WELCOME TO CHESS, A FRACTURED GAME

Ever since Carlsen accused Niemann of cheating, the sport, especially the online format, is viewed at with plenty of apprehensions by everyone involved; There are various anti-cheating measures in place and that is evident in the ongoing Chennai Grand Masters. Swaroop Swaminathan finds out more

- Indraneel Das

RINATH Narayanan remembers when players used to play pool, order some fries and come back to the table after the end of the '10 minute prayer break'. "It's impossible to think of those times now," he says. Narayanan, the tournament director for the ongoing Chennai Grand Masters (CGM), is reminiscing about a time when professional chess wasn't filled with fear, loathing and general paranoia. There was an unshakeable trust between players and fears of cheating didn't exist. He likes to call it the age of 'innocence'.

These days? Anything but. Ever since Magnus Carlsen shocked the genteel world of chess by accusing Hans Niemann of cheating in an over-the-board game during their 2022 Sinquefield Cup (Niemann wasn't found to have cheated), the paranoia has grown like mould.

Leon Luke Mendonca, playing in the Challengers field at Chennai, spoke about his 'paranoia', when he faced Niemann in an OTB match last year. "That was interesting," he says. "I played him in Baku in 2023. That time he was just over 2700. I was really paranoid because what if he's really cheating? He played a very risky line with black. I got a much better position but I was still paranoid... what if this is some computer thing I didn't understand? But I kept outplaying him and till the time I had won the game, I wasn't certain whether he was cheating or not. When I played him in Wijk Aan Zee earlier this year, I knew he wasn't cheating. In general, I don't think he's cheating. He's just a different person, it's his personality."