The French Chess Federation (FFE) has suspended three players, two of them grandmasters, for allegedly cheating via coded text messages at the 2010 Olympiad in Russia. GM Sébastien Feller took the board five gold medal and €5,000 with 6/9, including the win below against England's David Howell, where it is claimed that almost every black move is the first choice of the Firebird program. Feller's Olympiad team-mates backed the FFE, though the banned trio deny wrongdoing and have lodged appeals.
According to witness evidence presented to its disciplinary committee, the FFE alleges that at critical game moments IM Cyril Marzolo fed moves from the live online games into Firebird, then sent mobile texts with coded moves from France to GM Arnaud Hauchard, the non-playing team captain. Hauchard then stood behind the boards of two players in the match to indicate chessboard squares to Feller via an agreed code.
According to the evidence, Marzolo had to borrow a mobile from his former boss, an FFE official, who spotted a message from Hauchard saying 'Hurry up, send moves'. The €5,000 was won only because the Pole in the gold-medal position spoilt his chance in his final game.
There are claims that the trio also cheated, via direct mobile texts from Marzolo, at the Paris Championship and the Biel, Switzerland, Open. During this period Feller's world ranking rose from the top 200 to the top 100, which is still a long way from the high-earning elite. That the 20-year-old is a strong GM sans computer has been shown in the current European Championship at Aix-les-Bains which ends tomorrow and where Feller was joint second with 5.5/7, half a point ahead of England's Luke McShane, four rounds from the finish.
Computer fraud is chess's equivalent of athletics doping and already has a long history. A dreadlocked American and his program-linked earpiece were unmasked at the 1993 World Open, when he was unable to explain basic strategy to a suspicious official, but the German amateur Clemens Alwermann beat a Russian grandmaster en route to first prize at Bobingen 1999. His moves were identical to the choices of the Fritz program.
How do you prevent possible scams? A 15-minute delay in internet move transmissions would be effective and a campaign was launched on Thursday for the world body Fide to make it mandatory in all top events.
3185 Feller went 1...Nc2! (many would play safe by Nc6) 2 Ra2 Bxe5 3 dxe5 Ne4 4 Bc1 Nxf2! 5 Qxc2 Nh3+! 6 gxh3 Qb6+ 7 Kg2 Rxc2+ when Black's queen and extra pawns beat Howell's three pieces.
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