Yet Another Chess Cheating Scandal
How DrLupo's PogChamps Cheating Scandal Reveals Our Fragile Relationship with Losing
Chess is the oldest game in the world which can also make you feel pretty stupid. Downright dumb. Like no other game can. It can get really deep down in your psyche and badly affect your self-worth. But that's what the game is all about. There are people who cannot handle the feeling of losing and that leads to trying unfair methods to win.
The recent PogChamps 6 cheating scandal involving DrLupo really got under my skin. For those who don't know, DrLupo straight-up cheated in a $100k chess tournament meant for streamers. It wasn't even subtle. After blundering his queen against Wolfey (rated 1324), he suddenly started playing like a chess engine - making 26 perfect moves in a row. That's unlikely (quite impossible) for someone rated 612.
What makes it worse is how he handled it. First, he denied everything. Then he made up some story about accidentally seeing moves on his second monitor. Only after Chess.com kicked him out did he finally admit he was using Lichess analysis on a different monitor during the game. His apology? Something something about "panicking" and wanting "self-validation."
These kinds of scandals do irreparable damage to the chess community, especially for casual players like me who mainly play online on chess.com or lichess. Every time something like this happens, it plants this seed of doubt. When I lose a game now, there's always that nagging thought: "Was that person cheating?" It brings a distrust in the online chess community and affects your motivation to invest your time in learning and playing online.
The psychological aspect of chess is what makes it special. You win or lose based purely on your decisions. No luck, no teammates to blame. Just you and your brain against another person. When someone cheats, they're not just breaking rules - they're breaking the fundamental trust that makes chess worth playing.
What DrLupo did wasn't just cheat in a tournament. He damaged something much bigger - the belief that when we sit down to play chess online, we're getting a fair game. And for what? So he wouldn't feel bad about losing? That's the whole point of chess: sometimes you feel dumb, you learn from it, and you get better.
There are absolutely no shortcuts.
Here’s a video by Levy Rozman (GothamChess) that covers the games I am talking about:
Finally, congratulations to Eberechi Eze for winning PogChamps 6!
The Premier League star won without dropping a single game in the bracket stage. Multi-sport athlete indeed! Eze, the 26-year-old Crystal Palace midfielder, has proven he's not just talented on the football pitch but also on the chess board.
Hoping that he now performs well this game week for my FPL.