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The most convincing theory around this drama is that Magnus employed just such a honeypot by playing an obscure move Niemann responded perfectly to but was unable to later explain.

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On the other hand, if Niemann did exactly the same and researched less-known moves, he'd know how to play against them too. That won't actually prove he is cheating at that game. Just the fact that he analyzed them earlier. You'd need a significant number of such honeypot "incidents" to properly accuse someone of cheating.

That'd be an interesting exercise to figure out how big sample should be and how unlikely the moves would be. This is something for chess analysts I suppose.

I believe that there will never be decisive proof of Niemann cheating. But on the other hand chess is a game of strategy which seems to seep out of the playing board this time.

This has been on my mind in reading about this. It would explain a lot.

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