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Hans Niemann says he is being unfairly attacked in chess scandal

• isaacfrond 4y ago
  With Kasparov himself saying that the Carlson's opening with white was weak, and there not being a shred of actual evidence of the cheating. I'm leaning towards the witch hunt theory. Why should I think otherwise? All grandmasters have had surprise loses now and again, right?
  • ratg13 4y ago
    So you are calling chess.com liars, or did you not read the article?
    • Ekaros 4y ago
      Unless they have a proof to present I think there is reasonable case to sue them here.
      • viscanti 4y ago
        They have unfairly infringed his constitutional right to continue to play games on chess.com after he admitted to cheating on there in the past.
        • Bud 4y ago
          His "constitutional right"? This is a joke, right? Please say yes. Please tell me it doesn't have to be explained that there's no "constitutional right" to use a chess website.
        • eteos 4y ago
          There is no such thing as a constitutional right to play on chess.com
          • cinntaile 4y ago
            That's the joke.
    • jstanley 4y ago
      It's not obvious to me that chess.com would have any more insight into whether or not Hans Niemann cheated OTB than anyone else would.
      • ratg13 4y ago
        No, but they reviewed his history after the accusations and found him to be lying and misrepresenting himself. So, if we take chess.com at their word and he is lying, we have a person who is a "former" cheater, who is currently actively lying about the scope of their cheating. It's not conclusive by any means, but this is a far cry from "nothing to see here"
        • addicted 4y ago
          Chess.com must be really struggling for money if they have to wait for a non accusation of OTB cheating to run their anti-cheating algorithms on a player’s games. Which they obviously aren’t. Which means that they have found nothing new in the “review”. The more obvious answer is that Magnus is pissed, and as a part owner of chess.com and biggest draw in tennis, chess.com wants his continued participation and so is kicking Hans out. They may have justification for it, but it was clearly not enough of a justification to act on before Magnus decided to get all pissy on losing.
      • robertlagrant 4y ago
        They analyse games for unusual moves. See also https://en.chessbase.com/post/cheating-controversy-at-prochessleague https://en.chessbase.com/post/cheating-controversy-at-proche...
      • Steko 4y ago
        Whether Hans cheated OtB is not really the main issue although most commenters get hung up on it. Occam’s Razor suggests we should strongly believe he didn’t cheat OTB. The bigger issue is that known cheaters create a cloud of suspicion that puts their opponents at a huge disadvantage. Magnus has spoken about this before - if you think someone might be cheating you can’t concentrate on chess. This suspicion can be allayed with extra security but that extra security was only deployed after Magnus left.
    • ejb999 4y ago
      I read the article, and this is what I found: >>"So far, there has not been any concrete evidence that points to Niemann cheating." So question is, did you read the article?
      • jackmott 4y ago
    • faeriechangling 4y ago
      I believe most people understand that chess.com are working off statistics and best faith efforts but can be mistaken. Moreover chess.com saying they cheated on their website is a wholly separate issue than if Hans cheated OTB. There’s plenty of room to believe that chess.com is being sincere but that Hans may be innocent of both recent allegations, especially the OTB cheating allegation.
  • potatototoo99 4y ago
    He admitted to cheating when he was an IM. To me he forfeited being given the benefit of doubt after that.
    • robertlagrant 4y ago
      Twice, when he was 12 and 16, in online nonconsequential games. It's not great, but "once a cheat always a cheat" is still wrong.
      • hellcow 4y ago
        Chess.com made a public statement after his comments, effectively saying he wasn’t honest and had cheated far more extensively than he had admitted. They banned him and said that they shared the evidence with him in private, and it would be up to him to respond to it. So either chess.com is wrong, despite having a pretty good ability to detect cheating, or Hans is lying. I’m inclined to believe the latter.
        • RandomWorker 4y ago
          This didn’t make sense to me. His reasons for cheating were because he wanted to play higher rated players. However I’ve seen many rated players get up there on like 2 hours. He said he does nothing for two years but play. One side very patient, other very impatient..
        • addicted 4y ago
          Chess.com is also 25% or so owned by Magnus’s company. Also, if chess.com had all this evidence why did they wait until after Magnus’s cryptic tweet to act on it? Do they only run their algorithms on games after Magnus makes cryptic comments on players playing the games? The far more obvious reason is that they took these actions because they don’t want to potentially lose Magnus and his company’s involvement in the tournament.
      • jackmott 4y ago
• WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  My key take away from this sorry mess of a story is that the world of competitive chess is extremely toxic.
  • robertlagrant 4y ago
    What's happened is extremely unusual.
    • ta123456789 4y ago
      I haven't followed very closely, but isn't it only in the past 1-2 years some top players have also become popular streamers/youtubers? And they are becoming more and more popular. Which would imply that there will be more and more useless drama like this in the future.
    • permo-w 4y ago
      it’s not that unusual. Tigran L. Petrosian[1] - a grandmaster - was caught cheating in a competitive online game fairly recently, and plenty of drama ensued [1] - no relation to the former world champion
    • WastingMyTime89 4y ago
      I’m more concerned by the reaction of supposedly pro players than by the actual events. The whole thing was handled very childishly by the community as whole. I was very thankful for the MVL interview which showed that some sanity might prevail but I fear irreparable damage have been done to the reputation of the game.
      • robertlagrant 4y ago
        You think the game of chess may not survive this?
        • WastingMyTime89 4y ago
          I think the world champion withdrawing from a major tournament and accusing a young player of cheating seemingly out of spite causing an overall very childish reaction in the community as a whole will tarnish the reputation of the game significantly, yes. I don’t think chess is in any risk of disappearing but it was on a significantly upward trajectory when it comes to popularity that this kind of antic may noticeably dent if not reverse. I for one can’t take it seriously anymore.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• KingOfCoders 4y ago
  "why are they going to remove me from Chess.com right after I beat Magnus." Right before the game would be much worse I assume.
• shultays 4y ago
  If Alexei Shirov to be believed, the scandal goes beyond Hans
• aaron695 4y ago
  Why can't someone pull down his chess.com games (or everything available) and see if he cheated? This is the most disappointing part. The community doesn't seem to have the technical ability to OSINT this. Where's an expert talking about where in the match with Magnus a computer might have been used. 4chan does better OSINT than the chess community. People could learn a lot here by being technical rather than just drama driven.
  • faeriechangling 4y ago
    I would argue many chess players have the ability to casually gauge cheating, but few have the background in things like statistics to really have a solid handle on the subject. So usually people leave cheat detection to the big websites. It’s a minor genre of chess video content for a savvy content creator to use their OSINT skills to detect cheating, for the viewers to marvel at the skill-less cheating, to report the player, and for everybody to marvel at the ban. The issue is that nobody can really tell if a single game was cheated on, it’s just not enough data to provide sufficient evidence of cheating. I’ve seen non-cheaters play games where every move is 100% the same as stockfish’s recommendation because the winning line was incredibly forced.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• im3w1l 4y ago
  How much did the loss set Magnus back in his goal of hitting 2900 elo?
  • RandomWorker 4y ago
    Hans went up 14.6 points while Magnus went down 14.6 points. If he won he would go up 5.4 a draw down 4.5. His starting rating was 2861 so after the game he would be at 2846.
• mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  I don't believe Hans cheated in the Sinquefield Cup, and I do believe he has had a genuine jump in strength. Mostly because he's been able to keep up with world champion MVL in blitz. Cheating in OTB blitz chess is not really feasible at all. Also there's no evidence he cheated and no reason to believe he cheated based on his games. The only "evidence" is that he beat Carlsen with black. Questions have been raised about his 3rd GM norm, but the jury's still out on that. It wouldn't surprise me if he has cheated in OTB as well in the past, given his shady history and behaviour. But Carlsen really needs to grow the fuck up. As GM Ben Finegold pointed out, withdrawing from a round robin is a dick move, and it kind of ruins the tournament because players can be forced into a draw in a critical round where they need a win. In addition to that, passive-aggressively withdrawing with a cryptic tweet is not even close to the proper etiquette in response to suspected cheating. And it doesn't even make sense from a chess standpoint. He wasn't going to play Hans again. Withdrawing doesn't give him back any rating points. He obviously had no concrete evidence or Hans would be disqualified, so it's not like he's saving the tournament for the other players. He's just being a self-important jerk. I'm glad he's declined to defend his title because he's no longer capable of being an ambassador for the sport. He only cares about himself(which was basically his explanation for declining) He's also gotten in bed with illegal gambling sites, trying to turn the Norwegian Chess Federation into a lobby organisation for the gambling industry(luckily he failed). I say this as someone who grew up idolising Magnus Carlsen. I did 2 years ago, even 18 months ago. Not anymore.
  • genghisjahn 4y ago
    This was not a OTB blitz game. OTB cheating in classical games is very possible. As discussed by two GMs in this video. https://youtu.be/mHZy9TNOGCk https://youtu.be/mHZy9TNOGCk
    • mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      I understand that. My point was that if he can keep up with the literal WC in blitz, it's extremely likely that the strength displayed by him in the Sinquefield cup was in fact genuine. People aren't usually hundreds of ELO points stronger in blitz than in classical. At least not at the GM level. Again, actually looking at his games from this tournament leaves no reason to suspect cheating.
• Barrin92 4y ago
  This whole thing has been extremely ugly. At the core I think one thing needs to be stressed. An accusation of cheating in a game like chess is potentially career ending. It's an extremely heavy thing to throw at another player. There seems to be no evidence that Niemann cheated OTB (his cheating as a 12-15 y/o online I do not take as evidence of anything, as a zoomer socialised on internet gaming he has the misfortune of having his misbehaviors better documented than older generations, it's to me comparable to famous esports players who used to cheat as kids online) Magnus has not made a clear accusation but just withdrew and posted a meme insinuating cheating, which is awful because that ambiguity in itself creates drama. Any player should be presumed innocent until proven otherwise. World Champions should speak with clarity instead of trolling. The online social media and twitch coverage of the event throws fuel on the fire by creating incentives to milk the entire thing for views, chess coverage degenerates more and more into internet gossip and drama, it's unbecoming for the game. Unlike most people I think the recent surge in popularity has not been good for the professionalism of the game.
• thinkingemote 4y ago
  Don't some big chess players own a stake in chess.com? Is part of the drama a kind of unbalance of power. Where those with power in the community exerts more influence and benefit more from their influence. Could owning chess platforms be seen as a conflict of interest in a professional sporting frame of mind?
  • addicted 4y ago
    Yup. Magnus does. Which makes all the comments using chess.com’s actions as evidence kind of pointless. That being said, Magnus is the biggest draw in chess. So even if he didn’t have part ownership of chess.com, most tournaments would be willing to sacrifice a rather unlikable and unknown player to not piss off Magnus.
• Overtonwindow 4y ago
  I think this is horrible behavior from Carlsen. He flubbed the opening and got into a bad position, then throws a temper tantrum insinuating that his opponent was cheating. If you make an accusation like that and it's proven to be false you should be suspended from tournament play. There is simply no proof, or even a hint of proof, that Niemann did anything wrong. Carlsen, however, is a drama queen with an enormous ego who is using his power to slander another player. I think Carlsen should be suspended, not Niemann.