Chess Players Who Ruined Their Careers
The world of chess is filled with tales of triumph and tragedy. Some people who've had great success have also done questionable things which have led to reputational damage and even getting banned from playing the game in some cases.
Table of Contents
- Timur Gareyev & Alejandro Ramirez
Sergey Karjakin is a Russian Grandmaster. He was probably one of the best players of the 2010s and was once the world’s youngest GM. He was so good at defending (at chess) that he was nicknamed “Russia’s minister of defense”. Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded him a Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" in June 2022! Overall, he’s had a lot of bright moments in his career. Nothing could go wrong…right?
Banned
24th of February, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine escalating from the previous invasion in 2014. The invasion became the largest attack on a European country since World War II. Karjakin, when asked about who he supports, said he “supports his country”.
This led to FIDE banning him for 6 months and Norway Chess banning him for life. Even after the 6 month FIDE ban ended, he still hasn’t played any international chess because he was told he would not be able to use the Russian flag for his games.
Before we go on further with the consequences of his actions and what he’s doing right now in the chess world, let’s go back and see how he started playing the game and how he got to the great position he was before the bans…
Early Life and Chess Career
Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin is a Russian chess grandmaster. He learnt the game of chess at age 5 and quickly became an IM (age 11) and a GM (age 12). He won many chess tournaments and by 2011, was the 4th highest rated chess player.
In 2016, he was Magnus Carlsen’s challenger for the World Champion title. The World Chess Championship 2016 took place from 11–30 November 2016 in New York City. Karjakin was the last player to defeat Magnus Carlsen in a World Championship game but lost the Championship due to the Rapid Tiebreak.
He continued his amazing performances internationally till the day he was banned.
What Happened to Him After the Ban?
Not much coverage of Karjakin has been provided publicly after 2022. He was recently in a car accident and got some fractures though. He did play two games in the Russia Team Championships though and had a score of 1.5/2.
Karjakin won't be coming back to international chess anytime soon and many hope he never does. Due to his support of the Russian invasion, Karjakin has become one of the most hated GMs of all time.
Tigran Levoni Petrosian, who was named after the great (late) Tigran Petrosian, was just a strong Armenian chess player. He had a bunch of nice tournament wins under his name and was doing just fine. That was until the 2020 PRO Chess League.
Banned
Petrosian decided it would be a good idea to cheat in the finals of the league to make his team, the Armenia Eagles, win. Wesley So, suspicious of his great moves, accused him of cheating and after an investigation, got Petrosian banned from Chess.com and the PRO Chess League.
Before we talk about the absolutely epic statements that Petrosian said, let’s go back and see a bit about his past.
Early Life and Chess Career
Petrosian learned chess at the age of five from some IMs and GMs. His father was a big fan of the late Petrosian and hence named his son after him.
Petrosian has won the Armenian Chess Championships twice, once in 2012 and once in 2013. He also came first in the Armenian Rapid Championship of 2012.
After Getting Banned
“Are you kidding ??? What the **** are you talking about man ? You are a biggest looser i ever seen in my life ! You was doing PIPI in your pampers when i was beating players much more stronger then you!”
Tigran L Petrosian is still very much active in the chess world. He was only banned from two online entities and hence it didn't damage him outside his dignity and reputation.
One of the greatest players ever. I have a lot of respect for this man and that’s why it’s a bit sad to see him damaging his reputation to the point where he has almost become insignificant. But let’s rewind a bit and see how he got here and his chess career.
Vladimir Kramnik had already been accused of cheating in the World Chess Champs of 2006 by Veselin Topalov due to Vladimir Kramnik's frequent visits to the bathroom. Since then, I’m pretty sure he’s gotten extremely paranoid about cheating in general. He claimed that Titled Tuesday, a chess tournament on chess.com held for titled players, has had many instances of cheating, and recently, he started insinuating that Hikaru Nakamura, famous GM chess streamer and celebrity, was cheating.
Kramnik received a ton of backlash from the Chess community but did receive some significant backing from his fans.
Early Life and Chess Career
Vladimir Kramnik was born in the town of Tuapse, on the shores of the Black Sea. As a child, Vladimir Kramnik studied in the chess school established by Mikhail Botvinnik.
He has won many tournaments and was the World Champion for 7 years (classical + FIDE). He has won 2 Chess Oscars.
After the Backlash
Kramnik announced he would be suing chess.com for defamation but hasn't done so yet. Every time Kramnik receives backlash, he either ignores it or he defends himself (in the goofiest way possible). Again, as this is an online feud, he hasn't been banned or anything of that sort. Nevertheless, I would say that his recent actions have damaged his reputation.
I hope Kramnik can find a way to undo his recent reputation damage, but I don't think he will.
You can't make a list of chess players who ruined their reputation without bringing up Robert James Fischer, one of the greatest players of all time. He went from being an athletic tennis player who was extremely fit to being unrecognizable to the public. So unrecognizable that he was arrested by the Californian Police as they thought he was a different person.
Bobby Fischer did not play a single public chess game for twenty years (1972 - 1992) due to his insanity. When he did play, it was a 5 million dollar game with his rival, Boris Spassky. The match took place in Yugoslavia and Fischer won. The only problem with that was…there were sanctions on the Yugoslavian empire at the time due to war and it was illegal for Fischer to go there.
Fischer tried to move to Japan with Miyoko Watai (his wife at the time) when he was on the run from the US authorities but his attempt was unsuccessful. He was arrested.
Later, he pleaded with his country, Iceland, to take him back there. The Icelandic officials accepted and Fischer lived the rest of his life there.
How did he get here though? How did he become so successful and then just…descend into madness?
I asked him about school. As soon as it was mentioned, he shouted "You tricked me!" and walked away from me. After that incident, he always gave me angry looks, as though I had done something wrong to him
- Dr. Reuben Fine on Fischer
Early Life and Chess Career
Bobby Fischer was born in Chicago, Illinois, on the 9th of March, 1943. He lived with his Swiss mother and his sister and they were very poor.
Fischer’s sister taught him how to play the game. Though his sister lost interest soon, Fischer did not and spent several hours playing by himself as he didn't have any friends growing up. After noticing his interest in the game, his mother sent an ad to the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper. Though the ad was not successful, former Scottish champion, Max Pavey, played a game with Fischer where Fischer eventually lost.
The Brooklyn chess club’s president, Carmine Nigro, took Fischer in for chess classes between 1951 and 1956. After this, Fischer started playing a lot of games with Jack Collins, who was a great player. Collins had a lot of chess books which Fischer read.
At age 13, Fischer played the Game of the Century.
When Fischer was 14, he was invited to play in the 1957/58 US Championship and he won it. When he was 15, he became the youngest GM of the time.
After a failed attempt in 1969, Fischer managed to become the World Chess Champion after defeating Boris Spassky. He singlehandedly defeated the Soviet Union. What made it worse/better, was the fact that this was around the time when the Cold War was going on. This Championship was literally a US vs USSR battle and the US had won.
Fischer had shown his brilliance multiple times and inspired thousands of people to play the game. People said Fischer was smarter than Albert Einstein himself.
Fischer was not perfect though. He said many things about women which were insulting. Fischer supported 9/11 and claimed, “he applauded the act”. He said, “The US and the Israelis had been slaughtering Palestine for years and he wanted the US to be wiped out”. Did I mention the hateful things he said about Jewish people?
I'm not a psychiatrist but I knew he was not normal
- Pal Benko on Bobby Fischer
Fischer grew too paranoid. He started questioning everything and thought everyone hated him and was trying to sabotage him. He did not play in the World Chess Championship of 1975 for this exact reason.
Cuckoo
- Mikhail Tal on Bobby Fischer
Fischer’s mother and sister died in 1997 and 1998 and this also took a toll on the great player. On January 17th, 2008, Robert James Fischer died of Kidney failure.
&
ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
TIMUR GAREYEV
His Life and Chess Career
Timur Gareyev is an Uzbekistani and American chess grandmaster, born on March 3rd 1988.
Gareyev tied for third in the U.S. Chess Championship 2013. He won the U.S. Open with an 8-1 clear-first-place score in 2018. He is one of the best blindfold-chess players ever and has the record for the most boards in a blindfold simul.
Of course, he couldn't have done anything wrong...
Banned
In June of 2022, Grandmaster Timur Gareyev had his US Chess membership suspended. On August 10th, 2023, Lichess.org published an article on their website detailing why they would stop working with US Chess and Saint Louis Chess Club anymore. The reason was…Gareyev. According to Lichess, multiple women have reported that Gareyev had sexually assaulted them.
One of the women filed a formal complaint with US Chess shortly after the alleged assault, but the US Chess ethics committee refused to "accept jurisdiction" of the matter. Because the assault supposedly happened outside the hotel (probably near the parking lot).
Timur spins around quickly, pins my arms to my sides, and tries to kiss me, aggressively. His fingers were digging into my arms. I can not get free. I was turning my head side to side, saying, "No Timur. Stop. I don't want this." I can still feel his beard on both of my cheeks as I am struggling. He said, "But, I just want to ..." He was holding my arms with both hands. When he changed his grip, I managed to force him off-balance for a moment and finally pulled away. I guess that I should have raised my knee to kick him, or maybe thrown my head forward to get him to let go. I had no idea that he was that strong. I was not expecting Timur to grab me like that. [...] Everything happened so quickly, but I was powerless to stop it.
- One of the women who supposedly got abused by Gareyev.
Gareyev can still participate in FIDE events and local US tournaments. But his reputation has been damaged.
ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
Banned
In a tweet on February 16, 2023, WGM Jennifer Shahade accused Ramirez of sexually assaulting her twice and stated that she had seen "alarming evidence" from other women. The US Chess Federation and Saint Louis Chess Club are investigating Ramírez for suspected sexual misconduct. On March 6, Ramírez withdrew from the Saint Louis Chess Club and the Saint Louis University chess team. The Wall Street Journal released an article citing interviews with eight women who said Ramírez exploited his status in the chess world to make unwanted sexual approaches them since 2011. Forcible kissing, groping, and coercing a drunken 16-year-old into oral sex were among the reported instances.
Early Life and Chess Career
Alejandro Ramírez is a chess Grandmaster who represents the USA now (born in Costa Rica). He was taught chess by his father at age 4. He became a Grandmaster at age 16 and he won the US Open in 2010. He earned himself a place in the World Chess Championship of 2004 but lost.
Ramirez was also Hans Niemann's interviewer in the below interview.
Ramírez was the head coach for the Saint Louis University chess team until 2023 and has also coached many other teams.
Like Gareyev, Ramirez can still play FIDE events but his reputation has been severely damaged.
My chess speaks for itself
- Hans Niemann
Magnus must be embarrassed to lose to an idiot like me
- Hans Niemann
The greatest pleasure in life is doing something people say you cannot do.
- Hans Niemann
Accused of Cheating
During the Sinquefield Cup, a controversy arose involving chess grandmasters Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann.
Carlsen, after surprisingly losing in their third-round matchup, dropped out of the tournament. In their next tournament (online) meetup, Carlsen abruptly resigned after one move, confusing the viewers and commentators again. It became the most serious scandal about cheating allegations in chess in years and garnered significant attention in the news media worldwide.
Many interpreted these events as Carlsen indirectly accusing Niemann of having cheated in the Sinquefield Cup. Carlsen even changed his Twitter (X) account's bio to "beating someone isn't revenge" and said that if he were to express his honest thoughts, he would be in big trouble.
In some interviews, Niemann admitted to cheating many times in online chess but said that he had never cheated OTB. Chess.com made a huge document claiming that Hans Niemann had cheated in many prize-money-involved online games, and his current OTB play was also suspicious.
On October 20, 2022, Niemann filed a federal lawsuit in Missouri against Carlsen, his company Play Magnus Group, Chess.com, Danny Rensch, and Hikaru Nakamura. In his suit, Niemann's lawyers claimed he had been subject to defamation and unlawful collusion, and requested at least $100 million in damages. Luckily, the case was dismissed in June of 2023.
Hans Niemann has been criticized a lot for his personality. Many say he's a narcissist and say he comes off as very rude in most interviews.
Early Life and Chess Career
Hans Moke Niemann is an American chess grandmaster who was born on the 20th of June, 2003. He became GM in 2021 and has some Danish ancestry. Hans is also a Chess Twitch streamer. In July 2021, he won the World Open chess tournament in Philadelphia. In 2019, he was the 88th best junior in the world and he was the 8th best in 2023.
He was recently banned from a hotel and was banned from Saint Louis Chess Club tournaments for all of 2024 as he had damaged the hotel he was in after losing some games.
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
- Oscar Wilde
At the end of the day, we should try to forgive the people who've done wrong if possible. You don't need to struggle and fight about your hate with someone and can rather forgive them to attain peace. I wish the best for all of the players and all of the people in this world. Everyone makes mistakes and rather than insulting them for it, we can try to help them by telling them how to stop making the mistake and how to improve.
Thanks a lot for reading my blog! This blog has a lot of words and fewer chess boards compared to some of my other blogs. Anyway, have a great day!
