IM Afromeev: the ‘Late Achiever’ or Con Artist?
by GM Alex Baburin from http://www.chesstoday.net/ (issue CT-2457)
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My dear reader, give yourself 10 minutes of leisure, make a cup of tea or coffee – and take a short and simple test in (Russian) chess history:
1. Which player you heard least about?
a) Khalifman
b) Sakaev
c) Dreev
d) Afromeev
e) Dolmatov
2. Name the highest rated player on this list. Ready? Then let’s check the results!
The answer to the first question can’t be ‘Khalifman’ – the winner of the Las Vegas 1999 FIDE World Ch, member of the Russian team and well respected author surely came up on your chess radar often enough. It can’t be Sakaev either – the guy has been around 2650 for ages, won many tournaments and wrote some very good opening books. Dreev, perhaps? No, he is a former Candidate, played for Russia at many Olympiads and is constantly in the top 100 in the world. How about Dolmatov? Not really – you should have heard about him – he
was one of the Candidate in 1991 and later coached the Russia’s men’s team.
The correct answer is ‘Afromeev’.
That was too easy, I hear you say. Well, how about the second question then? I bet I got you here – the correct answer is again ‘Afromeev’! His current rating is 2642, which beats all other guys on the list: Sakaev (2634), Khalifman (2632), Dreev (2606) and Dolmatov (2557).
So, who is this little-known rising chess star? Maybe he is a supertalented junior, who gained 300 Elo points in the past year alone? Not quite – our hero was born in 1954, he is 5 years older than Dolmatov, not to mention the rest of our group.
Maybe he achieved his high rating in the distant past and (like Fischer) and then quit chess for 20 years, resurfacing only now? Not really – as his rating chart shows, Mr Afromeev was 2405 in July 2000, so it has been one breath-taking rise to the top – Kasparov must be glad he quit chess – Afromeev would have soon overtaken him anyway!
His latest success was in the Kotov Memorial and it was reported about in TWIC. Afromeev effortlessly won that category IX tournament, showing a 2655 performance. Since we might soon see Afromeev in the world’s top-10 list, it is time we learn more about this remarkable man.
Let us start with CT No. 300. In that issue I first wrote about Mr Afromeev:
“I recently received 64-Chess review No.7 of 2001. There I read an interesting article by IM Igor Yagupov, who described how a local
businessmen in his native Tula (city about 120 km from Moscow; GM Kotov was from there) last year decided first to get and then to raise
his Elo. That guy – Mr. Vladimir Afromeev – has been so successful in his fraud, that he now has an international rating of 2520! I call it a
fraud, because many know that some of the tournaments, which he ‘organised’ never, took place, while in some others certain players threw points at Mr. Afromeev.
Now he is an FIDE Master and I bet that soon he will become Grandmaster. God, help our game! Sorry, I meant Kirsan! ☺ By the way, at some point Mr. Afromeev decided that his personal driver should have an Elo rating too (who wants un-rated drivers nowadays?!). Now that guy has a rating in excess of 2440. Mr. Afromeev is even claimed to have said that if he wanted, his cat would get a rating like that too! “
Six years later Mr Afromeev’s rating is 122 points higher and rising, though he is still an FM (I heard that he does not “want” a GM title). He has “organised” a number of tournaments – in one of them he got 13 out of 13! Yagupov became a Grandmaster and than made peace with Afromeev – now he is only too happy to play in tournaments “organised” by the latter (remember that “all power corrupts” saying?). FIDE still does next to nothing about such abuse. Too bad we don’t know the name of Afromeev’s driver – at this rate he must be entering the world’s top-100 list soon. The cat will eventually join him too, no doubt…
Those who read Russian, can find more about this case at Crestbook blog, article at the e3e5.com website and at the special Russian website dedicated to such chess frauds: http://blackchess.narod.ru/
Source: http://www.chesstoday.net/ (issue 2457)
Any proof/hard evidence of fraud taking place?
maybe because hes got an afro? its discrimination.
If I’m not mistaken, the Roman Emperor Caligula made his horse a Roman Senator. So, in the 21st century we’ll soon have a cat that’s a chess GM. Strange story.
Yet, it hightlights the fact that unethical behavior in our sport must be dealt with. FIDE under Kirsan is a joke.
How can chess become an olympic sport with such behavior being tolerated? It most certainly damages the image of our sport.
Nothing surprises me, though.
Hmmm…now what’s this all about?
Is it humor? This cannot be real!
FIDE is pretty corrupt so I’m not surprised about any of this. Our chess coach should already be a FIDE Master (at least) but the results of the tournament he played in and won were altered because he worked for the wrong chess school.
It is a common belief in russian Gm circles that he ‘fakes’ tournaments, and games that supposedly were played in events that he has organised look alot like Fritz vs Junior 🙂
It must be noted however (and unfortunately the article fails to mention it) that Afromeev has sued Yagupov for defamation in that ’64’ article and easily won the case by presenting the scorecards, game reports, hotel receipts etc.
The problem is that many real palyers who ‘play’ in his tournaments are perfectly happy to do so: Chess does not pay well and a guy who’d pay you for losing to him is a rare find!
Therefore it seems unrealistic at the moment that something can be done about Afromeev unless Kirsan himself decides to kick him.
Oh, did I mention that Afromeev was recently appointed high in the Russian chess federation?
🙂
Here you can find extensive information about the case: Yagupov’s article, Afromeev’s answer, etc…
http://blackchess.narod.ru/
According to http://chess.vrsac.com/search/player_e.asp?FC=4157770, the big leap of +62 ELO was between April and July 2006 on the back of only 14 games.
So what was going on there?
I don’t take FIDE ‘life titles’ too seriously: can RKeene perform at GM level today?
The FIDE ELO list is thought to inflate at 4 pts/annum, and I would that thought the SSDF list inflates more quickly as more games are played.
Some correlation of the FIDE and SSDF lists, through more human-computer games would be good. How about FIDE titles for chess-engines?!
the first time i stumbled across the name “Afromeev” was FIDE’s July TOP 100 ranking.
scrolling down the list, i noticed an “f” in front of the player in position 78. Vladimir Afromeev – next to “Arkadij Naiditsch”, the german top rated player … (pos 77).
to my best knowledge Afromeev uses a somewhat “refined Myanmar concept”, doesn’t he?
money makes ratings go round. money makes professionals or wannabe professional athletes in EVERY sports go round (remember “bicycling”… or “weight lifting” or “boxing” or or or – LOL).
So, if Afromeev’s intension is to “pull off the mask” from this lying entitlements – Chapeau!
This is a real tragedy that FIDE allows such antics to continue. At the very least, could there not be a public letter of censure against this man? He deserves to be banned for life but nothing will be done under Kirsan’s FIDE.
A comparable analogy which concerns the awarding of undeserved titles (such as “Master,” “IM,” and even “GM”) is in the area of Correspondence Chess. The USCF completely ignores obvious computer cheating, despite the CC rules specifically stating that computers are not allowed to choose one’s moves.
Also, the ICCF awards GM titles to players that only a “GM” due to the use of computers to choose their moves. Now, there are some that are honest and are legit GM’s both OTB and CC.
Correspondence Chess has become a joke due to the use of Fritz, Rybka, Junior, etc. A once beloved past time to so many has become stagnant. I used to love CC and also play OTB. Now, I only play OTB.
We can’t fix the ICCF. But, we now can address this issue of computer cheating within the USCF’s Correspondence Chess division.
Cheating is unethical. Awarding titles to those that didn’t really earn them is unethical.
I hope the new Executive Board members will, at some point, look into this matter. A lot of USCF members are being lost because they want to play CC but want to play against a person….not a computer especially when such actions are already specifically against the rules.
Don’t worry everybody. All of these things occurred when FIDE was busy with other issues. Now that ethical conduct is the “number one priority” I’m sure it will be sorted out.
afromeev plays at infiniachess.com every day. I am a member of the chess site (which is free) and he claims he will never play another game of chess again but he will continue to frequernt the site.. he claims susan polgar has been having an affair with other people and that ICC and WCN are the worst chess sites and illegal things have been going on there.
you can find afromeev “gm” as he claims at infiniachess.com I play there at the free site every day and afromeev logs in every single day (he said he is hiding out here) but he never would say why?