Chess grandmaster demands ‘ban all Chinese,’ gets banned himself for racist rant
By Ines Shin
February 10, 2023
Chess grandmaster (GM) Baadur Jobava has been temporarily banned from Chess.com’s prize events after going on a racist rant upon losing to a Chinese GM during the Airthings Masters qualifier.
On Feb. 3, Jobava lost a match to Chinese GM Xiangyu Xu during the Airthings Masters qualifier of the Champion Chess Tour. Upon losing, the 39-year-old Georgian GM, currently ranked #278 in the world, became convinced his opponent was cheating.
Jobava sent a message to Xu after the match, saying, “You little chinese piece of sh!! how dare you cheat like that [shameless] mtf,” before calling a Chess.com moderator to order an immediate ban on Xu in a video uploaded to the subreddit r/chess.
In the video, Jobava demands a ban on all Chinese players, saying, “This b*tch f*cked up. Ban all Chinese too. These motherf*ckers. Not right. Call them. Not right.”
Both Jobava and Xu are 2578-rated players.
Xu, who is a 23-year-old member of the Chinese Chess Olympic Team, was one of the four grandmasters who played against the Uzbekistan team, winning the FIDE World Team Championship in November 2022.
On Monday, Chess.com released a statement on Twitter declaring a ban on Jobava’s account from prize events for the rest of 2023.
There is no place in our game for sexism/racism/or any forms of intolerance, and there is an expectation for both professionals and amateurs alike to uphold this standard on Chess.com and in our broader communities.
The International Chess Federation (FIDE) may carry out an additional investigation in the event that “the offended party, his or her chess federation, or an official FIDE body” files an official complaint against Jobava, according to Chess Arena, FIDE’s official gaming platform.
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