By: Sattwik Biswal
An Indian billionaire has admitted to cheating in a shock win over five-time chess world champion Viswanathan Anand in an online charity event on Sunday (13).
Online brokerage firm Zerodha’s co-founder Nikhil Kamath win over Anand in a 30-minute rapid game has created a controversy, with the young billionaire later saying it was for “fun and charity”.
However, the next day Kamath admitted taking help of “computers” and “people analysing the game”.
“It is ridiculous that so many are thinking that I really beat Vishy sir in a chess game, that is almost like me waking up and winning a 100mt race with Usain Bolt,” Kamath tweeted.
“In hindsight, it was quite silly as I didn’t realise all the confusion that can get caused due to this. Apologies.”
Following the match, Kamath’s Chess.com account was banned. Chess.com is an online platform for players across the world to play matches virtually.
The charity event was attended by celebrity guests including cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal and Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, who played against Anand and were defeated.
The 51-year-old grandmaster, who won his first world title aged 30 appeared to play down the whole matter.
“Yesterday was a celebrity simul for people to raise money It was a fun experience upholding the ethics of the game,” he wrote on Twitter.
“I just played the position (on the) board and expected the same from everyone.”
India’s chess federation saw the incident as violating the spirit of the game.
“We don’t expect anybody to get help from computers, at the national and state level we are following the protocols,” the federation’s secretary Bharat Chauhan told local media.
“(Kamath) was doing it for charity, he shouldn’t have done. This is really bad,” he added.
