After Nikhil Kamath, Sajid Nadiadwala and Kichcha Sudeep also banned from online chess platform for cheating against Viswanathan Anand

Following Nikhil Kamath, Chess.com has flagged the accounts of Sajid Nadiadwala and Kichcha Sudeep for violating the platform’s Fair Play Policy.

On June 13th, the platform held a Checkmate COVID fundraiser, which was a grand success as more than ₹10 lakh was collected during the 4-hour 30-minute long stream. It featured the five-time world champion and number one Indian chess player, Viswanathan Anand, playing simultaneously against nine opponents.

The star-studded list of participants included Nikhil Kamath, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kichcha Sudeep, Sajid Nadiadwala, Riteish Deshmukh, Aamir Khan, Arijit Singh, Anaya Birla, and Manu Kumar Jain.

Anand won eight of the nine games during the event, only losing to Nikhil Kamath, who had an accuracy of 99% in the game. Viewers had suspicions of foul play during the event, which was confirmed after the suspension of his account.

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Chess.com bans Sajid Nadiadwala and Kichcha Sudeep for Fair Play violation

Sajid Nadiadwala and Kichcha Sudeep have been banned as well

A new controversy has erupted around the event as two more players, Sajid Nadiadwala and Kichcha Sudeep, have been banned by Chess.com for cheating.

It comes a day after Nikhil Kamath was banned, and the co-founder of Zerodha apologized for his mistake in a tweet. He later added:

“In my head, it was just a fun game we amateurs were playing against the greatest chess champ from India to raise funds for charity. But it still gives no excuse for what I did. It was wrong, and I sincerely apologize.”

Vishy Anand shared his views on this whole cheating issue in his reply to the tweet.

Prachura P P posted this clarification on the cheating incident on behalf of the organizing team:

“We were completely unaware that non-ethical practices were resorted to during the event, and assure that we are duty-bound to uphold the ethics in the game of chess.”

Chess.com’s Chief Chess Officer, Danny Rensch, released the following statement regarding the cheating controversy and closure of the account on June 14th:

“When it comes to Fair Play, Chess.com acts only in the best interest of the global chess community. Our goals are to protect the integrity of all games played on our site.”

It added:

“No account closure is made without hard, statistical evidence as well as a rigorous manual review. The Chess.com Fair Play Team consists of chess experts and engineers who specialize in algorithms used to detect ‘anomalies’ and ‘patterns’ of non-human influence.”

Many prominent YouTubers and streamers, including GothamChess, Hikaru Nakamura, and Agadmator, spoke in depth about the cheating incident in their videos and shared their views.

GothamChess went on to say in his video that Kamath’s apology was not much of an apology:

“When you mess up, you need to apologize.”

The latest bans have received a strong reaction: