PhD, Associate Professor I.V. Mikhaylova
Russian State Social University, Moscow

Keywords: competitive chess sport, doping, cheating, online broadcasts, chess software, technical doping.

Background. As provided by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), doping means one or few violations of the anti-doping rules. In competitive sports, athletes most often violate the rules by possessing or using prohibited agents including the genetic ones or refusing to pass the doping tests. Modern sports may be grouped into a few types by the forms of the core sporting activity, competitive factors and ways to the competitive success, and one of such sport groups gives a top priority to the individual intellectual qualities and skills as the key success factors. This group of sports may be described as the intellectual competitive bouts whereas the competitors apply mental two- or three-dimensional images and action plans to outplay the competitor in the abstract logical aspect. Under the valid WADA classification, competitive chess is rated among these sports being defined as the competitive chess matching activity.

Objective of the study was to make a content analysis of the doping and cheating practices, types, tools, methods and technologies applied in the modern competitive chess sport.

Methods and structure of the study. Since the late 1990ies, the World Chess Federation (Fédération Internationale des Echecs – FIDE) have taken persistent attempts to have chess qualified an Olympic sport [3]. As provided by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regulations, chess have been subject to doping control since 2001. By the list of the relevant prohibited brain-stimulating/ muscular tonus rehabilitation agents, modern chess still stay apart of the doping control requirements to many other sport disciplines. As things now stand, WADA defines competitive chess as the “intellectual” sport with low risk exposure albeit the meaning of doping applicable in chess is still in need of a clear interpretation.

Doping tests applied in chess are quite standard and similar to many other sport disciplines. The doping tests are generally classified into the competitive, off-competitive and non-scheduled ones. First doping tests were made in the sport in the 2001 World Chess Championship in Moscow. When the doping test in chess is positive, the player may be subject, as provided by the valid FIDE rules, to the following sanctions:

1. Barred from all chess competitions;
2. Must pay a penalty of up to USD 100,000;

3. May be disqualified for up to six months when tested positive for ephedrine, phenyl propanol amine and pseudo-ephedrine; and disqualified for at most two years when tested positive for drugs.

No violations of the anti-doping regulations by chess players have been detected in Russia so far; it was only once in a Latin American qualification tournament for the World Chess Championship that one of the competitors was tested positive for cannabinoid. It may be pertinent to emphasise that modern precompetitive training in any chess career stage is dominated by the information-technology-driven training practices and this is the key factor that makes the modern chess so different from many other sports [1]. Practical importance of the information-technology-driven training aspect will always grow in any chess players’ career starting from the beginner sport specialisation stage and is considered a top-priority method in the sport excellence stage. On the negative side of the informational intensity of the sport is the modern cheating technology that may be described as fraudulent activities in chess competitions intended to obtain an unfair advantage by means of prohibited tools/ methods being applied in the competitive/ off-competitive time. The modern cheating technologies are dominated by the application software tools being used to assist the player in matches, with the cheating method being commonly referred to as the technodoping. The electronic cheating technologies may be applied by the violating players in any training process stage. It should be noted that technodoping technologies have been applied in some other sport disciplines. For example, B.G. Onishenko, Olympic Champion (USSR) was life-banned in 1976 for using a hidden button in the epee handle; and one Belgian cyclist used an electric motor hidden in the bicycle frame during the 2016 World Cycle Racing Championship. Presently the FIDE ranks the electronic/ application software-based cheating technologies on top of the potential hazards for the global chess advancement process.

Study results and discussion. Since the competitive chess are still beyond the modern Olympic and Paralympic sports and still relatively unpopular, unprofitable and unsupported by the national governments, they often fail to lure enough support from the private sponsors as well [2]. Therefore, there are good grounds to assume that the existing demand for doping is mostly driven by the personal agendas of the players willing to enter the chess elite at any cost for it is the only way to make the financial ends meet. Whilst a doping may be harmful both for the player’s career and health, the cheating technologies are normally the most harmful in the ethical domain of the game as the technodoping, for instance, deliberately violates the fair play ideal and spirit viewed as fundamental for any sport discipline and for the global Olympic movement on the whole.

In more specific terms, doping in competitive chess may be interpreted as the deliberate application of prohibited agents and/or genetic products/ technologies to spur up the individual mental and physical activity and endurance in the competitive periods of a training cycle. Beta-blocker agents, for instance, may be used by athletes to spur up the performance in coordination-skills-intensive sports like arching or diving. These agents may be also applied in the competitive chess along with some CNS stimulators like phenalkamines to speed up the bodily responses and increase the attention scoping and focusing ability plus the memorising and data processing ability. These agents are unable to step up the natural cognitive resource of brain but they are still effective enough in the brain ability being increased to stand heavy mental and physical stresses. It should be noted, nevertheless, that chess players have never been tested positive for such stimulators and genetic doping agents for the whole chess history.

In broader terms, doping in modern competitive chess is largely limited to technodoping practices in fact. The fast progress of electronic technologies for the last decade has made this problem more and more acute for the enthusiasts of clean competitive chess. The FIDE specialists give increasingly high priority to the relevant anti-cheating/ application software tools to detect the cases of cheating in chess matches. As a result, a few international-class grandmasters have been disqualified, namely S. Feller and A. Oshar, French Olympic team members, and G. Nigalidze, Georgian Chess Champion. It may be pertinent to note that in the physically intensive sport disciplines doping may not always guarantee a success. Given in Table 1 hereunder is an overview of doping types.

Table 1. Classification of doping applicable in sports

The modern competitive chess training process is so dependent on the information-technologies-driven training tools and sophisticated application software that an elaborate electronic cheating technology may guarantee success in matches with players of whatever skill levels.

Conclusion

• Doping tests will be performed in competitive periods. The FIDE needs to formalise the relevant anti-doping and anti-cheating tests by the relevant provisions in its rules of competitions.
• Initiatives to vary the time control schemes and suspensions of live broadcasts may cause problems for the fraudulent application of technical doping tools and may contribute to the relevant doping control initiatives.
• Rights of the clean competitors will be protected by a duly formalised sport legislation system and institutions; we recommend sport law departments being established for this purpose by the relevant national universities.

The 2016 Olympics in Rio demonstrated that the existing sport officials and lawyers specialised in the international practices may not always be effective enough in the efforts to protect dignity and interests of clean athletes.

References

1. Mikhaylova I.V., Shmeleva S.V., Makhov A.S. Primenenie infokommunikatsionnykh sredstv obucheniya v mnogoletney podgotovke sportsmenov-shakhmatistov [Information communication teaching aids in long-term training of chess players]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2015, no. 5, pp. 70–72.
2. Mikhaylova I.V., Shmeleva S.V., Makhov A.S. Tekhnologiya adaptivnogo shakhmatnogo obucheniya detey-invalidov [Adaptive chess educational technology for disabled children]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2015, no. 7, pp. 38–41.
3. Mikhaylova I.V., Makhov A.S., Alifirov A.I. Shakhmaty kak mnogokomponentny vid adaptivnoy fizicheskoy kultury [Chess as multi­component type of adaptive physical culture]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2015, no. 12. pp. 56-58.
4. Safiulin E.M., Alifirov A.I. Vliyanie igry v shakhmaty na funktsionalnoe sostoyanie invalidov [Impact of game of chess on functional status of persons with musculoskeletal disorders]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2016, no. 7, p. 52.

Abstract

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) governed by the core tenets of the Olympic movement and Olympic Charter and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) governed by its Code of Conduct have long pursued doping zero-tolerance policies. In case of proved national governmental policies in support of doping application on a systemic basis, athletes of the relevant nation will be barred from participation in Olympic and Paralympic games. Presently the global sport system is in need of studies of the doping detection criteria and the key doping-related issues in the context of the new stage in the fight for clean sports after the Russian Olympians and Paralympians were barred from participation in the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics. Since successes in some sport disciplines mostly depend rather on intellectual than purely physical qualities and skills, it is important to analyse the doping forms, methods and technologies in the intellectual (as defined by WADA) sports. However, the sport system is still in need on a comprehensive list of brain performance stimulating medicines. The modern competitive chess sport and its training systems are now dominated by computerised/ online/ electronic training tools that make the sport highly vulnerable to the modern electronic cheating technologies that imply concealed assistance to a competitor by application game software on a real-time basis.