Toiletgate :The Bathroom Scandal That Jolted the Chess World

How would you feel if your opponent accused you of cheating in a world championship — just for using the toilet?

This might feel like a joke but this actually happened in the 2006 World Chess Championship between Veselin Topalov (the reigning FIDE world champion from Bulgaria) and Vladimir Kramnik (the classical world champion from Russia) who were competing against each other to crown one true world chess champion.

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This had happened after 4 games, while Kramnik had a +2 lead (score was 3–1 in Kramnik's favor), when Topalov's manager — Silvio Danailov (another Bulgarian grandmaster) — started chaos by accusing Kramnik of visiting the bathroom way too frequently (about 50 times per game) and hinted that he might have been using computer assistance in the toilet — this made sense as both the grandmasters had private bathrooms without cameras (why would you even think of having cameras in the bathroom?)

After this, FIDE shockingly responded by changing the match conditions between the event. They had closed the private toilets and opened a shared one, which had broken the original match contract. As a result, Kramnik protested and refused to play the 5th game, which was forfeited so the score had become 3–2 (3 for Kramnik and 2 for Topalov).

Soon (after lots of negotiations and public protest), the private bathrooms were brought back and the matches had resumed. Despite the tense situation, Kramnik kept his calm to draw the classical portion 6–6. He then became the world champion after beating Topalov in the rapid tiebreaks.

(Kramnik after winning 2006 WC-he is rightmost)

However, till now, no cheating was ever found and the whole chess world supported Kramnik and called it a desperate mind game from Topalov's team — which failed. Many people were disappointed at Topalov's team as they had crossed a line and disgraced the game by making accusations without any proper evidence.

In my opinion, I fully support Kramnik and believe that it was just a psychological warfare tactic which did not work. This famous incident made people rethink about the sportsmanship and authenticity of the complex game of chess.