Gaioz Nigalidze, famously caught using a mobile phone to assist his play in the 2015 Dubai Open has been banned from all FIDE controlled chess for 3 years, and has been stripped of his GM title. The decision by the FIDE Ethics Commission is the first case heard under the new FIDE Anti-Cheating Regulations, that were adopted late last year.
As a first (proven) offence the 3 year penalty is the maximum under the guidelines, although the loss of title is probably a little bit more surprising to anyone unfamiliar with the new regulations. It is included in the list of punishments, although Nigalidze was a little lucky that the Ethics Commission felt he co-operated with the investigation, as he has kept his IM title (which could have been stripped as well).
As the first major case, this will of course provoke a degree of discussion on the appropriateness or effectiveness of the punishment. I suspect for top level players the loss of title is likely to be the greater deterrent, along with the ensuing bad publicity. For lower ranked players (those without titles), it is the length of suspension that will obviously hurt.
The FIDE website has the story here, including a link to the EC judgement.
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14 comments:
Can he regain the GM title by getting 3 norms again?
That's a good point. What's exactly the deterrent to stripping a 2600 GM his title? He'll just regain it in no time. The ultra cynical answer is that he'll have to pay the FIDE title fee again! It's not like they revoked his chess ability somehow. Their "mitigation" of not stripping IM title too is a joke, a meaningless gesture from empowered officials.
Only if you believe he has has the ability to play at 2600 level.
He is not able to play in any fide rated event for three years. For a professional player, that is a long time. And then when he is eligible to play again, he will still need to go through the process of getting the GM title again.
Under the current regulations there is nothing preventing him from regaining his title. In practice there are probably two things that he will need to deal with. Firstly, he may find it harder to get into tournaments (especially private ones) due to his conviction. Secondly, as someone who has had a conviction recorded against him, all his games will probably be checked for computer assistance, both physically, and statistically.
While I was on the Anti-Cheating committee I certainly opposed the use of statistical evidence as the sole criteria for judging guilt, but I was happy enough to either accept is as further proof if physical evidence was found (and for future tournament games as well), or to initiate an investigation to see if there was physical proof of cheating (in a sense 'probable cause'). I'm not saying that the FIDE ACC will definitely do this, but I think it is something they should consider doing.
He got all his (GM) norms in the Georgian championship (2010, 2013, 2014), and the European Individual (2014). I don't think they can refute his eligibility in participation once the sentence is served. There is no apparent evidence he cheated in any of them, but if so, I don't know that he will easily perform at 2600.
i am very much against mere statistical evidence too. consider this, a player say 2300 in strength, often does notably better in long tournaments than club/team games, simply because they can spend time before it in studying, rather than playing weekends or late-nite after work. the difference can even be more at 1800 level, where regan's predictions need much bigger error bars. fide has not aimed their cross-hairs at that level yet, but if online arena takes off maybe they will. having more data is not necessarily better, as it can promote the wrong conclusions.
did anyone look at nigalidze's statistics? the acc report said regan's system was "extremely exact" in corroboration, but i never saw anyone publicly analyze the games (from dubai, or al ain where petrosian suspected, or previous georgian championships). maybe that's why they revoked the gm title, because regan said the data indicated earlier cheating?
Removing the title of a player found to breach the FIDE AC Regulations is actually specified as part of the punishment, and Nigalidze is probably lucky to at least keep his IM title (as the rules say revocation of *all* FIDE Titles and norms).
The link to the regulations is http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=53&view=category
Those regulations were unfortunately overturned by the Constitutional Commission, and they asked for a consolidated text. (Not likely to appear on a FIDE website any time soon, given their history).
Specifically "Section V concerns sanctions. In Sochi the Presidential Board, as already mentioned, approved completely new rules concerning sanctions for all violations of the FIDE Code of Ethics, including provisional measures applicable by the EC. Therefore, it is clear that this section cannot be applied and has been absorbed by the new general rules."
The point is the EC didn't want "cheating" to become a separate category in the ethics regime. "What it is important is to introduce this and other sanctions in the general system and not only for cheating. First, because it is clearly a necessary updating of existing rules, but also because if it was possibility to apply this sanction only to cheating this would be unreasonable and disproportionate, creating risks of annulment of the decision." That's from their 2014 report.
PS. Rivello doesn't exactly have love for the ACC: "Otherwise, we have to underline that the ACC seems to have paid no attention to the numerous proposals and opinions expressed in the last 6 years by the EC on the same subject matter" (of anti-cheating)
Sigh, the quarrels of a lack of quorum...
Shaun, your link is to the ACC Guidelines which themselves speak of the "Regulations" as being something to be defined by the AC-Commission (Section 1B), while this "commission" was (belatedly) found not to have been created properly, etc. Gelfer made a similar en passant in his statement about Chakvi, wondering if the "witchhunting" violated the Guidelines, while the guidelines themselves only speak of sanctions becoming applicable when the (currently non-existent) Regulations are breached. Unfortunately, some FIDE higher-up(s) decided to overcome the Tromso quorum problem by reshuffling the AC-Committee into the AC-Commission, with a parallel conflating of the Guidelines as Regulations sometimes being thrown in the mix.
Such looseness of language might have flown 5-10 years ago, but the strong contestations in the 2010/14 elections have really exposed FIDE protocols to more scrutiny. Moreover, when they start applying penalties to people, unless they do it properly, they should expect the worst in blowback.
In any case, the decision cited Chapter 2.2.5 of the FIDE Code of Ethics as the violation, and not the AC Regulations/Guidelines, for the basis for the sanction.
@Hinkley. It was always the intention that the EC be the body that approved whatever penalties were handed down, although it was the job of the ACC to recommend what penalties this should be. I was the ACC member who negotiated this with the EC, and in fact agreed with Rivello's point concerning the consolidation and updating of the EC rules (in part because the sanctions the ACC wanted weren't allowable under the existing EC regulations).
@TT The lack of quorum at Tromso (which was entirely the fault of the FIDE Executive) really screwed up a lot of things. While it was always the intention that the Anti-Cheating Committee become the Anti-Cheating Commission (there is a practical difference between the two designations which relates to funding and budgets), the ACC needed other commissions (EC, QC and Rules) to change their regulations to bring everything into sync regards rules, procedures and punishments. Unfortunately these changes needed to be approved by the GA (as per FIDE's own rules), and this did not happen. I tried to point out (on the floor of the Congress) what the consequences of this were (eg FIDE may still be open to potential legal challenges concerning punishments) but was shut down by the chair.
For me (having been involved in the process), these problems flow directly from the same people being in power for 20+ years. The only accountability for bad decisions that the FIDE Executive and Presidential Board really face is at the ballot box, and given the electoral process and results over the last 12 years, this isn't an effective mechanism.
I should note that having left the ACC (by my own choice) and having been removed from both the Rules Commission and Pairings Commission (as political payback) I haven't been paying as much attention to the inner workings of FIDE, so my comments relate to how things were intended to be in 2014, and not necessarily how they are now.
The real issue is whether title revocation is actually now legal. The QC regulations form a strong counterweight to the ACC desideratum, namely they specify that titles are valid for life (0.4), that the regulations can only be changed by the General Assembly (0.2), and that revocation for subverting ethical principles needs GA approval (0.41). Really, I don't see why the EC/CONS are unaware of this, but I suspect that FIDE kingpins want the strongest possible messaging on cheating, and couldn't care less about formal matters. Nigalidze likely will go quietly, as I don't expect having the GA ultimately yank his title(s) instead of the EC is any great gain to him personally, but will Tetimov be so easy?
There's another issue, the "3 year ban" is actually 3 years plus 4.5 months, as the EC chose not to retrodate it to when Nigalidze freely removed himself from activity. Perhaps that is their prerogative, but seems out of line with other sporting cases (Crowley for Fremantle AFL is an Oz example), is unnecessarily punitive, and really the procedural delay(s) was FIDE's fault anyway for not having the ACC legal situation cleared up in the first place. It's also a poor precedent to set, as no one will voluntarily "give up" if there is no incentive (actually a disincentive).
I would almost suggest that Nigalidze take the case to CAS just to make FIDE accountable, but I can't imagine he wants to be the guy who does that. (They have cheap court fees for athlete appeals, but still he'd need someone to advocate.)
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