COTABATO City woodpusher Datuali Abas Sinsuat belied claims that he was behind the username AA7420 who was banned for two years from all National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP)-sanctioned tournaments for allegedly cheating in an online chess tournament by using computer assistance.

The 50-year-old player, in a Facebook interview with SunStar Davao, said, “Hindi po ako yon nag-send ng entry sa NCFP na ang account AA7420. Sa Lichess na account yan, hindi sa chess.com. Doon sila ng base ng cheating eh hindi sakin yon,” he said.

He said it’s unfortunate that it’s currently on lockdown so he could not do counter measures to clear his name, which he said has been heavily criticized in social media and different group chats in the chess community.

“Kelangan ko abogado dahil walang katutuhanan binibintang nila sakin. Baka iisipin nila na accepted ko yong mga desisyon nila, na walang katotohanan (ang basehan),” he added.

It can be recalled that player AA7420 topped the second leg of the Beating the Covid-19 Attack Grand Prix Series online chess tournament sponsored by Davao City laywer Jong Guevarra, Jr. via lichess.org.

NCFP executive director lawyer Cliburn Orbe, in a post on NCFP’s official Facebook page, announced early this week that lichess.org has banned the chesser, with lichess name AA7420, for using computer assistance.

Orbe, on his post, said, “Before we started our online chess tournaments, we made it clear that if you get banned by Lichess or other servers for cheating or using computer assistance, you will also be banned from all NCFP tournaments online or over-the-board for two years.”

Thus, Sinsuat, who they claimed was AA7420, was slapped with a two-year ban by NCFP from all its sanctioned tournaments.

Guevarra, too, also banned AA7420 in the ongoing series of his event.

“I never joined sa tournament sa Lichess... ‘yung first na tournament pero failed. Hindi po ako naglaro doon. Someone used my name and made entry so tiwala sila na ako nga yung naglaro at tiwala sila na akin ang account na yun,” he continued, saying that his Facebook account and email were hacked. He also showed this writer a screenshot of a Facebook notification that a somebody logged in to his account in a new device.

Sinsuat, however, said that he recently joined an NCFP tournament via chess.com.

“Why did they link me to a prostate tournament and it was not my account. The account was like a dummy. Real name ko po ginamit sa lichess not dummy account. But I don’t know kung yong AA7420 eh may mga sinalihan pang tournament na ginamit ang name ko. Yung sinasabi nilang AA7420 hindi ako yun, my goodness!” he said, adding that he also used his real name in the chess.com event he joined just recently.

He also said it is easy to create a lichess account as it does not have any requirement, anybody can make dummy accounts while chess.com is connected to Google or Facebook account.