Four Grandmaster Chess Cheating Scandals!

In the high-stakes world of grandmaster chess, cheating is serious business. On the line are huge prize funds, the legitimacy of players and tournaments, and the legacy of chess itself. 

With the widespread availability of chess engines, cheating is not as difficult as it once was. In an interview, Magnus Carlsen stated that cheating in competitive chess is relatively easy. For chess federations, cheating by titled players threatens to undermine the integrity of the game.

In the following, we will explore four grandmaster cheating scandals that rocked the chess world and how ensuring fair play is changing the game.

Quick Definition: What Constitutes Cheating in Chess?

While it may seem obvious, there are different ways to cheat in chess, and the definitions become important when it comes to investigations and reporting cheaters. 

The most common form of cheating in chess is receiving moves from an external source, which provides an unfair advantage. FIDE defines cheating as the deliberate use of external help to gain an advantage or violating official rules. Today, players cheat almost exclusively using a chess engine, which can consistently provide the best moves in a position. Previously, the moves may have been from other players or resources. 

As we will see, players can receive these outside moves in a variety of ways. Accomplices within the tournament arena may use signals or codes to communicate specific moves. More commonly, a hidden device with a chess engine allows a player to generate the moves when away from the board. Online cheating is much simpler. The player simply opens a chess engine on another device or platform. 

It can be very difficult to know when you are playing a chess cheat, so players rely on the fair play safeguards provided by tournaments and platforms. 

Other Types of Cheating

Cheating doesn’t always mean winning the game by using an engine. Other types of cheating include match fixing, rating fraud, and sandbagging. Many of these are hard to identify with the detection system designed to catch engine cheaters.

Sandbagging is a form of rating fraud in which strong players intentionally lose games to lower their chess rating. This allows them to enter lower-ranked tournaments and win prize money. 

Match fixing occurs in chess in similar ways to other sports. Players can prearrange tournament outcomes by colluding to strategically draw or lose.

A Pre-Engine Cheating Scandal

Early cheating scandals were quite different from the ones we know today. In the early and mid-20th century, Soviet chess players dominated the world. In 1962, after coming in fourth in the Candidates Tournament, a 19-year-old Bobby Fischer wrote an article entitled: The Russians Have Fixed World Chess. 

Fischer alleged that top Russian grandmasters were colluding to ensure that a Russian player won the tournament. They did this by forming a pact under which they agreed to draw early, allowing them to focus on defeating other players. Essentially, the Russians worked as a team. 

Naturally, the article sparked controversy. Many agreed that tournament conditions favored the Russians, but there was little evidence of direct cheating. Others argued that the young, brilliant, and arrogant Fischer was simply bitter about his poor performance. We do not know the precise truth of all of Fischer’s claims, but researchers have confirmed that three Russian players, Tigran Petrosian, Efim Geller, and Paul Keres, did agree to draw their games. 

Sébastien Feller

The case of Grandmaster Sébastien Feller was controversial and widely reported because of the elaborate way in which he and his accomplices cheated. 

The scheme took place at the 2010 Chess Olympiad, where Feller was competing for France. Three people were involved. The first, International Master Cyril Marzolo, was nowhere near the tournament, but followed the live stream of Feller’s games and used an engine to find the best moves. These he texted to the French team coach, Grandmaster Arnaud Hauchard, using a pre-arranged code. The final step was for Hauchard to position himself in Feller’s line of sight in a certain position and posture. This communicated the move to Feller. 

This type of cheating has been around for a long time. Accomplices use a code based on their position in the tournament arena. Recent regulations have sought to address this by prohibiting teammates and coaches from being in a player's line of sight. 

Feller, Marzolo, and Hauchard’s scheme was uncovered towards the end of the Olympiad, and all three players received bans ranging from 1.5 to 3 years. This scandal revealed how high-level cheating was possible through a prearranged system. Many speculated that cheating was much more widespread than players and organizers imagined. 

Kirill Shevchenko

The recent case of Kirill Shevchenko demonstrates that chess cheating continues to occur at the highest level. The decision to strip Shevchenko of his grandmaster title also shows how the governing bodies of chess are becoming increasingly concerned about the ease with which players can cheat in tournaments. At his highest ranking, Shevchenko was 39th in the world, which puts him at an extremely high level among the approximately 800 actively competing grandmasters. 

Shevchenko was accused of cheating at the 2024 Spanish Team Championship. He had hidden two phones in the bathroom, one with a note affixed to it, intended to deter cleaning staff from reporting them. After discovery, he admitted to hiding the phone and accessing a chess platform, but denied following through with the act of cheating. He was caught because one of his opponents reported to an arbiter that he was spending long periods away from the board. 

Despite mitigating circumstances described by his legal team, he was banned from competing in FIDE tournaments for 3 years and had his grandmaster title revoked. The punishment was slightly harsher than in other similar cases. Some noted that this reflects the increasing desperation to stop cheating in professional chess. 

Hans Niemann 

For better or worse, the Hans Niemann scandal was perhaps the most widely reported chess news of the last decade. It had many twists and turns, involving the singular Niemann himself and Magnus Carlsen, the most famous figure in chess today. 

2022 Sinquefield Cup

In the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, Hans Niemann beat Magnus Carlsen in a game, breaking a 52-game win streak. The loss was surprising. Niemann was the lowest-ranked player in the tournament, and Carlsen was ranked as the best player in the world at the time. 

More surprisingly, Carlsen withdrew from the tournament after the loss with a tweet that referenced a José Mourinho quote, "I prefer really not to speak. If I speak, I am in big trouble.” Many interpreted this as a tacit accusation.

Speculation grew. Players and commentators analyzed Niemann’s games and behavior. Many noted that Niemann, in analyzing his games, did not seem to be an authority on the variations he played or even fully understand the moves he had made. 

Niemann addressed the accusations in an interview during the tournament in which he admitted to cheating on Chess.com as a teenager, but denied having done it in an over-the-board tournament. Chess.com removed him from the platform and launched an investigation. Niemann accused Carlsen and others of trying to sabotage his career. 

Continuing Scandal

The drama with Magnus Carlsen continued. The two played again in an online tournament, the Julius Baer Generation Cup. Carlsen made one move and then resigned the game. Again, commentators interpreted this as a protest and accusation. Eventually, he released a statement, revealing that he had suspected Niemann of cheating during the game at the Sinquefield Cup. He cited the ease with which Niemann dismantled his position and his apparent lack of stress. For many, this was an insufficient justification. 

The Chess.com investigation concluded with a 72-page report stating that it was likely that Niemann had cheated in at least 100 online games. However, they found no clear evidence that he had cheated over the board. A key part of Niemann’s responses was that he had never cheated in over-the-board games and never in a tournament with prize money. It also concluded that there was insufficient evidence that he cheated in the Sinquefield Cup game. 

Aside from responding in the media, Niemann launched a huge lawsuit against Chess.com, Carlsen, and others. The court dismissed the defamation claim, but the parties reached a confidential settlement. Additionally, the outcome allowed Niemann to once more play on Chess.com.

Conclusion

The Niemann scandal highlights the ambiguities and difficulties involved in accusations of chess cheating. The more salacious details, like speculations about how Niemann cheated, spread rapidly. Unlike many chess scandals, the drama quickly became international news. For many, this media attention amounted to a witch hunt. For others, it was the natural result of a clear case of cheating. 

The absence of a definitive conclusion indicates the difficulties involved in establishing cases of cheating. Even with advanced fair-play systems in place, it remains possible for players to cheat, and often impossible to determine their guilt or innocence. 

Cheating and the Future of Chess

Increasingly, chess federations are describing cheating as an existential threat to competitive chess. If they cannot guarantee fair play, tournaments lose their legitimacy. 

As we’ve seen, determinations of cheating in chess are rarely straightforward. It also seems likely that players who are caught cheating are punished, whereas others get away with it. 

Chess tournaments enhance security through extensive sweeps of electronic devices and close analysis of games and long-term performance. Online chess tournaments rely on fair-play software and, in some cases, on mandatory webcam feeds of players. As chess continues to evolve with the performance of engines, cheating and fair play change accordingly. The end result remains unclear. 

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