5/14/2021 – Chess and bridge are the only ‘mind sports’ recognized by the International Olympic Committee. The two highly popularized games also share that cheating has become a growing preoccupation for fans and organizers alike. In a recently released documentary, Israeli filmmaker Daniel Sivan tells the story of a cheating scandal which involved Lotan Fisher, the strongest bridge player in the world. | Pictured: Lotan Fisher and Ron Schwartz
new: ChessBase 16 - Mega package Edition 2022
Your key to fresh ideas, precise analyses and targeted training!
Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
Your key to fresh ideas, precise analyses and targeted training! Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
The two DVDs offer you the chance to solve 66 exercises with multiple questions. These exercises are presented in the interactive format, which makes them accessible for players of different strengths as we will go through the thought process step by step
€54.90
An elite-level scandal
Although chess might have more in common in terms of gameplay with draughts or go, there is a salient similarity it shares with the game of bridge: they are the only ‘mind sports’ recognized by the International Olympic Committee — albeit neither of them has been found eligible for the main Olympic program.
Chess and bridge also share that cheating has become a growing preoccupation for fans and organizers of the sport. In the case of bridge, a game in which partners need to convey information in a restricted manner, notable incidents date back to as early as the 1930s, when a scandal led to Willard S. Karn bringing a one million dollar defamation suit against Ely Culbertson, six others and Crockford Inc., accusing them of spreading rumours and conspiring to remove him from the bridge world.
And the problem persists in the 21st century. In 2015, a scandal involving who was then considered the best player in the world ended with two Israeli players being banned from participating in events organized by the European Bridge League and the American Contract Bridge League, among others.
Lotan Fisher and Ron Schwartz had been found guilty both of collusive cheating and of giving false information.
Special attention will be paid to Intermediate Moves, Quiet Moves, Sacrifices on Empty Squares, Mating Patterns, Ignoring Opponents Threat, Calculation in Defence and Method of Comparison. Plus 50 interactive examples to test your knowledge.
Lotan Fisher
Daniel Sivan, a documentary filmmaker who co-directed “The Olso Diaries” and directed five episodes of the mini-series “The Devil Next Door”, picked up the story and decided to write, direct and produce “Dirty Tricks”, a 100-minute film which not only focuses on the cheating scandal but also on the world of elite-level competitive bridge.
Talking about the process which led to Fisher and Schwartz’s collapse, Sivan told The Guardian:
This was basically the first time, to my knowledge, in history that a cheating scandal was outsourced. You never heard local players saying, ‘I suspect Lance Armstrong is juicing. Please, internet community, look for the proof.’ Here was the first time they used crowdfunding, beehive brain, people from all over the world breaking down codes, chasing cheaters. It was totally self-policed.
Referring to Fisher, who was (or is?) considered the best bridge player in the world, Sivan reflected:
[The film] is kind of a Greek tragedy that goes deeper and deeper. Can you be the best player if nobody else believes you?
During his career, Vlastimil Hort, who himself belongs to the same generation as Bobby Fischer, met no less than eight world champions over the board. In the early 60s he crossed swords with Mihail Tal, and at the end of the eighties he was sitting over the board from Garry Kasparov. Between the two there were meetings with chess legends Botvinnik, Petrosian, Smyslov, Spassky, Fischer and Karpov.
In his piece for The Guardian, Rich Tenorio uses the example of fictional character Beth Harmon to explain how talented Fisher was as a kid:
While we have yet to see a similar scandal in the chess world — i.e., a player of Magnus Carlsen’s calibre getting caught cheating in a top-level tournament — a major incident was seen a couple of years ago, when a photo of Igors Rausis using a mobile phone in a toilet during a tournament game made international headlines.
Perhaps the one comparable scandal, albeit of a different nature, would be Bobby Fischer’s claim that Soviet players had colluded against him during the 1962 Candidates Tournament.
The popularization of online chess has opened a whole other can of worms — coincidentally, a few instances of online cheating in bridge have already been penalized by sport authorities. Perhaps the chess community might find a way to learn from a similar sport that has been dealing with this problem for a longer period of time.
Carlos Alberto ColodroCarlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
The new Komodo Dragon 3 engine has gained 100 Elo points in playing strength over its predecessor when using a processor core in blitz. That's a huge improvement for a program that already reached at
an Elo level of over 3500!
It's a great idea to take Grunfeld and King’s Indian players out of their comfort-zone right from the start! Let’s go 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 first and now play 3.h4!?
Videos: Nico Zwirs tests the dynamic 5...b5 in the Vienna Variation of the Queen's Gambit. Ivan Sokolov introduces 6.g3 as a surprise weapon in the Sicilian Four Knights Variation. "Lucky bag": 60 analyses by Anish Giri, David Navara and many more.
The best way to improve at chess is to carefully study master games, stop at certain positions and think about candidate moves. Doing this on your own can be difficult and tiresome, but on this viddeo course, you will be guided by worldrenowned trainers!
Throughout this video course, we will study how to master sacrifices and the initiative in several aspects: opposite-coloured bishops, the bishop pair, the exchange sacrifice, launching an attack, and the good moment to sacrifice will be covered.
Throughout this video course, we will study how to master sacrifices and the initiative in several aspects: opposite-coloured bishops, the bishop pair, the exchange sacrifice, launching an attack, and the good moment to sacrifice will be covered.
€29.90
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.
Pop-up for detailed settings
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies, analysis cookies and marketing cookies. You can decide which cookies to use by selecting the appropriate options below. Please note that your selection may affect the functionality of the service. Further information can be found in our privacy policy.
Technically required cookies
Technically required cookies: so that you can navigate and use the basic functions and store preferences.
Analysis Cookies
To help us determine how visitors interact with our website to improve the user experience.
Marketing-Cookies
To help us offer and evaluate relevant content and interesting and appropriate advertisement.