Internet Chess Cheating - A Conspiracy Theory Politics Allegory

 

I’ve warned about the parallels of chess cheating with other internet games, especially poker, before.  Things are really cooking along well according to my projections and the only thing we’re short of now is some chess sites that are pretty obviously bogus that “big name stars” who get paid sponsorship money support them to publicly advertise how great the site is.  And those sites offer prize money which as time goes on more and more people slowly wake up to finding out these prizes are fraudulent.

But let’s back up to the current chapter.  Vladimir Kramnik is a former world champion in a slow time control format, having knocked off Garry Kasparov through legitimate hard work, dedication and talent.  Daniel Naroditsky is a blitz chess monster.  Arguably one of the top few bullet chess masters where you get one minute for the ENTIRE GAME.  A format that requires an entirely different skill set than slow time controls.

Kramnik, who has been making false accusations of cheating for over a year now, has been going more and more off the deep end with his behavior and insinuations and he would make a wonderful conspiracy theorist.  Or maybe it’s better to call him an actual conspiracy theorist without altering the moniker because it’s not political in nature.

Kramnik is Donald Trump.  He simply refuses to admit that he’s long in the tooth and that he’s just not able to keep up with the crop of teenagers and early 20’s kids that adore and excel with the new format.  That format is speed chess, the faster the better and the less like the stodgy old format the better.  Today it’s Naroditsky who is the ever rotating liberal surrogate being accused of cheating.  Without any real evidence.  Naroditsky has been spending time defending himself for actions that he shouldn’t need to explain.

In the meantime there are legitimate news sources (the older established chess sites) just reporting on the facts and trying to be neutral.  And there’s lots of armchair experts picking sides including somebody like Hans Niemann now taking a break from trashing hotel rooms to team up with Kramnik, openly and publicly embracing Kramnik as a mentor.

Although vague and weird at first, Kramnik has become more and more Trump like where the attention has become the reason for the actions than actual concern for the cheating.  His latest, a step too far that should have a solid negative impact on his credibility will be completely ignored by his version of Republicans who don’t care about evidence.  It is simply not possible for Naroditsky to cheat in the manner he’s accused of.  Using a computer to create your moves, looking at the computer, transferring that image to the brain and then the computer mouse, is simply not physically possible for a human in a blitz game.  In a one minute game especially you’d lose using a computer more than it would benefit you unless you had cobra strike type reflexes.

But the talk about the cheating is more important than the actual cheating.  Backed up by all the recent material I’ve read about what Kramnik is up to, like a Trumper insisting Obama needs to show his birth certificate, any game he analyzes - that’s a foregone conclusion he will find something to falsely accuse of cheating.  And along the way since cheating at internet chess is so prevalent now he might accidentally Texas sharpshooter style logical fallacy hit on a real cheater.  In the meantime, the list of people falsely accused grows as the accused is pretty much anybody that beats him in a game.

There’s no ethical concern, no standards for when to apply a cheating action.  It’s all projection and gematria quality baseless conspiracy evidence.  He has actually been caught cheating himself.  To “test the algorithm”, so he says.  Yeah.  Right.

Most of the top bullet and blitz players are registered independent and simply want to play and not be involved with the drama.  The chess YouTube streamers that comment on his last year’s rhetoric are all, “Dude, what exactly the fuck is your problem?!?”

Since the talk of cheating and bad sportsmanship is rising this has spilled over into non internet chess.  Recently we also have a young grandmaster punching a photographer in the back after losing a game and a former Ukrainian now Romanian player using the old phone in the bathroom trick.  All the red flags of poor social skills that should matter but don’t much are in place throughout the internet and spilling over into real life.