A Dutch teenager has been given a three-year ban, with one year suspended, by the FIDE Ethics & Disciplinary Commission (EDC) after he was caught with a mobile phone hidden in his sock during a tournament in the Netherlands last year.
The decision was made public by the EDC last week and concerns 19-year-old Joeri Harreman, who was expelled from the 26th HZ University Chess Tournament in Vlissingen in August 2024. The event is one of the most prominent open tournaments in the Netherlands, and featured nine grandmasters among the 230 participants.
Chess.com reported the story back then, noting how Harreman, who has a national rating of less than 1700, had raised suspicions following a series of impressive results that Chief Organizer Hans Groffen described as “almost perfect play.”
“Of course, it’s unfortunate that this happens to you as an organization, but on the other hand, you’re also glad that such bad apples are removed,” Groffen said in a press release at the time.
In round five he defeated FM Esper van Baar, which led to the 2248-rated player alerting the chief arbiter by email. In the following round, Harreman played on a live broadcast board, where the players were subject to mandatory metal detectors upon entry. He lost this game against the international master easily, so far his only publicly available game from the tournament.
In the seventh round, he was not playing on the live board and was not required to undergo a scan at the entrance. According to Chief Arbiter Bart De Vogelaere’s report, the player went to the toilet shortly after the round had started. Upon his return, two arbiters waited for him, asking him to conduct an X-ray body scan.
According to the ruling, Harreman initially refused the scan several times. After he was told that the game would be declared lost and that he would not be paired for the rest of the tournament, and that a report would be sent to FIDE, he agreed. During the inspection, a phone was found hidden in his sock, according to the decision.
The Respondent stated in his oral defense before the Chief Arbiter that carrying a phone inside a sock was entirely natural at this age among youngsters. However, he refused the Chief Arbiter’s request to turn on the phone and allow it to be inspected.
The player claimed he had “forgotten” the phone was on him and panicked when confronted, according to the chief arbiter’s report. However, he also refused to unlock the device when asked, stating that “a phone is private.” Due to not cooperating with the arbiters, Harreman was expelled from the tournament, and his ongoing game was declared lost.
The case was investigated by FIDE’s Fair Play Panel, appointing Professor IM Kenneth Regan, the renowned authority on chess cheating with his statistical models, to analyze his games. Regan’s report concluded that the player’s performance displayed a Z-score “above the FIDE threshold of 2.5,” consistent with computer-assisted play.
Harreman, through his legal counsel, argued in his defense that his strong results were misleading, as his rating was based on only a few games. He noted that there was no proof that the phone was actually used, and no witnesses saw him actually use the phone to cheat.
The defense did not convince the EDC, which found Harreman guilty of both cheating and failure to cooperate with arbiters:
The facts that the Respondent concealed his phone, took it with him to the toilet, hid it in his socks, initially refused to be scanned, and only agreed to be scanned after learning that refusal would result in expulsion from the tournament and further action are established by the Chief Arbiter’s report as well as the witness statements of other arbiters and officials. Moreover, the Respondent himself has confirmed these facts on several occasions in his defense, presented as an expression of remorse. If the Respondent had truly not engaged in cheating, he could have simply complied with the arbiters’ request to have his phone examined.
EDC’s decision came after the competent court of the Dutch Chess Federation previously had cleared Harreman of cheating after they could not prove that he had “intentionally used or intended to use an electronic device,” and it was merely ruled that he had breached “other fair play rules” by bringing a phone into the tournament hall. However, that verdict came before Professor Regan’s report was available. The federation lodged an appeal, and a final decision was suspended.
The EDC dismissed those arguments, noting how FIDE has jurisdiction in all international tournaments, regardless of national rulings. Harreman was handed a 36-month ban, with 12 months suspended as probation due to mitigating factors such as his age, a clean record, low rating, and expressing remorse.
The case marks the second major cheating incident linked to the Vlissingen tournament. In 2022, FIDE banned a player from Singapore for two years after he confessed to using a phone during four games in the tournament’s 2019 edition.
The same year, another 19-year-old was caught with a phone during the Dutch Open Championship, after showing a string of strong results in amateur events.
Harreman did not respond to Chess.com’s request for comment. His legal counsel also did not reply to a separate inquiry.
