Hello Everyone,
Kramnik Vs Jospem is the match we all were excited to see ever since it was announced and it finally kicked off on the 7th of June 2024
https://x.com/El_Divis/status/1772670506744926353
Disclaimer:
- I consider myself an awful chess player (2200-2250 online) and have a basic knowledge of statistics. Hence I will neither comment on the games nor on statistical accuracy
- I have been a Kramnik fan since close to 2 decades.
- Being a fan does not in any way obligate me to defend what ever my role model does.
- I have no gripe against anyone who has an opposing view to what Kramnik is doing
- Everyone has a right to hold their opinion without personally insulting anyone
- I have some gripe with Chess com as I believe it is a website which exists for making money out of a product called chess and not to grow the game (Read my rant below)
- I loved Chess24 and I think it was the best-est Ever-est website which cared about the game
- I am trying to be as neutral as I possibly can but I am human who can make mistakes in judgement
- Too many things have happened and it is possible I might have missed something
Background:
Kramnik who retired in 2019 accidentally decided to play online chess.
He found "interesting" statistics on some specific players and found that they are outperforming their FIDE rating performance and obtaining "Interesting' results , especially during money events.
He published various blog articles on Chess com which were presented amateurishly and was hard to read.
According to Kramnik he is not accusing the players of cheating but simply stating that they are outperforming their OTB ratings and they need to be checked
Opposers View on Kramnik:
a) Majority of the people think that Kramnik is wrong and paranoid.
b) He is simply making claims and not providing adequate information to back it up
c) He does not understand statistics
d) He is old school and does not understand technology. The way he wrote his articles on the Chess com blog and his various screenshots only help confirm this.
e) His mouse skills are 1800 Elo and he does not pre-move, which is an essential skill for doing well in online chess
f) He still thinks highly of himself but in fact he has lost his level and is no more the player he used to be
g) Kramnik does not understand the difference between Online and OTB Chess
h) Kramnik has some gripe about Chess com and is targeting them
i) Kramnik has low tolerance against people who speak against him. He either blocks them (Nikos Ntirlis) or blatantly disagrees with them
j) Kramnik himself has cheated by sharing an ID and banned by Chess com. Hence he doesn't have the moral right to talk against cheating
k) Kramnik seems rigid in his thinking refusing to learn to premove. The reason being that such a thing is not possible in OTB Chess!.
(Thank god he doesn't play games like Counter Strike because he wont shoot his enemies as its not allowed in real life)
Supporters View on Kramnik:
a) Chess com is aware of rampant cheating and wilfully trying to protect the cheaters
b) Chess com being a commercial company is wilfully twisting data and his comments to suit their own narrative
c) Chess com's analysis provided is not adequate and they cherry picked the statistics on Nakamura's streaks to favour themselves
d) Chess com must first come up with their data before Kramnik presents his own
e) Kramnik who has been associated with Deep Mind would be having proximity to top statisticians
f) Kramnik is willing to pay out of his own pocket to have public/live debate with independent statisticians
g) Chess com has deployed an army of chess influencers who are bound by contract to not speak against their company
h) Many top players are happy with what Kramnik is doing and many top players believe that there is rampant cheating online by Titled Players
My Noob opinion:
a) As with most things the truth always lies in between.
b) Kramnik is not 100% right about all his claims. Neither are all players he is pointing out cheating. Similarly Chess com does not seem to be taking adequate action against cheaters.
c) Kramnik's latest video on Niranjan Navalgund is damning and clearly indicates a dramatic fluctuation in playing strength over a span of weeks.
The player has either shared his ID with someone or he has clearly used engine assistance.
d) Neither has Chess com nor Niranjan himself come out in public stating everything is clean
Even though some times one gets the feeling that Kramnik is against Chess com, he has nothing to gain. On the contrary he is personally risking a lot of his reputation and goodwill by continuing to speak publicly.
3/4th of the Chess World seems to have gone against him
e) Many times one indeed gets the feeling that Chess com Influencers are incentivised to speak against Kramnik and create a bad impression about him.
(I have had many personal experiences as a whistleblower and I can very well understand how an organization/eco system go behind a person who tries to openly blow the cover. Personal attacks are the norm.
Organizations exist for commercial reasons and majorly will place money over ethics. Organizations can go to any extent to protect a few "key people" on whom their revenue majorly depends)
Example 1:
Danny Rensch did a home tour of Naka's house creates the impression that it is a PR activity.
The video starts off as a normal video but then at 3:37 Danny casually in passing mentions about Fair Play and how it works. This is probably the real intention of shooting the video rather than showing his house and setup.
Maybe I am just reading too much into the Naka Home tour video.
One can give Chess com the benefit of doubt as during the Magnus Home Tour by Chess com, Magnus himself mentions about Anti Cheating (2:55 Timestamp) and it does not seem to be intentional.
Example 2:
Keti Tsatsalashvili posted videos on her Youtube channel stating how she was called for a Fair play check and then a Video on Kramnik vs Cheaters
When confronted to clarify whether Chess com asked her to post the specific videos no convincing answer was received
Example 3:
When the match was being played, people who are directly associated with Chess com tweeted about Jospem's wins but decided to keep silent when Kramnik was winning.
It creates an impression that what is happening is not a match but a battle to take sides and fortify ones personal beliefs
Example 4:
Chess com released a Video titled "Accused of Cheating by World Champions, Can He Prove Them Wrong?"
I am struggling to understand what it is trying to prove. It seems more of a preview for the upcoming match
Posting an unedited video which shows Jospem playing the entire Titled Tuesday would have been a better proof.
Why did it take 3-5 Months to make this video
f) Chess com is a commercial company and their aim seems to be to make money through a product called chess.
As a long time fan of Chess24, I found their content to be directed towards making you a better player. Their video and analysis was next level which aimed at educating a player.
They set broadcasting standards which no other website came close. They broke the barriers of boring broadcasts. They provided chess enthusiasts an opportunity to interact and play with Titled players.
Back in 2004 I had an opportunity to discuss with Evgeny Postny on Playchess and when he replied to me (a noob) it was a surreal experience.
When Boris Alterman analyzed a suggestion of mine during the Kramnik-Leko 2004 match it felt so awesome.
All of this was made easily accessible by Chess24 and Titled players were no more the Gods they used to be. It felt they were as humane as us.
The Video content of Chess24 (Jan's d4 series) was used by some players as their repertoire to obtain the IM Title
During the Carlsen Karjakin match when there was a scheme laid by the organizers Agon to prevent broadcast of moves and keep the broadcast under a paywall.
Chess24 was one of the few websites which went against it and fought for the game. The result was a win, however the downside was getting drained economically eventually leading to the company shutting down
Compare it to Chess com. There is nothing wrong about making money but one needs to strike a balance between money and content.
The impression one gets is that Chess com's principal aim is to make money using Chess.
Their own video content was shallow and it was targeted at rank beginners to intermediates , providing game overview , teaching traps etc.
After Chess24 was taken over they never improved their broadcast interface where as a non commercial website like Lichess is able to do better.
Being a former moderator at Chess24 I could openly state that there are somethings which the competition is doing right and we need to improve it.
There were many public posts in the Chess24 Forums openly criticizing how Chess24 is not improving much. Openly we were allowed to name the competitors and everything was heard without retaliation.
Never was any user banned for saying the competitor is better than Chess24 in some areas.
Coming to Chess com, any time the name of the competitor was taken the comment was deleted.
One could not even mention Chess24 in the comments during a Youtube broadcast, the comment was deleted
Chess com has had a history of gagging critics. They can surely do the same with Kramnik who is opposing their famed Anti-Cheating measures.
I was personally shocked to see Kramnik survive on Chess com for so long writing against them on their own website. His image as a WCH most probably saved him
Aim of the Match:
The aim of the match is to "check the players (Jospem's) level" and determine if he is as strong OTB as he is online
Kramnik's online skills looks lacking and hence the goal was to play 18 games OTB and 18 games online. The goal being to compare OTB vs online play of the players and see if they co-relate to online play.
Who wins or loses is not material.
Kramnik's current Blitz rating is 2664 after he lost 39.2 points after playing a match against Esipenko in March 2024
Jospem's current Blitz rating is 2703
This means when the match was announced both players were rated similarly in Blitz with a slight rating edge to Jospem
Kramnik has so far played Jospem on Chess com a total 10 Games
3+1 = 6 Games (Jospem 6-0) Includes a game Kramnik aborted in 2 moves
3+2 = 2 Games (Kramnik 1.5) The result seems to have played a factor in choosing the time control for this match
15+3 = 2 Games (Jospem 2-0)
Kramnik aborting the game on move 2 looked unfair to Jospem.
When Kramnik himself claims that he is not accusing Jospem but merely asking for an investigation,Why not simply Play and increase the sample size by one more game? There should be no reason to abort the game
Thus it seems like Kramnik though asking for an investigation in many cases, it is merely a play for words to not attract legal implications.
In many cases he indeed means what he says about investigation but in some cases he sincerely believes that his opponent is cheating
The Actual Match
The day started off with Interviews of Kramnik and Jospem.
Kramnik said what he is always been saying whereas Jospem said he used to think highly of Kramnik but has lost quite a bit of respect for him (understandable)
The actual games began and the players exchanging blows.
At the end of 6 OTB games the players were tied with an equal score. Kramnik and Jospem beating each other 2 times and 2 Draws
Kramnik has beaten Jospem 2 times out of 6 OTB games whereas online he managed to win only 1 time.
No major conclusions can be drawn based on these games.
The most exciting part of the match which we all were looking forward to was the Online event.
For starters everyone was mildly surprised when we saw Laptops being unboxed.
It was even more shocking when we learnt that each day there would be a new laptop being unboxed.
This looks like a colossal waste of money and time.
A lot of questions came to my mind
a) Why not make the players switch the laptops after each game?
b) Why not at the end of the day leave the laptops under the custody of the arbiters?
c) If one does not trust the arbiters then why play at all?
Online Game 1 was won by Jospem and considering Kramnik's time management, I was expecting complete devastation for Kramnik
However Game 2 he managed to get a good position and with a good amount of time on his clock he started to go wrong.
Finally the game ended in a draw. However was followed was more shocking.
Following it live no one was aware what was going on. On Gotham's channel one could hear Lichess being mentioned and one could gather that hell had broken loose.
We were in the midst of another controversy.
Kramnik claims that he could see little time on his clock when in reality he had more time. Due to this he started to play fast which caused him to misplay his position.
Majority of the audience watching events unfold got the impression that Kramnik was trying to pull a Fischer and gain an unfair advantage.
I was willing to approach it with an open mind.
However there were some questions in my mind
a) Yes its a new laptop but its possible that it is defective!
b) It is also possible that the defective laptop lands in Kramnik's lap!
c) There would be a video footage of the players screens like in the MCT where we can see the players using their mouse and clicking it on their screen
d) If Kramnik is trying to play dirty then he needs to get a harsh punishment
e) I found it totally absurd to demand playing on another platform based on one game
f) How can one lose faith in the entire platform based on just one bad experience
However shockingly there was no footage of the players screens!
So how are we to conclude who is right and who is wrong?
Based on the post game interview the Arbiters seem to be in agreement with Kramnik.
However in the absence of any video footage there is inconclusive evidence and the arbiters have no other way but to nod in agreement to Vladimir irrespective of what they think
Not having the actual footage of the screens is a big big miss by the organizers.
I had expected them to cover everything in the players screens including footage of how the players are using their mouse.
Apart from Chess I also expected analysis of the players mouse skills and assessing the impact of their mouse skills on the outcome of the game. The time pressure bad mouse skills contributes to.
Considering how the players got here I was expecting this level of Online Chess Analysis.
Maybe I am expecting too much
When it was announced that instead of online there would be OTB games played, one had to sympathize with Jospem.
The worst part was that Jospem was at the receiving end and he was taking everything to his chin.
He seems to be agreeing to every condition put forward to him just to play and complete the match.
Jospem lost both the OTB games after resumption and all our sympathies were with him.
Since chess is a mind game and the players needed to be given optimum conditions the two losses seemed unfair.
When they day ended , I could not stop drawing parallels to Game 5 of the Topalov -Kramnik 2006 match where Topalov was gleefully looking at the winners scoresheet after winning the aborted game.
Way forward:
- Jospem seems to have been unfairly dealt with after the break. His post break OTB losses seem to be unfair
- Due to the above would like Day 2 to begin with a score of the first 6 OTB games.
- There should be video footage of the players Screens and every element needs to be captured
- Play should continue on the same agreed platform and it is not fair to change platforms based on one bad experience
- It is unfair to lose faith on a platform based on one bad experience
- Unfortunately I do not think this match would prove anything for or against Kramnik or Jospem
- Hence going forward it seems to be better to host a Titled Tuesday Winners Tournament
- At the end of a predefined period (say every 6 months), the top 3 finishers of every Titled Tuesday are invited to a venue where they play online, one Titled Tuesday tournament a day for a week under surveillance.
- Anyone skipping the physical tournament is forbidden from playing until he shows up the next physical event
- Of course we can re-think the terms and conditions of the proposal or find some better solution
However at the moment based on Day 1 it is
Jospem 1 Kramnik 0
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