Chess.com released a 72-page report Tuesday detailing cheating allegations against 19-year-old chess Grandmaster Hans Niemann. This comes after world chess champion Magnus Carlsen lost to Niemann, walked out of the Sinquefield Cup, and then strongly implied Niemann cheated on Twitter.
Niemann has admitted to cheating before in online games. The report mentions this while concluding that Niemann likely cheated in more than 100 games-some as recent as this past August. But what they couldn’t find was evidence of any cheating in his game with Carlsen nor in any in-person games.
Jack Peters is a professor at USC and an international master at chess. He believes that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on a past track record.
Jack Peters: The two positions are mutually exclusive. Maybe he did cheat in Internet games. Who cares? But he can’t be accused by Magnus of cheating against him just because he may have cheated in the past.
Vijay Damerla, a member of USC’s Chess Club, echoes some of these thoughts, saying that despite the accusations, Niemann is still human.
Vijay Damerla: I think that chess grandmasters need to be held to a high level, and cheating multiple times is not okay. However, chess grandmasters become grandmasters as early as the age of 12, and 12-year-olds make mistakes, 16-year-olds make mistakes, 19-year-olds make mistakes. And so I think it’s important to zoom out of the chess world and understand that these are still human beings, and human beings have flaws.
Peters says that Magnus acted purely out of emotion, and that there was likely no foul play in Niemann’s checkmate.
Jack Peters: I can tell you that I analyzed the two games that Hans beat Magnus, and he played well. He didn’t play extraordinarily well or like a computer would play and Magnus played well, as usual...he’s a good enough player that if there were no cheating involved and he played Magnus ten times, he’d win a game or two.
But how will this affect the chess world? With two prominent players butting heads beyond the board, Damerla says that the community will be divided.
Vijay Damerla: I think that this is going to be one of those things that just splits the community down the middle because everyone loves to take a side - have a strong stance on something.
After their game in St. Louis, it seems that Niemann and Carlsen are engaged in a new battle - one using the pawns of social media and bishops of scandal. It will likely be up to the community as to who takes the king.