Chess: Carlsen expands on ‘cheating’ suspicions against Niemann

Magnus Carlsen on Monday broke his near-silence after dominating chess discussions for the better part of three weeks with his cryptic allegations that 19-year-old US player Hans Niemann may have cheated in a shock victory against Carlsen at the beginning of September. 

“I believe that Hans Niemann has cheated more — and more recently — than he has publicly admitted,” Carslen said in a statement. “His over the board progress has been unusual, and throughout our game in 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.” 

The Norwegian outgoing world champion, who elected earlier this year not to defend his crown and seek a sixth title, said that he was still “limited in what I can say without explicit permission from Niemann to speak openly,” but that there was more he would like to say.

Carlsen is yet to provide any real evidence for his allegations against Niemann; it’s not clear whether he or his allies have any. 

How did the scandal start?

Carlsen lost an over the board, in-person game to Niemann on September 4 at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis.

Niemann had been drafted in as a last minute replacement in that competition when another scheduled competitor, Richard Rapport, caught COVID and could not travel to the US. 

The day after the defeat, Carlsen tweeted he would be withdrawing from the competition, the first time in his career he had taken such a step. The keen football fan shared a video of manager Jose Mourinho saying that he couldn’t say any more or else he would get in trouble. 

This and other hints either from Carlsen or those close to him, coupled with information about Niemann having cheated in online games as a youngster, led people to infer the Norwegian chess grandmaster was questioning whether he had lost fair and square in St. Louis.

Carlsen said that Niemann’s mannerisms and behavior while beating him earlier this month heightened his suspicions about the youngster

A few days later, when Carlsen and Niemann again faced each other in an online competition, the Champions Chess Tour, Carlsen played a single move with black and then resigned. He went on to win the competition in question handsomely, sealing victory on Sunday, with the self-inflicted defeat to Niemann in the preliminary round robin phase his only loss of the entire event. 

“We must do something about cheating, and for my part going forward, I don’t want to play against people that have cheated repeatedly in the past, because I don’t know what they are capable of doing in the future,” Carlsen said in Monday’s statement.

This could put tournament organizers in a difficult position, effectively having to weigh whether they can invite Niemann if that means the world’s most famous player might boycott the event.

Global chess federation FIDE said late last week that it shared Carlsen’s concerns about cheating and took it seriously, but it also criticized the five-time champion’s choice of approach to the matter, saying “We strongly believe that there were better ways to handle this situation.” 

FIDE had said it would be willing to investigate Carlsen and Nielsen’s September 4 game thoroughly once “adequate initial proof” was provided.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  On his way to becoming world chess champion

  The then 29-year-old grandmaster from New York was renowned to be both brilliant and eccentric: Bobby Fischer contributed to turning the World Chess Championship into a spectacle. He is shown here on August 23, 1972, on his way to a game at the championship held in Reykjavik, Iceland. A week later, Fischer obtained the title he had been working towards since his youth: world chess champion.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  The chess prodigy

  Robert James Fischer, known as Bobby, was born on March 9, 1943 in Chicago. Fischer grew up in Brooklyn, New York, with his mother, a nurse who was followed by the FBI due to suspicion she was a communist. The family had little money. Even as a child, Bobby was a very strong chess player. In 1958, at the age of 14, he became the youngest ever US chess champion.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  Facing the Soviets

  At the age of 16, Fischer was already one of the best chess players in the world. His competitors mainly came from the Soviet Union, the world’s chess powerhouse since the Second World War. At the time, Fischer’s great role model was the Latvian-Soviet grandmaster and later World Champion, Mikhail Tal. In 1959, the two met in Zurich. The game ended in a draw.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  The rival: Boris Spassky

  During the 1960s, Boris Spassky (right) became the best player in the Soviet Union. Then in 1969, Spassky became world champion. Before the match in Iceland, he had never lost to Bobby Fischer. The popular Russian came to Reykjavik confident of his victory. Did he underestimate his opponent?

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  The ‘Match of the Century’

  Adding to the tension, it wasn’t clear if Fischer would actually show up to face Spassky. The former child prodigy from New York had failed to appear or arrived late to previous games. Fischer did not trust Soviet chess players and the World Chess Federation. At the last minute, the Icelandic organizers managed to get Fischer to come to Reykjavik. In the first round, he conceded defeat.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  The Cold War played on a chessboard

  Amid the Cold War, the match opposing the US and the USSR fascinated the public. Fischer’s particular demands — for example, to have the cameras removed from the game — added to the unprecedented media hype surrounding the chess championship. After a high-class match, Fischer clearly prevailed, and officially took the World Chess Champion crown from the Soviet Union on September 1, 1972.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  1992: Fischer reappears

  It is the biggest mystery in chess history: After the 1972 World Chess Championship, Fischer retired from chess, forfeiting his title without defending it. He publicly returned to the chessboard only once, in 1992, facing Boris Spassky again in a private match in the former Yugoslavia. He won again. But having violated US sanctions to play the game, he was labeled a fugitive and fled into exile.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  Finding a home in Reykjavik

  As an emigre, Fischer spent time in different countries until 2004, when he was detained in Tokyo and faced deportation to the US. Mentally ill, he had also made headlines with his anti-American and antisemitic statements. But he still found support from a group of Icelandic chess players who managed to bring him back to Reykjavik, where he spent the last years of his life before dying in 2008.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  A chess boom

  In 2020 — almost 50 years after the “Match of the Century” — chess was suddenly on everyone’s lips again. The Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy in the role of chess genius Beth Harmon, was a massive hit during the pandemic. Beth Harmon’s character was in part inspired by Bobby Fischer’s life. The myth lives on.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  Magnus Carlsen: Fischer’s successor?

  Bobby Fischer has long been considered by many to be the greatest player of all time. “Fischer was an incredibly competitive player, and that still impresses today,” said Icelandic grandmaster Helgi Olafson, who supported Fischer in his final years in Iceland. This irrepressible will to win also characterizes the current world champion, Magnus Carlsen — who, like Fischer, was a child prodigy.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  A German prodigy

  A young German has also been exceptionally good for a number of years. Vincent Keymer (right), who is now 17 years old, is the best chess player in Germany and on his way to the top 10 in world chess. At the age of 14, he played against world champion Magnus Carlsen for the first time — and narrowly lost. In 2021, Keymer became Vice European Champion in Reykjavik.

• Bobby Fischer and the world’s fascination for chess

  Bobby Fischer (1943 – 2008)

  Bobby Fischer was buried in Iceland in 2008. His opponent in the “Match of the Century,” the Russian Boris Spassky, now lives in seclusion in Moscow — the effects of two strokes have confined him to a wheelchair. “Spassky always worried about Fischer … like a big brother,” said Icelandic chess champion Helgi Olafson, who knew both players well.

  Author: Holger Hank

Is it easy to cheat in chess? 

Allegations of cheating are almost as old as the game, but in online competitions in particular, the temptation and ability to cheat with ease has been transformed in the information era. Anybody who owns a smartphone can get access to artificial intelligence programs that are vastly superior to any human chess players.

Carlsen’s resignation from the Sinquefield Cup raised eyebrows, however, because security checks do exist at physical tournaments and the penalties for over the board cheating in rated events are draconian, with a lifetime ban likely for anybody caught red-handed.

Calling cheating an “existential threat to the game,” Carlsen urged “chess organizers and all those who care about the sanctity of the game we love” to “seriously consider increasing security measures and methods of cheat detection for over the board chess.”

Niemann gave an extensive interview soon after Magnus’ first withdrawal where he admitted to past wrongdoing but also said he had not cheated for years and had never cheated over the board. He said his past bans from chess websites had shamed him and motivated him to dedicate himself to the game more. He also offered to play naked if that would satisfy people’s suspicions, something that would not be unprecedented.

Carlsen’s supporters argue that Niemann’s rapid rise in rating points during the COVID pandemic is suspicious. Niemann’s supporters counter that the teenager is still of the age where leading chess players improve swiftly.

Niemann’s rating rise in his late teenage years has been an outlier — starting comparatively late and accelerating rapidly — but is also not without precedent in the game’s history.

Carlsen’s entourage and the chess.com playing website that recently moved to purchase Carlsen’s business empire, the Play Magnus Group, are yet to provide any hard evidence. However, they have intimated that they have more data they cannot make public.

Chess.com suspended Niemann from its site soon after Carlsen’s defeat. It issued a statement saying it had reached out to Niemann privately with information on cheating that the American had not openly acknowledged.

The case has divided opinion for weeks now. Critics of Carlsen allege he is torching a young man’s reputation and possibly his future livelihood without providing any evidence. Supporters argue that Carlsen has never taken such a drastic step in a career spanning almost two decades, while some leading players including Ian Nepomniatchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Levon Aronian have intimated that they might share some of the outgoing world champions’ suspicions. 

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/chess-carlsen-expands-on-cheating-suspicions-against-niemann/a-63247686?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf