Blockchain Technology Assure No More Cheating In World Chess Competition

 The 2020 Chess Candidates Tournament which was going to held in Ekaterinburg, Russia has been delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak. However, the tournament organizer is making plans for the future where they will use blockchain to give a boost.

The tournament was held between eight grandmasters competing against each other for world champion Magnus Carlsen title. However, the Championship was stopped after seven rounds as there came the news that Russia was about to suspend international flights indefinitely. As a result, World Chess was planning to carry on online matches while introducing blockchain technology.

The Cointelegraph reported that the CEO of World Chess, Ilya Merenzon thinks that chess was unusually well placed to thrive during the pandemic: 

“Unlike other sports, chess can be played with equal excitement offline and online. That is something that sets it apart from all the other major sports. In the absence of other major sporting events, the Candidates Tournament received unprecedented press coverage this time around."

Chess is considered a gentleman’s game but still cheating is common in chess. The cheating can be in any form such as taking bathroom breaks for strategy, creating fictitious records of games that never happened, or relying on the help of computer chess engines when playing online.

According to Merenzon with the involvement of Blockchain technology, the unsportsmanlike behavior can be identified and prevented. 

“We are working on the anti-cheating engine that may record over one hundred data points for each move — its timestamp, players’ biometrics, chess engine evaluation, etc. Storing this data in the decentralized database would make a lot of sense”

Merenzon told that Algorand and World Chess are working together for the past few months on the project which will be completed in a few weeks.

Once the situation is back to normal, the 2020 candidates will be brought together and as of now, the match is scheduled for November.