page_title: 42nd Chess Olympiad
section_title: Incidents
hierarchical_section_title: 42nd Chess Olympiad / Concerns and controversies / Cheating / Incidents
caption_attribution_description: English: GM Nigel Short, European Chess Team Championship Warsaw 2013
context_page_description: The 42nd Chess Olympiad, organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open and women's tournaments, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 1 to 14 September 2016. It was the first time that the Chess Olympiad had been hosted in Azerbaijan, the birthplace of former world champion Garry Kasparov; however, Azerbaijan had previously hosted strong tournaments, including the annual Shamkir Chess super-tournament in memory of Vugar Gashimov and the Chess World Cup 2015.
  The total number of participants was 1,587, with 894 in the Open and 693 in the Women's event. The number of registered teams was 180 from 175 countries in the Open section and 142 from 138 countries in the Women's section. Both sections set team participation records. Eritrea, Kosovo, and South Sudan competed in the tournament for the first time. The venue of the Chess Olympiad was the Baku Crystal Hall. The Chief Arbiter of the event was Azerbaijan's International Arbiter Faiq Hasanov.
context_section_description: In the fourth round, a Japanese player (Tang Tang) was forfeited after he was caught with an electronic device in a random check conducted prior to leaving the venue. The game result was reversed from a win for the player to a loss, which also resulted in a change in the match score. Chief Arbiter Faiq Hasanov said that he was approached by an arbiter in the anti-cheating department and informed about the matter. He himself did not bother to check if there was a chess program installed on the device, as possession already violated the rules, leading to an automatic forfeiture. Later information from other arbiters involved indicated there possibly were two devices involved, and their quick check did not indicate a chess program was running. Without sufficient evidence of cheating per se, Hasanov felt that more than game disqualification would be double punishment. The captain of the Japanese team GM Mihajlo Stojanović later addressed some of the related issues in comments on the blog of the Macedonian grandmaster and general secretary of the Association of Chess Professionals Aleksandar Čolooviḱ.
  During the game of the seventh round between Nigel Short and Li Chao, the former was returning from the toilet with about 30 minutes to make 20 moves when an anti-cheating arbiter asked him to undergo a spot check with a hand scanner for electronic devices. Short did not heed the request, and sat back down to play. After the game, Klaus Deventer (the head of the anti-cheating arbiters) reprimanded Short with a warning. Short discussed the incident extensively after the event, indicating that he did not think the cost of annoyance to the player (even when returning from outside the playing area) was comparable to the anti-cheating benefit, though he was not pressed specifically regarding cases where a culprit had in fact been disqualified following mid-game requests for inspection (some for refusal, others for being caught with a device). Initially Short also mentioned the fact that he and the arbiter in question (Jamie Kenmure, an Australian who is FIDE delegate for the Solomon Islands) have a political past, and thus Short did not trust that his being selected for the test actually originated from Deventer (as per the regulations). Alternative initial reports dramatised the event to have the arbiters "ask[ing] him to step away from the board and subject himself to a full search" while in time trouble and playing a "do-or-die" position, though these details now seem discredited.
caption: Nigel Short received official warning for refusing to undergo a check during a game
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