ARE CHEATS CHECKMATING CHESS..?

As leading grandmasters allege that foul play is affecting the highest levels of the sport, security has been ramped up at this year's World Championships, opening today in Singapore

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PRIVATE surveillance firms, background screening and sweeping for electronic devices all these might sound like the type of security measures needed to get into Downing Street or the White House. Yet such is the concern around cheating in one of the world's oldest, most civilised sports that all three will be in operation when the 2024 World Chess Championships starts play today in Singapore.

Each arriving competitor will be frisked for telephones, electronic equipment and other metal items. Access to the playing area, toilets and rest areas will also be restricted.

Watching the defending champion, a 32-year-old Chinese man named Ding Liren, and the challenger, 18-year-old Indian Gukesh Dommaraju, like a hawk will be sports promoter and CEO of World Chess, Ilya Merenzon. He believes his sport is facing an existential crisis and, if authorities can't stamp out cheating, it risks losing all integrity.

"World Chess's view is that 10% of matches involve cheating," the 48-year-old tells the Daily Express, pointing to data from online.

"But some experts think almost 50% of elite players have either cheated or played against cheats."

He and his colleagues are now fighting back, employing all sorts of methods to clamp down on illegal play, including the promotion of polygraph tests, more of which later.

Merenzon's concerns are valid amid mounting accusations of cheating in the sport in recent years. Just last month, Kirill Shevchenko, who is ranked 69 in the world, was expelled from a Spanish tournament for allegedly using a mobile phone.

The International Chess Federation handed him a temporary 75-day suspension.

Yet the biggest scandal hit two years ago when five-times world champion Magnus Carlsen, a consummate professional, unexpectedly withdrew from a tournament in the United States.