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Chess grandmaster caught cheating with his phone in the bathroom

By Stanford Crissey

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Grandmaster Gaioz Nigalidze faces 15-year ban for using smartphone app to cheat at chess

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When you hear the term “chess grandmaster,” what do you think of? Probably a highly intelligent person, gifted in strategy and one of the best in the world at the game. You also might be thinking of a 90-year-old Russian man with a long beard; I am, at least.

What you’re probably not thinking of is “guy who needs to use a smartphone to cheat.” But there’s at least one chess grandmaster who answers to that description: Gaioz Nigalidze, the two time Georgian national champion who was recently busted for using a smartphone app to cheat while he was in the bathroom.

Nigalidze was participating in a tournament in Dubai when his opponent got suspicious of his constant trips to the bathroom.

“Nigalidze would promptly reply to my moves and then literally run to the toilet,” said Tigran Petrosian, Nigalidze’s sixth round opponent, according to the Daily Mail.

“I noticed that he would always visit the same toilet partition, which was strange, since two other partitions weren’t occupied I informed the chief arbiter about my growing suspicions and asked him to keep an eye on Gaioz.”

Tournament officials checked the stall Nigalidze kept visiting, where they found a smartphone running a chess application, hidden under some toilet paper.

Nigalidze faces a 15-year ban from the game of chess, and was expelled from the tournament.

Here’s a photo of the app Nigalidze was using, via the Dubai Chess & Culture Club’s Facebook page:

Nigalidze tried to deny that the phone was his, but a social networking app on the phone was logged in under his name.

I don’t know about you, but for a supposed chess grandmaster, cheating is pretty low. Not to mention that I would expect a chess grandmaster, if he was going to cheat, to at least be a little better at it. This run to the bathroom stuff is amateur, and he shouldn’t be surprised that they saw through it. High school kids who cheat on tests are more elaborate than this. Eighth graders who write answers on their hands are laughing at him right now.

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