Solved at last: who was the "Von Neumann" cheat?

After his successes, the unrated black player calling himself John von Neumann was tested by the tournament director, who found he was a beginner who could not even spot a back rank checkmate. The perpetrator fled the event and his identity was not revealed – until now.

On April 14 the American magazine Wired reported that it was the professional gamblers Rob Reitzen and John Wayne (no relation to the actor) who orchestrated what is considered the first modern instance of computer-aided cheating in chess history. Wayne, entered the World Open under the pseudonym John von Neumann, wearing a wig of shoulder-length dreadlocks to conceal his identity, and headphones to keep the hair in place. He was wired with a modified blackjack processor, moves were entered using toe switches in his shoes, while instructions were received through a vibrating box hidden in his crotch.

While Wayne played, Rob Reitzen was in their hotel room operating a computer. The duo specialized in high-tech gambling, and "had previously used wearable microprocessors and belt-buckle cameras to beat blackjack and poker games in casinos" [Wired].

Unfortunately there there are no known photographs of Wayne in his disguise. in 1993 the magazine Inside Chess published a report under the headline “The Von Neumann Affair Rocks the World Open” – featuring a caricature of a shadowy Rastafarian man on the cover. The authors correctly surmised that computer assistance had been used, but mistakenly assumed that the instructions had been transmitted via headphones.

We have only found a very small image of the 1993 Inside Chess cover cover. If anyone has a copy of the magazine, or pictures of the disguised player, please inform us.

Reitzen went on to develop poker programmes, won and lost fortunes, and was inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. Wayne died of cancer in 2018.

There are a lot of details on the scandal in the Wired article.