CHESS NEWS BLOG: chessblog.com

USA's Top Daily Chess News Blog, Informative, Fun, and Positive

hosted by Chess Queen™ & 12th Women's World Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk

 

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Now player caught cheating at German team chess championship

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hello everyone,

A German player cheats at the chess team championships... and then, admits it. Just the thing that spoils our beautiful chess world.

Christoph Natsidis | Photo © official website

According to a news item by www.chessvibes.com, a participant of the German Championship, which concluded on Friday in Bonn, was caught cheating. FM Christoph Natsidis used a chess program on his smartphone during his last-round game against GM Sebastian Siebrecht to analyse a position from the game. The 23-year-old player from Bannewitz, Germany admitted that he cheated, and was excluded from the tournament, missing out on an IM norm he had scored after 8 rounds.

This is what Grandmaster Sebastian Siebrecht - at the receiving end of this disturbing event - told the news website:

"We had reached a complicated position. I had taken on b2 which was a bit risky. However, in a very concrete position where calculating was necessary, he was constantly away from the board. Three times, I made a move and it took 8-10 minutes for him to show up at the board. Naturally I started looking for him and I even waited for a while in the toilets. One toilet was occupied, but I didn’t hear any typical ‘toilet sounds’.

During the game [Igor] Khenkin came to me and asked: ‘What’s going on? Where is your opponent?’ I decided to go to the arbiter and try to find Natsidis together. Then, indeed, we did find him in the toilet, but the arbiter did nothing, which made me very angry. I could not play a normal game anymore and in a position that was still complicated, I decided to offer a draw, which he accepted.”


Eventually, a smartphone with the game position was found on the cheating law student who admitted he did it. You can read all the details at this link. It is beyond us why chess players can even bother to put their mind to even consider cheating. Chess is such fun and so beautiful who wants to ruin it.


From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
Also see her personal blog at

Labels: ,

Monday, May 30, 2011

Three-way lead for German National Chess Championship 2011

Top seed Jan Gustafsson
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hello everyone,

The German Chess Championships 2011 is mid-way. Being held in Bonn, it is based on a nine-round Swiss event with 34 players taking part it takes place from May 26 to June 3. This year's championship is the 20th since the separate East and West German championships were combined following the re-unification of the country in 1990. Top seed is Jan Gustafsson (Elo 2646) is in a three-way tie for the lead with Igor Khenkin and Oswald Gschnitzer. All of them have a perfect score of 3/3.

There is also a separate 16-player women's championship with Heike Vogel in sole lead on 3/3. The official website for the championships can be found here


From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com

Labels: