Kreiman - US Chess Championship Controversy

A new controversy has arisen involving Grandmaster Boris Kreiman and
the qualification rules for the US Championship.

In the American Open in Los Angeles in November, Kreiman won his last
round game against International Master Ricardo De Guzman, thereby
qualifying Kreiman for the US Championship starting on February 22.

However, the game looks suspicious. De Guzman played the opening
exceptionally passively. He gave up a pawn for no apparent reason and
then he resigned a pawn down when there was still play left in the
game.

This unusual circumstance plus the rather sordid reputation of
Grandmaster Kreiman, including the fact that he is believed to
participate in illegal activities and is known to take anabolic
steroids, which is a violation of FIDE Rules, had led some to believe
that Kreiman paid De Guzman to dump the game.

The original complaint about this game was made by International
Master Jesse Kraai, the next person down in the standings, who would
have qualified to the US Championship had the game ended in a draw or
a win by De Guzman.

http://www.americanopen.org/2005/standings.html

International Arbiter Randy Hough, who was an arbiter at the
tournament, has written a letter to the American Foundation for Chess,
which organizes the US Championship, indicating that he believes that
the game was fixed.

This controversy has been reported on the chessninja.com website, and
an active discussion is taking place on the forum there.

http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/...art_attack.htm

Greg Shahade, a member of the USCF Executive Board until he resigned
two weeks ago, has raised this issue with the USCF, suggesting that
Kreiman be disqualified from the US Championship.

However, there is another side to this story, which makes this case
not so clear. Turns out that International Master De Guzman plays this
way. Players in the San Francisco Bay Area where De Guzman lives say
that this is just a typical De Guzman game. De Guzman wins by playing
passively and suckering his opponents into over-aggressive play. They
say that De Guzman indeed does play like a 1400-player some of the
time. In short, this is nothing more than a typical De Guzman game,
they say.

In addition, Kreiman does not have a lot of money. Unless he had just
scored a big win at poker or backgammon, he would not have had enough
money to pay off De Guzman. International Masters do not sell their
games so cheaply. They sell, but not so cheaply.

Finally, Grandmaster Kreiman is rated one hundred points higher than
De Guzman. Why would Kreiman pay an opponent that he would probably
beat anyway without having to pay him anything at all?

Here is the game. What do you think?

Sam Sloan


[Event "41st American Open"]
[Site "Los Angeles"]
[Date "2005.11.27"]
[Round "08"]
[White "De Guzman, Ricardo"]
[Black "Kreiman, Boris"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "D02"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.g3 d5 3.Bg2 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.O-O O-O 6.Nbd2 c6 7.c3 Na6
8.e3 Bf5 9.Re1 Qc8 10.Qe2 Re8 11.Nb3 Bg4 12.Bd2 Ne4 13.Rec1 Qf5
14.h3 Bxh3 15.Bxh3 Qxh3 16.Qf1 Qf5 17.Kg2 Bf6 18.Qh1 h5 19.Be1 c5
20.Qh3 Qxh3+ 21.Kxh3 c4 22.Nbd2 Nd6 23.b3 b5 24.Kg2 Nc7 25.bxc4
bxc4 26.Kf1 e6 27.Rab1 Rab8 28.Ng1 g5 29.f3 g4 30.f4 Be7 31.Ne2
Kg7 32.Rxb8 Rxb8 0-1

Sam Sloan wrote:
Kreiman - US Chess Championship Controversy
Here is the game. What do you think?
1.d4 Nf6 2.g3 d5 3.Bg2 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.O-O O-O 6.Nbd2 c6 7.c3 Na6
8.e3 Bf5 9.Re1 Qc8 10.Qe2 Re8 11.Nb3 Bg4 12.Bd2 Ne4 13.Rec1 Qf5
14.h3 Bxh3 15.Bxh3 Qxh3 16.Qf1 Qf5 17.Kg2 Bf6 18.Qh1 h5 19.Be1 c5
20.Qh3 Qxh3+ 21.Kxh3 c4 22.Nbd2 Nd6 23.b3 b5 24.Kg2 Nc7 25.bxc4
bxc4 26.Kf1 e6 27.Rab1 Rab8 28.Ng1 g5 29.f3 g4 30.f4 Be7 31.Ne2
Kg7 32.Rxb8 Rxb8 0-1

Obviously tis is not a good game from White. White lost the game more or
less at move 14. Perhaps White had the impression that Black was
threatening Ng5 winning a piece and therefore he had to shake off the
pin at any cost. But indeed 14. Re1 would have held on, as 14...Ng5 15.
Nh4 keeps the material balance. To avoid Nh4 Black could have played
14...Qh5 but White still can hold with 15. Bc1 Ng5 16. Nbd2 planning h4
and Qf1. Of course Black doesn't have to play Ng5, White has a very
cramped position and it is psychologically very difficult to admit the
last three moves were just in vain and doing it all backwards. This
opening was a terrible failure.

In the end position White is just waiting for his execution. 33. Rc2 is
forced because the black rook mustn't get in on the 2nd rank. After that
White can just shuffle his pieces back and forth waiting for Black. An
easy plan is Nce8-f6-e4xd2, Rb1, Ne4, f5, Ka4, Ba3 and Black soon
captures the a-pawn. White can't do anything about it.

I was not able to find any games of Mr. de Guzman for comparison.
Chessbase knows a Ricardo Guzman of Chile but according to Chessninja,
de Guzman is a Filipino. The website of the American Open has only this
game of him, none of the other rounds. Also no luck in the Week in Chess
about the whole tournament. I guess the relationship between tournament
organization and press needs some work.

Claus-Juergen

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 02:40:06 +0100,
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Claus-J=FCrgen_Heigl?=
wrote:

Sam Sloan wrote:
Kreiman - US Chess Championship Controversy
Here is the game. What do you think?
1.d4 Nf6 2.g3 d5 3.Bg2 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.O-O O-O 6.Nbd2 c6 7.c3 Na6
8.e3 Bf5 9.Re1 Qc8 10.Qe2 Re8 11.Nb3 Bg4 12.Bd2 Ne4 13.Rec1 Qf5
14.h3 Bxh3 15.Bxh3 Qxh3 16.Qf1 Qf5 17.Kg2 Bf6 18.Qh1 h5 19.Be1 c5
20.Qh3 Qxh3+ 21.Kxh3 c4 22.Nbd2 Nd6 23.b3 b5 24.Kg2 Nc7 25.bxc4
bxc4 26.Kf1 e6 27.Rab1 Rab8 28.Ng1 g5 29.f3 g4 30.f4 Be7 31.Ne2
Kg7 32.Rxb8 Rxb8 0-1

Obviously tis is not a good game from White. White lost the game more or
less at move 14. Perhaps White had the impression that Black was
threatening Ng5 winning a piece and therefore he had to shake off the
pin at any cost. But indeed 14. Re1 would have held on, as 14...Ng5 15.
Nh4 keeps the material balance. To avoid Nh4 Black could have played
14...Qh5 but White still can hold with 15. Bc1 Ng5 16. Nbd2 planning h4
and Qf1. Of course Black doesn't have to play Ng5, White has a very
cramped position and it is psychologically very difficult to admit the
last three moves were just in vain and doing it all backwards. This
opening was a terrible failure.

In the end position White is just waiting for his execution. 33. Rc2 is
forced because the black rook mustn't get in on the 2nd rank. After that
White can just shuffle his pieces back and forth waiting for Black. An
easy plan is Nce8-f6-e4xd2, Rb1, Ne4, f5, Ka4, Ba3 and Black soon
captures the a-pawn. White can't do anything about it.

I was not able to find any games of Mr. de Guzman for comparison.
Chessbase knows a Ricardo Guzman of Chile but according to Chessninja,
de Guzman is a Filipino. The website of the American Open has only this
game of him, none of the other rounds. Also no luck in the Week in Chess
about the whole tournament. I guess the relationship between tournament
organization and press needs some work.

Claus-Juergen

Thank you for your analysis.

Ricardo De Guzman is an International Master from the Philippines. His
FIDE ID number is 5200121 .

His USCF Rating is 2483

http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?12621677

The reason you cannot find his name on the FIDE Rating list is that
NONE of the Filipino players are on the list. I presume that this is
because the Philippines Chess Federation has not paid their FIDE dues.
Perhaps this has to do with the fact that there is a split between two
Philippines Chess Federations.

Sam Sloan

"Claus-Jürgen Heigl" wrote

I was not able to find any games of Mr. de Guzman for comparison.
Claus-Juergen

Try the Cal Games Database. There should be a lot of his games in the

http://www.chessdryad.com/games/index.htm

Duncan

Cheating is normal in chess. It's no big deal. They should put me in
the US Championship instead of Kreiman.

Duncan Oxley wrote:
"Claus-Jürgen Heigl" wrote
I was not able to find any games of Mr. de Guzman for comparison.
Claus-Juergen
Try the Cal Games Database. There should be a lot of his games in the

http://www.chessdryad.com/games/index.htm

Just looked into the database time period 1996-2004.

[Event "Bay Masters Grand Prix 1"]
[Site "Mechanics' Institute"]
[Date "2002.01.27"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Mezentsev, V."]
[Black "De Guzman, R."]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C50"]
[WhiteElo "2410"]
[BlackElo "2367"]
[PlyCount "120"]
[EventDate "2002.??.??"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Be7 4. d4 d6 5. O-O Nf6 6. d5 Nb8 7. Bb5+
Nbd7 8. Bxd7+ Bxd7 9. Nbd2 O-O 10. c4 c6 11. Re1 Qb6 12. Nb3 cxd5 13.
exd5 Rfe8 14. h3 Rac8 15. c5 dxc5 16. Nxe5 Ba4 17. Qd3 Qd6 18. Na5 b6
19. Qa3 Bd7 20. Nxd7 Qxd7 21. Nc4 Nxd5 22. Rd1 Qb5 23. Ne5 Nb4 24. Qxa7
f6 25. Qd7 Qxd7 26. Nxd7 Rc6 27. Bf4 Rec8 28. a3 Na6 29. Rd2 Kf7 30. Re1
Rd8 31. g4 b5 32. Red1 Ke8 33. Kg2 c4 34. Be3 b4 35. axb4 Nxb4 36. Nb6
Rb8 37. Na4 Nd3 38. Rc2 Rb3 39. Kf1 Bd6 40. Bd4 Kf7 41. h4 Be5 42. Bxe5
fxe5 43. f3 Kg6 44. Rdd2 h5 45. Rg2 Nf4 46. gxh5+ Kh6 47. Rg3 Nxh5 48.
Rh3 Nf4 49. Rg3 Nd5 50. Kf2 e4 51. Nc3 e3+ 52. Kf1 Nf4 53. Rg4 Nd3 54.
Nd1 Ne5 55. Re4 Nxf3 56. Rxe3 Rf6 57. Rf2 Nxh4 58. Rxf6+ gxf6 59. Re4
Nf3 60. Kg2 Ne5 {Black won many moves later in mutual time pressure.} 0-1

[Event "Bay Masters Grand Prix 1"]
[Site "Mechanics' Institute"]
[Date "2002.01.27"]
[Round "5"]
[White "De Guzman, R."]
[Black "Keatinge-Clay, A."]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "D03"]
[WhiteElo "2367"]
[BlackElo "2253"]
[PlyCount "12"]
[EventDate "2002.??.??"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Bg5 Bg7 4. Nbd2 d5 5. e3 c5 6. c3 b6 1/2-1/2


[Event "Bay Masters Grand Prix III"]
[Site "San Francisco"]
[Date "2002.06.15"]
[Round "2"]
[White "De Guzman, R."]
[Black "Rey, G."]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D10"]
[WhiteElo "2372"]
[BlackElo "2358"]
[PlyCount "93"]
[EventDate "2002.??.??"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. e3 Nf6 4. Nc3 a6 5. Nf3 g6 6. a4 Bg7 7. a5 O-O 8.
Bd2 Ne4 9. Qc2 Nxd2 10. Qxd2 Bg4 11. h3 Bxf3 12. gxf3 dxc4 13. f4 e6 14.
Bxc4 Nd7 15. b4 Qe7 16. Rb1 Rad8 17. Qc2 Nf6 18. h4 Rfe8 19. Na4 Nd5 20.
Bxd5 exd5 21. Kf1 h5 22. Nc5 Rd6 23. Kg2 Kh8 24. Rh3 Rf6 25. Rg3 Rg8 26.
Rg1 Bh6 27. Kf1 Rb8 28. Nd3 Rc8 29. Nc5 Rc7 30. Rf3 Rf5 31. Rh3 Qf6 32.
Rg5 Bxg5 33. hxg5 Qe7 34. Rxh5+ Kg7 35. Rh3 Rc8 36. Qd1 Rh8 37. Qg4 Rxh3
38. Qxh3 Kg8 39. Qh6 Qe8 40. Kg1 Qe7 41. Kg2 Qc7 42. f3 b6 43. axb6 Qxb6
44. Nd7 Qxb4 45. Nf6+ Rxf6 46. gxf6 Qd2+ 47. Kh3 1-0

[White "De Guzman, Richardo"]
[Black "Aigner, Michael"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A81"]
[WhiteElo "2526"]
[BlackElo "2292"]
[Annotator "Deep Fritz (60s)"]
[PlyCount "77"]
[EventDate "2002.??.??"]

{A81: Dutch Defence: 2 g3} 1. d4 f5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5.
O-O O-O 6. a4 d6 (6... a5 7. Na3 d6 8. b3 c6 9. Bb2 Na6 10. c4 Kh8 11.
Nc2 Qb6 12. Nce1 Be6 13. Nd3 Bg8 14. Rb1 Rfe8 15. e3 Rad8 16. Qc2 Nd7
17. Rfe1 e5 18. dxe5 dxe5 19. e4 Nac5 20. exf5 Nxd3 21. Qxd3 {
Hebden,M-Santo Roman,M/France 2001/EXT 2002/1-0 (32)}) 7. c3 $146 (7. a5
c6 8. c3 Kh8 9. Nbd2 Qc7 10. Nc4 Na6 11. Re1 Bd7 12. Ncd2 e5 13. dxe5
dxe5 14. Nc4 Ne4 15. Nfxe5 {1/2-1/2 Dimitrov,A-Grigorov,J/Sofia 1992/EXT
99 (15)}) 7... c6 8. Qb3+ Kh8 9. a5 Qe8 10. Nbd2 Na6 11. Re1 e5 12. e4
Nxe4 13. Nxe4 fxe4 14. Rxe4 d5 15. Rh4 e4 {Black gets more space} 16.
Ng5 h5 17. Bd2 Bf6 18. Rf4 Bf5 (18... b5 19. axb6 axb6 20. Qxb6 $11) 19.
h4 (19. Rxf5 $5 {is an interesting idea} 19... gxf5 20. Qxb7 $14) 19...
Rb8 20. Re1 Bxg5 21. hxg5 Qd8 22. Qd1 (22. f3 exf3 23. Rxf3 Qd7 $14
(23... Qxa5 $143 24. Bf4 $16)) 22... Nc7 (22... Qxa5 $5 23. b4 Qd8 $15)
23. Rh4 Ne6 24. g4 Nxg5 25. Rh2 ({Weaker is} 25. gxf5 Nf3+ {Clearance to
allow d8-h4} 26. Bxf3 Qxh4 $15) 25...Bd7 26. gxh5 Nf3+ 27. Bxf3 Rxf3
{Praise the rook!} 28. hxg6+ Kg8 $2 (28... Kg7 29. Re3 Bg4 30. Qf1 Rxe3
31. Bxe3 $16 (31. fxe3 $6 Bf3 $11 (31... Kxg6 32. Qf4 Bh5 33. Rg2+ Kh7
34. Qf5+ Kh6 35. Be1 Qe7 36. Bg3 Qd8 37. Bf4+ Qg5 38. Qxg5+ Kh7 39.
Qxh5#))) 29. Kh1 (29. Bf4 $142 $1 {would have given White the upper
hand} 29... Rxf4 30. Qh5 $18) 29... Bg4 $11 (29... Qxa5 30. Re3 Bg4 31.
Qg1 $18) 30. Rg1 Qd7 31. g7 Kf7 (31... Qxg7 $4 {it may look tempting but
Black must resist capturing the pawn} 32. Bh6 Qd7 33.Rh4 $18) (31...
Kxg7 $2 {is no good} 32. Rxg4+ {Theme: Clearance for h1-g1} 32... Qxg4
33. Rg2 Rh8+ 34. Kg1 Qxg2+ 35. Kxg2 $18) 32. Qf1 Rg8 (32... Kxg7 $2 {is
no good because of} 33. Qg2 $18) 33. Bh6 Rd3 34. Rh4 Rd1 (34... Bf3+
$142 $5 {has some apparent merit} 35. Kh2 Rd1 $11) 35. Qg2 $16 Bf3 36.
Rf4+ Ke6 $4 (36... Ke7 $142 {would be a reprieve} 37. Rxf3 Rxg1+ 38.
Kxg1 exf3 39. Qxf3 Qe6 40. Qf8+ Kd7 $14) 37. Rxf3 $18 Rxg1+ 38. Kxg1
exf3 39. Qg6+ {Resigns} (39. Qg6+ Ke7 40. Bg5#) 1-0


There are some more games of him in the game collection but I didn't
want to overload this post with games. I think there are enough to judge
for yourself. In general it can be said that de Guzman's style is not a
very aggressive one. With White he either plays Queen's gambit or
something like the Torre Attack. So the opening choice of the critizised
game is not totally out of hand. Mixing up a Catalan like fianchetto
with a Colle like pawn structure just didn't fit together. (The main
idea of the Catalan Opening is to pressure along the h1-a8 diagonal,
especially d5, and using c4 to pry the diagonal open, the main idea of
the Colle is to play e4 while maintaining d4. De Guzman tried both and
it didn't work.) Maybe de Guzman had a bad day at the end of a stressful
tournament. If there are no other proofs for the accusation of game
fixing I'd say the accusation is founded rather weakly.

Claus-Juergen

En/na Claus-Jürgen Heigl ha escrit:

(...) Maybe de Guzman had a bad day at the end of a stressful
tournament. If there are no other proofs for the accusation of game
fixing I'd say the accusation is founded rather weakly.

Claus-Juergen

Hello Claus Juergen,

I agree, white played a poor opening and had a very bad position.
I agree too white is lost in final position.

The big question is what evidence is enough to prove a game was sold.

- "Poor play" is not an evidence, all we have bad days!
(Capablanca lost a piece in move 9th in Saemisch-Capablanca, Carlsbad
1929. 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 a3 Bxc3+ 5 bxc3 d6 6 f3 c5 7 e4 Nc6
8.Be3 b6 9 Bd3 Ba6?? 10 Qa4! Bb7 11 d5 ).
- "Different as habitual openings used" are neither a evidence,
sometimes we try to play some different due to many different reasons.
- "Different style" is hard to evaluate, we sometimes prefer to play
quietely and sometimes we play sharper.

As nobody saw Mr De Guzman receiving money, it seems in this case there
are no evidences.

Here in Catalonia (Spain), a GM (Azer Mirzoev) was acused of trying to
buy a game and was condemned to 1 year without playing tournaments
here. The only argument was another GM (with a large tradition of being
honest and with no known interests in this case) who received the offer
(and He rejected it, of course) and an idependent witness.
After that sentence other grandmasters were arguing that that argument
was not enough to condemn someone and the decision was appealed.
There is also another discusion involving GM Komljenovic who has being
accused many times for similar questions.

For people interested in this discusions (in Spanish) see the following
links: http://www.ajedreznd.com/2005/ciclismo.htm and
http://www.ajedreznd.com/2005/mayerciutat.htm

Antonio

wrote:
The big question is what evidence is enough to prove a game was sold.

In general I would strongly caution against basing such a conclusion
on the game score alone.

"Taylor Kingston" writes:

wrote:
The big question is what evidence is enough to prove a game was sold.

In general I would strongly caution against basing such a conclusion
on the game score alone.

I was just reading over a Zukertort-Steinitz game. Zukertort
has spent some time pushing forward his queen side pawns and
eventually threatened to trap Steinitz' undeveloped QR and QN.
Steinitz ignored the threat and Zukertort failed to play it,
losing rapidly (in part because of the wasted time setting up
the threat he didn't play). Euwe confirms that Zukertort would
have gained the upper hand had he followed b5 with c6. This
did not happen in time pressure.

As internal "evidence" for a fix this would seem to be as good
as it gets. Particularly as Zukertort had routed Steinitz in
the first half of the match, but was now losing ("throwing")
almost every game.

Naturally not many people (I was going to say "nobody", but
who knows?) think Zukertort was doing anything but trying to
win the title he'd been after for two decades, but imagine
if this game happened to be Keres-Botvinnik, 1948?


--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University

Taylor Kingston wrote:
In general I would strongly caution against basing such a conclusion
on the game score alone.

Indeed the game score is not sufficient. Two other bits of
circumstantial evidence that nobody has posted yet in this thread.

a DeGuzman has a history of playing the opening poorly, usually
against untitled players (not against GMs). However, he wins most of
those games anyways with his tremendous fighting spirit and strong
middle- and endgame play. The game presented doesn't show much
fighting spirit. White loses a pawn and merely goes down without a
fight.

b There has been testimony from witnesses that neither player was at
the board much during this game. It certainly seems strange that
black, needing a win to qualify for the US Championship, apparently did
not sit much at the board. After all, he was playing a formidable
opponent (at least on paper) with the black pieces!

Whether this adds up to cheating is not for me to determine. But I'm
extremely disappointed by these events.

Michael Aigner