Vietnam's number one player Le Quang Liem said that former Chess King Vladimir Kramnik's approach to the problem was unconvincing, after he said his games were "unusual".
On January 27, world chess champion 1-2000 Vladimir Kramnik wrote on social networks X about the accuracy in Quang Liem's matches at the Titled Tuesday online tournament on the platform chess.com. The Russian player said that Quang Liem's average accuracy in the last nine tournaments was 90,5%, of which he achieved 93,8% accuracy in one tournament.
Quang Liem in a match at the St Louis super tournament, Grand Chess Tour in August 8. Image: GCT
“Quang Liem's average accuracy is very high, and 93,8% for a player in a tournament is quite unusual, no matter who it is,” Kramnik wrote. “At least no top player has achieved an index of 93,8% in a tournament, within the past year. Perhaps Quang Liem's games need to be examined more closely. In fact, there was only one time when a player achieved more than that, which was Alireza Firouzja with a parameter of 94,2%.
Answer VnExpress Regarding Kramnik's views, Quang Liem said: “Cheating, specifically using computer or other people's help when competing in chess, is a very serious problem that the chess world is experiencing today. It threatens the integrity of tournaments and the reputation of players. Therefore, I support all fraud prevention solutions, both table chess and online chess. The organizers and referees at today's top tournaments such as the World Cup, Grand Chess Tour, Champions Chess Tour... all have very strict anti-cheating measures."
Titled Tuesday is an online blitz chess tournament that takes place twice a week, on Tuesdays, only for titled players (masters). Each tournament usually has hundreds of grandmasters participating, each playing 11 games, with a prize fund of 2.500 USD, of which 1.000 USD goes to the top player. Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and many other players regularly participate in this tournament, and top Vietnamese players also participate. From information on Titled Tuesday and other tournaments, Kramnik has accused many players of cheating through his blog above chess.com, including Nakamura.
Vietnam's number one player added: “I respect Kramnik as a former world chess champion. However, I think his approach to the problem lacks conviction. Kramnik has written many of the above articles chess.com and social networks X implying that many other strong players cheat online, but chess.com issued a statement confirming that Kramnik's accusations are unfounded. As a chess player, I believe in the processes of chess.com and the Organizing Committees, rather than the subjective opinions of other individual players."
Quang Liem (left) in the draw with Kramnik in the Dortmund Super Tournament on July 29, 7 in Germany. Image: Souleidis
On October 24, chess.com announced the closure of Kramnik's blog, blocking his right to speak on this platform. That means the 48-year-old player still has the right to play and compete there, but does not have the ability to comment or blog. The reason given by this platform is that Kramnik has "attacked more and more strongly against respected players in the chess industry", so they cannot ignore it. They claim that Kramnik's accusations are "unfounded", and that he not only violated the platform's charter, but also violated the code of conduct of the World Chess Federation (FIDE).
Kramnik was not convinced, so he created an account above X, and continued to post questions about other players. His argument rests largely on “accuracy of moves,” essentially the proportion of a player's moves that the computer rates as good or better. chess.com Statistics show that a player with an online coefficient from 1.000 to 1.5000 can achieve an accuracy of over 90% in 10% of games. And Kramnik believes that the difference between a player with 93% and 92% accuracy in a tournament is up to 50 Elo.
Quang Liem added that he believes in his anti-fraud team chess.com. The 33-year-old chess player added: “The chess games I have played are all public information. I know chess.com There are algorithms and a fraud prevention team that analyzes hundreds of thousands of games every day from all players on the platform. Surely no one can cheat for a long time without being detected. If Kramnik or anyone else wants to delve deeper into any chess game, they have the right and ability to do so easily.”
Kramnik believes that the highest accuracy of world number one Carlsen in one of the last 10 Titled Tuesday tournaments he attended was 90,8%. Meanwhile, 10 times the tournament saw a player achieve an accuracy of 93% or higher, and Quang Liem was in this group.
Kramnik's general views on online fraud are agreed upon by experts like Caruana. Caruana once said: "Kramnik believes that 25% of Titled Tuesday players cheat, but I think the real rate is higher than that, more than 50%."
However, there were also experts who objected, including Nakamura. The Japanese-American chess player once said that "accuracy" is not a measure of a player's ability to cheat.
Kramnik won the world standard chess championship in 2000, after overthrowing Garry Kasparov in London, England. He twice defended the title of Chess King, against Peter Leko in 2004 and Veselin Topalov in 2006. Topalov's manager once suspected Kramnik of cheating, when he spent too much time in the bathroom at the 2006 world chess final. Kramnik lost his throne a year later, when he lost to Viswanathan Anand.
Quang Liem has been the number one player in Vietnam for about 15 years, having won the world blitz chess championship in 2013. He is currently ranked 22nd in the world of standard chess, and 20th in blitz chess. Recently, the 2017 HD Bank champion no longer competes regularly, due to being a full-time chess coach at Webster High School and Director of SPICE Academy.
Xuan Binh
