Played position on board and expected the same: Viswanathan Anand after billionaire Nikhil Kamath admits to using unfair means

By ANI

NEW DELHI: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand has said he only played the position on the board and “expected the same” from billionaire Nikhil Kamath during their charity game even as the Zerodha co-founder admitted to using unfair means during the game.

His remarks came after Kamath apologised for taking help from “some people and computers” in the charity game.

“Yesterday was a celebrity simul for people to raise money It was a fun experience upholding the ethics of the game. I just played the position on the board and expected the same from everyone,” Anand tweeted.

Admitting his mistake, Kamath had revealed that he took help from “people analyzing the game and computers.”

“Yesterday was one of those days that I had dreamt of when I was a really young kid learning chess, to interact with Vishwanath Anand. Got the opportunity thanks to Akshaypatra and their idea of raising funds for charity conducting a bunch of chess games with Vishy. It is ridiculous that so many are thinking that I really beat Vishy in a chess game, that is almost like me waking up and winning a 100mt race with Usain Bolt,” Kamath said in a statement.

“I had help from the people analyzing the game, computers, and the graciousness of Anand sir himself to treat the game as a learning experience. This was for fun and charity. In hindsight, it was quite silly as I didn’t realise all the confusion that can get caused due to this. Apologies,” he added.

The All India Chess Federation (AICF) Secretary Bharat Chauhan has said it is “unfortunate” to see unfair methods employed in a charity chess game. The AICF secretary termed it as a “bad” move by Kamath and said it shouldn’t have happened.

“It is very unfortunate it was a charity match. We don’t expect anybody to get help from computers. At the national and state level we are following the protocols. We are putting cameras where players are playing and there is a fair play committee which includes three grandmasters and two players,” Bharat told ANI.

“All things are completely followed but in this kind of charity match we didn’t expect anybody to do this. It is very unfortunate such things have happened. He is not a player and he has apologised in public. He is not a regular player or our member we don’t have jurisdiction, he was doing it for charity. This is really bad. For the noble cause, we are helping people and such things shouldn’t happen,” Bharat added.

According to the AICF secretary, the Checkmate COVID progamme is launched to help the Chess community and not only Anand but a lot of other players played for this charity. “Yesterday lot of celebrities, like Aamir Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Kamath were there and various other celebrities were there for the initiative,” Bharat said.