Andriy Sliusarchuk Defeats Rybka

April 28, 2011 WNU (Worldwide News Ukraine) ran the above headline stating Sliusarchuk beat the chess engine Rybka-4.
“It took neurosurgeon only 50 minutes to beat the machine. The computer gave up. Sliusarchuk won after two games with a score of 1.5:0.5. To ensure the experiment was fair, the professor, prior to the tournament, was checked for possible cheating or receiving any tips, reports TSN. Sliusarchuk taught himself to play chess only eight months before the tournament took place to beat “artificial intelligence”. The winner stated that he would like to create a Brain Institute to investigate unrecognized capabilities of human beings. Previously, the Ukrainian professor became famous for memorizing the record 30 million digits of “pi”. He also claims to have memorized 20 thousand books.”

      Slyusarchuk (born May 9, 1971 in the Ukraine) was as impostor who became, among other things, neurosurgeon, medical doctor and professor. He also claimed to have set a number of unverified world records in memorizing data and figures, while being able to perform highly complex computer-speed calculations mentally. He was commonly known as Doctor Pi.

      He was taken seriously in Ukraine where he even had a meeting with the President. One of the major TV channels in Ukraine even hosted a few TV events in which Slyusarchuk demonstrated many of his extraordinary abilities.
      Slyusarchuk claimed to be a chess amateur who read three thousand books about the game and then went on to beat Rybka blindfold. He also performed other mental feats like memorizing 80 chess boards in 4.5 minutes and then identifying changes made to them. Of course it was faked.



     Journalists of Lviv newspaper "Express", in a series of articles in October-November 2011, accused him of forgery, fraud, illegal medical practice, which led to injuries and deaths of patients treated by him.

     Of course he publicly denied them and pleaded not guilty in a number of interviews to other press sources. He announced that he had resorted to court and applied to General Prosecutor of Ukraine in order to clarify the situation and officially disprove the statements made by "Express".
    On November 14, 2011, under the pressure of press the Ukrainian police detained him for the period of investigation on suspicion of forgery and fraud. In the investigation officials officially announced to press that all the documents and scientific titles of Andriy Slyusarchuk are valid, according to the Ukrainian legislation and procedures. As per their statements, major parts of Slyusarchuk's scientific works would not be disclosed, as they are classified and fall under the category of State secrets privilege both in Ukraine and Russia.
     In Summer 2012 Ukrainian newspapers reported that Andriy Slyusarchuk left Lukyanivka jail and was placed in psychiatric hospital. The Head of Department for Public Affairs of MIA of Ukraine said that "independent examination were conducted to check the mental health of Slyusarchuk, as well as his possible psychic and hypnotic abilities"When he tried to fake the chess position memory on TV, his scam was revealed by experts. In the May 30, 2011 edition of the Boston Globe authors Harold Dondis and GM Patrick Wolff wrote, “We must conclude that the so-called Memory Man, who did not know how to castle or move a knight, is the latest in ingenious chess frauds.”