José Martínez Leads Kramnik 7-5

José Martínez puts Kramnik’s allegations under question 

London, August 20, 2024 — José Martínez, an online chess prodigy from Peru, secured a 7-5 lead against former World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik on the first day of the dramatic event taking place in London.

Earlier this year, Kramnik questioned Martinez’s performance in online tournaments and challenged him to a duel aimed at addressing the larger issue of online cheating. Kramnik’s theory is that if one can play brilliantly online, he or she can show similar performance in over-the-board tournaments, where cheating is close to impossible, and the Clash of Blames is the event that will help determine whether Kramnik’s fair play questions against ‘online chess stars’ is founded.

There are two more days of the Clash of Blames, each day featuring six online and six over-the-board games in blitz time control — the same that is traditionally used for online tournaments. Whoever scores 18.5 points first — wins.

This is where you can watch the games live or replay the video later

Leading Chess organisation, World Chess, brought in Pinkerton, the world’s oldest detective agency, to ensure fair play. Pinkerton detectives were onsite, conducting in-depth checks on the players and the venue to ensure the players are absolutely certain the fair play integrity is maintained. 

The online part of the event is held on chessarena.com, the official FIDE gaming platform featuring advanced anti-cheating technology, after the players’ previous attempt to hold the tournament earlier this year was undermined by malfunctioning software provided by chess.com, due to clock resynchronization. Following the games on 19th August, Vladimir Kramnik said:

“I noticed that the online part was working perfectly this time—no lag, no bugs, and no fair play issues. I really hope it continues like this, as this is the whole reason we organized this match: to ensure professional, normal chess can be played. In the previous event, the clock was jumping for both of us, which was frustrating. You can truly enjoy chess when everything works as it should.”

The scale of the event and attention from the chess world was evident by the event’s media coverage and the line-up of guests—including high-profile names in British Chess such as David Howell, Hans Niemann, and British chess prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan. The Q&A session with the players was a highlight of the evening, where both Kramnik and Martínez shared insights on their games and praised the anti-cheating measures and overall organization of the tournament.

The event was free to watch on the World Chess YouTube channel as well as those of Hikaru Nakamura, and Levitov Chess, among others. 

The event will continue for two more days, with games on August 20 and 21 starting at 16:00 UK time. Each day will feature 6 online games on FIDE Online Arena and 6 over-the-board games, all played with a 3+2 time control. The first player to reach 18.5 points will win the tournament and receive a 12,000 EUR prize, while the runner-up will secure 8,000 EUR. Watch the games live on our YouTube channel.