Vladimir Kramnik Gets Another Ban
Lately, the Former World Chess Championship Vladimir Kramnik has been infamous for his recent “Online Chess Anti-Cheating” activism. Kramnik has been vocal about cheating that takes place in online chess, specifically, ChessCom, with the help of numerous statistics and numbers.
The Online Chess playing platform put out this statement, imposing a 6 MONTHS Ban on the Former World Champion after he explicitly accused a British International Master of cheating after their Round 6 game in the Early Titled Tuesday, calling him “a blatant cheater”. The International Master’s name was the 38-year-old Thomas Rendle. Thomas is a regular coach for Team England, assisting the World and European Youth Championship teams. Thomas is rated 2700+ in Blitz on the platform and is a fair Blitz Chess player.
Kramnik’s post came after the IM had won all his games in the first 6 rounds of the prize money event. Some other notable wins were against GM Fredirik Svane and GM Sam Sevian. Thomas then went on to finish the event with a respectable 7.5/11. However, Chesscom found the accusation rather irrational and took action accordingly.
Vladimir Kramnik also received an intimation of the ban via email to which he responded with claims of the actions taken by the platform being unwarranted, and posted the same on X as well. Kramnik also expressed his intention to take legal action against the platform.
Hans Niemann had some words to say about Chesscom’s statements too. Niemann expressed his discontent with Chesscom on being lenient on “Streamers” such as Hikaru Nakamura, who allegedly has been known for accusing many players in the same way on his streams including Hans himself, Arjun Erigaisi and more.
This is not the first time Kramnik has received a ban from Chesscom – he received a 3-month ban in September for a similar Community Policy violation. Kramnik was also suspended for using another player’s account for playing Prize Money Events.
It remains to be seen if Chesscom will take stricter action in future after the repeated violations by the Former World Champion, and if Kramnik will take the platform to court!
