Chess.com Says Hans Niemann’s $100M Lawsuit Is a ‘Public Relations Stunt’
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Afaik, nobody is arguing that you can't punish somebody for breaking a rule. He even was banned in the past for cheating. However, you can't use an already punished infraction to issue a second infraction. Hans is claiming that he's been blacklisted from a bunch of tournaments as a result of a very unproven claim he cheated in the Sinquefield Cup.
He's also seemingly faced zero backlash from any tournaments following Sinquefield Cup, including participating in the US Chess Championship.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboa...
Just be aware that you'd have to ban ~20 percent of all grandmasters in chess.
Online cheating, even at the top level, is apparently rampant.
Biased source in this case, but https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating says 10%, which is certainly more than I would have thought:
> Of the cheaters we have detected to date, 51 (10.2%) are grandmasters. 98 (19.6%) are international masters, and 160 (31.9%) are FIDE masters. More than 90% of these players are male.
Then complain when said person files a law suit.
To add insult to injury. Chess.com is the one who jumped on the Niemann bandwagon. But somehow is Niemann how is doing the public relations stunt.
I find this whole episode very unpleasant. How one famous person's word against can make you a pariah to entire community; just like that.
*https://drive.google.com/file/d/11IokKgTVSXdpYEzAuyViIleSZ_2...
The Hans Niemmann Report does not claim that Hans beat Magnus by cheating.
> X. The Sinquefield Cup and the Game with Magnus Carlsen
> ... In our view, no conclusions should be made from this data.
1. Hans Niemann is a cheater.
2. Hans Niemann defeated Magnus Carlsen by cheating in an over the board tournament.
I think claim (1) is well substantiated by chess.com's report.
There's no concrete evidence which supports (2).
"Hans beat the world champion; the world champion then accused him of cheating and forfeited from the tournament. ... No evidence of his cheating has been found. chess.com later released a report which did nothing to substantiate claims of cheating"
I think closer is:
"... Hans defended himself from accusations of cheating by admitting he has cheated online a few times, but never for money. chess.com later reported he has cheated prolifically, including for prize money. Despite this, no evidence of cheating during the tournament was found".
I think the main tension is to what extent having cheated online should affect regard treatment during over the board games. It's not really a situation of 'sore loser suspects cheating'.
On the other hand, protesting to make a statement is much stronger if the action is disruptive, and if you feel the problem of "cheating in chess" hasn't otherwise been acknowledged.
You don't even have to read 5 pages to see it's entirely about (2).
> Notorious for his inability to cope with defeat, Carlsen snapped. Enraged that the young Niemann, fully 12 years his junior, dared to disrespect the “King of Chess,” and fearful that the young prodigy would further blemish his multi-million dollar brand by beating him again, Carlsen viciously and maliciously retaliated against Niemann by falsely accusing Niemann, without any evidence, of somehow cheating during their in-person game and demanding that the organizers of the Sinquefield Cup immediately disqualify Niemann from the tournament.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.moed.19...
Either he's suing chesscom for something else, or he shouldn't be suing them.
From the outside perspective, Hans used Chess.com’s brand by essentially saying that Chess.com vouches for his credibility. Then Chess.com asked Hans to recant and came out with their fat report after he refused. Hans is trying to bring Chess.com into this by saying that there's a conspiracy against him.
Or in other words given that the report is chess.coms only statement, unless hans is suing them about something in the report, they shouldn't be in the suit.
Like to be clear, in a legal proceedings like this, onus is on the plaintiff to show preponderance of evidence. So the question isn't for me, but for you: why is hans suing chess.com? What did they say that was defamatory?
Hans admitted cheating while playing games on Chess.com. Is alleging that he cheated more than he previously admitted destroying his career and livelihood?
That's not what Hans is claiming so it's irrelevant.
Hans is claiming that as a result of him beating Magnus in a game he did not cheat in. Hans is now blacklisted from nearly every chess event.
It should be noted that there was no direct evidence of cheating in the game vs Magnus. However, Magnus is insanely good at chess, and his word carries a lot of weight when it comes to fair play (despite the obvious bias). The main reason people don't like him is because of the cheating, not because of the specific game. The game is just what brought this entire situation up, and how a lot of his past cheating started getting exposed.
https://www.chessdom.com/hans-niemann-in-the-sole-lead-at-th...
> Despite the falsity of Defendants’ accusations, Defendants’ malicious defamation and unlawful collusion has, by design, destroyed Niemann’s remarkable career in its prime and ruined his life. As a result of Play Magnus and Chess.com’s collusion to blacklist him from chess, Niemann can no longer compete in any online Chess.com or Play Magnus tournaments, and will not receive invitations to in-person events sponsored by Chess.com or Play Magnus, which collectively comprise the majority of FIDE-sanctioned chess tournaments.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.moed.19...
One famous person's word and Han's own history as a cheater that is.
But they did allow him to play, and only now after the fact want to somehow disqualify that he played and won and fairly.
I don't think people willing to do that are in a great position from which to talk about anyone else's integrity.
>But somehow is Niemann how is doing the public relations stunt.
What else would you call this lawsuit? Do you think Niemann, a known cheater, has an actual claim which meets the very high standards he needs to overcome to win the suite? Do you not think a professional chess player has the right to withdraw from a series and say that he does not feel comfortable playing a known cheater?
Maybe, maybe not. If it had turned out that it really had been the case that he hadn't done any cheating since childhood I would have been quite a bit more sympathetic. Redemption is not something you are entitled to, it is something you may receive after many years of exemplary behaviour.
Personally I wouldn't want him blacklisted from the entire sport. But at the same time he is deserving of suspicicion by other players. I also think that he didn't do himself any favors with that lawsuit and it makes it even more understandable if other professional players want to avoid playing him.
Has Hans done anything to warrant it? Not that I can see.
If he were to announce, say, a 5 year break from competitive play and a substantial amount of volunteer work, that'd be a start.
Not filing this sham of lawsuit.
He may have a legal right to do that.
But if someone does that, then the international chess federation should sanction that player for unsportsmanlike conduct, and bad the withdrawer from future tournaments.
Withdrawing already has a significant punishment. You lost.
I also fail to see how it is unsportsmanlike by itself. All else aside, why shouldn't you be allowed to withdraw from a game?
No, obviously people who are sick should not be punished for withdrawing.
Instead, I am saying that if someone engages in unsportsmanlike conduct, where you withdraw specifically in relation to, and in a way that damages your opponent, then that should be punished.
> how it is unsportsmanlike by itself
Well if you think for one second, you'd realize that I obviously was not trying to imply that sick people should be punished.
Then the rule is just pointless. Can anyone prove that you are not sick?
>where you withdraw specifically in relation to, and in a way that damages your opponent, then that should be punished.
Why should you be forced to play against a known cheater whom you suspect of having cheated against you?
You already get your punishment for withdrawing. Why should there be a rule that forces you to play against an opponent that makes you uncomfortable. What if your opponent were insulting you, withdrawing certainly would damage his reputation. Should you be forced there for 8 hours having him demean you, because doing anything else might damage his reputation? What if he is "just" trolling you while you try to think? Not okay to withdraw?
My point is where do you draw the line? Damaging your opponent certainly is not an acceptable standard.
No, but if someone goes into a tournament, resigns on move one, and then goes to Twitter with a tweet saying "if I speak....big trouble" then in that situation they can be punished.
Is it hypothetically possible that someone might be able to secretly pretend like they are sick?
Sure. But the point of rules like this is to prevent the highly obvious and damaging examples of unsportsmanlike conduct.
If someone is secretly resigning games in an unsportsmanlike manner, but nobody notices, then there isn't much actually damaging about those actions.
> should there be a rule that forces you to play
No, instead unsportsmanlike conduct should be punished. Such as resigning on turn one, and then going to Twitter about it with a vague accusation.
> My point is where do you draw the line?
Well what you do is you punish the really obvious stuff.
And if it is done super secretly, then it isn't that damaging anyway, and we don't have to worry about it.
Since you did that I am going to assume that you now take back your silly arguments about the impossibility of only punishing people who are super obviously engaging in unsportsmanlike conduct.
I am glad that I am able to convince you so easily, that actually yes it is possible to punish super obvious cases without also punishing people who are dying of a debilitating disease and much engage in an emergency withdrawal!
That was a pretty funny argument you were making though! It's really entertaining that you were actually trying to claim that it is impossible to find obvious cases without punishing uhh, sick people?
Nope.
>Since you did that I am going to assume that you now take back your silly arguments about the impossibility of only punishing people who are super obviously engaging in unsportsmanlike conduct.
My argument has always been that Magnus did not act unsportsmanlike. Obviously obvious offenses can and should be punished.
>am glad that I am able to convince you so easily, that actually yes it is possible to punish super obvious cases without also punishing people who are dying of a debilitating disease and much engage in an emergency withdrawal!
Good that I never made such an argument. I was just objecting to the rule as you had written it. I obviously agree that obvious misconduct can and should be punished, but not because there is some hyper specific rule you proposed.
>It's really entertaining that you were actually trying to claim that it is impossible to find obvious cases without punishing uhh, sick people?
I was refering to what you said the rule should be. Basically any sport has a general rule against bad behaviour. FIDE surely has one already, which could be applied, had any significant misconduct actually happened.
What is funny on the other hand is that you have moved the goal post from a specific action of Magnus to a nonsensical debate where you pretend I believe a rule almost any sports association has is impossible, when I was refering to your very bad proposal for a stupid additional rule.
So you agree with me completely and we're just arguing against a made up argument, regarding a "hyper specific rule" that I.never made.
I clarified multiple times on this, and you continued to pretend like it is impossible to punish unsportsmanlike conduct without punishing sick people.
So great!
Yes you agree with me that unsportsmanlike conduct that is obviously unsportsmanlike conduct, can be punished, and we don't have to worry about absurd hypotheticals of punishing sick people.
> was refering to what you said the rule should be
Actually, it was you who brought up this idea of it being impossible to punish unsportsmanlike conduct without punishing sick people.
It was you who made that argument, not me.
Indeed, and it seems pretty silly that you would claim that it is impossible to punish someone who resigned on move 1, in the way that he did, without punishing people who are deathly ill!
Surely you should understand how it is pretty easy to tell the difference between these two situations.
The fact that this was the context, is the exact reason why it is so silly to imply that punishing this behavior would also require punishing people who are very sick, and cannot play because of that.
The rule would pretty easily be able to tell the difference between someone who withdrawals from the tournament because they are sick, and someone who resigned turn 1 and then goes to Twitter about it.
Those are pretty easily distinguishable.
And it is funny that you made it seem like it is impossible to tell the difference between these two scenarios.
It was you who made it seem like this was difficult. You who brought up this sick person hypothetical, as if it was an unsolvable problem.
And now, once I've pointed out the absurdity of this supposedly unsolvable problem, according to you, you don't want to admit that this was silly to bring up in the first place.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, etc.
Chess.com said very little about Magnus's charge of cheating and constrained their commentary to their relationship with Hans. I don't see this as Chess.com trying to punish Hans as opposed to Chess.com trying to protect their brand by (1) banning a problematic player from their own online games and (2) retorting Han's claims about further online cheating.
Note that Hans does not dispute the legality of (1) and does not dispute the factuality of (2). Hans is trying to tie Chess.com into this by saying there's a conspiracy against him when he has provided zero evidence of that.
Always do the right thing to the best of your ability. Additionally, and importantly, fitting in and doing the right thing are NOT the same thing, though many people conflate the former with the latter as a moral shortcut. Doing the right thing is hard and Hans is going to have to do a lot of growing to get past this moment. His lawsuit suggests he’s not there yet.
Certainly many times a cheat, over an extended time frame, always a cheat.
You make assumptions about others based on what you know of yourself.
Here is a quote from the report[1]:
"Despite the public speculation on these questions, in our view, there is no direct evidence that proves Hans cheated at the September 4, 2022 game with Magnus, or proves that he has cheated in other OTB games in the past."
The circumstances around the OTB play are suspicious, definitely (not being able to explain his analysis, he coincidentally studied that exact position the night before, and his previous _confirmed_ cheating).
But he deserves a fair shake in this situation. And honestly, even if he's in the wrong - I don't think it should be a lifetime ban or anything.
I was an absolute moron when I was basically up to my mid-20s. I would call most 21-year-olds a kid today, and I'm only 30. There is still so much learning and growth that needs to happen. It's unfortunate our society pegs folks down as inherently bad - if that's their identity, they will forever stay that way.
Do you have a source for that so I can know the context better? :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jdiiPiu87I&t=17479s ---- Hans admitting to cheating
I'd say the "for money"/not, vs "online"/not is a more significant factor.
I mean, if someone shows they're willing to cheat for prize money in online games, I'd be surprised to hear that they'd have qualms about cheating for money in an OTB game.
> It's not a fact
Didn't Hans confess to this too? How is it not a fact?
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me thrice... won't get fooled again?
There are no winners in this. Magnus looks like a spoiled kid who throws tantrums (I think he psyched himself out in the game where he lost to Nieman), Hans looks even worse than him for bringing in lawyers.
They will protect their investments with each other.
Haha, cute. No, it is a lawsuit and they have to defend themselves properly.
There's also a chance they could lose. If I was them I'd start taking this seriously, this is no game anymore.
Hans will need to prove they were malicious which I don't think he will be able to. However, I suspect he will consider losing a lawsuit because of that fact he failed to prove maliciousness as opposed to Chess.com proving he cheated (in the game vs Magnus) a win.
We'll see.