"'The chess speaks for itself,' said Hans Moke Niemann in a post-game interview, before walking off. He had just beaten Magnus Carlsen in the first game of their match at the FTX Crypto Cup in August. Ultimately, Niemann went on to lose their match and continue the bad tournament he was having, while Carlsen ended up winning the entire thing." -- Isaiah Kahn, 7th grade
Magnus Carlsen is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who has been World Champion since 2013 (though he said that he will not defend his title at the next world championship match in 2023) and is arguably the best player of all time, with currently the highest FIDE (the International Chess Federation - the acronym is French) rating in the world by almost 60 points. Hans Niemann, on the other hand, is a 19 year-old chess prodigy from San Francisco who has been improving rapidly and is currently the 40th highest FIDE rated player in the world. Niemann is also a grandmaster as of January 2021.
However, despite Niemann’s high standing, it’s still shocking for him to beat Magnus Carlsen, undoubtedly one of the best players ever. When Niemann did it again, though, two weeks later, this time in a classical game at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, it was even more surprising.
Hans Niemann was originally not supposed to play in this tournament, but when Richard Rapport, a Hungarian grandmaster, couldn’t make it, Niemann was the replacement. Niemann was actually in first place after his game with Carlsen, though he went on to tie for 6th.
However, despite Niemann’s high standing, it’s still shocking for him to beat Magnus Carlsen, undoubtedly one of the best players ever. When Niemann did it again, though, two weeks later, this time in a classical game at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, it was even more surprising.
Hans Niemann was originally not supposed to play in this tournament, but when Richard Rapport, a Hungarian grandmaster, couldn’t make it, Niemann was the replacement. Niemann was actually in first place after his game with Carlsen, though he went on to tie for 6th.
Niemann is a Bay Area native, having even gone to the Berkeley Chess School, as have many other grandmasters such as Sam Shankland and Christopher Yoo. Roger Poehlmann, a national master and teacher at the Berkeley Chess School, recalled this about Niemann: “[Niemann was] very fast, brilliant, and confident, to the point of arrogance. Some kids are like that and it didn't win him any friends. I had to kick him out of my class because he wouldn't raise his hand but would just yell out the (usually correct) answer. I played him twice when he was around 1800-2000 and won both times but today he would of course crush me."
The interview after Niemann’s game with Carlsen at the Sinquefield Cup was again rather surprising, though this time he stayed. At one point in the interview, he said of Carlsen, “I think he’s just so demoralized to be losing to such an idiot like me, you know. It must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me. I feel bad for him.”
He also said in the interview that that day he had actually looked at the exact variation of the opening that was played in the game, which later led to a theory that he had gotten some sort of information from Carlsen’s team, and therefore was aware of Carlsen’s preparation, although this later proved to be false.
After his game with Niemann, Carlsen withdrew from the Sinquefield cup, posting a tweet that read, “I’ve withdrawn from the tournament. I’ve always enjoyed playing in the @STLChessClub, and hope to be back in the future,” with a Youtube video attached of a sports manager named Jose Mourinho saying “If I speak, I am in big trouble.” He also changed his Instagram profile to include, “beating someone once isn’t revenge.” This was correctly taken by the chess world to be Carlsen insinuating that Niemann was cheating. The most common form of cheating in chess (and the one Carlsen was accusing Niemann of, though no one was sure of that at the time) is using a chess engine such as Stockfish, a very powerful chess engine that is much better and more consistent than all human players, and having it tell you what moves to make.
This led to many theories on the internet about how Niemann cheated, or whether or not Niemann even did. Oddly enough, there was also some suspicion that his new found accent was for show, as he has a rather unusual accent for an American, though there is no real evidence for this claim. Niemann attributed it to “living in a suitcase,” for the past few years, referring to how much he has been traveling for chess tournaments around the globe.
Hikaru Nakamura, a popular chess streamer and American grandmaster, was streaming on Twitch when this happened and was openly suspicious of Niemann when he looked at the game. This prompted Niemann to include Nakamura the next day in Niemann’s post game interview when he said, “I am not going to let Chess.com, I am not going to let Magnus Carlsen, I am not going to let Hikaru Nakamura, the three arguably biggest entities in chess, simply slander my reputation.” Chess.com was on this list because they had removed access to his account and uninvited him from the first ever Chess.com Global Championship, a big event that was coming up in about two months at the time.
He also states in the interview that while he has never cheated in an over-the-board game, he has cheated in online games before when he was 12 and 16 and that he was “deeply, deeply ashamed of it,” saying that he could “never even fathom doing it in a real game.”
Nakamura responded to his interview two days later in a video on Youtube, saying that he “never made a direct accusation,” and that he had only said that Niemann had cheated online before, which was confirmed by Niemann himself.
Also two days after the interview, Chess.com released a statement on the whole situation. “At this time,” it read, “we have reached out to Hans Niemann to explain our decision to privately remove him from Chess.com and our events.” It also included that Chess.com wants “nothing more than to see the best chess players in the world to succeed in the greatest events.”
Two days after Chess.com’s statement and Nakamura’s response, the Sinquefield Cup followed Chess.com’s lead and also released an official statement, denying that anyone cheated in their tournament and also noting that they had put additional anti-cheat measures in place after Carlsen dropped out of the tournament.
After that, there was a brief break from the constant new developments in the chess cheating scandal. During this time, there were lots of theories circulating such as Magnus Carlsen beginning his descent into madness and becoming overly paranoid, as other great chess players such as Bobby Fischer and Paul Morphy have done. Elon Musk also tweeted about the whole situation, joining in on the theory that Hans Niemann was cheating by using anal beads that would comunicate to him what the best moves were in vibrations. This was presumably a joke.
There was also a website called Stripcam that made an offer to Hans Niemann to play chess naked for a million dollars, to “prove the haters wrong once and for all.” This never happened, though Niemann himself at one point offered to do just this, which is why Stripcam reached out to him to begin with.
Then, in the Julius Byers Cup on September 19th, Carlsen and Niemann were set to play again. They had agreed to play this game before Carlsen had even dropped out of the Sinquefield Cup, and they weren’t very well able to simply refuse to play the game and go on with the tournament.
Carlsen found a way to do this anyway, though, when he resigned after playing just one move against Niemann, and then logged off. Two days later, when he was asked about it in an interview, he said, “I cannot particularly speak on that, but people can draw their own conclusion.” He also said that he was “very impressed by Niemann’s play,” before complimenting Niemann’s mentor, the American grandmaster Maxim Dlugy, saying that he was doing “a great job.”
Maxim Dlugy has had a history with chess cheating in the past, which is presumably why Carlsen name dropped him in his interview. He has reportedly been banned from Chess.com twice for using engine assistance during games.
There was yet another important update five days later, when Carlsen finally released an official statement. “I know my actions have frustrated many in the chess community,” it read. “I’m frustrated. I want to play chess. I want to continue to play chess at the highest level in the best events.”
He called chess cheating an “existential threat to the game,” advocating for increased anti-cheat measures and revealing that he nearly withdrew from the Sinquefield cup when he heard Niemann was participating, having known about Niemann's past instances of cheating. In the end, he decided he would play.
“I believe that Niemann has cheated more - and more recently - than he has publicly admitted,” he goes on to say, later in the statement. “His over the board progress has been unusual, and throughout our game at the Sinquefield Cup I had the impression that he wasn’t tense or even fully concentrating on the game in critical positions, while outplaying me as black in a way I think only a handful of players can do.” It must be noted that Carlsen played one of the worst games of his life according to the engine in his game against Niemann at the Sinquefield cup.
“I don’t want to play against people who have cheated repeatedly in the past,” the next paragraph reads, ”because I don’t know what they are capable of doing in the future.”
He also says that there is more he would like to say, but he cannot without “explicit permission from Niemann to speak openly.”
There was once again a short break in rapid updates. During this time, the chess world was very noticeably split with a team Carlsen and a team Niemann, though it felt like the majority of people agreed that Carlsen should have handled the situation better. Roger Poehlmann, the previously mentioned national master and chess teacher, said this on the subject: “I expected better of [Magnus Carlsen]. If someone’s being a jerk and annoying you, be mature and address the issue stating the facts. Implying or accusing someone of cheating is a serious thing.”
Chess.com then broke the silence by releasing a 72 page cheating report on Hans Niemann on October 4th, 2022. The report stated that Hans Niemann has likely cheated online “much more than his public statements suggest.” It also made sure to note that the decision to remove him from the Chess.com Global Championship had nothing to do with pressure from Magnus Carlsen, from whom they were buying a chess website similar to their own called Play Magnus.
The report also said that Niemann had likely cheated in numerous games versus prominent grandmasters and in tournaments with prize money, and that “Niemann has likely cheated in more than 100 online chess games.”
The report also says that he has not cheated since August, 2020 and makes sure to point out that Chess.com has no evidence that Niemann has ever cheated over-the-board, including in his game with Carlsen. An over-the-board game is any game played face to face with a physical chess board, commonly a FIDE or USCF rated game.
Niemann didn’t reply to this report until October 20th, 2022, when he filed a lawsuit against Carlsen, Nakamura, and Chess.com for $100,000,000, accusing all of them of defamation. This was upsetting to many people in the chess world. “I don't blame him for wanting to defend his good name, but $100 million is clearly a publicity stunt,” says Roger Poehlmann. “What's sad is that chess organizations (and players) don't have deep pockets and can be destroyed by having to pay legal bills. The USCF (United States Chess Federation) almost went bankrupt over a lawsuit involving Susan Polgar.”
The lawsuit uses surprisingly inflammatory language, one paragraph even reading, “Notorious for his inability to cope with defeat, Carlsen snapped. Enraged the young Niemann, fully 12 years his junior, dared to disrespect the ‘King of Chess,’ and fearful that the young prodigy would further blemish his multi-million dollar brand by beating him again, Carlsen viciously and maliciously retaliated against Niemann by falsely accusing Niemann, without any evidence, of somehow cheating during their in person game and demanding the organizers of the Sinquefield Cup immediately disqualify him from the tournament.” The next few paragraphs also had similar language and the same theme.
The lawsuit accuses Nakamura, Carlsen, and Chess.com of acting in “collusion” and accuses them of slander, libel, unlawful group boycott under the Sherman act, tortious interference with contract and business expectancies, and civil conspiracy.
It is unclear if this lawsuit actually has any legs to stand on.
Carlsen, when asked his opinion about this lawsuit, replied with the simple: “I focus on chess.” Niemann shared a similarly short sentiment, saying in the tweet where he originally published the lawsuit that the "lawsuit speaks for itself." Chess.com’s lawyers have also addressed it, but Nakamura has yet to do this.
Roger Poehlmann had this to say when asked if he thought there was a silver lining to the whole situation: “Some people say ‘there's no such thing as bad publicity.’ More people have been asking me about chess (Neimann/Carlsen) in the last month or so than ever before. It's on everyone's newsfeed. Maybe Netflix will make a miniseries based on it! If the controversy gets more people thinking about chess and playing chess then that's a silver lining.”
