"Who does this guy think he is?": GMHikaru lambasts Vladimir Kramnik after he threatens to sue Chess.com over cheating allegations

Following a week-long protest led by former Chess World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, Chess.com finally took note of his concerns and initiated an internal inquiry into Grandmaster and Twitch streamer Hikaru "GMHikaru." Despite Kramnik's hopes, Chess.com promptly rejected the allegations, asserting that their investigation, which involved scrutinizing 2,000 online games played by Hikaru, revealed no evidence of cheating.

Kramnik, however, remained unimpressed and went as far as threatening legal action against Chess.com for categorizing his appeals as accusations of cheating. Reacting to the situation, GMHikaru said:

"Who does this guy think he is?"

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"I will start a legal case" - Vladimir Kramnik threatens to sue Chess.com over reports involving GMHikaru

Vladimir Kramnik's apprehensions regarding cheating on Chess.com have garnered significant media coverage. Last week, his suspicions expanded to include GMHikaru, especially after the latter secured an impressive 45.5/46 win streak on Chess.com.

Despite Vladimir Kramnik's concerns and his initiation of a petition, Chess.com promptly dismissed any notion of foul play by GMHikaru. Kramnik, however, was clearly not happy with the report, even going as far as to say:

"Calling my recent efforts to help improve anti-cheating efficiency of chess.com platform "accusations of Hikaru Nakamura by Vladimir Kramnik" is a clear public disinformation."

He then said that Chess.com had 24 hours to apologize to him for labeling his concerns to be accusations. He added:

"In case it is not done within 24 hours from the moment this post is published on my blog on chess.com I will start a legal case against chess.com next week latest after the consultation with my lawyers."

Kramnik threatens to sue Chess.com if they don't apologize. (Image via Chess.com/Vladimir Kramnik)

GMHikaru too, reacted to Kramnik's latest post live on his stream. He said:

"That's actually amazing. I feel like I could say something about legal stuff myself with regards to what he has done, but whatever."

In his post, Kramnik also highlighted that he has been receiving a lot of abusive messages on his Chess.com account and called out the platform for their lack of quick address of the issue. Hikaru reacted:

"I don't care what Kramnik has said, threats are not okay. Period. But trying to hold Chess.com accountable for what someone says on a platform that has hundreds of millions of users, first of all, is very strange."

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It remains uncertain at this point whether Kramnik will proceed with a legal case against Chess.com. The platform's president, IM Daniel Rensch, has yet to provide any comments on the matter.