Nerves, lasix, or cheating?

From today's New York Times

On Thursday at the World Chess Championships, the player from Bulgaria charged that the player from Russia was taking too many bathroom breaks, more than 50 a game. He suggested that his opponent was running to the toilet — the only area used by the players not monitored by cameras — to get illegal assistance, presumably from a computer.

Yesterday, the World Chess Federation locked the private bathrooms that are used by players. That is when the Russian player would not even sit down to play — he went straight to the bathroom area, where he staged a sit-in, refusing to play the fifth game of the match until it was unlocked. It was not. The federation forfeited the game in favor of his opponent.

By late last night, the president of the federation, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who is also the president of Kalmykia, had left a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to fly back to the republic to meet with the managers of the two players to see if he could broker a settlement, said Mr. Ilyumzhinov’s assistant, Berik Balgabaev.

As it stands, no one is sure if the match can or will continue, he added.

The problems began when Silvio Danailov, the manager of the Bulgarian player, Veselin Topalov, the world’s top-ranked player, filed a written protest with the federation about the number of times his opponent, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, was retreating to his bathroom during the games. Mr. Kramnik is the No. 4-ranked player in the world. Before the protest, Mr. Kramnik led the match, 3-1, with 6.5 points needed for a victory.

Mr. Danailov said in the letter that the videotape of the area outside Mr. Kramnik’s bathroom captured him making more than 50 trips a game.

The federation reviewed the protest and determined that Mr. Kramnik was using his bathroom considerably fewer than 50 times a game. Still, the federation announced that it would lock the private bathrooms of the players. Instead, they would be required to use the same bathroom for the rest of the match.

20 times or 50 times seems like alot to me. I take 80 mg of lasix(two 40 mg pills) a day and don't visit the bathroom more than half of that in a day. So what is going on with Kramnik?

Shenanigans or cheating in the world of chess is hardly unknown. Soviet collusion at the 1962 Candidates tournament, Paul Keres being forced to throw the World Championship, computer usage by correspondence chess players. The list is long, and it would be naive to think Kramnik is not beneath doing some cheating also.

Hopefully this controversy will resolve itself and a true champion of chess determined.

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