Five big myths concerning my appeal to FIDE

Myth often have real foundation, yet they are usually unreal. The photo of me in a house of mirrors (from 2022) shows this.

As most of you know, several months ago GM Kramnik published a Tweet concerning suspect play in Titled Tuesdays and I quickly reacted to this, sending a complaint to FIDE. Thinking about that topic mostly deteriorates both my mood and results. That said, I find it useful to correct some misunderstandings and misconceptions concerning my complaint. (Similar statements occurred in various online discussions.)

Myth No. 1: David Navara sent an appeal to FIDE, complaining about GM Kramnik accusing him of cheating
This is completely untrue. I indeed sent a complaint to FIDE, complaining about GM Kramnik’s behavior. That said, I even explicitly mentioned that I was not sure whether he was accusing me or not. Having been shocked by the tweet and very angry, I found it important to react quickly and resolutely. In hindsight, it might have been better to take more time and structure the text better.
I was basically complaining about four things:

1. First, GM Kramnik has played Titled Tuesdays from an account of GM Dennis Khismatullin, which is an obvious violation of the terms of service for both players.
2. Next, I am complaining about GM Kramnik publicly accusing many players including minors, often without sufficient arguments.
As far as I understand it now, GM Kramnik sees these as argumented concerns rather than accusations. That said, many of them have been perceived as accusations and the form in which they were presented by GM Kramnik makes them look very much like accusations, with the unpleasant consequences for the players who played fair yet became a target of suspicions.
Moreover, some of the concerns are very poorly argumented, as is the case with the Kramnik - Cherniaiev game from the 19th March 2024, where GM Kramnik made some strange statements concerning Tykhon’s move 26...d4, which was neither that strong, nor too hard to find.
3. Then I am complaining about GM Kramnik's poor usage of statistics.
I admit that my claim that he does not understand statistics was too strong. That said, I insist that some case of his usage of statistic were wrong. For example the tacit assumption that the metric from the unfortunate tweet (the one which pushed me to complain, with me on the 3rd place) is very useful for a detection of (some type of) cheating. I will discuss the problems with the metric later, under the 4th myth.
While I understand that a poor usage of statistics in itself is not a problem to complain about, in the given context it is relevant.
4. Finally, I am complaining about the nature of GM Kramnik's tweet, which was offensive ("Cheating Tuesdays"). Again, I will deal with this in the 4th myth.
The tweet obviously motivated me to submit a complaint, but its content was very different from what many people believe.

Myth No. 2: David Navara wants GM Kramnik to be punished for turning attention towards suspect players
In fact, I even believe that in some special cases it makes sense to question someone’s reputation publicly, providing very convincing arguments. That said, in my opinion this should be an exceptional measure, whereas GM Kramnik does such things regularly, with the arguments often not being very convincing. (This is not only my opinion, many grandmasters share it.) While servers like chess.com are interested in believing us that their tournaments are safe enough, they are also interested in fight against cheating in their events, as otherwise many top players would just stop participating there. Personally I also believe that cheating is a problem in Titled Tuesdays and other online tournaments, with my estimations of cheating in TTs being somewhere between those of GM Kramnik and those of chess.com.
I believe that GM Kramnik should be punished for publicly questioning the reputation of players outside the “grey zone”. (Grey zone in my understanding contains players who are suspect, but not necessarily cheating. Determining who is playing fair and who is not is very important but often very difficult there.) Moreover, clearly invalid arguments against players from the grey zone are also wrong.
To sum up, this myth has a real foundation, but the reality is somewhat different.

Myth No. 3: David Navara protests against being a subject of inquiry
This is completely wrong.
Having pretty standard results in Titled Tuesdays and slightly better results in over-the-board blitz, I protest against being connected with cheating for no adequate reason, and claim the metric to be wrong.
Magnus Carlsen obviously plays much better than me, yet he is way behind me in the table. (In fact, he had played fewer than 700 moves with so little time left.) Alexander Grischuk also plays somewhat better than me. Both chess.com ratings and results in Titled Tuesdays confirm this, only the metric of GM Kramnik shows my play to be anomalous. Perhaps there is something wrong with the metric?
I do not mind being checked in an adequate and respectful way. I am ready to use Zoom with two cameras, as the higher credibility is more important than lower comfort. In fact, I have slightly better results in online tournaments with cameras than without them. (That said, I have never been called to Zoom in Titled Tuesdays so far, although I have even suggested it myself when being on 7/8 or after scoring some good results.)

Myth No. 4: It is just objective data
For the start, I will once again quote the tweet with which all of this started, at least for me.

(Source: GM Kramnik's Twitter/X)

One cannot just “let the data speak for themselves”. The life is full of “objective data” and one decides what to publish and how to publish it.
To begin with, one first decides what to investigate and how to investigate it. One needs to determine some period, what is a blunder and what is not, the minimal number of moves played with very little time left and the minimal amount of time left. I only have one big objection against the values chosen there, but now I want to stress that someone already had to decide on some values. (Say, if the minimal number of moves was set to 750, I would not be mentioned there.)
It is worse. The tournaments are called Titled Tuesdays, whereas the tweet mentions “Cheating Tuesdays”. This is offensive or manipulative. One could obviously present the same data in a more fitting way.
The metric is also highly problematic in several aspects. As far as I understand it, is was created to detect fast cheaters who use bots and can play engine moves very quickly. Then there are several problems:

1. Fast cheaters can avoid time troubles without damaging their chances, thus ending way below 700 moves played with 10 seconds or less time left. And thus simply be missing in the table.
2. The metric probably ignores one sort of blunders which bot users can easily avoid without ruining their position, but honest players sometimes cannot. Namely losses on time in playable positions. Those should be calculated as moves, concretely as blunders. Having lost 3 games like this (from about 750 moves played with 10 seconds or less), I have good reasons to believe that the metric does not count losses on time in playable positions as blunders. If they were considered blunders, the metric should normally produce somewhat better results.
3. The metric is not very much correlated with the results. My average score in that period was very slightly below 8/11, while many more successful players are simply missing in the table.
4. Apart from high class (Alexander Grischuk and several other players mentioned) or bot usage, being at the top of the table might also mean high concentration, quick thinking, quick play (“mouse skills”), many simple positions (opposite-coloured bishop endgames where almost every move is good, or a K+R+N vs. K+R endgame where the side with a knight has very easy play), good nerves or several other things. (Admittedly some of those aspects are correlated with high class, yet the FIDE ratings do not measure them too accurately.) The metric in itself cannot distinguish when cheating took place, it would require quite some additional analyses.

When speaking about simple positions, it might be worth pointing at the game Makhnev - Navara:
https://www.chess.com/game/live/97956071337?username=formerprodigy, also to be found here:

All of black’s final 25 moves were strictly forced and any titled player would make them. Many experienced blitz players would premove them all, as I did. By the way, 74.Nd7+! (or 74.Na4+!) Kc6 75.Kxa8 Kc7 76.Nb6 was winning on the spot, which I saw.

5. The data from the metric should be presented to a few people or to many, thus being open for further scrutiny. I understand that some sophisticated anti-cheating models should remain secret to stay effective, but this one has been described and does not look very sophisticated in either sense.
The Makhnev – Navara game quoted above was played in a tournament which was subsequently discarded, as too many participants had connection problems. (I also had some, but was trying to show my best play, as the event was only discarded after its end.) I have contacted FIDE, trying to find out more about that metric of GM Kramnik, but to no avail. It would be interesting to know whether this particular tournament was counted, whether I have really made 748 moves with so little time and various other things.

Good statisticians mostly first spend some time on making their methods as effective as possible, and only then proceed to a complicated analysis of data. I am not sure who spent so much time on counting blunders in so many games, but it seems that it was not a great statistician, as the quality of the output was not worth the effort.
When speaking about pure facts, I have only earned $200 in all my Titled Tuesdays taken together (for one 4th place), whereas I have earned around $10000 in over-the-board blitz tournaments in the same period. (This is obviously somewhat misleading, as I have earned a lot of money in a few other strong rapid and blitz online events, but they were mostly played with a camera or two, which makes good sense when there is a lot of money at stake.)
All in all, I believe that there is no reason why I should be ranked so high in such a statistic with such a title. Please note that if there are some dishonest players in GM Kramnik’s list, it only makes my case stronger – why should I be mentioned there along with them?

Myth No. 5: The complaint of David Navara helps cheaters
Opinions on this might differ, but I do not believe this to be true. I have spent around 12 hours of my life sending fair-play reports or collecting evidence for them. A lot of time, although not so much compared to the time spent playing online. I am here primarily to play, and report players to help to keep the online sphere relatively user-friendly.
I also consider online cheating a big problem, and unfounded accusations another big problem, both being interconnected. In my opinion, the main feature of successful anti-cheating methods is to distinguish honest players from dishonest ones as accurately as possible. (Which is obviously easier said than done. Software like Zoom and cameras can help in this respect. I am not overly eager to play with two cameras, but it is still much better than suspecting some players and being suspected by some.)
In my opinion, when a world-class player publishes his doubts about many other players, honest and dishonest ones alike, it does not significantly help the fight against cheaters. The fact that the very same world-class player had violated the terms of service, deceiving his opponents in Titled Tuesday(s) by playing from an account of another player, makes the situation even more absurd. (I have participated in a few prize events on Lichess from my anonymous titled account and won around 70 euros in total, but it is allowed here.)
Grandmaster Kramnik believes that everybody should be open to scrutiny, including fair-play prize holders. I agree with this. That said, in my opinion everyone should also respect the terms of service, even the ex-world champions.

Thank you for reading such a long text! (I hope not to write another text on this topic in the coming months.)
Have a great weekend!

Postscriptum: To end the article on a lighter note, I would like to mention a funny fact that in the only Titled Tuesday when I earned a prize I won the last-round game (Navara - Pranav) in the Kramnik variation of the Queen's Indian Defense.