DrLupo admits to cheating in $100,000 online chess tournament, faces brutal backlash from Reddit: ‘Dude went from ‘what’s a horsey?’ to ‘I can see 15 moves ahead’ in 2 minutes’

Popular gaming streamer Benjamin Lupo, better known to his fans as DrLupo, has been kicked out of the PogChamps 6 online chess tournament for a “fair play violation”—in other words, he got caught cheating.

Hosted by Chess.com, PogChamps—not to be confused with the PogChamp Twitch emote—is a series of amateur chess tournaments featuring well known streamers and celebrities competing for some pretty serious prize money. PogChamps 6, which began on April 29, included soccer player Eberechi Eze, Fortnite pro Mongraal, YouTube Inoxtag, US gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik, and various others—including, of course, DrLupo.

The quality of chess seen at PogChamps tourneys may not be world class, but that’s not the point. “PogChamps is one of Chess.com’s most successful event franchises,” Chess.com said in the PogChamps 6 announcement. “Since its debut in 2020, the event has introduced chess to millions of viewers from different communities. Previous editions of the events have broken several viewership records and inspired many new players to take up the game.”

Unfortunately for DrLupo, it seems he got a little carried away with his enthusiasm for being a chess ambassador, and so now he’s out.

“Had a ton of fun playing, but have decided to drop out of the event to help maintain competitive integrity for those involved, as well as the tourney organizers,” DrLupo wrote on X. “Having the main stream up on my left monitor over the course of the day today to watch other games being played led to me getting move information I shouldn’t have had for a game. That’s on me and no one else. That’s my fuck up. I apologize—you’d think I would know better, but here we are.”

Shortly after that, however, Chess.com weighed in with the proverbial “he didn’t quit, he was fired,” writing that he was removed from the tournament “for a fair play violation that occurred during today’s Pogchamps event. He will be replaced in the consolation bracket before the start of tomorrow’s round.”

DrLupo had initially denied any sort of cheating, claiming he’d hidden the chat window while playing and saying he’d just “had a really good couple games.”

But as sometimes happens with this sort of thing, it all unravelled quickly. DrLupo later acknowledged the chat window was open and that he had seen, and used, a few suggested moves. That explanation, alas, brought a torrent of scorn from Reddit.

“He did not randomly stumble upon the best moves by having a stream up on the side,” redditor Pistolcrab wrote. “He intentionally sought out the help of an engine to find the best move for like 20 turns in a row.”

“His Elo is 612 on rapid and he blundered a queen away,” InsertaGoodName replied. “He actually thought people would believe he came up with that checkmate. It’s like if a 5 year old started writing at a graduate level right after he shat his pants.”

“If you have the stream open by accident and you hear a move you just close it afterwards,” eismann333 wrote. “It’s impossible to hear 25 consecutive moves by accident lmao.”

There’s a lot of that sort of thing to be seen, and it’s collectively a universal rejection of DrLupo’s claim that he got fed a few moves through his chat, because his play was so damn good, for so damn long: DrLupo’s Elo—basically his skill rating—is 612, while his opponent in the match, WolfeyVGC, has an Elo of 1340, and that’s a massive difference.

“For anyone not into chess, being able to beat someone 700 Elo higher than you would be basically a 2% chance,” redditor Complex-Emergency-60 explained. “Ie, you will win 1 out of only 50 games. Now, make yourself down a QUEEN (most important piece in the game), and it would be literally impossible to pull off. Like a highschool freshman tying his arm behind his back and beating Kobe in a 1v1, 20 points to zero.

“Now, anyone who is maybe 900 or 1000+ rated might know just how much harder it would be to climb to 1300, and the skill gap involved to reach that rating, but a 600 player likely would be dumb enough to think the skill gap isn’t that big and he could fool people who are 1300 and above. He didn’t.”

The only explanation that makes sense, according to pretty much everyone commenting on the matter, is that DrLupo used a chess engine—software that analyzes positions and suggests moves—in order to cheat. And the general consensus is that it was not subtle: As madjani000 put it, “Dude went from ‘what’s a horsey?’ to ‘I can see 15 moves ahead’ in two minutes.”

And it seems the chess community was correct, because DrLupo has now copped to using an engine to cheat. “It sucks that I fucked up,” he said in a stream today. “And I deserve 100%—I deserve 100% of what people are saying. Using an engine to fix my own fragility is fucking pathetic.”

“I betrayed the trust of the chess community. I betrayed the trust of my chat. I lied directly to Wolf, and so if somebody can see this, I’m sorry. I got caught in a fight or flight moment, and panicked, and doubled down.

“I am appalled and embarrassed. It’s funny too, because I’m the Tarkov guy that’s always very anti-cheater, right? And then of course it’s the person that’s so loud and vocal about it that ends up doing it.”

Unsurprisingly, as noted by Sportskeeda, DrLupo is now facing a wider backlash, including questions about possible cheating in other games.