How FIDE tries to ensure there is no cheating at a prestigious event like the Chess World Cup

Cheating in chess has been in the news over the past year, thanks to former world champion Vladimir Kramnik’s crusade against online cheaters. While those who play the sport – and those who officiate it as arbiters – are keen to emphasise that online chess and over-the-board chess are two completely different beasts, an event like the Chess World Cup always puts the global governing body of chess, FIDE, on high alert to ensure fair play.

Method behind the process

So how do FIDE and the local organisers at a prestigious event like the World Cup ensure that there are no untoward incidents or accusations from players during the month-long event?

The answer lies in a software program created by Professor Ken Reagan of Buffalo University that FIDE uses, a bunch of “visible and invisible” devices like thermal scanners, metal detectors, etc, and the team of nine fair play officers, led by India’s Gopakumar MS.

As FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich warned players at his inaugural press conference in Goa: “We have much better equipment now. We can really find signals, if there are any in the playing hall now. If there is a signal coming from the playing hall, we will find it.”

Both the chief arbiter Anastasia Sorokina and the chief fairplay officer Gopakumar understandably don’t want to reveal what specific measures are in place. But Sorokina says that Reagan’s software informs plenty of decision-making when it comes to fairplay.

The software is a complex thing, but what it basically does is red flags performances based on Intrinsic Performance Rating (IPR), which is a rating based on the moves that a player makes over a game, a tournament, etc. Then it compares the IPR to the player’s ELO rating. If there is a big variance in both ratings, the fairplay team starts tracking the player.

And while this is for players who are red-flagged by the program, there are measures that every player must go through.

“There is a frame that players pass through when they walk in. Then they are screened by the special devices, which are different kinds of devices. Then, there is also thermal screening. We also have a post-game check, which is a random check, actually. But it depends on the result as well,” Sorokina tells The Indian Express. “The fairplay team also monitors players after the play starts to see where they are going, and follows them if they are going to the rest areas or smoking areas, or refreshment areas. So we are monitoring players all the time.”

Of course, there are other fairplay measures in play, like a 15-minute delay in the broadcast so that no one from outside can aid a player inside with any device. Any electronic devices are also banned from the playing hall after the first 10 minutes.

An additional layer of security at the event is that fans are only allowed inside the hall in four slots rather than throughout the tournament – from 2.40 pm to 4 pm, 4.15 pm to 5 pm, 5.15 pm to 6 pm, and 6.15 pm to the end of the day. Spectators are also prohibited from re-entering the playing hall again during the same slot if they opt to leave.

Gopakumar has been a fairplay official at the Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Ding Liren World Chess Championship, where he famously did not even allow players to carry their keycards in their pockets into the playing glass cube. In Indian chess circles, he is famously the man who caught the most brazen incidents of over-the-board cheating.

With chess players being a paranoid bunch, Gopakumar is keen to emphasise that just because a player is accused of cheating online or is banned for cheating on an online platform, it does not mean much in over-the-board games.

“Unless we have statistical data (from Reagan’s software) supporting the suspicion, we will see players with a clean slate,” he says.