The president of Leeds Chess Club has revealed more cases of online cheating in the chess world, amid Grand-master Controversy at the Sinquefield Cup.
In response to the controversy involving the five time world champion, a Chess.com report recently revealed a database of over 20 Grand Masters who have admitted to cheating at the games highest level.
Rupert Jones is a FIDE Master, International Arbiter and President of Leeds Chess Club. He has seen first hand the consequences of the 2020 chess boom.
“With the popularity of online chess and The Queen’s Gambit, we are having a lot of new members at Leeds chess club, In total we’ve had around 20 new players,” he said.
“When we ran the national chess league online during the lockdown every week there would be someone who is told off and removed for cheating and it became a big issue to the point where now people will not play competitively online.”
However Jones believes younger chess cheaters deserve a second chance.
Gaming to blame?
“A lot of the people who were caught were in the junior online and I’m actually of the opinion that maybe they didn’t realise that they were not meant to cheat.
“I think they come from a lot of computer games where cheating is more common.”
The most common way to cheat in chess is to copy the moves of a chess engine, a powerful computer program designed to find the best moves possible to win games.
When done in small doses is it extremely hard to prove when one is being used.
“The general audience needs to understand that everybody wanders around with the potential to have in their pocket a chess program that is stronger than the world champion and I don’t think a lot of people are aware of that”
