Chess Grandmaster and Kick streamer Hikaru Nakamura has taken a stand against Vladimir Kramnik’s “disrespectful” cheating allegations.
On November 20, fellow chess Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik accused Hikaru of cheating in a wildly cryptic Chess.com profile update. The accusation came not long after Hikaru smashed Chess.com’s blitz rating record.
Stunned by the “garbage” allegations, Hikaru quickly denied them, but it didn’t stop other chess pros from chiming in with their thoughts. Magnus Carlsen joined in on the controversy by roasting Hikaru over a recent blunder.
But Kramnik has since continued with the cryptic updates, using Chess.com’s blog feature to add fuel to the fire with multiple “interesting” statistical updates.
In an update on November 26, Kramnik pointed out Hikaru’s best-ever win streak of 79 blitz games, which is considerably higher than the likes of Carlsen with 32 and Alireza Firouzja with 17.
Kramnik asks, “Crazy to suspect or the opposite?” again hinting at the idea of Hikaru cheating. Still, Kramnik highlights at the start of the blog that Hikaru “enjoys beating weaker players like 20-0 which both Alireza and Magnus find meaningless I suspect,” which could be argued as the reason why Hikaru’s streaks are far longer than the others.
Kramnik’s blog posts have since been flooded with comments from chess players and fans from around the world, all commenting with their thoughts on the accusations.
One insightful comment from a mathematician at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, among others, has since been deleted by Kramnik after he accused Hikaru of “sending bots” to defend him in the comments section.
Hikaru, clearly frustrated by the “very disrespectful” way Kramnik has approached these cheating allegations, has now taken a stand in a recent YouTube video.
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“Someone doesn’t get to say these things without actual proof. They don’t get to falsely accuse people over and over again without having to pay a price,” Hikaru stated.
“It’s very disrespectful and to me, it shows that Kramnik simply has no respect for anybody at the end of the day. You don’t get to make false accusations when you are not an expert. You don’t get to make false accusations when you do not have data to back yourself up.”
“I’m very proud of my record playing online, very proud of it, and I have nothing to hide.”
Furthermore, Hikaru took issue with Kramnik’s accusation of “faking numbers and sending bots” to attack him in the comments section.
“I would have to have an ego literally 100 times the size of my ego and it would have to be beyond chess to literally pay people, pay bots to come and post comments,” Hikaru stated. “I think it’s very disrespectful of Kramnik.”
“For Kramnik to basically be insulting all of these mathematicians and statisticians who provided their name and used actual mathematical figures is very, very disrespectful and I think it shows that Kramnik has no respect for anybody at the end of the day.”
“It’s sad to see, but that’s really where I’m going to leave it for now because there’s just… I don’t see anything good coming from it.”
