The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

I finally got a chance to look this up, and I think saying that Hans "lied outright" is fair. (Obviously on the assumption that you believe chess.com's analysis of his play on the site, and their claims of Hans' admissions to cheating there.)

I listened to the entirety of Hans' interview again, and also read a transcript thereof. But I could've saved some time because the chess.com report itself quotes (and paraphrases, separately) Hans' statements about his play there, and calls Hans' statements false outright.[1,2,3]

Here is a selection of Hans' direct quotes from the post-Sinquefield interview which are outright falsehoods according to chess.com:[4]

"I have never, ever in my life cheated in an over the board game, or in an online tournament. They were in unrated games."

"Other than when I was 12 years old, I have never, ever, ever--and I would never do that, that is the worst thing I could ever do--cheat in a tournament with prize money."

"Never when I was streaming did I cheat."

"I did this when I was 12 years old. And then when I, and then the second, the other times I did it, it was not even in an over the board tournament, it was not even a prize money online tournament. It was in absolutely random games."

According not only to chess.com's analysis and the evidence they present, but apparently to Niemann's own admissions to them, each of these statements is outright false on their own. (And if they are false, then together they also grossly misrepresent the overall picture of his behavior.) It appears Hans did in fact cheat in rated games, and in cash prize games, as well as cheating while streaming, and while playing against highly rated players in "real" games.

1: "Consistent with the letter we sent Hans privately on September 8, 2022, we are prepared to show within this report that he, in fact, appears to have cheated against multiple opponents in Chess.com prize events (beyond the Titled Tuesday event that Hans admitted to having cheated in when he was 12), Speed Chess Championship Qualifiers, and the PRO Chess League. We also have evidence that he appears to have cheated in sets of rated games on Chess.com against highly-rated, well-known figures in the chess community, some of which he streamed online. These findings contradict Hans’ public statements.

In particular, in interviews given during the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, Hans made several comments to the press about alleged instances of prior cheating :

• “Other than when I was 12 years old, I have never, ever, ever – and I would never do that, that is the worst thing that I could ever do – cheat in a tournament with prize money.”

• “Never when I was streaming did I cheat.”

• “Keep in mind I was 16 years old, I never wanted to hurt anyone, these were random games. I would never – could even fathom d doing it – in a real game.”" -Page 4 of the chess.com report on Neimann.

2:"If you are willing to correct the false statements you made about having never cheated when it mattered (now that you have said these untruths publicly), acknowledge the full breadth of the above violations, and cooperate with us to compete under strict Fair Play measures, Chess.com would be happy to consider bringing you back to our events. In fact, I think it would be a wonderful redemption story for the full truth to come out, for the chess world to see this and acknowledge your talent regardless of your past, and give the community what they deserve: The truth." -Page 58 of the chess.com report on Neimann.

3: "In your interview you mentioned (paraphrased) that you “cheated when you were 12” and then “later when you were 16 in an unrated game”. This directly contradicts our statistical evidence, as well as the conversation you and I had in our private call when you confessed to cheating, and there is written evidence from you that substantially corroborates this. You also contradicted your own statement that you had only cheated in unrated games in the interview by later stating that you did it to gain rating points, which obviously indicates cheating in rated games." -Page 57 of the chess.com report on Neimann.

4: https://youtu.be/CJZuT-_kij0

> I really can't shake my personal feeling that chess as a sport is just simply dead, especially as an online e-sport.

This sent me musing whether we are actually witnessing the emergence of a new type of gamesmanship. If we don't end up killing each other in another global war (sadly there won't be subsequent volumes about "the war no one wanted"), then having men and machines team up in competitive environments is a given. (This is already happening, no doubt, in military settings.)

Maybe new games can be devised, or existing games modified, that can't default to games that are machine vs machine with the human teammates reduced to secretaries in the game. Games designed with AI teammate already in mind. The human role can't be just physical. I wonder what that would be like.

That wherewithal is the design skill. Some people have it, some don't. Some are good with data too, some not.

What seems really odd is that they don't have any data accusing him of cheating after his initial 2020 ban/new account creation.

They conclude that while there are several unusual things about his OTB play, there is not enough for them to conclude he probably cheated.

Basically the biggest takeaway here is that he definitely publicly lied about the extent of his cheating prior to his original ban.

This is something I don't understand, why should FIDE accept any evidence from Chess.com, a completely separate corporate entity? That Hans cheated on chess.com is a fact at this point, but I don't see why that means he should be banned from real OTB tournaments or even from competitor online chess websites like Lichess.