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The ongoing spat between Chess Grandmaster and Twitch streamer Hikaru "GMHikaru" and former world champion Vladimir Kramnik has entered a new chapter. For context, Kramnik removed several comments that appeared to challenge his allegations against Hikaru. These comments, including one from a mathematician at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, were deleted by Kramnik.
Furthermore, the former world champion asserted that Hikaru was sending "bots" to his post, presenting fabricated statistics in an attempt to defend himself. Reacting to Kramnik's rant, GMHikaru said:
"I would have to have an ego literally 100 times the size of my ego and it would have to be beyond chess to literally pay people, pay bots to come and post comments. I think it's very disrespectful of Kramnik."
What did mathematicians say about the Vladimir Kramnik and GMHikaru drama?
The chess community finds itself in an unexpected verbal clash between two Grandmasters, as Vladimir Kramnik has leveled startling accusations against GMHikaru. Kramnik alleges that GMHikaru has been engaging in online cheating.
Interestingly, a mathematician from Poland took note of this and presented data contradicting Kramnik's earlier assertions. They pointed out that the probability of Hikaru achieving a 40+ win streak against opponents rated at least 100 points lower than him is quite plausible. This contradicts Kramnik's earlier statement, suggesting that a 45.5/46 winning streak is inherently suspicious.
"Let's say over the year he (Hikaru) has 20 days where he plays 100 games in a row with an average win chance of 90%...then the chances that he gets at least one 40+ winning streak on one of those 20 days are...about 90%."
GMHikaru, too, stated that he himself has not chalked up any stats, but rather actual mathematicians have come up with explanations justifying his winning streak:
"Obviously, for Kramnik, it's a nice way of stating that these are statistics that I came up with. Fact is, there are statisticians who emailed me directly including one from University of Chicago Booth School. Additionally, there were many mathematicians who posted both on r/Chess and Kramnik's thread. Kramnik deleted all these posts."
He went on to add:
"Unfortunately for Kramnik, when he says this when I'm referring to or not some statistic that I came up with on my own, I'm referring to what is out there and is publicly available...he can be oblivious and try to pretend that I am making this up."
Vladimir Kramnik had previously claimed to have gathered statistics that could support his allegations of possible cheating. However, as of the last update, there has been no tangible evidence to substantiate these claims.
