Kramnik is an asshole and this action is far too little far too late. His actions have possibly already led to the loss of a life.
At the same time, FIDE also needs to look back at the behavior of some of the most powerful people in the sport in the whole Hans saga. What Hans was put through was ridiculous even if all the allegations were true, given how many actions were simply the result of the most powerful player in the sport throwing his weight around.
I’m not a fan of Hans but I absolutely admire how he managed to continue and grow his career despite the top 2 biggest individuals in the sport, and a whole other set of powerbrokers (for example, the wealthiest tournament in the Sinquefeld cup) teaming up to destroy his career.
So Kramnik, being a chess player and not a statistician, invented various methods of "detecting" cheating which seemed convincing for for a layman but questionable mathematically.
Then he started attacking Daniel, Hikaru and some other players online. This all led to pretty tragic consequences.
Kramnik still believes that he's in the right.
The only good thing out of this is numerous funny videos by chess players trying to figure out intricacies of statistics and math.
Naroditsky played a match against Magnus that he streamed where it ended (this a 1+0 time control; yes you can cheat in bullet but it's clear he wasn't) in a 40-40 tie, this after he lost the first game from being distracted getting his stream set up properly
He was one of the world's best bullet and blitz players, it was obvious he was never cheating. Kramnik was apparently one of his heroes. It was despicable behavior
For those who don't follow chess, what were the allegations? This article is intentionally vague on all the details.
I’m not a follower either, but inference from the article tells me: Krammik has come up with some sort of cheat detection method, has loudly accused some others of cheating, and FIDE are both unconvinced of the truth of the allegations and very unhappy he didn’t do this through proper channels. He also doesn’t appear to have co-operated with the investigation.
one of the players he persistently harassed, Daniel Naroditsky, ended up dying, which surely gave an extra push
He posted mathematically unsound methods that accused online players of cheating. Including Naroditsky, who is no longer with us (draw your own conclusions).
This is a case of a Kramnik being a crank whom most people did not take seriously, but he still had an impact on the victims.
Fro Kramnik this is a mild penalty.
For anyone new, Kramnik has been accusing players left and right of cheating without any proof. His accusations have done huge harm to the chess community as a whole. Daniel Naroditsky was harrassed so much, that he eventually went into depression and committed suicide. And he had proven ability as one of the best chess players out there, and probably the best chess teacher on YouTube. These are facts.
Now onto my probably crazy conspiracy theory: Russian players like Danil, Nepo and Kramnik have accused American and Indian players baselessly of cheating multiple times over the past few years. They have went to podcasts and implied that their opponents have cheated. Idk if it's some lost national pride in chess or something but accusing others does more harm than good. We've seen how it hurt Hans when he was accused by Magnus of cheating without any evidence. Multiple top level tournaments stopped calling him due to magnus throwing a tantrum cuz he lost.
Any normal human should have stopped and thought about their actions after Daniels passing.. Daniel will be missed and Kramnik hopefully forgotten.
What about the famous case of Carlsen claiming that his opponent cheated and even forfeiting to draw attention to it?
This is a big part of the problem... Kramnik had been bullying people for years about cheating, including aggressively bullying Daniel Naroditsky, and for the most part the chess community did nothing about it. It would be very hard for people to condemn Kramnik for his cheating accusations all the while chess' top star Carlsen was on a bullying spree of his own against Niemann.
That’s a lot of words to say very little. What is this about?
Kramnik has a habit of accusing people of cheating without evidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Kramnik#Anti-cheating..., he has also done this to many many individuals without evidence (and cheating is taken very seriously), this is in connection to that - he's being penalized for accusing people (repeatedly) without evidence.
Just to be clear – this is an event where he has been doing so repeatedly, accusing people of cheating without evidence in-and-of itself isn't forbidden - since cheating in chess is difficult to verify, it's the manner and fashion to which Kramnik has done this that has led to his suspension
Thank you for the link. Chess is very much also a psychological game and that he resorts to such low blows is really petty.
> In addition, the Chamber imposed 12 months of unpaid service for the benefit of the chess community as a supplementary sanction.
I wonder how this is enforced.
He basically pushed a player going through a crisis to suicide with his baseless accusations. Proceeded to make public derogatory remarks right after they passed while the family barely started grieving. This is a slap on the wrist.
Kramnik was accused of pushing Naroditsky to suicide and defended himself by saying that it was far more likely that Naroditsky died due to a drug overdose.
Toxicology reports later showed that Naroditsky did die due to the combination of an abnormal heartbeat, sarcoidosis and drugs, specifically methamphetamines and kratom.
Now if you want to speculate that he took those drugs due to the harassment that's a possibility, but claiming he died due to suicide is entirely unsubstatiated and uncalled for.
His final stream is illuminating if you can still find it. He speaks directly about Kramnik who he grew up idolizing right before his friend had to pull him away for erratic behavior. His comments during that stream strongly point to a suicide.
Kramnik never let off the accelerator.
It is called for and is substantiated. Should the guy get prosecuted over it? Probably not although a precedent is moving towards pushing and or telling someone to kill them selves constitutes some kind of criminal liability at least in the states.
Drug overdoses are so often a method of suicide it is almost laughable to use that as an argument to defend assholery. Some people are psychopaths and Kramnit screams like one. Zero empathy remorse or event the slightest drop of compassion.
Just an editorial note here, it's not clear that it was a suicide. The official diagnosis was some heart thing