Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand has said that he was “quite disappointed” with how his one-time world championship rival Vladimir Kramnik had behaved when it came to the Russian’s prolonged crusade to highlight suspicions about cheating in online chess without actually providing conclusive evidence that the rest of the chess fraternity finds satisfactory.
“To be honest, most of us are quite disappointed with how Kramnik has behaved in this matter, and we will take steps to take care of this. I don’t think there is any cause for unfounded allegations, and we will continue working on that,” Anand, who is also Deputy President with FIDE, the global governing body of chess, said at a press conference on Tuesday, when accompanied by Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant. “But I don’t want to comment too much on what we are specifically going to do, because it is a matter which is going to the FIDE Ethics Commission.”
Anand and Kramnik had faced off in the 2008 World Chess Championship in Germany’s Bonn, where the Indian had prevailed. The duo used to be cordial back in the day, with Anand mentioning in his autobiography that Kramnik was the one player he hated losing to.
The problem of cheating in chess, particularly in online events, is one that has plagued the sport for a while. But former world champion Kramnik has been on a crusade for over a year to expose what he calls cheating in online chess events. The spotlight has been on Kramnik and his claims since the death of 29-year-old grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky. Naroditsky was one of the players whose results were flagged by Kramnik as unusual.
Away from Kramnik, too, there is plenty of cynicism in the sport about results, particularly in online events. Since a lot of top Indian prodigies are regulars at online events, Anand was asked how parents of young players should handle the situation if their kids get accused of winning by unfair means.
“I hope this (Naroditsky’s death) will also lead to a conversation, not only for organisations and platforms, but also parents and youngsters. I think one of the messages parents will have to give out to youngsters is not to believe everything you read, and not to take it literally. I mean, it is a fairly unregulated space. You will have to learn to just leave it there. But of course, it is not something we are only going to leave to the parents. Hopefully, they can help fight the battle with it.
Anand’s comments come two days after FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich had said that Kramnik had gone “too far” with his allegations. Dvorkovich had also said that he had privately asked the former world champion to be “less aggressive in his claims”.
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“Vladimir is a good friend. And we had a good relationship for many years. I always supported him. We all just feel that it (the cheating accusations) went in the wrong direction. I tried to persuade Vladimir Kramnik informally that he should be less aggressive. Not after what happened (with Daniel) but actually before the incident. A long time ago, since I felt that it’s a bit too much. I also asked him to provide the full methodology—a clear scientific foundation for the statistics—that he is using to air his hints or accusations. And we didn’t receive it from him. He promised to have a group of people who are dealing with fair play,” Dvorkovich had said at a press round table with the media on the sidelines of the FIDE World Cup in Goa.
The allegations of cheating from Kramnik have also resulted in the Russian’s relationship with players like Levon Aronian fraying over the last few months.
Aronian, in an interview with The Indian Express at the sidelines of the ongoing FIDE World Cup, had said: “He’s in a place where I think he needs professional help. I don’t think he’s open to changing his opinion. I’ve had some friends and other people that I know have been dealing with kind of delusions and psychological problems. I care for him, I wish him the best, but I cannot help him… I understood more or less that, now he perceives himself as the saviour of the world. He has a saviour complex, which is a problem.”
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