Vladimir Kramnik’s cheating claim against Nihal Sarin kicks up a storm
Though Kramnik didn’t name Nihal explicitly, another X user did and the 19-year old’s manager Priyadarshan Banjan took to the platform to respond to Kramnik’s charge and challenged him to a face-to-face esport style playoff against Nihal.
Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, who has been playing self-appointed vigilante against cheating in online chess, has kicked up a storm with his latest claim. Kramnik, who earlier implied that world No.3 Hikaru Nakamura’s streak of wins was suspicious, has suggested that Indian GM Nihal Sarin’s online blitz results against the world’s top ten players this year are “mathematically 99.9999% impossible.”
Though Kramnik didn’t name Nihal explicitly, another X user did and the 19-year old’s manager Priyadarshan Banjan took to the platform to respond to Kramnik’s charge and challenged him to a face-to-face esport style playoff against Nihal.
Kramnik in response suggested that it would be logical to organise a match between Nihal and Alireza Firouzja instead. “I am sure Alireza would try at least scoring some points after 9 losses in a row…That would be a real test, confirming Nihal is capable of such performances. This time even a much inferior performance like 7 points out of 9 would convince me and surely the rest of the public,” the Russian GM wrote on X.
Nihal has long been seen as a monster in blitz and bullet chess. The prodigious youngster from Kerala, who turned GM at 14 and has a blitz rating of 2704, grew up playing chess on the internet and is a two-time Junior Speed Chess champion.
“We have nothing but respect for Kramnik but his comments are delusional,” Banjan told HT. “Him not being accountable for his insinuations causes more damage than he realises, both to him and chess. Nihal has a career to build and a good 20-25 years in front of him. Also, Nihal plays most of his online games from India where the speed of servers is considerably lower than say Europe. So, his numbers are despite the handicap.”
Nihal and Arjun Erigaisi’s former trainer Srinath Narayanan termed Kramnik’s insinuations “too ludicrous to merit attention.” A couple of years ago, Nakamura had sent Arjun direct messages accusing him of cheating. “It was a difficult time for Arjun back then, and he felt quite bad about it. Those were times when such public accusations were rare. Kramnik has cried wolf way too many times.”
Kramnik’s concerns over rampant cheating in online chess is legitimate but it can hardly be solved through mass public accusations and blackballing, others in the chess community believe. Following his insinuations against Nakamura, chess.com closed Kramnik’s blog and muted his account. Chess.com said in a statement that their team investigated dozens of players against whom Kramnik had raised suspicions. “In the vast majority of cases, we found his accusations baseless.”
Interestingly, Nakamura was on the other side, allying with Magnus Carlsen when the latter publicly accused Hans Niemann of cheating in 2022 and withdrew from the Sinquefield Cup. One might argue that the recent wave of paranoia and public accusations may have gained legitimacy from the world’s strongest player doing so. The matter ended in lawsuits before it was quietly settled a year later with Carlsen acknowledging that there’s no ‘determinative evidence’ that Niemann cheated against him. Plans for a Hollywood movie spotlighting the Carlsen-Niemann saga are reportedly afoot.
Kramnik too cast aspersions on Niemann after the latter played the Berlin (Kramnik’s weapon of choice against Garry Kasparov in the 2000 World Championship) and beat him in an online Blitz game. Following the charges, Niemann recently told Chessbase India that he went to Switzerland for a personal training camp with Kramnik and that things are “cool” between them now. “For me meeting Kramnik was like enlightenment. He’s a real chess genius. I understand all the controversial bits but as a chess player he’s one of the most insightful persons I’ve ever spoken to or met…When we sat there analysing games without engines it was very interesting, he has a great understanding of chess. Anyone can say what they want but I responded to him with kindness and respect and it had a positive reaction,” Niemann said.
Paranoia over cheating in chess has long been in the news. Kramnik himself was at the centre of it during his 2006 World Championship match against Veselin Topalov. Topalov and his team accused Kramnik of getting computer assistance during games in the bathroom, claiming that he took too many toilet breaks. Though there was no conclusive evidence of cheating, organisers shut down players’ private bathrooms, forcing both players to use the same bathroom. The scandal was dubbed ‘toiletgate’ and is still one of the most bitter, and infamous, episodes in chess.
“Kramnik’s concern (over cheating) is valid but in the current moment he’s going in the wrong direction,” world No. 2 Fabiano Caruana said on a podcast in February. “I think what he’s saying comes from a misunderstanding of his statistics. He’s conflating different statistical models. He’s looking at the chance that someone will achieve a result in a given series of games and conflating this with the chance that someone is cheating. But these are separate issues.”
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