The Most Famous Chess Cheating Incidents (2025)

There are rules in every competitive activity. Most people, follow these rules in order to keep the game fun for all. But others, decide to go against these rules, to give themselves an unfair advantage, usually resulting in them being the victor. Unfortunately, this happens quite often, with many times, the offender not being caught, and continuing this heinous act. In this blog, We will be looking at some of the most well-known times that cheaters were caught, and stopped. But first, let's look over some of the ways people cheat.

Now, there are a few types of ways people cheat. They include:

Touch Move Rule:

The Touch Rule means that if you touch the piece intentionally, then you have to move it as long as it can legally move. This is a minor way to cheat, but if you break the Touch Move Rule, it can lead to some minor consequences.

Sandbagging:

Sandbagging is where you intentionally lose games, in order to lower your rating. Players do this so that they can play against lower-rated players, resulting in them almost always winning. This is usually found in tournaments, that give a cash prize. Sandbagging is more serious than the Touch Move Rule. This can result in a temporary ban, or even permanent for Online Chess.

Engine Assisted Play:

The most serious type of cheating, usually, when somebody mentions cheating, this is what comes to mind. Players use Chess Engines, also known as Chess Computers, to tell them what the best move in that position is. You can tell if a player is using a Chess Engine, by looking out for a few red flags.

  • Multiple Games won consecutively with very high accuracy
  • Consistently takes around 10 seconds per move, even if the move is obvious
  • Demonstrating playing level that is way higher that their rating

This form of cheating results in the highest level of consequences. These include a ban that can last years to a life-time.

Now that we have reviewed types of cheating, let's move on to the cheating incidents!

Dadang Subur

Cyril Marzolo, Arnaud Hauchard, and Sebastien Feller

Tigran L. Petrosian

Igors Rausis

Un-Honarable Mentions

Dadang Subur (Dewa_Kipas):

Dadang Subur (Dewa_Kipas) was an online player, who cheated against famous Content Creator, International Master Levy Rozman (GothamChess). One day on Rozman's stream, he came across Subur. In the match, Subur consistently took around 10 seconds to play his move, even for the most obvious moves. He also ended the game with over 90 percent accuracy.

To top it all off, in just over 10 days, he had gained over 800 Rating Points. Combining all of these suspicious red flags, Levy Rozman reported him. This ended in Dadang Subur getting banned. All was good now, right? No drama to unfold? No. In fact, the opposite.

When Subur's son, 24-year-old Ali Akbar learned about this, he wasn't too happy. He then posted on Facebook that his Dad was unfairly banned and that Rozman used his fans to mass-report Subur. Obviously, this wasn't the case, as the way Chess.com works, it doesn't just ban somebody because many reported against them. Many supporters of Subur took to the internet, sending rude messages to Rozman, even some giving death threats. Levy took the initiative, locking social media accounts.

Dadang Subur had rejected challenges from multiple different players. So when it was suggested that he should face off against IM Irene Sukander, it was surprising when he accepted. So on March 22nd, 2021, the match was on.

The Most Famous Chess Cheating Incidents (1)

The stream that the game was being held on, had a whopping 1.25 Million concurrent viewers, tenfold the amount of other popular chess events. During the match, Subur made many simple mistakes, as shown by the game below.

Ultimately, Dadang Subur lost 3-0, against Sukander. Subur's gameplay resulted in less than 40% accuracy at times throughout the games, and a performance rating of a mere 1127, in comparison to the over 3000 rating he performed in the games he cheated in. At last, the drama would end.

Cyril Marzolo, Arnaud Hauchard, and Sebastien Feller:

This next incident took place in the 2010 FIDE Olympiad Tournament at Khanty-Mansiysk. In the tournament, three players from France unbeknownst to the rest of the French team, came up with a plan, to use the other 2 people to help Sebastien Feller cheat and win his matches. The way they did this, was they had Cyril Marzolo watch the tournament at home, and use an engine to find the best move. He would then communicate this to Arnaud Hauchard, who was the team coach. Hauchard would then give signals to Feller, telling the best move in the position. This was a risky idea, as all 3 of them had either the International Master title or Grandmaster title, meaning if they were caught, they could risk getting stripped of their title.

At first, their plan worked, and Sebastien Feller won the Gold medal for the best individual performance on board 5. However, they were all eventually caught. Cyril Marzolo was given a 1.5-year ban, Arnaud Hauchard was given a 3-year ban, and Sebastien Feller was given a 2.75-year suspension. The French team ended in 10th place at the end of the tournament.

After his ban, Feller continued to play chess and was regular in tournament play. However, 9 years after his offense, he was sent to jail, as his cheating incident was labeled as fraud. After his 6-month time in jail, he returned to playing chess.

Tigran L. Petrosian:

Not to be mistaken with former World Champion, GM Tigran V. Petrosian, Tigran L. Petrosian is a Grandmaster from the country Armenia. A 2-time National Champion, Petrosian is a very strong player by himself, having won gold in two separate Chess Olympiads, winning the 45th Annual World Open in 2017, and many more accomplishments. Nevertheless, he felt that he had to cheat, in the 2020 Pro Chess League. In the finals, Petrosian played remarkably well. Maybe even too well.

Grandmasters regularly play at 90+ accuracy. But there was also evidence that maybe this wasn't the player's gameplay. There was proof, which I will show soon. Afterward, GM Wesley So Accused Tigran Petrosian of cheating. Petrosian did not appreciate this too much. He wrote in forums and in Twitter, a very childish response, insulting So, and in the end, offering a 5,000$ 1v1 match. Obviously, the match never happened, as he was soon found guilty of cheating. The proof? He was found constantly looking down, and playing at way higher levels than his rating suggests.

The Most Famous Chess Cheating Incidents (2)

It was found that Petrosian had not only cheated in the final match but in the semifinals as well. The Armenia Eagles ended up getting disqualified, and the Saint Louis Arch Bishops took the win and won the whole tournament. The semi-finalists, the Canadian Chessbrahs and China Pandas both got $10,000, half the sum of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th prize money each. Tigran L. Petrosian got lifetime bans from Chess.com and Pro Chess League.

Igors Rausis:

Igors Rausis was a chess cheater, who didn't give up after getting banned. He achieved the title of Grandmaster in 1992 and played participated in 3 different Chess Olympiads, twice as 2nd board, and once as third. Along with that, he has coached 4 different teams in 8 different Olympiads, garnering him the title of FIDE Trainer in 2018. But his reputation would all go downhill, in 2019.

FIDE has been keeping a close watch on Igors Rausis, as he had been rapidly gaining rating, and was just short of 2700, at 2686 when the incident unfolded. It happened in the Strasbourg Open when they found a phone in the toilet. They found that it was used by Rausis, and they had this picture from security to prove it:

The Most Famous Chess Cheating Incidents (3)

They confronted him about it, and he admitted to using it to help him cheat. The way that he had gained rating over the 6 previous years, was by playing opponents that were 400+ rating points below him, as you get 0.8 rating points for every win. He was stripped of his Grandmaster title and was given a 6 year ban. This stirred up some controversy, as most players only get up to 3 years usually for cheating, but nonetheless, his punishment stayed.

The next year, in an unrated FIDE event, the tournament was going well, like a normal tournament does. But then, right before the first round, GM Artur Neiksans noticed something. The player Isa Kasimi looked quite familiar... why, it was Igors Rausis! Rausis- or should I say, Kasimi, showed his ID, proving he has changed his name. This caused an uproar from the rest of the contestants. Kasimi's round 3 opponent refused to play against him, and the players insisted he be removed from the tournament. However, since the games were unrated, he was allowed to continue to play. Nonetheless, he still withdrew and retired permanently.

Un-Honarable Mentions:

  • In the 1993 World Open, an unrated player wore headphones during his games, and had something in his pocket that occasionally buzzed. He went on to score 4.5/9, including a draw against a Grandmaster. When the tournament director talked to him, he found that the player didn't know much of even the basics of chess, and was disqualified. This was one of the first known instances of Engine-Asissted-Cheating.

On multiple instances, similar to Igors Rausis's situation, players used mobile devices in the bathroom, including:

  • In 2014 during the Lasi Open, Wesely Vermeulen was banned for one year, when he was caught using a mobile phone in the bathroom, to help him with his games.
  • In 2015, GM Gaioz Nigalidze was banned for 3 years and stripped of his Grandmaster title, when it was found that he was using a smartphone with chess software installed during a bathroom break.
  • During the 2016 Moscow Open, Sergey Aslanow was banned for a year when he was using a smartphone that he had hidden under a loose title.

Sometimes, cheating occurs during simultaneous expeditions. Something like this happened recently when:

  • During a simultaneous expedition charity event hosted by Chess.com in 2021, Indian billionaire Nikhil Kamath had his online account banned after he played former World Champion, GM Viswanathan Anand. Kamath admitted to cheating, which led to heavy criticism.

A well-known occasion of the touch-move rule being broken, happened when two very well-known players, GM Judit Polgar, and at the time World Champion Garry Kasparov were in a tournament match:

  • During the game, video records show that Kasparov picked up a piece, let go, and made a different move. Rather than announcing it at the time to the arbiter, Judit Polgar waited until after the match. Kasparov went on to win the game, and since Polgar didn't call him out during the game, the result stood.

Thank you for reading this blog! Tell me in the comments what you thought about it. Peace out!

The Most Famous Chess Cheating Incidents (2025)

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