When Chess Cheaters Get Caught

While chess players usually spend hours thinking of the best move that would lead them to winning the game, some players have found methods of cheating to get themselves some very questionable wins. Starting with this player who challenged Grandmaster Eric Hansen to a 1v1 for $250, and with this player only having a rating of 978, Eric knew this would be an easy match. But after the first few moves are played, things start to look suspicious. And after his opponent, Aesap12 moves his king to h1, Eric knows he is not facing a 900 rated player, as this is a definite cheater. Both players play multiple moves before Eric corners his opponent's king, with both his queen and bishop attacking it. If Eric is able to win here, he will be one of the only people to have defeated a chess cheater. But unfortunately, the cheater finds the best move, moving the rook to g1 with the idea of playing g5, which after rook h3 would trap Eric's queen, forcing him to give it up. But after Eric plays h6, hoping to stop g5, his opponent plays it anyway, an incredibly weird move. After thinking for a long time, Eric takes the pawn with his bishop, after which the cheater creates a huge attack, cornering black's king in the sight of two rooks and a queen. The cheater plays queen a2, threatening to checkmate Eric's king, which Eric defends before having to give away his queen, and after a few moves, loses to queen e4, checkmate, as the king has no squares to move to. After the game, the opponent was shown to have a 97% accuracy rate, and soon was reported and banned from chess.com. But what happens when a cheater like Esat plays against the best player in the world? As when world champion Magnus Carlsen was playing online on a livestream, a player named Alexander Kay would challenge him. And while looking completely normal, this player would be secretly cheating. Magnus starts the game by moving his knight to g3, which Alexander responds to by moving his pawn to f5. After a few more moves are played, the game turns into a variation of the Dutch opening. But Magnus is no stranger to this, and after Alexander takes his pawn, Magnus follows up with bishop d3, attacking the knight. Alexander defends his knight, and Magnus exchanges the knight and the bishop, after which queens are traded off. While Alexander is a cheater, Magnus Carlsen is the real engine here, knowing endgames better than any human. And with that, Magnus places knight to g5, threatening to fork the king and rook, a deadly attack. Alexander immediately blocks this threat by moving his king back. Both players continue to develop their pieces, and while the cheater has one extra pawn, Magnus can quickly win this back. Which after a few more moves, he chooses to do, taking the pawn with his knight, giving Magnus a slightly better position than his opponent. Alexander though still has some more ideas up his sleeve, and plays his rook to d8, asking to trade with Magnus. It is at this point, Magnus starts realizing how perfectly his opponent is playing, and so plays a more safe approach, moving his pawn to f3. Both players continue trying to slowly build an advantage against each other, and another set of pieces are traded off, bringing both players close to the endgame. Magnus now also realizes he has some winning chances, but it quickly vanishes when the player moves his knight back. The best move, after which Magnus realizes, he is likely playing a cheater. A pair of rooks are exchanged, both players grind down into an extremely close endgame, but while Magnus has over a minute and 30 seconds, his opponent is running low on time. Alexander plays his knight to d4, which Magnus moves his king closer, giving a triple attack on the knight. Alexander defends this again though, and with no way to outplay each other, both players keep moving their pieces before Alexander's time ticks out, completely destroying his chances of beating the world champion. Alexander was later confirmed to have been using stockfish, meaning even the world-renowned chess bot could not defeat Magnus. Savage. But this next game would be much crazier, as during a charity event, world champion Viswanathan Anand would face a player cheating online. This was Nikhil Kamath, an Indian billionaire who became one of the richest men alive after founding the company Zeroda, and his next opponent would be Vishy Anand. Nikhil has an online rating of 400, meaning that statistically, his chance of beating Vishy is non-existent, but as both players keep moving, it becomes obvious. Nikhil is a lot better than everyone would have thought. However, things start to look suspicious, as on Nikhil's webcam, he seems to keep looking at something on the side, which is a clear sign that he may be cheating. Still, Anand has an advantage in the game, having an extra pawn on the board. But this advantage would disappear soon after, when it is now Nikhil who has all the threats. With Anand's knight being attacked twice, along with a pawn that was about to fall, things were not looking good for the world champion, and after a few, moves his knight to G4 to take the pawn on H4, which Anand has to stop. And he does this by playing his queen to E8, giving a check to the king. At this point, the commentators are stunned by what they're seeing, and after Nikhil plays his queen to C5 with check, forcing Anand to move his king to the corner, and after Nikhil looks to the side once more, likely looking at an engine, he plays the best move, rook to C1, which Anand blocks with his knight. While Nikhil is completely winning in this game, his time is running extremely low, and Anand knows he can flag him. Nikhil plays his queen to D1, threatening to take Nikhil's knight with a backrank checkmate. With Nikhil only having 13 seconds on the clock, Anand has the decision to either beat him on time, winning the game, or resigning, which will likely get Nikhil exposed as a cheater. Vishi quickly calculates this idea before deciding to resign, which after Nikhil wins, he shows no emotion at all. Nikhil was later exposed as a cheater on Chess.com and had his account banned, making him apologize to the entire chess community.