It's very remarkable that Carlsen is suspicious of Niemann's game against him in Sinquefield, since there's a clear consensus among other top chess players that there was absolutely nothing unusual about it (or at least about the moves played).
You missed a large part. Some of his moves were "somewhat suspect". However, he was interviewed after the game with Magnus and he really could not explain why he was making the moves he made. Even the interviewers were almost laughing as he gave his "analysis" for his own moves. He played off his top engine moves as just getting lucky, while at the same time stating he didn't make other moves because they would have weakened his position (when in fact it was the other way around), while also stating he made other moves to strengthen his position (when in fact it was weakening).
Nothing he said made sense. He is playing against the top players in the entire world, and he can't really describe his games. This is super genius territory, and yet he just claims his skills to mostly just be based on luck.
But when you have all these factors happening during one game, statistically it is not probable.
If you think about it: Magnus, is Magnus. He has an aura about him. People make blunders playing against him they wouldn't against others. This is known. Magnus is ALSO very good. But that "aura"... doesn't hurt him.
If for whatever reason, Hans saw far enough ahead, to not be worried... and Magnus hadn't, what does that say about Magnus?
He mentioned Hans wasn't nervous, in comparison to Magnus he had nothing to lose.
I won't defend his prior cheating. I will say: Prove it Magnus.
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I'll draw a parallel to a game I have played at the national / international level. Bridge.
Bridge has had a TON of cheating scandals. People knew something was fishy. But they took the time, watched the videos, and figured out what happened.
Recent ones during the time I played:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantoni_and_Nunes_cheating_sca...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_and_Schwartz_cheating_s...
A whole article on the topic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_bridge
... I want the smoking gun Magnus. Not your gut.
I wonder if "bridge supercomputers" as a cheating method has been tried. I assume the percentages on finesses working, etc, are easy enough for the experts to learn that they're not very worthwhile.
Interestingly, the computers would to MUCH better on defense. Because as you bid, you speak about the distribution of your hand, and your partner does the same about theirs. (Even in negative inferences.)
And trust me: Good opponents will use that information, already.
So far, bridge has found the smoking guns because honestly: The cheaters have sucked at cheating.
If they bothered to actually encrypt their signals at all, they would have been suspected, but not caught.
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To answer the question: Even today. Good players will know the answer to when to take which finesses. Where good, is probably around Life Master and a bit under.
The consensus among the top GMs was that Hans’s postgame analysis was way below the level you would expect from a player of his rating, never mind a player near Carlsen’s rating (which is much higher)!
The quality of players post-game interview varies widely. Some clearly don’t put much thoughts into them because they would rather go home. Niemann is in good company here. That was nothing particularly exceptional.
And if you don't want to and just would like to go home, fair enough, but then you really shouldn't give an explanation which is wrong!
It's a pattern with Niemann too, he's infamous for saying only "The chess speaks for itself" after beating Carlsen with black once before.
I think the parallel with academic cheating is accurate.
You clearly have never been through a four hours math exam with open questions.
There is no obviously correct answer. There is the way you tackled the problem and the myriad of other ways you could have done which might be more or less obvious, easy or correct.
It’s the same with chess. There is the line you played, the line your opponent played, the other lines you could have played which you did or didn’t consider, same with your opponent. Some of them you considered seriously, other you didn’t. Plus all the things you missed but didn’t matter because your opponent didn’t go there.
Also, you seem to believe chess players are doing post-game interviews because they want to. It’s not the case. It’s a mandatory part of participating in the tournament. Most of them would decline them if they could.
And yes Niemann is infamous for hating post-game interviews and always giving poor answers which is why I’m surprised people actually base their argument on this.
It's an exaggeration to say everyone hates post game discussion. Magnus used to dislike it somewhat, possibly - it was hilarious how Norwegian newspapers tried to turn him into a celebrity in those days because hey! Chess superstar! And it all fell flat because he was so unbelievably boring at the time, lol. He got more social confidence as he got older (and the media got better too, getting people who actually had a clue about chess to talk to him).
But these days, the young GMs are on twitch for heaven's sake. From a social and media standpoint, Niemann is perfectly competent, a lot more so than Magnus was at his age. It's explaining his play he avoids. So yes, it's suspicious. I'm equally surprised at why you would think people would just overlook this.
This is nothing like the Carlsen-Niemann case.
They absolutely were blundering much more than they did vs other opponents, showing a far lower quality off play than usual. Also I believe you didn't read much about his championship match. Remember how the games were moved to a different room, and why?
I thought you were talking about the Candidate's tournament. As for the championship match, it's not generally believed that Spassky severely underperformed anyway. He won several games and put up good fights in the draws and losses.
>I believe you didn't read much about his championship match
I am quite familiar with the surrounding circumstances, including the pre-match negotiations. I do not see how any of this "mentally unbalanced" or "broke" Spassky, unlike (arguably) Larsen and Taimonov. Furthermore, he's generally been commended for his behavior as a consummate professional and a "gentleman" in the circumstances.
I wonder if you are as familiar with chess (the game, professional play, and its history) as you lead on to be, posting all over this thread.
If Hans did go to all those extremes to cheat OTB it’s really surprising he would do so while playing black against Magnus Carlsen in an otherwise kind of pointless game.
The next step is to place that mild suspicion in the context of both his history of admitted cheating, his unwillingness/inability to explain his remarkable moves post-game, and the additional context of many other games played in the last few years with _extraordinary_ accuracy. Now something that could be explained by just a very strong game appears very suspicious.
That's the majority of the players in the Sinquefield cup. Even Levon, who was initially skeptical, has since reversed his position.
As is tradition in chess, no one says "He cheated" they say things like "his moves were better than one would have expected" or "superhuman" or "I felt like I should trust my opponent over my calculation".
Other than that your guess is as good as mine as _how_ he could have received said assistance, I've seen some wild theories.
A micro-vibrating motor in his shoe, buzzing morse code? f4 to g5 for example?
1. The trope of the 'Depraved Homosexual' has a long established history in pop culture and cinema. Anal beads as the choice for cheating would fall, comfortably, into that trope. [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DepravedHomosexu...]
2. Chess is full of VERY smart people. One of the most common ways to insult a smart person is to call into question their sexuality; hence why we have to have entire movements related to calling out anti-lgbtq+ statements like "that's so gay". [https://welcomingschools.org/resources/stop-thats-so-gay-ant...]
Anyway, combine those two things, and you get your answer. It's because the world hasn't really evolved at all in the last 30-40 years, outside of what we have been forced to do by law. It's easy and socially acceptable to call a man gay as an insult, so in a roundabout way, that's what we're getting with the anal beads talk.
I sort of laser focused on this last week when I heard this theory for the first time. It just struck me as so. . . odd. Why would that be a thing? That's what I came up with.
The key takeaway is that if you have someone assisting you (entering the information into the computer) they only need a very simple way of sending a signal - which could be a "do something unexpected" or "this move is crucial". And you'd only need a time or two in a game to get the edge, assuming you're already skilled at the game.
The simple fact is that computers vastly outcompete human chess players. And not just big and expensive purpose built machines but the kind of computers everyone has access to.
Furthermore at the skill levels these players are you don’t even need constant handholding from a computer. A few hints at key moments would be enough to basically shift the balance in someones favour.
So if someone wants to cheat all they have to do is to receive a few bits of information from an accomplice. The question is not even if someone cheated in that particular game, but if cheating is possible.
We can imagine all kind of spy gadgetry one could use to communicate those few bits. People have two hangups with many of them: they can be found in a security screening, or they sound too sci-fy.
The vibrating anal beads combine three properties: - they could transfer the few bits of information needed to tilt the game in favour of a cheat. - they are not too far fetched. You can buy them right now commercially. - they would be very hard to detect by security arrangements. It feels very unlikely that players would agree to the kind of invasive probing which would be necessary to detect one.
So it is not that people think that this particular player in this particular game actually used vibrating anal beads. It is more about the idea that someone could cheat at chess with covert communication methods.
https://illuminati-magic.com/products/thumper
Some of them seem small enough that they won't trigger a metal detector. Currently they don't constantly scan the playing hall for wireless activity, which is what you'd need to detect this in use. I bet they start scanning for wireless transmissions soon, though.