Chess Is in Chaos over Suspicion That a Player Cheated Against Magnus Carlsen

/r/chess on reddit is almost wall to wall with this, and there is a huge megathread about it. It is known (further details are slowly dribbling out) that Niemann cheated in some online games some years ago, at ages 12-16. He claims to have not done it more recently than that. He claims to have never cheated in an over-the-board (i.e. in person, not online) game.

Opinions vary but the most widespread one is that while Carlsen may have had suspicions, Niemann didn't cheat in this specific game. A bunch of cheat detection specialists and the arbiters have gone over the game and venue and not found anything untoward. I tend to also believe this, though it is very hard to prove someone didn't cheat.

One not obvious thing is that cheating can be very subtle. If you're a strong player you don't have to play engine moves, which tend to be noticeable. There are 3 kinds of chess positions: 1) there is obviously only one reasonable move, such as a recapture, so you make it. 2) There are several reasonable moves to pick from, so you pick one. 3) It LOOKS LIKE there are several reasonable moves, but deep analysis will show you that only one of them is the right one.

Of course, identifying situation #3 above is very difficult in its own right. Kasparov has said that if a computer could identify such positions and alert him just once per game, that would give him a huge advantage. It wouldn't have to tell him the right move. Just knowing that there was a unique good move in that position would tell him to spend the necessary thinking time to find it, instead of just doing something that looked reasonable. So you need only 1 bit per game from a computer to cheat effectively, not a stream of engine moves.

Someone on reddit told of a time he was playing someone at a tournament, when he noticed that a small crowd had gathered around his board to watch the game. That told him there was something particularly interesting about the position that had developed, which hadn't otherwise occurred to him. So he sank into thought and found a clever way to win, which he wouldn't have even looked for without being alerted by the interest of the spectators.

There is a recent video of two GM's (Naroditsky and Nakamura) discussing the Magnus situation and cheating in general: https://youtu.be/mHZy9TNOGCk

It is about 45 minutes long, but quite interesting. The anecdote about Kasparov is from that video.

It is too bad no details are supplied about how he may have cheated or evidence. Mr. Carlsen thought something was wrong but could not pinpoint what it was or didn't feel like coming forward about details. With all the scrutiny on these games, I wonder how someone could cheat.

Chess is only in chaos because Carlsen did not provide any details and remains quiet. Hence all the speculation.

Let’s say Hans Niemann cheated somehow. Then he would not be able to cheat in the future, because security measures will tighten up, and he will drop like a rock from his current 2700 level to his true level. If that dous not happen, then he did’t cheat.

> But Tesla co-founder Elon Musk might not have been when he tweeted about the scandal on Thursday morning: “You can almost hear that snap of the rubber glove before chess match cavity searches,” he wrote.

Ja Rule could not be reached for comment.

Sigh! --paywall