Metro News, England
Thursday, January 11, 2007
One of the world’s leading chess players has been accused of cheating – with a mobile phone.
Umakanth Sharma, 25, was banned for ten years after a wireless earpiece was found in his hat during a competition.
It is believed the device enabled Sharma to receive instructions from a pal who was using a computer programme to figure out the best moves.
This scandal has never been seen in the 1,500-year history of chess.
… The scandal is just the latest to rock the normally geneteel world of chess.
In June last year two grandmasters reportedly came to blows over female chess beauty Arianne Caoili, 19.
… And in October last year the title holders of chess’s two rival world federations had a bitter dispute – over toilets.
The full article can be read here.
Metro News wrote:
>>This scandal has never been seen in the 1,500-year history of chess.>>
Yes, in fact, there was very little computer assistance received during the Middle Ages. Scholars are still unsure as to the reasons for this.
Some attribute it to the debilitating effect of the Hundred Years War. Others ascribe it to declining social and moral values. Still others think it may have something to do with the chronology of computer development. Who’s to say?
lol graeme,
You beat me to it. Yeah, I don’t think there was much computer cheating for the first 1,485 years of chess history. Something about the technology not being up to snuff. I don’t think that their bluetooth devices had much range in 1000AD. Sorry, Susan. I know you were just quoting the article but it’s a funny line.
I didn’t know until today that Umakanth Sharma was one of the world’s leading chessplayers. Ah, I see he is “rated higher than an International Master”. Then he must be really good.
Funny, is it ? Not really.
The problem with crap like that is, that it makes chess look really bad. The same with ‘bladdergate’ or ‘Gormallygate’. The (some) press will keep pulling this up each time, chess makes it into the news.
Who were the fisticuffin’ grandmasters?
10 years is not long enough
The fight was a bit of a non-event really. Danny Gormally got a bit jealous of the attention that a young Australian chess beauty was paying to Levon Arnonian and confronted him about it with his fist. I donot believe that Levon retaliated however, so it was only really one grandmaster. 🙂
For the sake of the British people, let us hope the level of accuracy displayed by the Metro News is much lower than by most other British press.
HISTORY LESSON IN CHESS CHEATING –
TURK CHEATING SCANDEL!!:
The machine named ‘Turk’ was eventually exposed as having obtained the assistance of a human with a small body! What a scandel that was!
How ironic that these roles have reversed. Nowadays the humans use a machine to help them cheat.
Flips history on its head! 😉
Gene_M
http://CastleLong.com/
Actually that what happened in India is not new. There was a similar case in Germany some years ago, where a player rated some 2000 elo had beaten many grandmasters in 2 opens. They discovered that he used some device the same way like the Indian guy.
who wrote this article?
An idiot, I assume.
Two grandmasters fighting for a woman? hahaha :).The world is always the same!.In Spain we have a sentence that explains that situation very well, but it is very unpolite if I translate it to english. For the spanish that know it is “tiran más dos…”
“another”??? This is really old story. Why rake it up? Cheating does not need computers – people in the crowd have been accused of helping out.