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DUBAI — Armenia’s Grandmaster Tigran L. Petrosian became very suspicious of his opponent, Georgian Grandmaster Gaioz Nigalidze, when Gaioz kept excusing himself to the bathroom before every major point of their match.
Tigran alerted officials of the Dubai Open 2015 of his concerns. Initially, they searched Nigalidze and found nothing, but international arbiter Mahdi Abdul Rahim began to wonder if Nigalidze was using the same stall.
After searching the stalls of the bathroom, Rahim and other officials found an iPhone with a headset hidden behind the toilet under some toilet paper, according the Dubai Chess and Culture Club. There was a chess application analyzing the current game against Petrosian. When confronted with the evidence, Nigalidze denied the smartphone was his until they showed him it was also logged into his social media accounts — the perils of Facebook addiction.
Nigalidze won the Georgian Chess Championship in 2013 and 2014, and was also champion of the Al Ain Classic in Al Ain last December. It was widely noted how unusual it was for a 28th seed player to win a tournament.
Abdul Rahim removed Nigalidze from the tournament and is sending a report to the International Chess Federation. It has had to create a commission to deal with the growing problems with cheating. In fact, this is not the first time cheating has been attempted.
An American player in 2002 tried the same approach in checking a chess simulation during trips to the bathroom. Indian player Umakant Sharma was caught cheating in 2006 using a small Bluetooth headpiece hidden inside his cloth cap. In 2008, the Dubai Chess Club banned an Iranian player after it was discovered he was receiving text messages from a friend watching a live stream of the game, according to Endgadget's Mariella Moon.
Abdul Rahim explained players caught cheating are suspended from all tournaments for three years and up to 15 years if there is a repeat offense. Nigalidze’s motivation is easy to understand. The tournament offers a cash prize of $50,000, with the champion getting $12,000 and custody of the Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Cup, as reported by the Dubai Chess and Culture Club. Kent Larson is from Phoenix, Arizona. He has been married for 30 years. They have two sets of twins. He’s been teaching for 26 years and still enjoys it. His interests include writing, reading, music and movies.
