2015

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May 17, 2015

• The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles, California Sunday, May 17, 2015 - Page 64 — Chess: A Knight's Tour - Castling and Pawn Storming — As in any race, timing is everything. A few sharp tactics to hasten one's advance or miscalculations slowing one down can prove decisive. This column's featured game is an excellent case in point.
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June 14, 2015

• The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles, California Sunday, June 14, 2015 - Page 68 — Chess - Cheating Through The Ages

August 03, 2015

• The Boston Globe Boston, Massachusetts Monday, August 03, 2015 - Page B4 — Chess Notes — 10.Nc3 Bf5 11.b4 I found a 1957 Bobby Fischer game with him as black which went this way: 11.h3 h5 12.Qc2 d5 13.c5 Na6 14.a3 Nc7 15.Ne2 Ne6 16.Rd1 b6 17.b4 a5 with Fischer winning in 49 moves: Marchand-Fischer, 1957 New West Open

September 08, 2015

• The Ottawa Citizen Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Tuesday, September 08, 2015 - Page 26 — Chess Player Caught Cheating — Rome. An Italian chess player has been expelled from one of his country's most important tournaments after he allegedly used Morse code and a pendant containing a hidden camera to communicate with an accomplice. Arcangelo Ricciardi entered the International Chess Festival of Imperia ranked 51,366th in the world but astonished rivals as he breezed through the early stages of the competition to reach the eighth and penultimate round.
  Jean Coqueraut, who refereed the tournament in Liguria, Italy, said he suspected something was wrong early in the competition.
  “In chess, performances like that are impossible,” he told La Stampa newspaper. “I didn't think he was a genius, I knew he had to be a cheat.”
  “I kept on looking at him. He was always sitting down, he never got up. It was very strange; we are talking about hours and hours of playing. But most suspicious of all, he always had his arms folded with his thumb under his armpit. He never took it out.”
  Coqueraut said he was also “batting his eyelids in the most unnatural ways.” “Then I understood it,” he said. “He was deciphering signals in Morse code.”
  Tournament organizers asked the 37-year old to pass through a metal detector, and found a pendant underneath a shirt that contained a tiny video camera as well as a mass of wires attached to his body and four-centimeter box under his arm.
  It is thought the camera transmitted the game to an accomplice or computer, which then suggested moves through signals received in the box. Read More