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Maybe Carlsen doesn't know who to blame. He could suspect Niemann, or someone on Niemann's team, or someone in his own team, or a backdoor in Stockfish, or (de
by dane-pgp 4y ago
Maybe Carlsen doesn't know who to blame. He could suspect Niemann, or someone on Niemann's team, or someone in his own team, or a backdoor in Stockfish, or (depending on Carlsen's own mental health right now) space aliens.
I can understand that out of an abundance of caution (and on the advice of his lawyers) he doesn't want to name anyone in particular, although seeing so many fingers pointed at Niemann (understandably, given his past) I do think Carlsen should at least release a statement saying "I don't want people accusing Niemann of cheating, that was not my intention".
- morelisp 4y agoIf there's any cheating, how could Niemann himself not be involved?
- dane-pgp 4y agoSomeone on Niemann's team could have been feeding him info which "coincidentally" happens to be very useful, without Niemann suspecting where the info came from. (A bug in Carlsen's hotel room?) Someone on Carlsen's team could be encouraging him to focus on lines which they've discovered (through a bug in the hotel room) that Niemann's team is preparing counters for. In both of these cases, the corrupt team member could be motivated by the possibility of winning a large bet on the outcome of the chess match, without either player being in on it. (I admit that the idea of Stockfish giving deliberately bad information only to Carlsen, to weaken his prep, is not very plausible, but we don't know how rational Carlsen is being here).
- morelisp 4y agoWhile these are both unsportsmanlike (and probably illegal) I'm not actually sure they're cheating.
- dane-pgp 4y agoYou might be right, but Carlsen hasn't accused anyone of cheating, or unsportsmanlike behaviour, or criminality. He's just chosen not to play against Hans, which he has every right to do.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y agoFirst of all I don't think Niemann has much of a team yet. But the prep leak idea makes no sense. If someone's on Carlsen's team gives Hans "leaked prep", why should he believe them? It could be a red herring. Pretty much every grandmaster who has commented on the prep leak idea has stated it just makes no sense on the face of it.
- dane-pgp 4y ago> First of all I don't think Niemann has much of a team yet. Maybe he does, or maybe Carlsen thinks he does. > the prep leak idea makes no sense. The "malicious person on Carlsen's team" hypothesis I was putting forward didn't involve them leaking the prep to Niemann. I merely supposed that someone in such a position could negatively influence Carlsen's performance, and profit from it through betting.
- bosie 4y agoHow can it be someone from his own team? If someone from his own team leaked the prep to Niemann and Niemann prepared against it, that isn't even cheating on Niemann's part?