The Latest Cheating Scandal

[Andrew McHarg]

it would be revealing to know the probability that a 2200 player could mirror Houdini 2's (rated about 3100) first choice over 95% of the time? I'd guess we're in the realms of lottery numbers (10 million to 1).

Much, much more unlikely than that. :U

But wouldn't you have to measure that against the probability of a 2600 player mirroring Houdini's moves?

If you look through historic games played by all the GMs in the history of Chess graded over 2600 you'll not find a single one whose moves as closely resemble Houdini's as Ivanov's moves did for that many consecutive games (except perhaps GMs who were cheating ;P ). I seem to recall reading somewhere on Chess.com that Bobby Fischer's moves were first choice top modern engine moves around 60% of the time, for instance. One of the things about most engines is that they often have different styles to top humans. Computers will go down apparently uncomfortable lines more than most top GMs, because computers are much surer of their calculations. Ivanov's games tick all the boxes of an engine. So, rather than Ivanov seeing the brilliance of the moves he played (which is as near to impossible as to make it practically impossible), for him to be innocent he'd have had to make the moves largely by chance. It could be said that some of the moves he made were so outwith his ability to calculate them that they are essentially - to him - random moves. To do that for a whole tournament the way he did is about as likely as winning the Euromillions jackpot a hundred times in a row.