Act of God

Man plans, God laughs. Fide, the international federation, organised an Online Olympiad, with 163 teams taking part. We got a global internet outage during the final. The disruption hit the Indian players at a critical stage, in the second of two matches against Russia. (The first was tied 3-3).

India were soon to be trailing 2.5-1.5, but had realistic hopes to even the score on the two remaining boards. But when those two players lost their connection to the website where the games were played, their time elapsed and they lost. The Indians lodged an appeal, but the appeals committee couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. It fell to Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich to settle the matter. Dvorkovich is Russian, so an impartial ruling was impossible. He awarded gold medals to both India and Russia. An awkward compromise, but sound politics.

If the conclusion was unsatisfying, it wasn’t for lack of planning. The Online Olympiad was a substantial organisational effort. It might sound straightforward: 99 per cent of the time, internet chess works flawlessly. But the possibility of cheating, made all too easy by modern chess engines, has prevented online games from being treated seriously. Cheating over-the-board calls for furtive bathroom breaks, and a risk of being caught red-handed. To cheat online, all you need is an engine running in a separate window.

The elite online events of recent months had far fewer players, who one assumes had too much to lose to consider cheating. But the Online Olympiad cast a wider net, and much of the planning anticipated the possibility of foul play. The players joined a Zoom call and shared their screens while playing, scrutinised by arbiters. Extra windows were forbidden, and so was leaving the webcam’s view during games.