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Accused by Vladimir Kramnik, Jose Martinez silences cheating claims in style: ‘Making a lot of people eat their words’
Vladimir Kramnik had posted numerous controversial tweets, including statistics that claimed many players were cheating, and Jose Martinez was also mentioned.
Mexican GM Jose Martinez Alcantara knocked out Nodirbek Abdusattorov in style at the ongoing Chess World Cup 2025 in Goa. Martinez won the first game on Friday, and then on Saturday, he not only managed to hold Nodirbek but also won the second game. Meanwhile, Nodirbek has also now dropped to 18th in the live chess rankings.
Commentator David Howell hailed Martinez for his win and reminded fans of Vladimir Kramnik's accusations of cheating. "Jose is making a lot of people eat their words, people who doubted him, who saw him play so well online. Now he's backing it up over the board," he said.
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Kramnik had posted numerous controversial tweets on X, including statistics that claimed many players were cheating, and Martinez was also mentioned.
Kramnik and Martinez also faced each other in a 36-game Clash of Blames blitz match in London, where the former won 19-17. The event was a follow-up to the Clash of Claims match held in Madrid. In Madrid, Martinez beat Kramnik 14.5-11.5.
American professor Kenneth Regan, who was present in the official broadcast of Clash of Blames, played down Kramnik's accusations. "I supported at the time the Chess.com report on Titled Tuesday that was posted in late April. I have my own independent verification that there is not widespread, large scale cheating in Titled Tuesdays. There is some, but my statistical methods are able to show that with hundreds of thousands of data points overall they match the expectation quite closely," he said.
"They're not normalized. He does not do the statistical techniques that are required to establish a benchmark of reference, whereas I have. I have a predictive analytic model, I set expectations, I know the confidence intervals around them. These are basic statistical vocabularies that have been known since the 1700s but absent from his posts," he added.
