The Billionaire who used a chess engine vs Vishy Anand in a charity match!

Hi all

Vishy Anand is one of the most amazing World champions capable of really imaginative ideas such as in this game with Black vs Aronian:

https://youtu.be/oCrU9410vSo

( check my Vishy Anand playlist here: http://kingscrusher.tv/vishyanand )

Perhaps one of the great controversies of the year 2021, the following game showed it seemed on the surface the remarkable chess ability of an Indian billionaire, seemingly able to crush Vishy Anand:

One issue with online chess is the possibility of cheating. Sometimes online chess organisations such as ICCF in correspondence chess just allow anything. Anything goes. The result can be tournaments full of draws because engines are getting stronger and stronger, making such tournaments very hard to win a single game.

You could argue that "cheating" as a concept exists in the context of a rules framework. And if the rules are not set out clearly, then there is some ambiguity perhaps of what is cheating and what is not.

On 13 June 2021, Vishy Anand played against five Indian celebrities in an online simultaneous display. The event was even streamed with live commentary.

Vishy Anand played five opponents including the following extremely notable celebrities:

• The Indian entertainer Sudeep
• The film producer Nadiadwala
• The Billionaire Nikhil Kamath, Chief Information Officer and co-founder of the financial services company Zerodha. Nikhil Kamath is known as "India's youngest billionaire".

Interestingly, the quality of the games against all three of these players was really amazing. They put up huge resistance against the former World chess champion.

Here is the game Vishy Anand vs Nikhil Kamath

The game did not seem to have a very promising start. Vishy kicked off with 1.Nf3 and was met with e5:

Perhaps the Billionaire did not realise they were blundering a pawn straight away. And a center pawn as well. Center pawns are often worth more than flank pawns.

And now provocative "Tango" like play - Black a pawn down is provoking d5:

Black does seem to have some piece activity for the pawn:

Very logical play from black. Moves like b5 help queenside fianchetto which in turn can ramp up the pressure on the d5 pawn with threats like b4 incoming:

Black's pieces do seem alarmingly active:

Vishy Anand commits to giving up the dark square bishop. Quite often historically there are many games that giving the opponent a bishop without a counterpart can lead to trouble later on that square color:

It doesn't take too long for the theoretical concern to become concrete on f2:

Vishy snaps up another pawn but at some cost - going into a self-pin. Is this self-pin going to cost billions of dollars?

WOW - Black seems to be playing very tactically with Rxe5:

Black's counterplay seems to getting out of control even though White is a pawn up:

This seems a very difficult position to play for White now:

Kh1 unpinning and protecting h2:

But black is now equal on pawns after Rxc2:

Dark square issues again:

Hold on a second, hasn't vishy just won the pesky g4 knight?

Something doesn't feel quite right about this position:

Is it a case of "Patzer sees a check, patzer plays a check" ?

Unfortunately because of a "Killer common square" - f2 - funny enough a dark square, the King is forced to go to h1, otherwise Qf2 would be checkmate.

OUCH!

Wow, that was tactical genius!. All of this from the gambit opening!

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@vishy64theking on Twitter did apologise
https://twitter.com/nikhilkamathcio/status/1404401562215010308?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1404401562215010308%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.chessbase.com%2Fpost%2Fbillionaire-and-celebrities-cheat-at-charity-simul

in my head, it was just a fun game we amateurs were playing against the greatest chess champ from India to raise funds for charity. But still gives no excuse for what I did. It was wrong and I sincerely apologize.

References in the media

Vishy Anand's Tweet

https://twitter.com/vishy64theking/status/1404327170550288388?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1404327170550288388%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.chessbase.com%2Fpost%2Fbillionaire-and-celebrities-cheat-at-charity-simul

Chessbase news
https://en.chessbase.com/post/billionaire-and-celebrities-cheat-at-charity-simul

https://www.dnaindia.com/sports/report-india-s-youngest-billionaire-defeats-vishwanathan-anand-in-online-chess-gets-banned-for-cheating-2895304

https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/chess/billionaire-start-up-founder-nikhil-kamath-beats-viswanathan-anand-in-chess-celebrity-fundraiser-match-7359254/

https://au.sports.yahoo.com/indian-billionaire-nikhil-kamath-caught-cheating-chess-scandal-viswanathan-anand-061633926.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALJL8keL5lBial5TyTYbuy199E7yf3FpQJQIlwBlvr-c53VQsyVyuRHNlZJ70Tg8U1MhbYWwNcYV236HSi8WMnx-fHvL6ltRSCJbKtoNrH23swnHwXvbgmttgy3oN2VEy9r7elp4HTwb7IPeAF7OCnEoAV886TIxUKyTnHOuyDud

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Takeaway points

• Modern engine technology is too much for world chess champions especially in Simul displays
• Giving up the dark square bishop can be very risky indeed
• Credit to the Billionaire for apologising
• Perhaps the rules should be clarified a bit more even for charity events

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Hope you enjoyed this blog :). Any likes and follows are really appreciated. Also, I also have some interesting chess courses at https://kingscrusher.tv/chesscourses to check out.Cheers, K