Cheating row highlights larger menace of online chess

CHENNAI: A charity chess stream organised on Sunday to raise funds for Covid-19 relief has caught attention for the wrong reasons. The man guilty is entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath – who co-founded an online stock trading company called Zerodha – after he was found using fraudulent means to defeat five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand.

The fundraiser, which was an initiative of Akshaya Patra and All India Chess Federation (AICF), was organised on Chess.com India’s Youtube channel and saw Anand simultaneously take on many celebrities, including actor Aamir Khan, in 30-minute online matches. While Anand had no trouble against the others, Kamath surprisingly found himself in an advantageous position in the endgame. The only issue for Kamath at the end was that he just had 13 seconds left on the clock and could have been flagged, but Anand sportingly resigned from the game rather than trying to run down the clock.

On Monday, it became clear that Kamath had made use of engines to ‘defeat’ Anand and was promptly banned by Chess.com India for violating its fair play policy. In the immediate aftermath of the game, Kamath did not own up. But on Monday conceded that he had taken help from the engines.

“It is ridiculous that so many are thinking that I really beat Vishy sir in a chess game. I had help from people analyzing the game, computers and the graciousness of Anand sir himself to treat the game as a learning experience,” he tweeted.

Anand did not take kindly to Kamath’s methods, hinting that he expected everyone to uphold the ethics of the game. “Yesterday was a celebrity simulation for people to raise money. It was a fun experience upholding the ethics of the game. I just played the position on the board and expected the same from everyone,” Anand responded on Twitter.

While this could be seen as a one-off incident given that the person cheating has nothing to do with chess, it does highlight the perils of online chess where cheating can be commonplace.

AICF secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan condemned the incident and said that cheating needs to be weeded out for the integrity of the game to remain intact.

“It is very unfortunate. We don’t expect such behavior from celebrities. If it is a normal tournament, we take all care to ensure such things don’t happen. The game takes a hit with these incidents,” he said.
He went on to highlight the system in place to detect cheating for national-level tournaments conducted by AICF. “For all our tournaments, we have a panel of five people, which includes three GMs and two IMs. The person in charge of the portal sends us a report after every round. If there is anything found against the players, the panel reviews it. If the panel finds any wrongdoing, the concerned player is removed from the tournament,” he explained.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the increase in online chess has resulted in cheating in even FIDE events. Chess.com released data in August last year stating that roughly 17,000 users are being banned every month for cheating, as opposed to an average of 6,000 before Covid. Coach RB Ramesh, who runs an online academy, feels the solution to this menace lies in technology itself.

“When those cheating are taking advantage of technology to win, the answer also lies in technology only,” Ramesh said.