why do you think chess.com banned him again?
i found his interview believable but i also know nothing about chess
Lol did Niemann really say âI have never cheated over the boardâ? Thatâs ⌠not a great look. âHoney, calm down. Although I have cheated on you many times with brunettes, I have never cheated on you with a blonde. And, frankly, Iâm offended that you would even suggest it.â
Watch the interview. He admitted to cheating online on two occasions, once age 12 in a tournament and once age 16 in random games.
Yeah I have no idea. Thereâs no confirmation that is even true yet, although youâd think theyâd have denied it by now if it wasnât.
Iâm a complete casual fan patzer, so I really am not sure of what these ways are. There is actually a whole wikipedia page on cheating in chess and based on that, it doesnât sound as easy as you describe to me. If weâre talking about using an engine during a live game, getting the move to the player is non-trivial without repeated bathroom breaks or somebody signaling the player. I assume that with the allegation flying, it would be very hard to do those things again in this tournament without arousing suspicion.
So at this point, what Iâm most interested in are the following:
-
What are the common ways people cheat with an engine during a live tournament (besides what Iâve listed)?
-
What, if any, are the safeguards that are employed in this tournament to prevent those things?
Anyone have any answers?
I would guess that chess.com, who had previously dealt with Hansâs cheating privately, were now afraid they would be seen as condoning cheating, now that Hans cheating on their platform has become public? But if thatâs why, that was a very hasty decision, and they might come to regret it. I get the sense that public opinion in the chess community is swinging around to this being a witch hunt. I think a lot of people were initially like âwell Magnus must have a really good reason for thisâ, thatâs definitely what I thought and GM Jan Gustaffson said the same. But it doesnât seem at this stage like a good reason is going to be forthcoming. And Magnus has definitely been petulant after losses before.
Since youâre going to bat for Niemann, here are some things Iâm curious about.
- He claimed to have studied that exact line in the morning? That seems very convenient.
- He also claimed that he studied an earlier game of Magnusâ in which this line was played, but apparently no such game exists.
If these two things are true, doesnât that seem a bit suspicious to you?
Carlsen had in fact played a similar, not identical, line against So:
https://twitter.com/nigelshortchess/status/1567020771528130561
As for having studied the line, the positions can also be reached by transposition from the Catalan, so itâs not crazy that he would have looked at them.
https://twitter.com/GMJacobAagaard/status/1566902170666127360
Also, does it make any more sense if Hans was cheating? This used to be a pet hate of mine playing werewolf on 2+2. âHans totally made up a Carlsen - So game and hoped nobody would check, YOLOâ doesnât make any more sense if heâs cheating than it does if he isnât.
1 Like
You should watch the interview. Thereâs a timestamp in the comments of the video he tweeted to where his interview starts
1 Like
He claims to have studied the Catalan in great depth preparing for Magnus because thatâs what he often plays, and the line they ended up in is a transposition of a line from the Catalan
1 Like
Thanks. I really wasnât confident in the veracity of those claims, but if Carlsen had a game that transposed into that, then thatâs good enough for me.
Iâd argue that it makes slightly more sense, but not much. Nevertheless, your point is well taken.
Carlsen is more of an occasional Catalan player (donât remember him playing it ever up until the last year and heâs played it a handful of times in classical now), but an offbeat Catalan line is a very reasonable guess at what he might try against someone like Niemann.
https://twitter.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1567660677388554241
Maybe weâre going to get some kind of statement from Carlsen at some point, but if we donât then FIDE should sanction both Carlsen and Nakamura imo. When youâre two of the biggest and most powerful people in the chess world you donât get to hide behind âoh well I didnât actually accuse anyone of anything, I just heavily implied itâ when youâre engaged in trying to end the career of a 19 year old kid because youâre big mad that you lost to someone you consider beneath you (Carlsen) or youâre a grinning little sociopath who has no qualms about doing character assassination for clicks (Nakamura). I mean here is the title and thumbnail of a half-hour YouTube video where Nakamura makes skeptical faces at the camera at everything weird in Niemannâs post-game analyses:
Like fuck right off with âI didnât technically accuse Niemann of anythingâ. Yes you did.
2 Likes
Youâre not wrong, but I have a hard time feeling too bad for Niemann if it is known that he cheated in the past. Is that part of the story accurate? If so, thatâs one of the consequences of cheating. People arenât going to believe you when you donât.
I donât have chess base, but according to the unsourced Wikipedia article on the Catalan
Magnus Carlsen began to employ the Catalan as his main opening in the late 2010s, most notably using it in the second game of the 2021 World Chess Championship against Ian Nepomniachtchi, and used it extensively at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022.
Plus the pseudo Catalan that he played in game 6 against Nepo
Hans cheated twice online:
- In a for-money tournament as a 12 year old.
- At 16, because he wanted to gain rating points so that he would be able to play top players more, because that would be good for his stream. He said he was living alone in an apartment at the time and felt under pressure to grow the stream to make more money.
He suffered serious consequences for the latter (wasnât able to play tournaments on chess.com which was bad for his streaming career, I think he no longer streams) and the statute of limitations is up on both of these imo. Have you met 16 year olds?
If Magnus has a problem with the way chess.com handled this, or FIDE allowing him to play, he should take it up with those bodies. If he doesnât think his concerns are being handled properly, he could go public and say âlook this guy cheated online at 16 which makes me uncomfortable playing against him nowâ, that would be a lot better than this âI have a truly marvelous demonstration that Niemann cheated which this margin is too narrow to containâ tweet that he made.
Like my feeling right now is that Carlsen went with vague insinuation because he is aware that his actual argument is so weak. Like if he went public and said straight out âthis dude cheated online at 16 and has also gained a shit ton of rating points in the last 1.5 years, VERY SUSPICIOUS?â everyone would be like âdude you lost because you played at 87% accuracy in a classical game, stop being a bitchâ. Like with the FBI investigation against Clinton and HER EMAILS, the insinuation of wrongdoing is often more powerful than anything concrete could be.
Hmm, I guess Iâm wrong. I didnât remember him playing it basically at all prior to the WCC in November, but I also have not checked databases.
I have, but heâs only 19 now. I know all of my 16-year-old dumbassery wasnât eradicated in 3 short years. I donât think the statute of limitations has expired yet.
I agree that Magnus is not handling it well either, but these are part of the consequence of being a confirmed cheater.
One thing that hasnât been discussed as much, as far as Iâm aware, is just how bad Magnus dropping out of the tournament is. Lots of talk about his bad tweet, but not this.
Itâs incredibly bad form to drop from a round robin tournament. It completely screws over the other players and the legitimacy of the final result. Hans loses a win and Nepo loses a loss. Thatâs huge. Never mind the time other players spent prepping for Magnus, the promo, etc. There are lots of stories of players playing while incredibly ill or injured because you just donât drop from these events unless youâre on your way to the hospital, basically. Dropping because you think your opponent cheated is a big time scum bag move. Even if he had 100% proof of cheating, that isnât a reason to drop. You still play the other guys.
It really seems like Magnus is going off the deep end, what with this, dropping from the WCC, selling PlayMagnus, etc.
Maybe once youâve reached the pinnacle and done all there is to do you just go batshit self-destructive for some reason. Like the US electing Trump or Putin trying to restore an empire.
1 Like