Cheating chess player banned for 10 years
It’s checkmate for a chess player from India.
Umakant Sharma has been banned for 10 years for cheating after he was caught using his mobile phone’s wireless device to win games, chess officials said Wednesday.
Sharma had racked up ratings points at a rapid pace in the last 18 months and also qualified for the national championship, arousing the suspicion of officials and rivals.
Sharma was finally caught at a recent tournament when officials discovered he had stitched a Bluetooth device into a cloth cap that he always pulled over his ears. He would communicate with accomplices outside the hall, who then used a computer to relay moves to him, Indian chess federation secretary D.V. Sundar said Wednesday.
“We have banned him for 10 years,” Sundar told Reuters. “We wanted to send a clear message to such people.”