Nikhil Kamath admits to foul play against Viswanathan Anand

Mumbai | Bengaluru: Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath was banned by the competitive chess platform chess.com, for violating its 'fair play' rules, after a charity event in which he and other celebrities - including actor Aamir Khan, cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal, entrepreneur Ananya Birla - played a 'simul' or series of simultaneous games against former world chess champion Viswanathan Anand on Sunday.
Anand resigned when his opponent had just seconds left on the clock - but hours later, a flurry of posts on social media and chess forums pointed out that Kamath had likely used a chess engine to prompt his moves. His account on chess.com, which hosted the charity event, was suspended. Kamath’s brother Nithin is the CEO of Zerodha. Anand told ET via email, “It was a celebrity simul with people who have an understanding of chess that showed in their level of play. During this particular game, I suddenly felt the level of chess go up a few notches. I resigned because it is distasteful to flag a person in a simul. You do that in a competitive game if need be.”


When asked if he felt Kamath cheated, the five-time world chess champion said, “Chess playing servers like Chess.com take fair play seriously and use algorithms to flag cheating. I will accept that the server was right in doing so.”

In a conversation with the event hosts after the game, Kamath was asked about the win and said, “I think I got really lucky.”


On Monday morning, however, he tweeted an explanation: “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.”

He added that he had had “help” from people analysing the game. His tweeted statement ended: “In hindsight, it was quite silly as I didn’t realise all the confusion that can get caused due to this. Apologies.”


ET contacted Kamath, but he didn’t respond to messages about the incident. The former world champion tweeted a response to Kamath, “I just played the position on the board and expected the same from everyone,” and that he upheld the ethics of the game during the match.

In his email to ET, he elaborated, “The event was to raise awareness and entertain and of course to raise funds. As a chess player you play and accept the position on the board and your opponent as a person of integrity be it a simul or a world championship.”


Chess.com issued a statement from its Chief Chess Officer, Danny Rensch who said that the platforms’s goal was to protect the integrity of all games played on the site. “No account closure is made without hard, statistical evidence as well as rigorous manual review” by the platform’s “fair play team” of experts, including professional players and engineers who specialise in algorithms used to detect non-human influence in play, he said.



The statement added, “No account closure brings us joy, but we remain committed and work hard to ensure that all chess games are played fairly on Chess.com, and we will continue to invest heavily in our team and systems to ensure the safety and happiness of our users.”