Grandmaster Chess Champion caught cheating (looking at phone on toilet) - reported to the police!

The real chess story is not this "cheating" incident, but what's happened to Nepomniachtchi.

He was winning Croatia Zagreb 3-0 in his first 3 games. Then on the off day, he goes and gets a man-bun...

Well, you can guess what happened then... he lost 3 later games and only finished on even for the event.

Then he lost in Round 1 in Dortmund.

Serious barber measures now seem called for, before it's too late.

I'm curious. What exactly was he doing with the phone?

Les wrote:

I'm curious. What exactly was he doing with the phone?

Presumably, he was getting game analysis from a "chess engine" (essentially, a computer program that plays chess) contained in a phone app. Many such engines are much stronger players and analysts than any human.

--ae wrote:

GM Rausis is an official FIDE Arbiter, so he'd know how the system works, thus how to beat it. That's why they needed the toilet sting in Strasbourg (EU).

What other "sport" allows officials to be competitors and vice versa?

Clearly this is not wise.

That's ridiculous.

Making the right adjustments wrote:

The real chess story is not this "cheating" incident, but what's happened to Nepomniachtchi.

He was winning Croatia Zagreb 3-0 in his first 3 games. Then on the off day, he goes and gets a man-bun...

Well, you can guess what happened then... he lost 3 later games and only finished on even for the event.

Then he lost in Round 1 in Dortmund.

Serious barber measures now seem called for, before it's too late.

He won Round 2 Dortmund, but it was against the weak qualifier Kulaots, who at age 43 surprised everyone by winning the Aeroflot Open earlier this year.

Likely this means he won't realize the predicament, and won't take salon action on the first off-day.

Making the right adjustments wrote:

The real chess story is not this "cheating" incident, but what's happened to Nepomniachtchi.

He was winning Croatia Zagreb 3-0 in his first 3 games. Then on the off day, he goes and gets a man-bun...

Well, you can guess what happened then... he lost 3 later games and only finished on even for the event.

Then he lost in Round 1 in Dortmund.

Serious barber measures now seem called for, before it's too late.

I agree. Carlson's big swoon (relatively speaking) a couple of years ago also came while he was playing around with hideous hair styles. (For Carlsen, it was the very carefully arranged just-fell-out-of-bed-and-staggered-over-to-the-playing-hall look.)

Nepo won his second round in Dortmund today (against a mid-2500 guy, so no big deal). He's had a real rollercoaster month, with eight decisive games out of thirteen. Oddly, his net Elo change in the live ratings has only been -2.1.

Avocado's Number wrote:

Carlson's big swoon

Carlsen's

Непо́мнящий wrote:

Kulaots, who at age 43 surprised everyone by winning the Aeroflot Open earlier this year.

Of course, on letschess.com, that would immediately trigger allegations of doping.

I'm really glad that Rausis is finally getting taken down. When I blunder, or even forget what I said to whom recently, I take some consolation in the universal decline of top-notch grandmasters with age. Rausis's upward march in his late-50s was undermining my excuses.

A 58 year old who had been steadily increasing his rating and world ranking. That is a big outlier in international chess. He's been suspected for months by cheating sleuths, and now this. I believe he has announced his retirement. No trace of his body yet in the LA River.

Please be careful. Of course, the parallels are obvious and even fairly striking, but I don't want this discussion to get curtailed too much.

It seems that Grand Chessmaster Igors Rausis only cheated in one French game, largely due to the hideous intense pressure from FaceBook due to his constant +0.8 rating-gains nearing 2700 from beating weakies, when they got him into a complicated endgame against a 2300-player. By their Internet logic, if he didn't win it would be "proof" that he cheated in the OTHER games. So he irrashly decided to sacrifice this one game and his career, in order to silence the voices. 58yo's sometimes lose their minds, like he said.

Ukraine GM Oleg Korneev (with name redacted) was suspended for a year for a chess-doping violation.

https://www.doping.nl/filter/doc:3781/AEPSAD%202015%20AEPSAD%20vs%20respondent%20E40

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiij wrote:

It seems that Grand Chessmaster Igors Rausis only cheated in one French game, largely due to the hideous intense pressure from FaceBook due to his constant +0.8 rating-gains nearing 2700 from beating weakies, when they got him into a complicated endgame against a 2300-player. By their Internet logic, if he didn't win it would be "proof" that he cheated in the OTHER games. So he irrashly decided to sacrifice this one game and his career, in order to silence the voices. 58yo's sometimes lose their minds, like he said.

It sounds as though you actually believe this.

The always-delightful (and candid) Alexander Grischuk had this to say in a post-game interview on Friday (just after 2:00 on the video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=Mnt8I0XHzcI

"It’s inexcusable of course to go for such lines without remembering anything, but I have a little excuse that I was in a very good mood before the game because Rausis finally got caught cheating and it’s very good news. But it’s dangerous to be in a good mood when playing chess!"

I hope wejo and Rojo are ready for letsrun to be tarnished again when this chap throws himself off a bridge and we forget that he ever did anything wrong.

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiij wrote:

It seems that Grand Chessmaster Igors Rausis only cheated in one French game, largely due to the hideous intense pressure from FaceBook due to his constant +0.8 rating-gains nearing 2700 from beating weakies, when they got him into a complicated endgame against a 2300-player. By their Internet logic, if he didn't win it would be "proof" that he cheated in the OTHER games. So he irrashly decided to sacrifice this one game and his career, in order to silence the voices. 58yo's sometimes lose their minds, like he said.

Irrashly?

I have to compliment you on making up an entirely new word.

please update thread title to:

Grandmaster Chess Champion GOES HOME DEVASTATED

Dictionary.com wrote:

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiij wrote:

It seems that Grand Chessmaster Igors Rausis only cheated in one French game, largely due to the hideous intense pressure from FaceBook due to his constant +0.8 rating-gains nearing 2700 from beating weakies, when they got him into a complicated endgame against a 2300-player. By their Internet logic, if he didn't win it would be "proof" that he cheated in the OTHER games. So he irrashly decided to sacrifice this one game and his career, in order to silence the voices. 58yo's sometimes lose their minds, like he said.

Irrashly?

I have to compliment you on making up an entirely new word.

And I have to compliment your compliment, Pot. An "entirely" new word??? ....As opposed to a partial new word?

He wasn’t actually cheating. But he’s not fighting the charges because he doesn’t want to admit he was reading “My Little Pony” slashfic.