Eyebrows were raised when India's youngest billionaire Nikhil Kamath won a charity chess match against five-time world chess champion, Viswanathan Anand.
Zerodha co-founder Kamath was the only person who defeated Anand when Actor Aamir Khan, cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal and singer Arijit Singh were all failed.
Viswanathan Anand’s simultaneous online chess games played against nine celebrities on Sunday night raised more than Rs 10 lakh for Covid charity.
While the chess world was discussing the event, the entrepreneur took to Twitter to announce that he defeated the chess champion using computer and apologised.
“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,” Kamath said in a tweet on June 14.
“I had help from 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...,” he added.
Maintaining his calm Anand tweeted: “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.”
Later, it was found that Sudeep and Nadiadwala were also involved in foul play. Following this, Chess.com banned these three accounts for using non-approved analytics and assistance. However, the platform reinstated the account saying Kamath a had played in good faith and only made a mistake.
“Given the forthcoming cooperation of the players and the clarification that not all the rules were properly understood, neither Chess.com nor Anand himself see any reason to uphold the matter further.”
“Chess.com has elected to reopen all of the accounts in question during the event. Given the forthcoming cooperation of the players and the clarification that not all the rules were properly understood, neither Chess.com nor Anand himself see any reason to uphold the matter any further,” Chess.com said in a statement.
Anand on Tuesday said it is time to move and “get closure” on the controversy that erupted after his loss to Nikhil Kamath in an online simultaneous charity event.
“Regarding the games played in the Vishy Anand simul for charity, as well as with full cooperation of Vishy Anand, Chess.com has elected to reopen all of the accounts in question during the event,” Chess.com-India said in a statement posted on Twitter.
