Explaining the New Chess "Cheating" Scandal
Hi there!
Introduction
Cheating in chess has been very prominent lately. I see so many cheaters on this website getting caught every day.
You all might know the Magnus Carlsen - Hans Niemann cheating scandal. Hans and Magnus both played in the Sinquefield Cup in 2022, where Hans beat Magnus. Magnus, Chess.com and many others accused Hans of cheating, and Hans filed a $100,000,000 lawsuit against them. The lawsuit was dismissed 2-3 months ago, and is basically over now.
But just a day (or two days depending on where you live) ago, another chess "cheating" scandal happened, and once again, Magnus is involved.
Let's just get right into it.
Alisher Suleymenov
Alisher Suleymenov
Alisher Suleymenov is a young Kazakh chess player. He is a GM and was awarded that title this year (2023). His achievements include winning the 2020 Moscow Team Championship and the 2020 Almaty Online Chess Festival. He was also placed first in the 2019 Suetin Memorial.
The Game
Alisher has a FIDE of 2512 and is currently playing in the Qatar Masters tournament. In the tournament's second round, he was paired with none other than Magnus Carlsen, the GOAT of chess.
I decided I would analyze the game and share my thoughts on it, so here is the game with my annotations:
So it just looks like Magnus Carlsen had a bad day of chess right? Everyone has those. Alisher played some amazing chess, and won. So this blog is over...right?
Magnus's tweets
As you can see from the above image (sorry for the blurriness), Alisher wore an analogue watch during the game.
Watches ARE NOT allowed in chess tournaments. It is against international rules to wear a watch during the game. Magnus even brought it up to the arbiter (as he says in the image), but the arbiter didn't seem to care. People were even walking with smartphones in the room (as shown in the picture).
Players, including GM Adhiban, have forfeited because they had a watch during the game.
FIDE Rule Book
Hikaru and MVL
Though we have the FIDE handbook in chess, it is evident that even a big tournament, with all of these amazing players, does not follow it entirely. Also, note that Magnus Carlsen never accused Alisher of cheating or of any malpractice. He just stated that Alisher was wearing something not allowed by FIDE.
This "scandal" was a part of the Qatar Masters of 2023. The Qatar Masters is one of the strongest open tournaments in the world, where only players rated 2300 or higher can take part. There is a $108,250 prize fund.
This event takes place in Qatar. It started on October 11th and will end on October 21st.
I would rate my own post a 5.5/10. My writing was pretty bad, and the images I used were a bit blurry (at least for me). The blog is also pretty short.
I hope you liked this blog and understood the entire scandal.
