Vishy Anand on Vladimir Kramnik: ‘Quite disappointed with how he has behaved’

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand has said that he was “quite disappointed” with how his one-time world championship rival Vladimir Kramnik had behaved when it came to the Russian’s prolonged crusade to highlight suspicions about cheating in online chess without actually providing conclusive evidence that the rest of the chess fraternity finds satisfactory.

“To be honest, most of us are quite disappointed with how Kramnik has behaved in this matter, and we will take steps to take care of this. I don’t think there is any cause for unfounded allegations, and we will continue working on that,” Anand, who is also Deputy President with FIDE, the global governing body of chess, said at a press conference on Tuesday, when accompanied by Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant . “But I don’t want to comment too much on what we are specifically going to do, because it is a matter which is going to the FIDE Ethics Commission.”

Anand and Kramnik had faced off in the 2008 World Chess Championship in Germany’s Bonn, where the Indian had prevailed. The duo used to be cordial back in the day, with Anand mentioning in his autobiography that Kramnik was the one player he hated losing to.

The problem of cheating in chess, particularly in online events, is one that has plagued the sport for a while. But former world champion Kramnik has been on a crusade for over a year to expose what he calls cheating in online chess events. The spotlight has been on Kramnik and his claims since the death of 29-year-old grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky. Naroditsky was one of the players whose results were flagged by Kramnik as unusual.