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Highest paid cheater in chess history?

On Monday March 22, 2021 in Indonesia there was a 3 games match, between IM Irene Sukandar and Dadang Subur, also known as Dewa Kipas. The match was organized by Deddy Corbuzier a famous Indonesian actor, after the online controversy which saw Dadang Subur (AKA Dewa Kipas) being accused by IM Levy Rozman of cheating.

On March 2nd, 2021 on his Twitch channel Rozman (AKA GothamChess) played a 10 minutes game against Dadang Subur (Kipas Dewa). Rozman main complain was that the account of the Indonesian player had gained 800 points in 11 days. Obviously if chess improvement was this easy, we would all be world champions by Christmas. Rozman checked the account’s games, and noticed the accuracy was too high and consistent for a human player. He reported the account, and it was closed.

Cheating in chess is quite simple: a player uses an engine to play the moves in his/her games. Chess Programs have reached a level that no human can beat them (even when used on a smart phone!). And today there are even adds-on to browsers like Chrome which promise to play at a certain level, like 2300 which is a Fide Master level, to avoid detection. Another way some cheaters try to avoid detection is to mix the moves of the chess program with their own moves.

After the account was closed, someone who posed as Kipas Dewa’s son made a post on how unfair his father was treated. A magazine, Wired, probably published by journalists and editors who know nothing about chess, supported the lies of Dadang Subur’s son, and created a controversy which in the chess world, plagued by cheaters like Dadang, doesn’t really need to be supported.

Statistics showing for September 2020, highlighted the amount of cheaters caught on chess.com

In chess the only thing which count is how well one can play at the board, in front of another player, unfortunately the Covid pandemic has prevented chess players to play for nearly a year in front of each other. In any case, Rozman began to receive threats and insults in all his online social accounts, making his life miserable. To my knowledge nobody of the low life, and trolls who attacked Rozman publicly apologized for their behavior and for supporting a cheater.

In Indonesia it became a story, and while the cheater refused to play a local male GM and another male IM, he accepted to play against a woman IM, maybe thinking he had better chances, because in the chess world there is a definite difference in strength between men and women. Women have their own tournaments, and titles, probably because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to compete with men for money prizes. At the moment we still don’t have a match between the male world champion, and female world champion, also if chess as sport is not based on muscles. 

Dadang Subur playing against IM Sukandar

These are the games played between Sukandar and Subur, with small annotations to explain when things got bad for Subur who lost all three games. In an article on chess-com the playing strength by Dadang Subur is given around a rating of 1100-1200, which is the rating of a begiiner in chess, quite different from what we will see later, in the selection of games given in this article, where Dadang plays like a 2300 (in US a National Master is around 2200).

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1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 e6 6.Nf3 Nf6 7.0-0 Be7 8.Bf4 0-0 9.Ne5 Ne4 10.f3 Nxe5 11.Bxe5 Nf6 12.Qc2 h6 13.Nd2 Bd6 14.Rae1 Nh5 15.f4 b6 16.Qd1 Nf6 17.Qf3 Bb7 18.f5 Qc8?? I don't remember the time control for this game, but to leave a piece en prise, by move 18... maybe Black is rated around 1200. 19.Bxd6 Re8 20.Be5 Ba6? Another big blunder by someone who cannot be rated more than 1200. Why? Because in this case Black is not losing a piece, but losing the game, once the castle is opened like a sardine can. At this point I believe Black needed to try to defend F6, maybe Qd8 is the move to play. 21.Bxf6 gxf6 22.fxe6 Rxe6 23.Bxa6 Qxa6 24.Rxe6 Notice Black's pieces are all on the queenside, White's pieces are going to jump at the Black's king throat and kill him. fxe6 Now after Qxf6 White is winning easily. 1–0
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Sukandar,I-Kipas,D-1–02021B13Import
Kipas,D-Sukandar,I-0–12021E14Dewa Kipas vs WGM Irene Sukandar: Dewa
Sukandar,I-Kipas,D-1–02021D02Dewa Kipas vs WGM Irene Sukandar: WGM I

The following is the game for which Kipas Dewa (Dadang Subur) was accused of cheating by IM Levy Rozman on Twitch. As we can see a totally different player from the one who played against IM Sukandar.

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1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3 b6 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.0-0 c5 6.c3 Be7 7.b3 0-0 8.Bb2 cxd4 9.cxd4 Nc6 10.e3 Ba6 11.Re1 d5 12.Bf1 Bxf1 13.Kxf1 Ne4 14.Kg2 Rc8 15.a3 Na5 16.Qd3 f5 17.Nbd2 g5 By this move, we do understand this is not the same player who played IM Sukandar. This is a very active move, typical of a 2300 or higher rated player, definitely smashing White like Hulk would do! 18.Rab1 g4 19.Ne5 Nxd2 20.Qxd2 Nxb3 typical punishment given by engines to human players. 21.Qd3 Na5 22.h3 Bd6 23.hxg4 Bxe5 24.dxe5 fxg4 Black is better, but why? Control of the C file with possible penetration into the 2nd rank, which would double attack F2. Control of the F file. F3 and H3 controlled by Black, a queen could exploit such weakness. White's Bb2 sniper skills blocked by the Pe5. The Rb1 is on a semi-open file, but it's not clear what will be accomplished on the B file. The Re1 is also misplaced. 25.Rh1 Rc7 26.Bd4 I'm not sure what is the meaning behind this move. Qg5 27.Rbc1 White tries to exchange a useless rook, with a rook which can become useful to attack the White king. Nc4 28.Qe2 Qf5 29.Rh6 Qe4+ 30.Kg1 Rf5 31.Rf6 Nxe5 32.Rxc7 Nf3+ 33.Qxf3 Qb1+ 34.Kg2 gxf3+ 35.Kh3 Qh1+ Dewa_Kipas won on time 0–1
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
GothamChess2371Dewa_Kipas23110–12021A47Live Chess

Now while I do give credit to those who criticize chess-com saying that Kipas’ account was closed because IM Rozman complained of cheating

At the same time, as personal experience, I have seen cheaters in chess.com playing a total of over 2000 games before their account was closed.. and once more it was closed to my complain because I mentioned I’m rated nearly 2000, and there is no way someone rated 1200 or less would beat me 7-10 times in a row.

But in Kipas Dewa (Dadang Subur) case the evidence is quite big. Let me show you some positions taken from the games played by Kipas online, and how strangely he always won without hanging pieces or major blunders, like he blundered when playing against IM Sukandar. In the following selection of games, you’ll witness chess brilliance, definitely of a superior player, not someone rated 1200, but at least 2300-2500 tactically.

White to move and win
White to move and gain a pawn
Black to move and win

Then I’d like to present the following selection of games played by Kipas, hoping it will open the eyes to all the apologists, if they know something about chess. For example the many different openings used by Kipas, who strangely studied them all! The second game is funny, because in chess there is the saying: Knight on the rim is dim, but in this case Kipas’ knight is quite active a la Fischer! (for those of you who remember the reference to that game from the 1972 world championship!)

And then we can notice how Kipas (or the engine/computer program he used) prefers the bishop pair over knights or knight and bishop when planning to enter the endgame. This is also a big difference in evolution from the first computer programs. For example, few years ago I was curious to see the differences between some engines, and organized a match between Chessgenius, written by Richard Lang (a chess program which won many computer matches from 1984 to 1993) and Fritz, don’t remember the version, but the result of the games was clear, in that time Chessgenius would give up the bishop pair, and lose each game.

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1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.f3 d5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c5 7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.dxc5 f5 9.e4 fxe4 10.Qc2 Nd7 11.fxe4 N5f6 12.Nf3 Nxc5 13.e5 Nd5 14.c4 Nb6 15.Be3 Qc7 16.Be2 Bd7 17.0-0 0-0 18.Qb1 Rf5 19.g4 Rff8 20.Qb4 Rac8 21.Rad1 Na6 22.Qb2 Ba4 23.Rd4 Rcd8 24.Rxd8 Rxd8 25.Ng5 Re8 26.Rf7 Re7 27.Qb1 g6 28.Nxe6 Qxe5 29.Rf8# Dewa_Kipas won by checkmate 1–0
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Dewa_Kipas2309wud763721771–02021E25Live Chess
Dewa_Kipas2308Orlov_Oleg22211–02021C48Live Chess
Dewa_Kipas2302rojculvera22731–02021A12Live Chess
kapil2192336Dewa_Kipas23030–12021D47Live Chess
Dewa_Kipas2303alwayswantedto21341–02021D13Live Chess
Dewa_Kipas2298Matesanz9621301–02021C08Live Chess
sashabezerrovski2197Dewa_Kipas22870–12021C27Live Chess
Dewa_Kipas2291GLADIADOR119521991–02021C77Live Chess
Dewa_Kipas227846fans18961–02021D30Live Chess
Dewa_Kipas22870127540186221911–02021B07Live Chess
mykaku2141Dewa_Kipas22810–12021A21Live Chess

I’d like also to add a selection of games by Rozman, so we can learn from both players, and see the differences. The selection of games by Rozman is just made to show how he plays, not to praise him or criticize his games. I was just curious to see some of his games played against players I’m friend in Facebook, or follow the matches in Chicago etc.

 
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1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.h4 Qc8 5.Nc3 h6 6.Be2 e6 7.g4 Bh7 8.Be3 Nd7 9.h5 Qc7 10.f4 0-0-0 11.a4 Ne7 12.a5 a6 13.Nf3 Kb8 14.Na4 Nc8 15.c3 Be4 16.Rh3 g6 17.Nd2 gxh5 18.Nxe4 hxg4 19.Bxg4 dxe4 20.Qc2 f5 21.Be2 Qxa5 22.b4 Qc7 23.Qb3 Re8 24.Nc5 Nxc5 25.bxc5 Ka8 26.Kd2 Qd7 27.Rhh1 Bxc5 28.Rhb1 Ba7 29.Ke1 Rh7 30.c4 h5 31.c5 Ne7 32.Bxa6 bxa6 33.Rxa6 Nd5 34.Bd2 Qb7 35.Qa2 Qc8 36.Kd1 e3 37.Be1 Ree7 38.Kc1 Rb7 39.Ra1 Kb8 40.Ba5 h4 41.Bb6 Nxb6 42.cxb6 Rxb6 43.Rxa7 Rhb7 44.Ra8+ Kc7 45.Rxc8+ Kxc8 46.Qxe6+ Kb8 47.Qd6+ Rc7 48.Qf8+ Kb7 49.Qa3 Kc8 50.Qf8+ 1–0
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Levy Rozman-Roberto Molina-1–02021B122021-imscc
Roberto Molina-Levy Rozman-1–02021D252021-imscc
Greg Shahade-Levy Rozman-1–02021B112021-imscc
James Canty-Levy Rozman-1–02021B142021-imscc
Greg Shahade-Levy Rozman-0–12021C102021-imscc
James Canty-Levy Rozman-0–12021D202021-imscc
Final Thoughts: in this case we have a cheater who has made 7000 dollars, which from the comments I read could be worth 2-3 years salary in Indonesia. If that is true, once more I ask: who is protecting the victims of cheating? And how can a society reward a cheater, instead of a honest chess player?  How are FIDE and national chess federation protecting honest players and reimburse them, when they meet a proven cheater? In many cheating cases, which happened also locally at over the board tournaments here in US, they were all swept under the rug, and nobody actually reimbursed the players cheated of even the entry fee for the tournament. This is a topic which should be faced at a certain point, because it’s not fair that chess tournament organizers and federations make money out of chess events, but fail to protect and reimburse the cheated players. The last cheating scandal saw a GM, Rausis, caught after many years he was cheating, did FIDE contacted and reimbursed the players cheated by Rausis?  Then we also have the responsibility of a magazine: Wired, which published an incendiary article, which caused grief to IM Rozman. Did they publish another article apologizing, and pointing the finger against chess cheaters, and the big problem we are facing in the chess world? Obviously this last question is rhetorical, we all know how the fake news cycle work, they try to create hate and anger, instead of informing, and educating the public.

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