Are pre-arranged draws in chess same as match-fixing? Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik weighs in

Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik has opened a Pandora’s box after making a stunning revelation about pre-arranged draws in top-level chess games. The Russian grandmaster has claimed on social media that most top-level players have resorted to playing out draws at one point or another that were arranged between the opponents before the game started.

Recently, at the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship, Russian chess players Ian Nepomniachtchi and Daniil Dubov came under fire when they faced off in round 11 of the blitz portion. With Dubov playing as white, the game lasted all of 13 moves before the players shook hands and agreed to a draw. That cheeky little ‘dance of the knights’ had earned both players a forfeit from the tournament’s Chief Arbiter, Ivan Syrovy.

In a thread on X, formerly known as Twitter, Kramnik defended the practice of players playing out pre-arranged draws and offered his explanation for why these results should not be considered as match-fixing.

“I had it myself a few times with me or my opponent. Calling it ‘fixing’ games is too much, because there is basically no difference between this or repeating Qe4, Qd4 in Berlin without (or sometimes with, in fact) agreeing to a draw in advance. It has been a part of chess ON ALL LEVELS since decades, at least a century. In contrary to buying and selling a game, which is a clear misconduct, agreeing to a draw before a game (sometimes even a minute before the start) is not a crime, due to the nature of the game. Otherwise 99% of the best players in history are criminals. So this hypocrisy about this matter is not justified, because it is and was very rare in chess, and most of the time has certain concrete reasons,” Kramnik said in a series of tweets on X.

Kramnik opens up on reasons behind chess draws

Kramnik went on to list the reasons why players agree to such pre-arranged draws.

“Players have done it once or a few times in their life. The reason was not gaining an advantage over someone but since a draw is most likely result anyways in chess between two strong players, and (playing with) white a top GM can (almost) force it if he likes… if both players are happy with a draw for various reasons, it is 99% going to happen anyways. So at times white player (player who has to play with white pieces in the game) would just (approach) his opponent if he wants to play for a win just before the game, and if not, the draw would happen quickly. At times due to health conditions of one of the players, common practice is not to insist on playing if your opponent is not well… Short draws in the last round when both players qualify is a common practice nowadays and absolutely ALL modern top players have done it at least once,” said Kramnik.

Kramnik went on to add that fans should not shame players for playing out short draws and rather focus on bigger issues plaguing chess.

“Instead of cheap shaming players disputes… we can just better talk about more damaging issues like cheating or other important problems. Otherwise, since short draws without any fight (arranged before or just during a game) is unsolvable issue due to the nature of the game, maximum we can do is organizers not inviting such players again. Let us stop being hypocrites as the whole world nowadays and concentrate on REAL problems and challenges chess is facing today. That doesn’t mean I favour short draws without a fight, but as long as it happens occasionally, I do not see neither a problem in it nor a reason for shaming,” Kramnik added.

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