English Chess Forum

FIDE Ethics & Disciplinary Commission issues a decision in case involving GM Vladimir Kramnik
https://www.fide.com/fide-ethics-discip ... r-kramnik/

I cant see him losing much sleep over that.

For the record:

Having considered both aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the EDC imposed a two-year worldwide ban from participating in FIDE chess competitions or acting in official chess functions. The final 12 months of the ban have been suspended for a probationary period of three years, meaning the active suspension is one year provided no further breaches occur during probation. In addition, the Chamber imposed 12 months of unpaid service for the benefit of the chess community as a supplementary sanction.

Perhaps in time he will modify his behaviour but I am not so sure.

He's spent most of today tweeting about "the number of gross violations of major articles of the FIDE Regulations committed by the Ethics Commission in this case runs into the dozens" "unlawful act" "unhinged and blatant violation of any procedure of this kind." and his intention to "pursue all necessary instances to the very end in order to restore justice and, in particular, my reputation."

A totally unsurprising reaction tbh.

Protesting his innocence?

Big article on this in the Telegraph today.

Nick Ivell wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2026 10:51 am

Big article on this in the Telegraph today.

The Telegraph is behind a paywall, but this appears to be the material.
https://www.pressreader.com/ireland/iri ... 1017076756

Mr Kram­nik based his cheat­ing claims against Mr Nar­od­it­sky and other play­ers from the emer­ging gen­er­a­tion on a con­tro­ver­sial stat­ist­ical method he had developed.

He claimed that cer­tain play­ers were using com­puters stra­tegic­ally to win games without trig­ger­ing the sus­pi­cions of chess author­it­ies.

Whilst some leading chess players are or have been leading experts in mathematics and statistics, is it known what level of expertise Kramnik has in those fields?

I assume this means that Uzbekistan are looking for a new men's captain for the Olympiad

Niemann has been working with Kramnik, interesting pairing of controversial characters

Kramnik clearly doesn't think Niemann is a cheat, then.

"Kramnik clearly doesn't think Niemann is a cheat, then."

And Carlsen thought Kramnik's accusations against Naroditsky were outrageous...

Am I the only one to see "FIDE Ethics" and wonder if they are anything like "FIFA ethics"?

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2026 11:02 am

Whilst some leading chess players are or have been leading experts in mathematics and statistics, is it known what level of expertise Kramnik has in those fields?

I think we can safely assume none. He's been at this topic since late 2023 and he has yet to express himself remotely coherently. At this point the onus would be on him to demonstrate, well, anything really.

His behaviour was really despicable, I'm glad to see some sanctions, but it's also quite sad and a lot of people have exploited his going off the rails along the way.

I noticed a few times in his streams he was superfast in describing moves that looked suspicious.

LawrenceCooper wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 03, 2026 4:19 pm

FIDE Ethics & Disciplinary Commission issues a decision in case involving GM Vladimir Kramnik
https://www.fide.com/fide-ethics-discip ... r-kramnik/

Without going into the details of the case, I'm wondering if I'm the only one really surprised by the following paragraph of the FIDE decision:

FIDE wrote:In addition, the Chamber imposed 12 months of unpaid service for the benefit of the chess community as a supplementary sanction.

FIDE requesting 12 months of unpaid service looks generally weird. Requesting this from a former world champion is completely ridiculous; even disagreeing with Kramnik's anti-cheating crusade, there's no doubt that over his career Kramnik has contributed more to the benefit of the chess community than the whole of the FIDE bureaucrats combined.

Is there any precedent for a chess organization, or for any sport organization, to add "unpaid community service" to a sanction against a member?