Author: Frederic Friedel
Date: 17:49:29 12/11/99
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> True, I did not test all the games only two, which was way more than enough to >convince me. What I want to know is how the guy did it! Did he have a hidden >microphone or what? I posted some material on this in another thread further below. Allwermann used radio transmitters. Hartmut Metz of the Stuttgarter Zeitung actually found the store in which he bought the electronic equipment he used in the games. Apparently Allwermann bought two hand-held radio transmitters (model P93) from a shop called Albert Klein Funktechnik in Bad Grönenbach. He had them upgraded to four-digit displays and was satisfied with a radius of 500 metres. This, concludes Metz, indicates that the accomplice was in the nearby Novotel in Böblingen. Albert Klein told Metz that Allwermann had also bought special hearing-aid style earphones which were invisible under his longish hair. The total cost of the equipment was DM 4,600 (he won DM 1,660 as first prize at the tournament). Metz believes Allwermann and his accomplice used the correspondence chess code to transmit move, but I tend to disagree. In game two, after completely outplaying Giacopelli suddenly Allwermann played the inconsistent 34...Be4xg2. Fritz was screaming for 34...Bc7-h2 (after Bxg2 its score drops from 4.06 to 0.8). I think they were using a piece to square system, maybe with Morse clicks for the pieces and squares, e.g. dit dit dit dit for “bishop”, dit dit dit for “c”, dit dit dit dit for “4”. Then it would be easy to miscount bishop to g2/h2. In German “gay-tswai” is phonetically quite distinct from “hah-tswai”, so an error in voice transmission would be more unlikely. There may also have been a general communications breakdown at this point, since Allwermann agreed to a draw just one move later. Wish he would come out and confess. He could declare the whole thing an experiment to draw attention to a great danger in tournament chess.
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