.

First off, chess.com has countermeasures which will catch cheating. I am not fully aware of what they are but some of them can result in a false positive for cheating.

Most of the false positives seem to be centred around a certain behaviour.

I am not omniscient but a number of kids who I know to be of good character have been caught up in this accusation of cheating. When I question their parents, the facts of the case seem to boil down to the same or similar circumstance. They opened a new window on their desktop or changed the focus from the chess.com window that they were using and opened something else on their desktop. In one case the boy was doing homework in word at the same time as playing a game. This is not advisable as a practice but it is hardly cheating. Long ago I recall one of my good friends doing his homework while playing an over the board game. In another case, the girl found the game a bit slow and boring so she was watching a movie at the same time as she was playing a slow game, again in a different tab or window on her browser. So if you do this you are likely to draw attention and an accusation, particularly if you play particularly well in the game in question.

Chess.com has the capability to analyze every game though I am occasionally skeptical of the results of this analysis particularly when it says that I played a game with very high accuracy on the order of 98%. My komodo engine usually gives slightly lower evaluations.

Chess.com usually offers a way to reinstate your account. Their immediate offer is that you can get your frozen account back, if you admit to the cheating. If you actually did cheat, this is probably the way to go. If you did not cheat, do not admit to a crime that you did not commit. Appeal the suspension.

In a communist or socialist country if you are tortured and induced to confess to your crimes, admitting to crimes you didn't commit usually meant that you immediately or after a period of time disappeared or were killed for those non-existent crimes. If you declined to admit your "crimes" you usually did not die. I think the torturers and those behind the charges had to fill out more paperwork if they killed someone who did not confess and presumably there was a lot of that paperwork. Later when the regimes fell, the paperwork would still be around to help convict the overzealous torturer and their bosses. In a similar vein, if the police or prosecutors charge you with a crime you didn't commit, you often hear of false confessions for crimes the supposed guilty parties could not have committed. This is usually a very bad idea.

Pierre Dénommée
08-17-2020, 11:36 AM
5) allowing Zoom Host "RemoteControl" (for random Task Manager checks)


There are too many security risks involved with giving total remote access to a computer. I agree with Vlad. Another option would be to restore your computer from a saved backup image image from an external hard drive.

Even if I thrust you, your computer could be infected by a malware or someone else could already be in control of your computer. Allowing remote control to anybody is unsafe. This can never be done on a computer with a hard drive full of sensitive information. Furthermore, it would be easy to fool the system by running any operating system in virtuabox. You would be remotely controlling the virtual machine, but the cheater could easily use the host computer to cheat.

The player could be running Linux or BSD in which case the way in which the task manager is accessed would be different.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-17-2020, 12:02 PM
There are too many security risks involved with giving total remote access to a computer. I agree with Vlad. Another option would be to restore your computer from a saved backup image image from an external hard drive.

Even if I thrust you, your computer could be infected by a malware or someone else could already be in control of your computer. Allowing remote control to anybody is unsafe. This can never be done on a computer with a hard drive full of sensitive information. Furthermore, it would be easy to fool the system by running any operating system in virtuabox. You would be remotely controlling the virtual machine, but the cheater could easily use the host computer to cheat.

The player could be running Linux or BSD in which case the way in which the task manager is accessed would be different.

Yes, images would be one way to do it. I have some old Dell boxes lying around that have XP or Windows 7 with reinstallation disks and I had gotten reinstalling the operating system and all drivers down to a science. I have used cloned disk images extensively but in the case of Dell the disks provided by the manufacturers seem to be just as quick.

Anyway, giving access to your primary computer that you do banking and such to anyone else is such a VERY BAD IDEA. Same goes for sharing your email passwords or PIN.

One reason that I only use the president@chess.ca account rarely is that others have access and it is not secure.

Aris Marghetis
08-17-2020, 02:23 PM
There are too many security risks involved with giving total remote access to a computer. I agree with Vlad. Another option would be to restore your computer from a saved backup image image from an external hard drive.

Even if I thrust you, your computer could be infected by a malware or someone else could already be in control of your computer. Allowing remote control to anybody is unsafe. This can never be done on a computer with a hard drive full of sensitive information. Furthermore, it would be easy to fool the system by running any operating system in virtuabox. You would be remotely controlling the virtual machine, but the cheater could easily use the host computer to cheat.

The player could be running Linux or BSD in which case the way in which the task manager is accessed would be different.

Yes, I understand and appreciate your point. I guess if the rear-side camera is good enough, we can skip this step, and replace it instead with something like:

"the overseeing CFC rep can at any time ask the player to show his Task Manager"

Another possibility, which was Fred's good idea, especially as the pandemic winds down, is that the appealing player is simply matched against a CFC rep to play against, in a semi-public place (can include a local chess club). As long as there's a way for an appealing player to prove themselves without any cheating doubt.

The CFC rep-player would be appointed by the CFC, which could actually be a new CFC Online Commitee that receives appeals to Fair Play -related suspensions.

Egidijus Zeromskis
08-17-2020, 03:10 PM
Our club organized the "slow" online event (though not the CFC rated yet, as it was a tryout). One of the members got banned. Seems he was new the chess.com and they believed that he can not play that good. At the end chess.com suggested to create a new account and move one.
Other occasion my opponent was banned because he played too well to chess.com thinking. At the end chess.com put the title to his name and restored his nickname.
On the third case, I suspected that the player played too good for a human. After several days the person's account was closed.
Conclusion - cheating happens, with the human intervention it is possible to resolve some situations.

Discussions on the supervision - I hope there will be reduced requirements of supervision for the club style CFC rated games. In OTB games the arbiter is a player too. The same might be in online tournaments.

Pierre Dénommée
08-17-2020, 09:45 PM
Yes, I understand and appreciate your point. I guess if the rear-side camera is good enough, we can skip this step, and replace it instead with something like:

Another possibility, which was Fred's good idea, especially as the pandemic winds down, is that the appealing player is simply matched against a CFC rep to play against, in a semi-public place (can include a local chess club). As long as there's a way for an appealing player to prove themselves without any cheating doubt.

The CFC rep-player would be appointed by the CFC, which could actually be a new CFC Online Commitee that receives appeals to Fair Play -related suspensions.

That would be nice if the player plays consistently. More then one game should be played if the player is inconsistent. I agree that fighting cheating in the lower levelz is error prone. As a former member of the Rule Commission ounce told me : FIDE makes rules for serious players (read high rated players). This is why you will not see a rule for intentional illegal moves for example. Professional chess players do not risk their reputation doing that. The FIDE anti cheating rules also targets serious play. Statistical analysis is much better with more games and serious players have their games in databases. For weaker players, we may have to contact their opponents in OTB tournaments to get real games.

We cannot give-up because the task is hard. I was part of the team that caught the first convicted Quebec OTB cheater and I can confirm that is not easy to obtain the required level of confidence.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-17-2020, 10:04 PM
In some cases it is very obvious. Literally blundering ten or more times in every game and a week or two later playing like a master.

Jose Fernandez Triana
08-17-2020, 10:51 PM
Interesting discussion so far about the online cheating issue.

For what is worth, I have played extensively in FICS since at least 2008, Chess.com since at least 2010, and Lichess since last year. And I have played in 7 CFC-rated online tournaments (mind you with not much success :-) and many non-rated but still CFC-organized evening tournaments/arenas. And I have never found that opening other windows or programs (much less unrelated programs such as Word) would raise any suspicion of cheating. I used to play in Chess.com while listening to music in Youtube and also while doing some work (Word. Excel and an specific program related to my real job as a scientist), or reading news in CBC. I do not think those things actually helped my chess play (probably the contrary!), but I never experienced any problem with a false positive of cheating because of multiple windows opened.

Lately, when I have played in CFC-rated events I have decided to close all windows/programs except for the one where the tournament is being held (Lichess or Chess.com). But not because of fear of false positives for cheating, but because we have experienced (and I wrote "we" because it happened to several players in at least a couple of those CFC-rated tournaments) sometimes minor problems with the online platform where the games were being held. For example, I have experienced two times that the game would start (in Lichess) and I could not see the pieces on the (virtual) board, so that was forced to play blind for a few moves -until someone in the tournament kindly advise me to close everything and restart the entire thing. I was lucky that those cases happened while in Lichess (as that suggestion works in Lichess), but actually in Chess.com if you close its window it is considered as abandoning the game and you lose... Bottom line, there are indeed technical problems (not responsibilities of CFC or the individual player) and I am sure that more will appear (and others may have experienced worse problems than mine). But I am not 100% sold on the fear of being falsely caught "cheating" just because there are other programs opened, and I wondered if that has been used as an excuse some times...

In the two examples that I am aware of cheating (concerning the CFC), I lost two games versus two players on a non rated evening arena with the Maritime Chess Club (I do not know the names and do not need nor want to know the names of those involved, but apparently they were young players). I did not even suspect of any foul play, but the next day I received a notification from Lichess saying that I had been in two games with two cheaters and thus Lichess awarded me a few extra points for those two unfair loses I had versus them. For me, I was fine and willing to forgive that, as long as they could be educated on how wrong that was and not to repeat it in the future. Perhaps some young players do not fully realize that looking at some chess engine for help while playing online is cheating, perhaps they did it "for fun" without bad intentions per se, perhaps some more education and awareness is needed... I am not judging at all, but my point here is that a) Lichess caught them right away, and b) they apparently did cheat, it was not a false positive.

I am sure that there are more serious examples, and for sure adults are as prone to cheat as young players (and I guess that I would be less forgiving to adults). In any case, there will always be obstacles and no one can fully prevent nor detect cheating. Not even OTB is exempt of that, although obviously online chess is more prone to that. But we must persevere and continue trying to improve the ways to catch cheating.

I generally like the ideas that have been discussed so far, and having some general guidelines for CFC-rated events indeed helps. We could also search for what others have been doing in other countries (I remember a recent post in this Forum where someone shared a pdf article about this situation in England). We can learn from others and from previous experiences on the issue.

I agree with Aris that perhaps a commission should be created to deal with this, and some general guidelines are needed.

I also want to express my most sincere gratitude and appreciation to all TDs that have already organized CFC-rated online tournaments. You are indeed pioneers and your awesome work should be more recognized and celebrated.

Cheers,
Jose

Pierre Dénommée
08-17-2020, 11:04 PM
In some cases it is very obvious. Literally blundering ten or more times in every game and a week or two later playing like a master.

Cheaters are like thieves. There are wise thieves and dumb thieves. On thief did try to enter by the air duct, got struck, was saved by the Fire Department and was arrested immediately. Another thief stole banks in Germany and in France without any disguise and is in jail because of the security cameras. Some thieves are much wiser.

Some cheaters are easy to catch because they are reckless. The Quebec cheater was wise enough not to cheat in FIDE rated events where controls are stricter and a win against a GM would have have been very suspicious, much more suspicious then a win against an higher rated amateur player. Dr, Reagan conclusion was that the player has been clean in FIDE rated events.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-18-2020, 12:33 AM
Cheaters are like thieves. There are wise thieves and dumb thieves. On thief did try to enter by the air duct, got struck, was saved by the Fire Department and was arrested immediately. Another thief stole banks in Germany and in France without any disguise and is in jail because of the security cameras. Some thieves are much wiser.

Some cheaters are easy to catch because they are reckless. The Quebec cheater was wise enough not to cheat in FIDE rated events where controls are stricter and a win against a GM would have have been very suspicious, much more suspicious then a win against an higher rated amateur player. Dr, Reagan conclusion was that the player has been clean in FIDE rated events.

In the case of very young children who are not of an age where their moral character is fully formed, I would not be so harsh. Kids make mistakes and impulsive decisions and sometimes are spoiled and not accustomed to being told no. They want to win at all costs and get angry when they can't win every game. Our job is to guide them back on the right path.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-19-2020, 12:16 PM
Just in my email is a letter from FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich:

"Dear chess friends,

I believe there is a consensus that computer-assisted cheating is a real plague of contemporary chess.

We have already taken strong steps to enhance our efficiency in fighting it, including strengthening analytical tools, using detectors and scanners in all official FIDE events, training arbiters, finding a right legal basis, and having a dedicated team working on these matters.

The online chess boom brought new challenges, and although the number of suspicious cases is fairly low, FIDE must act vigorously, sending a clear message to potential violators in order to create a secure environment in our competitions.

We work together with the leading online chess platforms. We have adjusted the algorithms used for online play. Having a lot of data, we sharpened our statistical methods – and in these regards, I’d like to thank Professor Ken Reagan, who keeps improving his algorithm – and those who think his method does not work against the so-called smart cheaters, they will be surprised.

We must act, and I want to emphasize that FIDE will be ready for the ensuing legal challenges.

However, I feel that we need a broad consensus on the measures applied. Below are the main questions we would like to have your opinion on:

1. Our methods of detection, although very advanced and ever-improving, can't provide a 100% confirmation. In many cases, the probability estimated is higher than the one for DNA tests. Do you believe a statistical algorithm (or a combination of those) giving close to 100% probability of cheating could stand as sufficient grounds for banning a player? If yes - what odds would you find sufficient?

2. Shall FIDE apply sanctions for alleged online violations to over-the-board-play (and vice versa)?

3. Shall we apply sanctions for alleged violations at platforms’ own events, and other unofficial online events, to official FIDE online events (and vice versa)?

4. Shall we publish the names of alleged violators after the very first conviction?

5. Shall the violators be punished retroactively, with their prize money, rating and titles been revoked for some period preceding the verdict? And, if yes, how far back should these actions go?

6. What would you consider a reasonable banning period for first-time violators, and for repeat offenders? How strict should be the measures in youth competitions?

There are many questions and some of them are related to the moral and legal aspects of the subject. Having a fair and transparent system will require a trusted framework. The worst thing to do would be to accuse and ban an innocent player.

Likewise, the reputation of chess and our global chess family could suffer tremendous damage if a tsunami of scandals and court procedures starts to overshadow the exciting environment of international chess competitions. We must be strict, but responsible. Firm, but accountable. And before approving a general policy, we would like to hear your opinions. You may answer the questions raised in this communication or simply submit your proposals to the following email: anticheating@fide.com (anticheating@fide.com).

It is going to be a long battle, but I am sure we will succeed."



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Michael Lo
08-19-2020, 08:59 PM
Vlad mentioned camera monitoring.
Is anyone currently doing that for ONL in Canada?

In May, BCCF co-organized an online tournament, the Intermat, with the Washington State Chess Federation. It was originally an annual OTB event (since 1991) between 2 elite junior players of each grade from each province/state, thus a total of 26 players each side. Deu to the pandemic, it was turned into an online tournament on chess.com with Zoom video & audio monitoring. It was unrated and no prize money was involved, it was a friendly match with the hornor of representing the province and state in an international chess event. We had two TDs (one form each team) and 4 helpers (two from each side) to monitor the 56 players via Zoom, I was one of the helper. The temptation to cheat was very low. We had a great event and everything turns out fine. Details here - http://chess2inspire.org/2020-intermat-bc-vs-washington.

From my experience with video monitoring, it is not a perfect solution. In the Intermat, we only used front cameras. Two to three of the players had technical difficulties and could not turn their camera on. It was a team tournaments and all games were paired before the tournament. We decided to allow the players to play without camera monitoring.

The organizers discussed on asking the players to sign more than one-fair-play agreement, I objected with the point that if a player determines to cheat, it will not stop him/her from cheating no matter how many agreements they sign. Signing an agreement is more of formality and a reminder of not to cheat, not a prevention of cheating. In my opinion, video monitoring in the same token, is more of a formality and a reminder of not to cheat, but cannot prevent cheating even with front and back cameras. A 5 minutes washroom break is more than enough to analyze a move, any medium to high level player using those opportunities to analysis two to three critical positions of a game will almost certainly change the outcome of the game.

I am also an organizer of a non-profit organization that runs provincial OTB junior tournaments before the pandemic, usually around 150 - 200 players. Our organization has decided not to run any OTD junior tournaments until a vaccine is widely available notwithstanding any relaxation of gathering regulations of the provincial health department, due to the stress and risk:
- it will be extremely stressful if not impossible to guarantee social distancing, wearing masks, sanitizing hands, boards and sets before each game for 150-200 kids,
- the size of the venue to guarantee social distancing will have to be a few times larger than usual, we likely will not be able to afford it,
- we already confirmed with the insurance company we use for all of our tournaments that they will not provide any coverage on claims related to COVID-19. Although the chance is close to zero of successfully winning a case against an organizer of an event causing infection to an individual. Since there is no insurance coverage, if an individual sues the organizing organization, the organization still need to pay for the cost of legal defense, which already could easily bankrupt a non-profit organization or any organizer.

I believe all OTB chess tournament organizers will have to face similar issues mentioned above, thus I am quite pessimistic on the speed of recovery of OTB tournaments. At least for our organization, we are estimating at least one year before we will be able to run any OTB tournaments again.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-19-2020, 11:19 PM
I hope you are wrong about the one year time frame but I worry that you are right. We will see.

Aris Marghetis
08-20-2020, 04:13 AM
...
I am also an organizer of a non-profit organization that runs provincial OTB junior tournaments before the pandemic, usually around 150 - 200 players. Our organization has decided not to run any OTD junior tournaments until a vaccine is widely available notwithstanding any relaxation of gathering regulations of the provincial health department, due to the stress and risk:
- it will be extremely stressful if not impossible to guarantee social distancing, wearing masks, sanitizing hands, boards and sets before each game for 150-200 kids,
- the size of the venue to guarantee social distancing will have to be a few times larger than usual, we likely will not be able to afford it,
- we already confirmed with the insurance company we use for all of our tournaments that they will not provide any coverage on claims related to COVID-19. Although the chance is close to zero of successfully winning a case against an organizer of an event causing infection to an individual. Since there is no insurance coverage, if an individual sues the organizing organization, the organization still need to pay for the cost of legal defense, which already could easy bankrupt a non-profit organization or any organizer.
I believe all OTB chess tournament organizers will have to face similar issues mentioned above, thus I am quite pessimistic on the speed of recovery of OTB tournaments. At least for our organization, we are estimating at least one year before we will be able to run any OTB tournaments again.

Michael, unfortunately, I agree with your assessment. Thank you for posting this.

Stephen Wright
08-20-2020, 09:59 AM
OTB chess has restarted in various places (Iceland, Biel, Prague, Croatia, Poland) with varying degrees of medical precautions (none visible through to masks, screens, playing on separate boards), this despite the continued rise or resurgence of COVID cases. There are adverts for the National Open in Las Vegas next month which I find unimaginable given the general US situation but I'm not there. So amid all this activity does anyone know of COVID cases which have been linked to chess tournaments? I remember Irina Krush contracting the virus early on (thankfully now recovered) but I don't believe that was tournament related.

Fred McKim
08-20-2020, 01:11 PM
It seems we will have time to see what happens in Europe as they return to OTB Chess.

I am resuming OTB Chess at Thanksgiving with the 2020 Maritime Chess Festival. I even have a page of COVID-19 alterations listed.
http://mcc.devastation.ca/mcf20.html

Vadim Tsypin
08-20-2020, 08:21 PM
So amid all this activity does anyone know of COVID cases which have been linked to chess tournaments?
Hello Stephen,

There was a case of an Irish player diagnosed with COVID-19 which forced the authorities to subject French participants to quarantine (https://www.chess.com/amp/news/french-chess-players-quarantaine-murmansk).

Stephen Wright
08-20-2020, 09:51 PM
Thanks Vadim. I guess I should have phrased my thoughts better - I meant have the recent attempts to restart chess resulted in any infections, as have happened with restaurants, bars, etc. reopening? I haven't heard of any, which means they are presumably being careful enough (plus most of the recent OTB events have been small).

Michael Lo
08-21-2020, 12:07 PM
Thanks Vadim. I guess I should have phrased my thoughts better - I meant have the recent attempts to restart chess resulted in any infections, as have happened with restaurants, bars, etc. reopening? I haven't heard of any, which means they are presumably being careful enough (plus most of the recent OTB events have been small).

I think everyone would agree that reopening of OTB chess resulting in infections will eventually happen (if it has not happened yet). No matter how careful the organizer and players are, it just lowers the probability of infection but cannot totally eliminate it (just like restaurants, bars and other gatherings). So what are we getting at here?

Vadim Tsypin
08-21-2020, 01:08 PM
Thanks Vadim. I guess I should have phrased my thoughts better - I meant have the recent attempts to restart chess resulted in any infections, as have happened with restaurants, bars, etc. reopening? I haven't heard of any, which means they are presumably being careful enough (plus most of the recent OTB events have been small).
Good morning Stephen,

I was not personally aware of such cases after the restart so I asked the European Chess Union overnight.

An official has answered with the following information:

There were at least two cases, one in Austria and another in Switzerland.
Both were reported by players themselves after they went home after tournaments.
The organizers are not so keen to report.
Of course, it cannot be proven where people got infected and since their fellow players didn't volunteer any information about post-tournament status, it is unknown whether they infected someone else at the events.



In the same message exchange, it was emphasized that the ECU has medical protocols in place and considers an infection risk "very low" if organizers adhere to them. The ECU discourages tournaments where organizers don't guarantee that such safety protocols are observed.

Stephen Wright
08-21-2020, 05:01 PM
I think everyone would agree that reopening of OTB chess resulting in infections will eventually happen (if it has not happened yet). No matter how careful the organizer and players are, it just lowers the probability of infection but cannot totally eliminate it (just like restaurants, bars and other gatherings). So what are we getting at here?

Yes, there will always be some element of risk, but it's important to find out if the measures employed are generally effective or whether OTB chess is simply too risky an activity under current conditions.

Stephen Wright
08-21-2020, 05:07 PM
Good morning Stephen,

I was not personally aware of such cases after the restart so I asked the European Chess Union overnight.

An official has answered with the following information:

There were at least two cases, one in Austria and another in Switzerland.
Both were reported by players themselves after they went home after tournaments.
The organizers are not so keen to report.
Of course, it cannot be proven where people got infected and since their fellow players didn't volunteer any information about post-tournament status, it is unknown whether they infected someone else at the events.



In the same message exchange, it was emphasized that the ECU has medical protocols in place and considers an infection risk "very low" if organizers adhere to them. The ECU discourages tournaments where organizers don't guarantee that such safety protocols are observed.

Thank you again. From photographs I've seen it would appear that some players/organizers are not following recommendations/regulations, but such actions are not restricted to chess players as we in BC have found out recently ...

Michael Lo
08-21-2020, 07:29 PM
Yes, there will always be some element of risk, but it's important to find out if the measures employed are generally effective or whether OTB chess is simply too risky an activity under current conditions.

I look at it this way. In the current situation, we cannot eliminate the risk of someone gets infected no matter how small that risk is, and in reality the risk is not that small. The worst result of that risk could be:
- someone (may be more than one) lost his/her life, be it a player, an arbiter, a volunteer, an organizer, a parent, etc.
- the organizer gets sue and goes bankrupt.

I personally would not do it.

Vladimir Drkulec
08-21-2020, 08:31 PM
I think children's chess will be the first to reopen with young organizers and TD's. I think we will watch what happens when school starts (hopefully very little problems). Seniors chess will likely be the last to open. Hopefully an effective vaccine is in our near future.

Aris Marghetis
08-22-2020, 03:23 AM
I agree with Michael.

Here's an interesting modelling article. One thing chess has going for it is less speaking. However. it's also, relatively speaking, few square feet per person, and not the best ventilated locales. According to the modeliing in the article, from what I understand, after 20 times at 90 minutes each, it's practically 100% infection rate:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/08/how-to-measure-risk-airborne-coronavirus-your-office-classroom-bus-ride-cvd/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=SpecialEdition_ 20200821&rid=E3F2BC0628A9110C3E8E033DDAED6540

Vladimir Drkulec
08-22-2020, 08:51 AM
Christina Tao shared a link from chess.com which concerned me and reassured me.

https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating (https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chess.com%2Farticle%2Fview% 2Fonline-chess-cheating&data=02%7C01%7C%7C624cefd0965a492686af08d846510584 %7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C6373 36661078760994&sdata=f2adP3QgiciUDmQLW1AdAqd7VSHS%2FfluXsnX%2BozX %2FLc%3D&reserved=0)


We believe there are two key points to take away from these numbers:


Cheating is very common on a day-to-day basis.
Chess.com is taking action against it!


Chess.com regularly receives complaints about members who have an excellent accuracy score in a game. We are thrilled to see our members using game reports, but the accuracy scores that are provided are not a part of our cheat detection, and they shouldn't be considered immediately damning evidence of cheating. Even beginning players can achieve very high accuracy scores if their opponent errs early, and they capitalize on the clear mistakes.

Pierre Dénommée
08-22-2020, 02:19 PM
I look at it this way. In the current situation, we cannot eliminate the risk of someone gets infected no matter how small that risk is, and in reality the risk is not that small. The worst result of that risk could be:
- someone (may be more than one) lost his/her life, be it a player, an arbiter, a volunteer, an organizer, a parent, etc.
- the organizer gets sue and goes bankrupt.

I personally would not do it.

In Quebec, to sue successfully, you would need to prove a fault by the organizer, for example: there was no soap for washing your hand, one or more players did non wear face mask ... Everybody knows the risk and by registering for a chess tournament, you accept all usual risks. Morally, I agree, I would not like to see anyone die because of a tournament that I have organized, even if I am completely not guilty.