Ivanov restarts his chess career

12/9/2013 – In early October we reported that Borislav Ivanov had announced that he will retire from chess, after the Bulgarian FM had forfeited a game in the Blagoevgrad Open for refusing to allow the arbiter to check his shoes for hidden devices. Now Ivanov is back at it again: he started the Navalmoral de la Mata Open in Spain with 4.5/5 points, beating two GMs and drawing a third. But then there was, once again, a problem with his shoes.

 

Navalmoral de la Mata Open 2013

The 19th International Open Tournament "Villa de Navalmoral" took place from December 5th to 8th in Hotel Moya in Navalmoral de la Mata, a municipality located in the province of Cáceres in western Spain.

The tournament was a seven round Swiss, with 91 players from 16 countries, including twelve grandmasters and eight IMs. The total prize fund was €12,300, with €3,000 going to the winner. That was Azeri GM Namig Guliyev, who shared first with IM Vitali Koziak of Ukraine, both having scored 6.0/7 points, but Guliyev with the higher tiebreak scores.

The winner: GM Namig Guliyev of Azerbaijan

Final Ranking after seven rounds

Rk.	SNo	Ti.	Name	FED	RtgI	Pts.	TB1	TB2
1	5	GM	Guliyev Namig	AZE	2551	6.0	25.0	24.5
2	12	IM	Koziak Vitali	UKR	2486	6.0	22.5	22.5
3	3	GM	Peralta Fernando	ARG	2600	5.5	25.0	22.5
4	2	GM	Grigoryan Karen H.	ARM	2604	5.5	23.0	22.5
5	6	GM	Epishin Vladimir	RUS	2548	5.0	23.5	22.0
6	10	GM	Ibarra Jerez Jose Carlos	ESP	2510	5.0	23.0	21.5
7	14	FM	Gonzalez Perez Arian	FID	2467	5.0	23.0	20.5
8	20	IM	Dias Paulo	POR	2397	5.0	22.5	20.5
9	15	IM	Enchev Ivajlo	BUL	2447	5.0	22.0	21.0
10	16	IM	Barria Zuñiga Daniel	CHI	2434	5.0	20.0	20.0
11	4	GM	Perez Candelario Manuel	ESP	2568	4.5	26.0	21.5
12	23	FM	Ivanov Borislav	BUL	2318	4.5	25.5	23.5
13	7	GM	Nikolov Momchil	BUL	2529	4.5	24.0	21.0
14	1	GM	Fedorchuk Sergey A.	UKR	2660	4.5	24.0	19.5
15	19	IM	Antoli Royo Joaquin Miguel	ESP	2405	4.5	23.0	19.5
16	26	IM	Brito Garcia Alfredo	ESP	2307	4.5	22.5	19.0
17	25	FM	Garcia-Ortega Mendez Jose M.	ESP	2308	4.5	22.5	18.0
18	28	FM	Ryan Joseph	IRL	2280	4.5	22.5	17.5
19	18	GM	Komljenovic Davorin	CRO	2407	4.5	22.0	19.5
20	37		Gonzalez Trigal Jose Luis	ESP	2222	4.5	22.0	17.0
21	9	IM	Forcen Esteban Daniel	ESP	2511	4.5	20.5	20.0
22	39		Gertosio Franck	FRA	2210	4.5	20.0	16.5
23	43		Vasques Antonio Pedro Freixia	POR	2187	4.5	19.5	16.0
24	32		Melero Fidalgo Juan De Dios	ESP	2250	4.5	18.5	16.5

• Download all available games in PGN

Ivanov strikes again

The chess blog Play Chess Murcia is reporting that after a fine start our friend Borislav Ivanov was excluded from the tournament in round s. The details are quite delectable: Ivanov had scored 4.5 points in the first five rounds – against two untitled players and three GMs – and was leading the event, together with GM Namig Guliyev. The two were paired for round six, and Guliyev asked to have Ivanov's shoes examined, to see if he was hiding a sophisticated device ("GM Guliyev le solicitó al árbitro que Ivanov debía quitarse los zapatos, para ver si escondía algún dispositivo sofisticado"). Ivanov refused and the game was awarded to Guliyev. In addition Ivanov was disqualified from participating in the final round. This is how the tournament progressed for him:

Rd.	Bo.	SNo		Name	RtgI	FED	Pts.	Res.
1	21	66		Sanchez Camino Jose	1849	ESP	3.0	w 1
2	18	92		Sanchez Diaz Oscar	0	ESP	2.0	s 1
3	6	13	GM	Campora Daniel H.	2474	ARG	4.0	w 1
4	1	2	GM	Grigoryan Karen H.	2604	ARM	5.5	s 1
5	1	4	GM	Perez Candelario Manuel	2568	ESP	4.5	w ½
6	1	5	GM	Guliyev Namig	2551	AZE	6.0	w 0K
7	44	-2		not paired	0		0.0	- 0

As you can see Ivanov beat two GMs and drew against the third. Below are the the three games he played against the GMs, which you can peruse, learn from or check with the computer (suggestion: try Stockfish running on an iPhone or quad core Android). Take a look especially at the game against Campora, which Leonard Barden, respected chess columnist of The Guardian, calls "a smooth, controlled win where the GM looks outclassed".

Replay all Ivanov games from Navalmoral

Download PGN

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board
As our readers probably recall this is the second time Borislav Ivanov has refused to allow his shoes to be checked, in spite of the fact that this would cost him the game and even mean the forfeit of the tournament.

In early October during the Blagoevgrad Open in Bulgaria, he was confronted by GM Max Dlugy, who asked for a body check before their encounter in round seven. After the metal detector found nothing Dlugy asked for the shoes to be checked – his own and Ivanov's. What then happened he described in the harrowing interview we conducted with Max:

Without a word I take off my shoes, I take off my socks and throw them to the floor – just ba-doom, there, I’m done, now show me your shoes, please. What happened next was completely unexpected. The guy just goes “I categorically will not take off my shoes. My socks smell.” At this point my friend [a security expert] says: “I guess that would be forfeit, right?” and Borislav says: “if you have to forfeit me, forfeit me. But I will not take off my shoes.” The arbiter said: “You realise that you will lose, but I will also have to disqualify you from continuing to play in the tournament, and no one will play you ever again. All you have to do is to take off your shoes.” He actually tried to convince him for another couple of minutes, but Borislav was categorical about it: “No way I’m taking off my shoes. No way!” So the director shrugs and says “Okay, I’m putting in a zero.”

At the time we did a little research and found that, unfortunately, there is a very low-tech way to cheat in chess: a modern Android or Apple smartphone easily fits into a shoe, and you can use your toes to send signals to the motion detector in the phone. Little wiggles will do it. Or the toe can be used to tap on the LED screen. The response of the phone would be short bursts of vibration. An app could handle the interface to a chess engine running on the device. So it is not really necessary to work out a very complicated communication system to explain how a player may be using computer assistance during a chess tournament.
Subsequently we reported that Borislav Ivanov had announced that he was retiring from chess, a decision that he has clearly revoked. We were also informed that he had registered for the XXIV International Chess Festival Cracovia 2013, to be held from December 27 to January 4th in Hotel Galaxy in the Polish city of Kraków, though we do not find his name anymore on the current starting list.