Next in the line of the accused of online cheating by former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik seems to be the Indian young star Nihal Sarin.
Kramnik left a cryptic post about “Some player has played since beginning of the year 35 games against top ten FIDE players, 3 min without increment.”
According to his calculations, the scores were the following (not verified):
vs Hikaru Nakamura +8-5=4
vs Alireza Firouzja +9-0=0
vs Fabiano Caruana +6-1=1
vs Ian Nepomniachtchi +2-0=0
He insinuated the the player in question was cheating in online play. The fans quickly identified the accused player as Indian Nihal Sarin.
In one of his rare social posts, Sarin’s manager Priyadarshan Banjan invited Kramnik to play a face-to-face match against the player he is accusing. Banjan added: “I can sponsor the prize fund on the condition that the winner gets 100% of the prize money.”
Kramnik rejected Banjan’s offer saying the results above have nothing to do with him.
Among the many strong reactions in social posting, the well known author and trainer Christof Sielecki suggested: “People need to stop challenging him to matches, but rather sue the crap out of him! This is getting more insane by each day.”
Anish Giri, after some social banter with Kramnik in previous weeks, appears to be more serious now: “In general, the right way to deal with what Kramnik is doing is to place him in a supervised esports cage and have all the onliners go at him one by one, until he throws in the towel. 3+0 to make it painless. 3+1 if you want to watch the agony.”
Kramnik responded: “Or they get banned losing to me, you forgot to mention. If you are so sure about the outcome, Anish, you are first invited to play.”
Priyadarshan Banjan told Hindustan Times: “We have nothing but respect for Kramnik but his comments are delusional. Him not being accountable for his insinuations causes more damage than he realises.”
Related posts: The Clash of Claims: Vladimir Kramnik vs Jose Martinez / Hikaru Nakamura: “Hey Kramnik, 78 UNBEATEN Games in a STREAK!!”
The chess drama never ends.
