Chess rocked by a fresh cheating controversy

This is an era of milk and honey for those who make their livelihood from chess. But the top players cannot seem to stop getting into disputes.

The latest episode concerns Hikaru Nakamura, one of chess's top stars, and Vladimir Kramnik, who was world champion from 2000 to 2007. Last month, in a series of blog posts on Chess.com, Kramnik insinuated that Nakamura had probably cheated while playing on the site.

Nakamura did not respond to a request for comment.


In one post that he subsequently deleted, Kramnik wrote that in one streak of 46 games, "a player" had won 45 games and drawn one. Kramnik then wrote, "I believe that everyone would find this interesting."


After it became apparent that Kramnik was referring to Nakamura, he added in another post Nov. 21, "Having checked Hikaru's statistics carefully, I have found NUMEROUS low probabilities performance both of him and some of his opponents." In other words: He implied that Nakamura's results were very suspicious.

When reached for comment Friday, Kramnik said he never meant to say that. When a reporter pointed out to him that his words could be misunderstood, he said, "Of course it is not an accusation," adding that people could interpret his comments however they wished.

On Sunday, Chess.com closed Kramnik's blog and muted his account. In a statement on social media, Chess.com said it had met with Kramnik "numerous times" and added: "Our team carefully investigated many dozens of players about which GM Kramnik raised suspicions. In the vast majority of cases, we found his accusations baseless."

Kramnik said that he had received news of the account closure from an associate, not directly from Chess.com. He added there was no warning and said that for the past couple months, there had not been "a single communication attempt from them."

Chess.com posted a statement saying: "We take all cheating accusations seriously. In the case of the recent accusations against Hikaru Nakamura by Vladimir Kramnik, we have generated nearly 2,000 individual reports on Hikaru's games in our Fair Play system and have found no incidents of cheating."

Kramnik demanded Chess.com retract its statement.

To date, Chess.com has not done that.

Before his account was muted, Kramnik told The New York Times that he was "shocked" by the reaction of Nakamura and Chess.com.

He added that he intends to file a lawsuit against Chess.com and Nakamura; he is preparing the case now.