Player suspected of cheating removed from Dubai chessfest

DUBAI, UAE — The race for the US$13,000 top prize has intensified as a large chunk of the highest-rated seeds dropped out of the leaderboard, but it was a suspected cheating incident by one of the tournament’s lowest-rated players that stole the limelight in Wednesday night’s third round of the 19th Dubai Open Chess Tournament–Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club.

Sixth-seed Grandmaster (GM) Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela, eighth-seed GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi of India, 12th-seed GM Sandro Mareco of Argentina and 18th-seed GM Mustafa Yilmaz of Turkey are the only players among the top 20 seeds with perfect slates after their super-grandmaster peers yielded to upset losses and draws.

Completing the 10-player lead pack after three rounds are 22nd-seed GM Ahmed Adly of Egypt, 27th-seed GM Mikhail Antipov of Russia, 28th-seed Emre Can of Turkey, 32nd-seed GM Alexander Fier of Brazil, 34th-seed GM Alan Pichot of Argentina and 31st-seed International Master (IM) Jaime Santos Latasa of Spain.

However, the explosive board battles were overshadowed by an apparent cheating attempt involving a 21-year-old player from India. Jeel Shah, who has an International Chess Federation (Fide) rating of 1764 and seeded 192nd out of 213 players in the tournament, caught the arbiters’ attention because of suspicious behavior during his game against 14-year-old Dushyant Sharma of India.

After closely monitoring his actions, International Arbiter (IA) Mahdi Abdul Rahim, the tournament’s chief arbiter, summoned Shah to the arbiter’s office for an inspection, where he was found to be hiding a mobile phone under the sleeves of his shirt. Shah refused to comply with the arbiters’ request to turn the phone on to check if it was being used to run a chess program, prompting tournament officials to expel the Indian player from the tournament.

As per Fide rules, mobile phones and other electronic devices are not allowed in the playing hall of a tournament.