Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath defeated world champion and grandmaster Viswanathan Anand in a charity chess game using help from in-game analysts and computers, a fact he disclosed only after Chess.com banned him for cheating and winning.
Anand was playing virtual chess games versus celebrities , “Nikhil Kamath, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kichcha Sudeep, Sajid Nadiadwala, Riteish Deshmukh, Aamir Khan, Arijit Singh, Anaya Birla, and Manu Kumar Jain”,among others to raise funds to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
Anand won eight of the nine games during the event, Anand surprisingly lost to Kamath- whose moves had an astonishing accuracy rate of 99%
Chess.com has a robust policing system and it could easily detect that Kamath’s moves were computer-assisted and as per its anti-cheating policy, it locked Kamath’s account. But on Anand’s request the website lifted the ban on Kamath on Tuesday night. “We made this decision solely based on the fact that Vishy Anand is the offended party. Vishy Anand wants to forgive and forget. Chess.com has no reason to uphold anything given its rules and guidelines toward unrated games and exhibition events.”
“Because Mr. Kamath provided a confession, we are able to follow our standard procedure that we would follow for any other account: allowing them back on the site. While normally we would require a new account to be made, because the only game in violation received a confession, and it was during Unrated play, the answer is yes, he is allowed back on the site,” the website spokesperson further said late on Tuesday night.
Nikhil Kamath, the co-founder of Zerodha, a stock brokerage company, and True Beacon, an asset management company, apologised on Twitter. He admitted that he took help from chess analysts and computers during the game.
Responding to Kamath’s tweet, Anand said on Twitter: “Yesterday was a celebrity simul 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.”
After the game, Kamath had apologised for his misdemeanor and said he had help from people analysing the game and computers.
After Nikhil Kamath, Sajid Nadiadwala and Kichcha Sudeep also banned from online chess platform.Following Nikhil Kamath, Chess.com has flagged the accounts of Sajid Nadiadwala and Kichcha Sudeep for violating the platform’s Fair Play Policy.
Prachura P P posted this clarification on the cheating incident on behalf of the organizing team:
Chess.com’s Chief Chess Officer, Danny Rensch, released the following statement regarding the cheating controversy and closure of the account on June 14th.
