Nova Daily - 23 May 2025: What to do when you're falsely accused of cheating?
Hi!
In BlogChamps we had an interesting question from one of the users. I'll go over it very briefly here.
What to do when you're falsely accused of cheating?
Every Kramnik-fan will have to ask themselves this question at some point, but it does happen a lot. There are some people who have such a strong dislike of losing that either they win or the opponent cheated. There is no in-between.
If someone accuses you of cheating, it can really get under your skin. You play well, you have an idea, you carry it out, you win, and someone just doesn't accept the result. If it's the first time and it happens mid-game, it can really unhinge you mentally, and you won't be able to play your best anymore. Although I don't know of any hard cases, I can imagine that some people deliberately use a false cheating accusation mid-game to gain the unfair psychological advantage of fear that presenting yourself as an adversary can bring. I hope that that's not you.
My gut feeling often tells me when I'm being cheated against, and I'm almost always correct. And when in doubt, I'll always give them the benefit of the doubt. But I'll always do my research post-game and file a report if I see fit.
https://wrdlawfirm.com/what-to-do-when-someone-makes-false-accusations-against-you/
But what to do when they accuse you? You can try to ignore it, but that's not always easy, especially if they persist in the accusation. If you stay silent, it feels like some sort of implicit admission that they are right. You don't really want to become defensive, because the stronger you deny their claim the more sensible it seems. When it happens in an online game, you can play along with the accusation and overexaggerate it into the absurd extreme, as one of us proposed. My own suggestion was to tell them "I'm livestreaming this game. Thanks for cracking up my audience!" That doesn't even need to be true, but it underlines that what they say doesn't stay private necessarily. If they go ballistic for no reason, they deserve to feel the consequences of what they troll about.
Always remember that when people attack you over a game of chess, it says nothing about you. If you play a fair game, your honour isn't at stake. No-one can take that away from you.
Important note: the discussion above is unrelated to the game below.
The game analysis
What can I take away from this game:
- This idea 7.Bg2 is very interesting to look at. It definitely deserves to be worked out better.
- I tend to overlook a lot of ideas that the opponent has. This can be trained for.
