Is Kramnik cheating?

 Is Kramnik cheating?

No, he isn't. But he is accusing others of doing so.

The most notable accusation is his fellow super Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura and Vlad's latest attack comes in the guise of a monstrously long 3 and a half hour interview with Eric Hansen that can be found on Youtube.

This is considerably longer even than Ridley's Scott epic "Napoleon", which I saw the other day and stars Joaquin Phoenix. I liked the film, but it has been panned by critics. Admittedly it does have some flaws, for example some of the dialogue is stilted and it is hard to envisage Phoenix as a young soldier.

I'm not sure who has the patience to sit through a three and a half hour video on chess cheating, especially at christmas time.

It seems to me that Vlad's arguments can be broken down roughly as follows:

• Some players are over performing.
• Hikaru's runs where he beats a player over 40 times in a row, are statistically improbable.
• Chess.com aren't taking cheating seriously enough. Money has come into the game, which is likely to change the approach of the players, and Chess.com hasn't adjusted to this.
• Those who are cheating are likely to be smart cheating, therefore they are harder to catch. Again, Chess.com must adjust to this and anticipate the smart cheating.

My first experience of Nakamura was over twenty years ago when I played him on ICC. He wasn't the confident figure that he is now. That's hardly surprising, as he would have been a young teenager at the time. I found it rather strange how he would come online, play you, find an amazing tactic and then offer a draw. It was already clear that he was a very strong player, but perhaps lacking in self belief.

I later played against Hikaru in a tournament in Gibraltar and drew with him over the board, but I had to struggle extremely hard to make a draw with White, and most likely he was winning at some stage. Hikaru played the Scandanavian in that game and the draw was in reality an excellent result for me, which gave me momentum for the rest of the tournament. Hikaru was rated 2660 at the time, and this was 2005.

Later I watched with Krishnan Sasikiran as Hikaru played online on a computer near the playing hall, after one of the rounds. Hikaru called out some of the variations he was seeing.  We were like early spectators to a Hikaru stream, and it was obvious that he enjoyed showing off. Chess has always had this theatrical part, this showmanship.

There was often some hidden "bomb" at the end of the line or variation that he was calling out and the mental gymnastics were impressive . It seemed to me that this was an insight into top-level chess, ever since then I've been convinced that Hikaru is a top chessplayer, as strong as pretty much anyone.

It seems to me the crux of this whole cheating argument by Kramnik revolves around "smart cheating". That is someone who is likely not cheating on every move, but is picking their moments. While it is possible that some players are smart cheating, I don't really buy the claim that so many are using this method. For one thing, cheaters tend to be greedy, not so discerning.

If players are smart cheating, then how are they doing it? They pick their moments. But that means that for large chunks of the game they are ignoring the engine. Isn't that itself a bit risky if they want to cheat? What happens if they throw in a blunder in the moments when they are not following the engine?

The counter-argument to that is they might be using the third of fourth move of the engine, a move that is good enough. But then I wonder why they are not caught by the Chess.com algorithims.

It also seems to me that these accusations also relate to how Vladimir regards Hikaru as a player. I don't think he rates him on the same level as Magnus.

In some of the interviews I have seen of Kramnik, he doesn't seem to believe the argument that some people are better online. "Your level is your level," is Kramnik's argument. This is something I agree with. If you are getting a boost online because of your mouse or reaction skills, then it is minimal at least. I play lots of players online who are 2100 or 2200 FIDE blitz but they have extremely high ratings online. You click on some of these players and they are extremely inactive in over the board play, which explains some of it. But is it possible that so many have improved that much? 

You end up getting paranoid. The "You aren't better online than over the board" doesn't seem to relate to Hikaru however, as he is 2874 at FIDE blitz over the board, which is one of the highest ratings in the world. 

I wonder what the endgame with this is. Will this lead to Chess.com tightening up their regulations even more, when they already seem to be doing plenty? Some players are asked to play an entire Titled Tuesday on Zoom, an extremely uncomfortable state of affairs. Who wants to play in a situation where you are being constantly scrutinised. My argument would be that if some players have to play on Zoom then everyone should have to play on Zoom. Otherwise you get an imbalance.

The question remains, will a top player be "outed" as an engine cheat? Because until someone is, this just remains hot air floating around, not leading to anything concrete.