One of Vladimir Kramnik’s cheating crusade victims, Jose Martinez Alcantara, has been proving the ex-world champion’s accusations wrong at the ongoing Chess World Cup 2025. Martinez Alcantara began his campaign in Goa with a win over South Korea’s Isaak Huh and then beat Serbia’s Velimir Ivic.
In the third round, he beat title contender Nodirbek Abdusattorov. Then, he beat another experienced GM, this time Alexey Sarana.
Speaking to reporters at the sidelines of the tournament, Martinez Alcantara had the perfect response to Kramnik’s accusations and his stunning form. He said, “At the end of the day, chess is chess. You can win by time, but I don’t win a lot of Titled Tuesdays just flagging people. I know how to play chess!”
Kramnik is known for flagging a lot of online opponents, and then the chess legend accuses them of cheating.
Kramnik had shared many controversial tweets on X, including statistics that claimed many players were cheating, and Martinez Alcantara was also mentioned. The Peruvian-Mexican GM also faced Kramnik in a Clash of Claims match held in Madrid, where he won 14.5-11.5. Then in a 36-game Clash of Blames blitz showdown in London, Kramnik won 19-17.
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.
When Martinez Alcantara beat Nodirbek in Goa, commentator David Howell also served a reminder of Kramnik’s accusations. He said, “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.”
