Nova Daily - 23 November 2025: Trial by media (Recap Week 47)

Hi!

Another difficult week is finally over. There were some hard things that happened, but I already covered them in my posts throughout the week. And one thing that I feel very happy about is that after my blitz plunge I managed to recover the very next day. I received another 8 points because of a fair play violation by one of my opponents, and something inside me dies every time that happens.

You often hear the expression "I'd rather lose honestly than win because my opponent got expelled." It sounds right because it is right: a rigged competition is an inferior one. Nothing beats the honest success. But even an open-and-shut case like this one is more nuanced.

Losing can hurt like hell, especially if you're just outplayed completely. Facing your own mistakes can be a very painful experience. Yes, it's a precursor to growth, and yes, going through these things is definitely a worthwhile thing that I'd wholeheartedly recommend. But it's not fun, and it's not as rewarding as the feeling of justice when someone whom you know to have offended the rules is finally caught.

It's perhaps unfair to compare these two things, because they represent two entirely different facets of competition. But they can be united under the general notion that they're both quests for the truth to prevail.

Trial by media

So, then, what do you do if someone you know broke the rules?

This is a very simple question, yet it can't be answered in a simple manner. And that's because the answer is far too generic. There are many variables that you can't survey, and as such there's no one-size-fits-all answer. To name a few of the circumstances that influence the answer:

• What was the purpose of the transgression? 
• Was any harm done by the violation? 
• What is the age of the perpetrator? 
• In what context did the misdemeanour happen?
• Where did it happen? 
• Has it been their first offence? 
• Was the foul planned in advance?
• Has any action already been taken concerning this matter?
• What is your relation to the cause? 

If you're dealing with a 9-year-old who cheated in one online chess tournament, the repercussions are going to be very different from those that follow a grown-up sporting the GM-title who received engine assistance in an OTB tournament.

One of the main differences in how to deal with these situations is the amount of public attention that you give them. You don't want to lynch the youngster, so you don't mention their name anywhere. You just indicate in the media that irregularities have occurred, and you do your best to deal with the matter behind closed doors, outside the public eye.

What makes the GM's case different is the fact that by having achieved their title they became ambassadors of the sport. They are responsible for upholding the game's code of conduct and may reasonably be expected to follow suit. Their transgression, then, puts the sport into disrepute, and the ramifications of their actions logically become proportionally more severe. But here, too, the matter should be dealt with behind closed doors, without interference of the media.

The situation regarding Kramnik’s conduct is an entirely different matter. I maintain that stripping him of his titles is the wrong thing to do because it amounts to emotion-driven distortion of history. We don't do the same with Fischer for his applauding the 9/11 attacks, or Karjakin's support for the war in Ukraine. The lamentably deplorable and abject human standards that these people maintain doesn't affect their magnificent chess-achievements, and the same goes for Kramnik.

However, since this issue only exists in the public domain and has impacted Naroditsky as severely as it had precisely because Danya was a public figure, it's very understandable that this has become a trial by media. Whatever the outcome of the EDC investigation, Kramnik has essentially shot himself in the foot because of the loathing that he provided for himself.

What do you do with a writer that you know uses AI text generators to provide their content? Again this depends on who it is, who you are, whether any harm has been done, and what the consequences of the disingenuous writing means for the writing community as a whole.

When a child produces a blog that fails to include relevant present-day events and individuals and is labelled by ZeroGPT as 58.27% AI-generated, in most cases I'd let it pass silently and just stop reading their material. Or I'd indicate that I'd like to see more of their own personality, or make a remark that the text is a bit vague, generic, and bland. But I certainly wouldn't break them off in public in the way I'd be more inclined to do someone who used AI to write their PhD thesis and then goes on to collect prizes for it. But to each their own.

It becomes a different matter when prizes, promotions or other privileges are involved. Now we're talking about fraud and theft. And those are serious violations.

A trial by media can have a distinctly negative impact on the course of justice. Karl Jobst learned this the hard way when Billy Mitchell sued him over an implication in one of his videos and went on to win the case (causing the Australian YouTuber to owe Mitchell hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages). Another thing to take into account is that someone's media execution before the court's decision will be seized by the defendant's legal party in an effort to lower the sanctions.

The actions of one party don't warrant others to behave like oafs. It decreases the chances of justice prevailing and can have severe ramifications.

The week in chess

As indicated at the start of this blog, I had a rough tilt this week. I managed to recover the next day, and I like to interpret this as evidentiary support that my true playing strength in chess.com blitz is in the 2500s. I'm still 33 points down compared to last week, but it used to be 92.

I also increased my puzzle rating to 2600+, thanks to long sessions of pondering that I would and wouldn't recommend. In my case, it works.

My current scores:

Rapid rating: 2352 (+7)
Blitz rating: 2511 (-33)
Bullet rating: 2557 (=)
Survival: 63 (=)
Puzzle Battle: 2169 (-9)
Puzzles: 2610 (+22)
Repertoire: 4486 moves (=)