Zerodha's Nikhil Kamath banned from chess.com for violating fair-play policy in game against Viswanathan Anand

Chess platform chess.com has banned online trading platform Zerodha founder and CIO Nikhil Kamath for "violation of fair-play policy." Reportedly, chess.com took the action after Kamath admitted to violating rules of the game as he trounced 5-time world champion GM Viswanathan Anand with 99 per cent accuracy at an online charity event held Sunday. 

The game, which was live streamed, soon became a hot topic of discussion in chess community platforms as fans raised eyebrows at Kamath's accuracy level. As users and fans raised doubts of cheating, it emerged that chess.com, the platform that hosted the game, banned Kamath. 

"No account closure is made without hard, statistical evidence as well as a rigorous manual review. The chess.com Fair Play Team consists of chess experts (including multiple titled players) and engineers who specialise in algorithms used to detect "anomalies" and "patterns" of non-human influence. Our systems have been thoroughly vetted by mathematicians and experts in the fields of data science and audits have shown that chess.com makes its decisions conservatively, and with the confidence that an account (once closed) is statistically certain to have violated the rules," Danny Rensch, chief chess officer, The Chess.com Fair Play Team, stated. 

As the issue took a controversial turn, Kamath soon released a statement and apologised for the whole incident. According to him, here's what happened: "Yesterday was one of those days that I had dreamt of when I was a really young kid learning chess, to interact with Vishwanath Anand (sic). Got the opportunity thanks to AkshayaPatra and their idea of raising funds for charity conducting a bunch of chess games with Vishy. It is ridiculous that so many are thinking that I really beat Vishy in a chess game, that is almost like me waking up and winning a 100mt race with Usain Bolt... I had help from the people analysing the game, computers and the graciousness of Anand sir himself to treat the game as a learning experience. This was for fun and charity. In hindsight, it was quite silly as I didn't realise all the confusion that can get caused due to this. Apologies."

It was all pre-planned, and his motive was to "treat the game as a learning experience," Kamath further added.

Following Kamath's apology, Anand, too, released a measured response to the whole incident. "Yesterday was a celebrity simul for people to raise money. It was a fun experience upholding the ethics of the game. I just played the position on the board and expected the same from everyone," Anand tweeted alongwith a screenshot of Kamath's apology. 

The COVID charity event, organised by AkshayaPatra, also saw the likes of Aamir Khan, Sajid Nadiadwala, Manu Kumar Jain and Yuzvendra Chahal, and raised about Rs 10 lakh.