A new week, a new chess feud. This time, two of the world’s top American grandmasters, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, are squaring off. Why? Because of Caruana’s comments about cheating in online chess tournaments, particularly the Titled Tuesday events that are hosted by Chess.com twice each week on Tuesdays.
The seeds of the feud were sown when Caruana had Chess.com Chief Chess Officer Danny Rensch on his podcast, the C Squared Podcast. There, while interviewing Rensch, Caruana mentioned that “he doesn’t respect the Titled Tuesday tournament”.
Nakamura, who is one of the most popular chess streamers in the world, had a sharp opinion about this on his stream.
“Wait, let me get this straight. So Fabiano, the guy who’s complaining about cheating nonstop, is literally saying that he doesn’t respect the tournament. But then why is cheating such a big issue?” Nakamura asked before adding: “What is he even saying? That’s insane. You don’t respect the tournament, but you’re saying that cheating is a big problem. Then why are you even talking about the issue in the first place if you don’t care about the tournament? Like I mean this is just weird.”
On his latest podcast episode, Fabiano Caruana responded to Hikaru Nakamura’s criticism. Watch the full podcast episode below
“I think Hikaru is being — at best — extremely uncharitable to start with. You can care about something without involving yourself in it. Like you can care about the problem of cheating generally without caring about that specific tournament. I mean for example, I might not play in the women’s world championship. But I still would be very upset if someone cheated there. Even though they wouldn’t be cheating as me, it wouldn’t affect me. Still, I would be pretty upset if cheating happened in any tournament,” Caruana said while clarifying his stance.
Hikaru Nakamura reacts during a game at Norway Chess. (PHOTO: Michal Walusza via Norway Chess)
‘Nakamura trying to rock the boat for views’
Caruana said that Nakamura was trying to “rock the boat a bit for views” and pointed at Nakamura’s video where he pulls on a face even before Caruana has started explaining his answer to Rensch in the first podcast.
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“When I say that I don’t respect a tournament, it’s also my personal opinion. I can choose to play or not to play in events. Other players do so, too. Hikaru, for example, said he doesn’t want to maybe play in the next freestyle event. I don’t really think that we should question people if they don’t want to play because it’s a personal opinion. Maybe he just doesn’t like the event. Gukesh and Alireza also declined their invitations. That’s their prerogative and if I don’t want to play Titled Tuesday, it really shouldn’t be held against me because that’s my prerogative and whatever reason I may have. I think the fact that I feel that cheating is at a level which is not acceptable to me is a good enough reason.
“I think that you could see Hikaru was being extremely uncharitable also because even before I even said anything, he had an expression on his face (in Nakamura’s own stream) that what I said was ridiculous. He had that face even before I even said a word. Like all I said was, ‘I’ll give you my reason.’ He had an expression like I had just said something shocking. I understand if he wants to maybe rock the boat a bit for views.”
Why Caruana disagrees with Danny Rensch
Caruana then explained why he and Rensch had disagreed on the first C Squared podcast that started the entire feud.
“One of the fundamental disagreements I had with Danny, which I think is just a matter of opinion, is at some point I asked him like the level of cheating that you say exists? I think they usually estimate around 2%. At least that’s the number that we very often went with in this interview just so that we were on the same page that we weren’t debating — is it two per cent, is it five per cent, is it 10 per cent — just so that we have a standard benchmark that they can agree with. Our fundamental disagreement is that I asked him, ‘do you think it’s okay?’ And he said, of course, if we’re running the tournaments and we think that this level of cheating is acceptable. I just don’t (think it’s acceptable). I don’t think it’s acceptable to run a serious chess event in which a number of games are being played unfairly,” Caruana said before breaking down the numbers.
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WATCH: Fabiano Caruana’s podcast interview with Chess.com’s Danny Rensch on C Squared Podcast. Watch the full podcast episode below
Caruana quoted Rensch as saying that 2% of games in a 600-player event saw cheating.
“We can discuss if it’s 600 players or 400 players or 500 players. Sometimes it’s 900 players. Usually, it’s less. But if it’s 2% of games and that’s 300 games that’s around 30 (games). 2% was on the high side. Let’s say it’s 3,300 games in a 600-player event. We’re still looking at a level of cheating that is maybe on the low side between 20 games an event going by this 2% figure and maybe on the high side 50 games an event, right?
Caruana believes higher cheating than 2% happens in Titled Tuesdays
“We wouldn’t accept this (a 2 per cent rate of cheating in games) in other sports, right? But they decide that this is acceptable. That’s our first fundamental disagreement. And so what Hikaru said was that why am I talking about it if I don’t respect the tournament? Well, part of the reason I don’t respect the tournament is because of this issue that I don’t think that’s an acceptable level of cheating.
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“Also, I don’t personally necessarily agree that the 2% figure is accurate. I think it might be higher. I think that when Chess.com gives a number, they’re very likely to go for a number which is a bit more charitable than perhaps is true. Maybe they don’t know the full truth as well because one of the issues with cheating is that we just don’t know. Like we kind of rely on some groups that we put our trust in: Chess.com anti-cheating, FIDE anti-cheating, and Lichess chess anti-cheating. They’re the only ones I think have dedicated anti-cheating teams that are widely respected. I don’t have an anti-cheating system, right? You know, I just have my opinion maybe, but nobody should be taking my opinion as truth. It’s just everyone will have their personal opinion. But okay, Chess.com has their anti-cheating team, but we often see this. They ban someone, that person goes out on the internet and says, ‘I did not cheat.’ And then the opinion is divided. Like, we don’t have you don’t catch someone red-handed. So, we’re not going to have we’re not ever going to have full agreement if someone is cheating or not. But for the purposes of this, we should go with Chess.com. So they say 2% usually. Maybe I’ll say higher, but you honestly shouldn’t be trusting me over them, right? Again, 2% is very high. It’s a very high number. That’s one of the issues I have.”
