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Comment by tibbar | Hacker News Reader

For context, Magnus withdrew from a major tournament last month after losing to Hans. He has not made a statement, but it is understood that he suspects Hans of cheating. Hans has admitted to cheating online, though he denies cheating in person.

As more evidence comes out, it seems that Hans has cheated a lot more than he admitted, and potentially over the board as well (for example, this analysis [1] shows that he's playing at superhuman levels in some games.) This all helps Magnus's case. I think it is likely that Hans will be slowly barred, silently or openly, from tournaments and venues all over the world.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pwtC0bH--A

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> As more evidence comes out, it seems that Hans has cheated a lot more than he admitted, and potentially over the board as well (for example, this analysis [1] shows that he's playing at superhuman levels in some games.)

This is being overstated. There's not any hard evidence suggesting he's been cheating over the board, and for such a potentially career-ruining allegation you'd want some pretty strong evidence.

What does the expression "over the board" mean?

Face to face.

Playing on a physical chess board instead of on the computer.

Not online, i.e. face to face.

offline / in-person

offline chess, in person with a real board.

Not being that familiar with the chess culture, it's weird to me that the distinction of "over the board" vs "online" seems to carry so much weight. Is it considered more acceptable to cheat online than "over the board"? I would think cheating is cheating.

Think of the distinction between "over the board" and "online" as kind of like the distinction between "NBA game" and "pickup game". Even that might be understating it. The levels of importance are radically different.

Also, think about how much harder it would be to cheat over the board. You might use hidden devices, accomplices, secret signals--compare that to an online game where all you need to do is switch over to another tab to check the engine. Cheating OTB requires a significantly greater degree of forethought, planning, and commitment--a persistent and repeated willingness to cheat that is way less acceptable than an online player getting tilted and looking at an engine. Still cheating, yeah--but at least it's not premeditated.

Online ratings are meaningless. But your FIDE rating, which derives from playing actual classical chess in-person, means everything. Attaining a good FIDE rating is the difference between being able to make a living off the game and not. Online ratings are in fact so meaningless that eligibility for major online tournaments is based on your FIDE rating, not your online rating.

It's the difference between cheating at a casual Poker game at home with no money staked and cheating at the World Series of Poker when serious money is at stake.

I don’t understand why people are going out their way to justify Carlsen attitude.

What we have is the world champion throwing a tantrum because he lost against a player there is absolutely no evidence has cheated against him and is now calling for him to be expelled despite having no evidence whatsoever. This is harassment pure and simple.

The whole thing is disgraceful and reflects extremely badly on competitive chess.

>is now calling for him to be expelled

He made no comment.

He just refused to play against him. You don’t need to talk to make a comment.

I don’t understand how an adult can defend Magnus there. As a public figure his attitude is simply shocking.

You interpreting Carlsen's actions as "tantrum" and calling for measures against the other player has just as much evidence as there is for the cheating.

For a public figure his response is unusually quiet and calm to me. Though I'm not into chess so I don't know how it is perceived from that angle.

> unusually quiet and calm to me.

The crux seems to be that a genetl(wo)man would either directly accuse, or remain silent. What M.Carlsen is doing is de-facto accusing while saying "don't look at me, I didn't say it out loud". It's so... un.. hacker.. style.

I'm with Carlsen on this. If you're caught or admit to cheating even once in a professional competitive career that's it - You should be out for good. That we have this bizarre attitude of permissiveness and time salvation around cheaters in competition is frankly bizarre. What other argument is there than to refuse to engage. It is not difficult to simply never cheat, in the same way that it is not difficult to simply never murder anyone.

Honestly, bravo. He's at the point in his career that he really doesn't need to prove anything, and as such is uniquely positioned to make this kind of statement with at least a vague chance that it will be heeded.

> I'm with Carlsen on this. If you're caught or admit to cheating even once in a professional competitive career that's it - You should be out for good.

That’s absolutely not the rule and neither you nor Carlsen get to decide that.

There is no permissiveness here. Hans has played according to the rule of the tournament. There is no evidence of cheating. That’s it.

Unless you have proof of what you are advancing, you are just bullying a teenager. The conduct of the chess community has a whole has been nothing short of shameful in this instance.

Does any of what you just said not also apply to Carlsen?

He's admitted to cheating in the past. The Bayesian priors for him currently cheating are not the same as for other people.

Sorry but that’s garbage. You either have evidence or you don’t. You can’t just say: once guilty always guilty and be fine with that.

I find the general holier-than-thou self-righteous attitude expressed by most armchair commenters extremely off putting.

> holier-than-thou self-righteous attitude

That's what I see in your comments, haha.

Let the man protest. It appears to be quite effective. There is a long history of positive change coming from quiet, stubborn, non-violent protest outside the rules.

The fact that he cheated before is evidence. It’s not proof, but it’s absolutely evidence.

> You can’t just say: once guilty always guilty and be fine with that.

You absolutely can. Billions of people do it every single day for less reason.

> I find the general holier-than-thou self-righteous attitude expressed by most armchair commenters extremely off putting.

I find the crowd chanting evidence, evidence, evidence off putting.

I suggest cavity inspections before all matches from now on.

The Hansen inspection

Bayesian priors aren't really known for their rigour.

> He's admitted to cheating in the past.

From what I can find: "he did admit that he had cheated in the past – first as a 12-year-old when a friend gave him some help in an online tournament and then as a 16-year-old playing unrated games while he was streaming."

A 12-year old cheating in a tournament! We cannot ever trust this man!

For context at high levels of play.

Magnus Carlsen started playing at around age 5. Was in his first tournament at 8. Was winning and establishing a career in his teens. Was grand master in his early 20's.

So, cheating at 12 and 16 could equate to cheating now. That's only 3 or 7 years ago. Hans is 19.

Thank-you for pointing this out. The defence that Niemann was "only a minor" when he engaged in his admitted cheating has always sat uncomfortably with me. As you say, Chess is game played at very high standards by children as well as adults. Cheating in that context is highly immoral in my view.

I never said it's not immoral, but we're also talking about what are essentially children, which does not make it permissible, but I don't like judging adults (and 19 is only barely adult) over whatever they did as children/teens. There wouldn't be enough stones to cast if we started doing that.

That doesn't change that a 12-year old is still a 12-year old though, and that a mere "7 years" (12 to 19) is a huge difference in terms of personal development. A 12-year olds brain is still developing.

The cheating when he was 16 was unrated, so that's less severe, but the same argument applies here really; how many 100% responsible 16 year olds do you know?

Should there be some consequences? Maybe? But people further upthread here are argueing for life-time bans, which seem ridiculously draconic for the actions of a teenager who can't buy alcohol or cigarettes, is below the age of consent for sexual activities, etc. in in many jurisdictions.

In my early teens I would shoplift for the fun of it and did some other things I'm not especially proud of today. That's been 30 years ago and I haven't stolen anything in just as many years (since I was 14 or 15).

I'm very uncomfortable writing off an entire person over actions they did as a teenager.

chess.com disagrees, and says the Niemann's cheating is greater in both the amount and seriousness of cheating that has occured.

https://twitter.com/chesscom/status/1568010971616100352

>"Dear Chess Community,

>The last few days have been tumultuous for many in the chess community. At this time we have reached out to Hans Niemann to explain our decision to privately remove him from chess.com and our events. We have shared detailed evidence with him concerning our decision, including information that contradicts his statements regarding the amount and seriousness of his cheating on Chess.com. We have invited Hans to provide an explanation and response with the hope of finding a resolution where Hans can again participate on Chess.com. We want nothing more than to see the best chess players in the world succeed in the greatest events. We will always act to protect the integrity of the game that we all love."

Hans Niemann is not being honest.

I can't really determine who is right on that; my response was intended just for "he's admitted to cheating in the past." If the chess.com allegations turn out to be true then it would of course be a different matter entirely.

nobody can determine who is right because they haven't made the allegations specific, but as a professional chess player if they say his cheating goes beyond what he's claimed, and they have evidence of it, he could sue them for defamation if it wasn't true. I suspect chess.com has the receipts.

Fair enough but those priors should also be updated by a lot of evidence showing that he probably isn't cheating over the board:

* His blitz/rapid ratings went up just as much as his classical ratings. Cheating in OTB blitz is much harder, so you would expect his blitz rating to stay roughly the same if his recent rise was due to cheating.

* Ken Regan is generally the most trusted authority of cheating detection (you can find his papers online, his methodology is rigorous), and he says there is no evidence of Hans cheating OTB.

* AFAIK no strong player has described the game between Hans and Carlsen as suspicious. Even the (increasingly rare) ones that are fully on Magnus' side.

> There is no permissiveness here.

Shall we permissive against people who cheated, or who admitted to have cheated?

If this is permissible, or even acceptable why we have a word for this?

Note: Consider this as a meta question. This is not related to Hans or Magnus, but to humans at large, incl. me and you.

> That’s absolutely not the rule and neither you nor Carlsen get to decide that.

That should be the rule.

Everyone can help to make this new norm by refusing to play against players who have cheated. Carlsen is helping to make it the rule.

But online blitz chess when you're 16 is not "part of a professional competitive career".

Chess.com put out a statement refuting Hans' claims that he only cheated twice and Hans has not responded yet.

Then again I would put less than zero credibility to entity that has financial investment on the accuser in this case. Ofc, they will tow that line.

You're saying Hans only cheated twice, and chess.com is falsy accusing him of cheating more often than that because they're working on a takeover of Magnus' company?

That's straying pretty far into conspiracy theory territory.

I think they were probably pressured by Magnus who out of malice after losing a game is targeting promising player... Which I think is entirely reasonable reading of situation after seeing actions take by a player.

Chess.com ( magnus carlsons sponser) put out a statement refuting Hans' claims that he only cheated twice and Hans has not responded yet.(and chess. com have yet to show any evidence of said cheating)

It can be. Being professional doesn't mean being good, it means doing something for money, and there is money at stake in some online blitz tournaments.

One important question is whether Niemann has cheated in tournaments with prizes or "only" in ladder-type games (he's only admitted to the latter as I understand)

It's professional either way, since he used his Chess.com profile for his Twitch streaming.

> If you're caught or admit to cheating even once in a professional competitive career that's it - You should be out for good

Yeah, justice!

If you steal something once in your life, straight to jail, for good. If you have a speeding ticket, no more driver license for the rest of your life.

After all, people don't change, any mistake in life should be fatal and destroy your entire future.

</sarcasm>

Chess is a game.

In some areas of life the rule is more strict. Even a lowlife should be allowed to seek jobs etc.

But lowlife should not be allowed in professional chess, and professional chess is not place for second changes.

professional chess is not place for second changes.

To you hold this view for all competitive endeavours or just chess? If you cheated in a high school basketball game, should you be barred from ever playing professional basketball.

> lowlife

Get down from your ivory tower...

Great comparisons. Lance Armstrong has not been allowed to cycle to the grocery store a well

I am absolutely not decided on the issue but you should always remember that the "guy" caught cheating was 12 and 16 when it happened.. I mean he was a kid. Kids do stupid things. So we should not overrate what happened in the past.

The "kid" is only 19. If this were 10 years ago I would get your point, but "kids do stupid things" doesn't apply when he already admitted to doing it only 3 years ago as a 16 year old.

you are comparing a no-stakes online blitz games to performance in professional over the board tournaments.

The only confirmed cheating we know is online, in a no prize money setting at ages 12 and 16. This is hardly sufficent for banning him for life in FIDE OTB Tournaments as an adult if they don't have other evidence. It's like banning a sports player for life for cheating in high school games or an academic for cheating in their math test as a kid.

So... From now on, all teenagers between 12 and 16 should be allowed to cheat in online no prize money settings...

A good counter-example is s1mple from the Counterstrike: Global Offensive scene. He was known to have cheated when he was a teenager but went on a redemption arc that has seen him become not only the statistically best player to ever play the game but also one of its most mature and respected players. All the while under intense scrutiny for cheating because of his history.

I don't think one and out forever is really the way to deal with cheating in teenagers, they are yet to fully understand the consequences of their actions or how to deal with pressure/emotions - especially in online settings when the temptation is higher and the fallout less obvious.

It probably is also not a standard that can be practically upheld in an online setting. In both of these cases as I understand them, the cheater did so on their main account. If they'd created a new account to cheat on, would people have known?

Unless they have good OpSec then yes. Valve issues VAC bans for associated accounts when they believe they are linked.

> If you're caught or admit to cheating even once in a professional competitive career that's it - You should be out for good.

No, you shouldn't. People make mistakes, especially children. It is simply immoral to close any path to redemption for them. Also, anti-cheating measures on second-rate chess site chess.com are known to produce a lot of false positives. Niemann was never caught cheating in over the board games, so people trying to kill his career because of Carlsen's unspoken allegations should be ashamed of themselves.

If this were online, the guy would long ago have had his account deleted.

On a second-rate chess site, with a very imperfect anti-cheating mechanism that produces a lot of false positives, maybe.

>now calling for him to be expelled despite having no evidence whatsoever.

Considering how Carlsen has not made any public statements about the matter how did you get to this?

But true. There is no evidence, but there is quite a lot of suspicious activity around Niemann if there wasn't this wouldn't be a story.

What tantrum are you referring to? Didn't he just silently resign?

> I don’t understand why people are going out their way to justify Carlsen attitude.

Well, chess players are famous for spending a lot of time analysing their opponents' games in great detail. And the world champion is in a sense the greatest living human analyser of high-level chess games.

You're right that Carlsen hasn't produced any hard evidence - or even made any clear statements. But on the other hand, for me to say I knew better than him about analysing chess would make it look like I didn't know what I was talking about.

Without hard evidence I don't think Niemann should be punished - but it's certainly appropriate to take a very hard look.

That doesn’t match with Carlsen’s past behavior (he’s been consistently graceful in defeat over many years), isn’t what Carlsen did (he refused to play again, he didn’t even directly accuse him of cheating let alone call for his expulsion or harass him), and there isn’t no evidence (just weak evidence).

Just consider, for a moment, the possibility that the kid did cheat again. What could Carlsen have possibly done that you wouldn’t call a tantrum? What he did was the most polite, least confrontational, thing possible.

We don’t currently have sufficient evidence that he cheated, but don’t confuse uncertainty for evidence towards either side.

> What could Carlsen have possibly done that you wouldn’t call a tantrum? What he did was the most polite, least confrontational, thing possible.

He could (and should) have played a game in the best way he possibly can. If he'd lose again (which I doubt) we could have analyzed Niemann's performance and maybe arrive to some conclusions.

That'd be like asking Lance Armstrong to compete in the Tour de France again and when he wins, we'll analyze his performance and maybe arrive to some conclusions...

???

He entered a tournament and he doesn't have any evidence against Niemann. What he does is bullying.

He didn't accuse him of anything. You are making that up to make your position sound better.

Even if it turns out Niemann cheated, the way Carlsen is acting coy about it puts me off. The tweet was bad enough (unlike Mourinho he's clearly not in "big trouble" from his insinuation), but this resignation is such a publicity stunt.

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".

If there's any cheating, how could Niemann himself not be involved?

Someone 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).

While these are both unsportsmanlike (and probably illegal) I'm not actually sure they're cheating.

You 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.

First 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.

> 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.

How 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?

> that isn't even cheating on Niemann's part?

Has Magnus said he's cheating?

magnus hasn't said anything

Chess.com put out a statement refuting Hans' claim that Hans only cheated twice, and Hans has yet to respond. Carlsen owns 20% of chess.com.

They have given zero evidence. They haven't refuted, merely disputed.

I think Carlsen's reaction is absolutely correct. He is just telling everyone "I think this is a cheater, and I won't play with cheaters". What's the problem with that?

The resignation I can live with. The tweet is just attention seeking.

What would you have done if you were in Carlsen's position and you suspected someone (not necessarily Niemann) had acted maliciously (but you didn't want to get sued for defamation or breach of contract)?

It's easy to say "Just don't tweet anything", and that's advice that we might wish millions of other people would follow too, but Carlsen is now getting criticism for his silence, so it seems like he can't win either way (ironically).

>but Carlsen is now getting criticism for his silence, so it seems like he can't win either way (ironically).

He's being criticized for being silent after having published a vague tweet insinuating his opponent was cheating, not to mention the resignation stunt. If he'd actually been silent about it and just withdrawn from the tournament before the match, there wouldn't have been anything to criticize.

As someone who’s never been able to appreciate or follow sports where a machine can be an order of magnitude better than a human, I would genuinely like to understand why people are enamored about such sports. In the end it seems like brilliant minds lost in math that’s not even novel anymore.. again everyone should do what they please, but this is just an academic question from someone unable to appreciate such skills or sports.

Would you say it doesn't make sense to appreciate art because cameras exist?

Actually, with the advent of image generating AIs, such questions become more relevant.

Imagine a book, a ballet choreography, a movie entirely conceived and produced by an AI, which we collectively regard it as "art". Also imagine that, barring evidence of how the work was done, it is impossible for humans to distinguish if the work of art was produced by a human or an AI.

Why should we, as "appreciators/consumers" of this art, care about how it was done? Do we think that a drawing made with the help with a computer "less artistic" than one drawn on paper?

Also imagine that this AI is friendly and superhuman, and it is established that its works are aligned with our interests. All "art" produced by this AI inspires us to be better version of ourselves and enlighten us to help us solve our conflicts. In this scenario, why should we care about the work of one particular human vs another?

The point that I am trying to make is that chess is already a reduced version of this hypothetical. Those that care about chess as a game will have little to learn by looking at humans. Those that want to improve their own game will do it by playing against/studying/interacting with the advancements in computers. There is very little left room for humans by themselves to show any new development in the game. As such, it seems to me that the ones interested in events related to human players are those who worry more about measuring humans against each other than in the game itself.

Why care about racing when a motor vehicle can do travel at speed better, by that logic?

Boxing vs. gun fight. Fencing vs. well, gun fight. Swimming vs. motorboats? Bobsleigh vs... gravity?

In most sports it's possible to find a machine that does it better/faster, but sports are about humans measuring themselves against one another, not against a machine.

There are still quite a bit of sports where machines can’t compete, like tennis or soccer.

Only if you consider that the machine should act like a human player. We can definitely build machines that beat humans in both tennis and soccer every single time.

How would that soccer player look? I don’t think we can build a machine that is good at soccer.

Once you remove the requirement that it look or act like a human, there's plenty of (pointless) ways you could make robots beat humans at football. A drone could pick up the ball and fly it into the goal without breaking the rules because the rules assume that to carry the ball it would need to touch your hands or arms (which the drone doesn't have). Build another robot that's the exact size of the goal, and too heavy to move off the goal line, hey presto the other team can't score.

I think this line of thinking only makes sense if either you do require the robots to behave like humans (opposite of the comment you replied to), or by rewriting the rules of the game completely.

But then it wouldn't be soccer any more. Of course you could just build a high wall over the field so the opponents are physically prohibited to score. I'm quite sure that still is prohibited, even if you call the wall a player.

I don't think you need the players to look like humans, but you have to in some way keep the spirit of the game. For example, you can't pick up the ball and hold it while you move, but have to roll or bounce it in front of yourself (dribble).

That's my point, that for it to make sense they either need to be restricted to acting like humans or the rules of the game need to be updated to suit robots in which case it's not the same sport any more, even if the rules are changed to keep it as close to human football as possible as you suggest.

*yet.

Also used to be true for chess.

The guy from "Stuff Made Here" builds all sorts of sports machines: a gun-powered golf club, a basketball hoop that's impossible to miss, etc. I think he would be able to make a tennis playing machine that aces every single service shot (if he's not working on that already! ;-)

A very easy way to do it would just be to serve the ball at > 400km/h. It's unlikely that a human could accurately return a ball at that speed more than 50% of the time.

I don’t know the rules of tennis well enough, but would it be enough to just have an unreturnable serve to win, even if you can’t return anything yourself?

no, you have to win by two games. So you have to be able to win once with your opponent serving.

> (if he's not working on that already! ;-)

Right now he seems to be occupied with his automatic puzzle solver. Based on the first video it looks like it'll take a while.

Good question... Why should we care?

It's like "okay, here we have a bunch of genetically gifted people who spend their whole lives training for that. Why should we care whether someone can run 100m in less than 10s or not? What difference does it make to any of us if Usain Bolt is the fastest man to run the 200m on a very controlled environment?"

This is not to say that running as an activity is useless, or that we should give up on exercising. I don't know if that is the point from OP, but I myself do question why we collectively think that is so important to devote so much time and resources in trying to optimize for these crazy, arbitrarily-constrained scenarios that we call "sports".

The answer is entertainment. I don’t care about any sports (though after a brief stint in watching LoL esports around 2011-2014, I at least understand the theoretical appeal), but many people do. Others don’t care about music. Or about films. But in the end all of it is bread and games.

Entertainment works as an answer of why we do it, but not the question I made, which is why/whether we should.

This is only a distinction if you consider entertainment without value

Not really. I am questioning "sports following as entertainment", not entertainment in general.

Your argument is valid, but it should be noted that the best autonomous racing cars in the world would get absolutely trounced by even amateur racing drivers.

That’s like saying why watch 100m sprint when we have formula 1.

Why throw javelins when intercontinental missiles exists?

To be fair, athletes throwing ICBMs would really up the excitement of the Olympics.

Numan Athletics was an arcade game that played up this angle: https://youtu.be/X2K3hs7AUhQ

Aren't machines better than humans at most sports? Hand off a football to an Abrams tank and it's not getting tackled on its way to the goal line.

Absolutely. That’s why I’ve never been able to follow or watch any sport. Except maybe Ronny Sullivan playing snooker? Anyways the point is I have never been able to appreciate the value of sports as something you watch.

Why was that dog/bunny puzzle at the top of HN's frontpage yesterday? How were so many people entertained by it, when a computer could have solved it in microseconds?

Humans like puzzle games, for some intrinsic reason. Chess is a very large and addictive puzzle.

I think competitive sports are and always have been about competition between humans, and I don't believe that the ability of a machine to play chess better than any human changes that, any more than the fact that, say, a hare can outsprint a human, or a horse outrun one in any middle distance, makes foot racing intrinsically uninteresting.

In addition, humans enjoy playing games, and I think this extends to watching or following other humans who are better at it as a vicarious means of participating. A Saturday poker game with your crew is not diminished by the fact that everyone in the game would be slaughtered in a professional tournament, nor is the fun of watching said tournament diminished by that knowledge. I can enjoy a game of flag football with my family, and still enjoy an NFL Monday Night game, even though no one in my family would last 2 plays in the latter.

Is there any clue how he may be cheating? Apparently they have metal detectors at the events.

Elon and others seems to think beads in the back.

"Hans could play even better with my Hyperpoop."

> Hans has admitted to cheating online

Several years ago. I think when he was 16? (Not saying that is when he cheated, but that’s when he admitted to cheating).

Hans as admitted to cheating on chess.com when he was 12 and 16, so not that long ago since he is only 19 right now.

I know he admitted this in September 2022. What I can't find out (and Google makes damn near impossible to find out due to its recency bias) is when he first admitted this.

12, 16, and 19 are worlds apart.

16 and 19 aren't, and who's to say there's a 3 year gap there?

I’d say 16 and 19 are further apart than 30 and 40 (said as a 36-year-old).

So he’s a kid exploring what he can get away with?

There is nothing that can help Magnus’s case because Magnus has made no case.

He played Hans at the meltwater tournament, and beat him. A few weeks later, he played Hans again at the Sinquefeld cup, and lost to him. After which he posted a cryptic Jose Mourinho meme. And a few weeks later he played Hans online and resigned in 1 move.

What’s Magnus’s case? What has he said his case is? What’s his argument? That losing to Hans was too traumatic for him and that he can’t play him anymore? Because he had no problem playing him while he was still winning against him.

>After which he posted a cryptic Jose Mourinho meme

AND left the tournament, which he never did before, and it almost never happens that someone leaves the tournament without stating why. Magnus case is, that he accuses Niemann of cheating, it is very simple. :-) He didn't say that, but he acted like that, he communicated it with his actions.

> He didn't say that, but he acted like that, he communicated it with his actions.

couldn't it be something else that is causing grief between the two?

> As more evidence comes out

I haven't seen evidence of Neumann's cheating, as is claimed in this comment. Only allegations, which do not look very strong to me.

There are two lines of evidence: first regarding his cheating online, which is easier to do and easier to check. Chess.com banned Hans and put out a statement saying that Hans cheated more often and more seriously than he claimed. [1]

The second line of inquiry is statistical analyses of Hans's over-the-board games. See my original comment for one such analysis, but he really has been playing at an absurd level in some games (performing as well 0 centipawn loss against some engines!)

It's not a good look.

[1] https://twitter.com/chesscom/status/1568010971616100352

What a person did at 16 years old is hardly relevant now, and it is definitely immoral to keep bringing it up without new evidence. How long would it take for people like you to stop bringing up 'he has a history of cheating'? 10 years? 20 years? 30 years? 50 years?

He had played at a way more serious events, and still the only 'evidence' of cheating is his relatively good performance. Until someone comes up with an explanation how he is able to cheat with games streamed with delay and after metal detector scanner, I suggest treating Carlsen's behavior as tantrums of a person who can't take a loss.

Also, whatever chess.com says about cheating online is irrelevant, as their methods are known to produce a lot of false positives. Additionally, since recently chess.com is in business relationship with Carlsen, so they can hardly be counted as an independent party in all of this.

> What a person did at 16 years old is hardly relevant now

That argument works better when someone's 25 than when they're 19. This isn't the distant past, this is 3 years ago. That's definitely recent enough to be a black mark on his reputation. On the other side, the main person who's suspicious of them isn't some internet random. It's the world greatest chess player, which should is decidedly a mark in one's favor reputation-wise.

This is the very basis of how reputation works. You slowly establish reputation by having a track record of positive behavior, you rapidly tarnish reputation by having a track record of negative behavior, and when you are making judgements based on limited information about the activity at hand, you trust the more trustworthy.

Think of how much good will Microsoft has had to build in the last 10 years to try and make up for the 20 before that. Think of the fable of the boy who cried wolf. Trusting those who have earned it and distrusting those who have wronged before is basic society 101.

The "sin" he committed was playing no stakes online blitz, and you are projecting this 'mark' on his reputation to a professional over the board tournament with anticheating measures. The tournament organisers were very confident that no cheating took place at the event. To me it is a rather closed case.

Regarding Carlsen's behavior, so far it looks like he has grown a very big ego. Not interested in a second championship match with Nepo, throwing tantrums against an up and coming player who defeated him. Maybe he's feeling he is losing his edge against a new generation of players, and doesn't like it.

I have heard a concrete allegation that in the Capablanca Memorial 2022 tournament (which was over the board), Niemann has games where he plays normally up to a point in the midgame, then he plays the top line of a specific engine (Stockfish 11) for an implausible number of moves in sequence.

There are a lot of lower-quality accusations, but this is the interesting one IMO. It should be easy enough to independently check for someone who has a setup for that sort of thing.

ChessBruh mentioned that this youtube channel has analysis of Hans' Games, focusing on centipawn loses after standard openers are filtered out:

https://www.youtube.com/c/ChessfanMWP/videos

The last 5 or so vids on that channel are in English, but youtube does a decent-ish translation of his other videos too.

Yes, he is the source of that allegation. He is very hard to follow, though. He's not a great caster, and his accent is so thick that YouTube's automatic captioning misidentifies it as Russian.

You mean over the board, right? Because he himself has admitted to cheating online twice, but if you think about it even a bit people don't just cheat once, then get caught, then couple years later repeat the process. Most likely he had cheated at least before and between the times he got caught.

Whatever kids do online at 16 yo playing on a second-rate chess site (and chess.com is a second-rate) is hardly relevant to how they play over the board in a top level chess events.

In my experience, people who do do deceitful stuff - steal, lie and cheat - act quite predictably when confronted with their allegations:

1. I didn't cheat!

2. Ok yeah I cheated those times but I never did it again

3. GOTO 1

It seems we've gone through this cycle once already - where Niemann has admitted that he was caught cheating on two occasions in the past. And now chess.com are saying actually he has cheated more times than that, so we're seemingly going through this cycle at least once more: https://twitter.com/chesscom/status/1568010971616100352

This is very feelings-based but as an outsider who doesn't really play Chess and can't evaluate what happened on the board, it certainly doesn't look good. He's at very least been quite dishonest

This is exactly how it works. It's disappointing how many ifs and buts people are giving him just because they don't particularly like Carlsen. It really shows.

Cheaters are serial cheaters, and they will deny deny deny.

The problem is really that he has admitted to cheating more than once. There is a reason why sports and just about everything else employs zero-tolerance policies: It doesn't just happen once.

It can though. Kids can be young and make stupid mistakes.

I'm not saying that is what happened here - I really don't follow chess enough to have an informed opinion on this specific case.

However I object to the blanket opinion that there aren't people who cheated once and absolutely regretted it and never did it again, especially kids, especially online.

On one level you're right, if you do something dishonest then admit it that doesn't automatically mean you're never to be trusted ever again. However I think the more times someone goes through the deny/concede cycle I described, the less trustworthy they are, especially if it's for exactly the same thing each time.

I will agree with that too, if there is evidence of cheating after previously having claimed to have repented I would be highly unlikely to advocate for a third chance.

As an interesting aside, it looks like we're both in a similar situation - normally non-chess people who have read or watched a bit about this - but we happened to have landed on different opinions (me being a bit suspicious, you being willing to give benefit of the doubt). So it's funny that this issue appears to have divided both insiders and outsiders alike.

I think my experience playing esports (only at a semi-pro/amateur level however), including LAN play somewhat guides my perspective. Cheating is much more common in esports because of the nature of the game. However there are a lot of reformed cheaters that went on to become either amazing players or great people in the scene even if they didn't return to or find success in playing.

Great examples from CS:GO include s1mple, went on to become undisputed GOAT. Steel and the iBuypower crew (not cheating but matchfixing) that eventually became casters/analysts and upstanding members of the community.

In both of these cases the lapses of judgement occurred when the players were young. s1mple got a second chance, iBuypower didn't. I think they should have been offered that same chance as they showed over the years their character wasn't black, they had just made a grave mistake. A more fitting punishment would have been a length limited ban of a year or so, instead they were handed down lifetime bans from official events which I think was too harsh for essentially a bunch of teenagers.

The thing people often forget is that once you’re above backyard pickleball you HAVE to be good at the game to cheat; cheating alone won’t turn a crappy player into a good one.

Cheating is that last edge that puts competitive players above their competition.

And for things like matchfixing- these are almost impossible to detect so you basically have to come down very hard on them.

Ahhhhhhh ok I see that's a bit different from how I was thinking about it, and yeah that does feel more forgivable. Here's maybe a better way of describing what I mean (though it's getting a bit more abstract and distant from the Hans/Magnus issue) if we have a timeline like this:

1. BadThingX occurs

2. related BadThingY occurs

3. related BadThingZ occurs

4. Bob denies doing all instances of BadThing

5. something comes out, and Bob concedes that he's done BadThingX when he can no longer get away with denying it

6. something comes out, and Bob concedes that he's done BadThingY when he can no longer get away with denying it

7. I am now pretty sure Bob is also responsible for BadThingZ

I've seen this kind of cascade of lies gradually unravel often enough that my brain (over?)eagerly pattern matches it. As I said this is a pretty abstract description that doesn't exactly fit, but I guess we're at least clear on how we have contextualised it and reached our own opinions.

> Cheaters are serial cheaters, and they will deny deny deny

Please cite research on that.

> There is a reason why sports and just about everything else employs zero-tolerance policies.

The sport doesn't employ zero-tolerance. The verdicts issued by WADA for cheating (doping) in sports are usually a suspension for ~1-6 years (out of the top of my head).

For some e-sports (e.g. ESIC and CS:GO), the verdicts are similar: a few months to maybe 2-3 years suspension from official tournaments.

This is a very uncharitable opinion that’s pretending to be a summary of a complex situation.

Follow discussions on r/chess and people like GothamChess, PowerPlayChess. Facts and very little speculation.

Evidence is needed.

> (for example, this analysis [1] shows that he's playing at superhuman levels in some games.)

Ken Regan, who is the world expert on identifying engine-assisted cheating in chess, disagrees [1].

No offense to random YouTube creator but I'll trust Regan's analysis over Chess fan MWP.

[1] https://en.chessbase.com/post/is-hans-niemann-cheating-world...

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