Chess.com gives verdict on Hikaru Nakamura cheating allegations

Chess.com has given an official verdict on the cheating allegations made against Hikaru Nakamura, after the grandmaster and streamer found himself at the centre of the biggest drama in the sport.

In case you’ve not been following the story over the last week or two, Nakamura dismissed “garbage” claims that he had cheated recently after going on a 15-game winning streak.

Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik added fuel to the fire after the claims came to light on social media – and even though Kramnik later deleted the posts about Nakamura, he didn’t take it lightly at all.

Now, Chess.com has waded in on the news story and completely absolved Nakamura.

Addressing the claims, the site said in a statement: “In the case of the recent accusations against Hikaru Nakamura by Vladimir Kramnik, we can say that we have generated nearly 2,000 individual reports on Hikaru’s games in our Fair Play system and have found no incidents of cheating.”

“Our team has done the math and various simulations of streaks for a player like Hikaru who has played more than 50,000 games. We have found that not only is a 45 game winning streak possible, it is in fact likely given the number of games played,” the site added.

Not finished there, Chess.com went on to say that the claims “lack statistical merit” having consulted statisticians.

However, cheating is far more prevalent on the platform than people might think. According to Chess.com, 50,000 accounts were banned for cheating on the platform in October alone.

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