The Cheater that Would Not Quit

Cheating in itself is one of the most despicable, heartless things you can do. Breaking the rules so that you win, without even giving the opponent a chance. Unfortunately, players are banned every day from this heinous act. Cheating can be as simple as breaking the touch-move rule, or as serious as using a Chess Engine to tell you what moves to make. Most people tend to cheat in Online Chess, but some are brave enough to try to attempt cheating in OTB. In this blog, I will be going over one of these players, who were caught cheating in OTB.

Background:

Igors Rauris was born on April 7th, 1961, in the city of Komunarsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union. In 1990, he achieved the title of International Master, and a short 2 years later, earned the Grandmaster Title. One of his best games was in the year he became Grandmaster, with this game against Loek Van Wely, where he won in just 36 moves:

A few years later, Igors Rauris competed in the 1995 Latvian Championship, where he emerged as the winner. He also played in three Chess Olympiads, them being:

• The 32nd Olympiad, in 1996, where he played as the second board
• The 33rd Olympiad, in 1998, where he played as the third board
• The 35th Olympiad, in 2002, where he played as the second board

He also coached many teams in Chess Olympiads, which led to him being awarded the title of FIDE Trainer. Everything seemed good for him right? He seemed like a good guy?! Right!?

No. Things were about to unfold.

The Incident:

It was July of 2019, and Igors Rausis was competing in the 2019 Strasbourg Open. FIDE was already suspicious of him, as he was almost at 2700, with a rating of 2686, but he had been gaining rating relatively quickly. An example of this is this info graph showing his Rating Gain since 2003:

As you can see, his rating was increasing steadily but had a rapid increment later in the graph. However, FIDE did not have enough proof yet. They didn't know for sure if he was cheating. That was, until this security photo showed all that was needed.

This photo shows Igors Rausis using a phone while on the toilet. He was banned from the tournament, and admitted that the phone was his, and used it to cheat. His punishment was a 6-year ban, and he was stripped of the Grandmaster title that he had held for 26 years. He later announced his retirement from chess. However, this was not the end for Igors Rausis. What happened next shocked everyone.

The Return:

In 2020, there was a small rapid Chess Tournament going on in Latvia. It was a memorial for the Latvian player, Vsevolods Didzinskis, who had died that January. It only had 37 participants, and a prize of 1,000 euros, however, Rauris was still banned from tournaments. It was right before the start of the third round, when GM Arturs Neiksans, noticed the player Isa Kasimi. He realized it was Rauris, and reported it to the TDs of the tournament.

However, as the tournament was not FIDE Rated, Igors Rausis, or as I should say, Isa Kasimi was allowed to keep playing. However, He later withdrew from the tournament, as Neiksans repeatedly protested. Kasima has not been heard from since.

Conclusion:

The Igors Rauris incident is certainly a very interesting topic. He may have been the first player to be banned but plays pretending to be somebody else entirely. It's sad to see somebody ruin their whole chess career on something like this. Anyways, thank you for reading this blog, and tell me in the comments if I should make more blogs similar to this. Seeya next blog!