I am limited in what I can say without explicit permission from Niemann
Dear Chess World
41–50 of 1001 posts
Re: Dear Chess World
#42For all the people defending Hans, he has admitted to cheating in real, official, prize money online tournaments, and chess.com believes that in his apology he still lied about the extent of his cheating. Maybe Hans did cheat OTB, maybe he didn't, but the tough part about reputation is it is very hard to build and very easy to break. And Hans had proven to the world that he would cheat. I personally don't think Hans…
To be fair to Hans, his claim is he cheated in a prize money tournament when he was 12. If he cheated in prize money games besides that it would be different, but I think most people are willing to forgive a 12 year old.
Re: Dear Chess World
#43How did Niemann cheat? Magnus uses Niemann's outplaying as evidence but is there anything concrete?
The somewhat-concrete evidence is that analyzers have now found many instances where Niemann's moves correlate highly with engine-suggested moves. I don't know the details as to whether that claim is credible. Is this correlation really any more for Niemann than any other grandmaster of similar strength? Are the analyzers cherry-picking data points that fit the narrative? And of course it is possible that Niemann is…
There is a guy named Ken Regan who is one of the leading experts in this question of whether the correlation with engine moves is at a normal or abnormal level. His statement is that he analyzed the last two years of Hans' games and found no evidence of cheating. So, yeah, the people on Reddit are probably cherry picking.
(https://en.chessbase.com/post/is-hans-niemann-cheating-world...)
The counter to that is that it looks likely that a clever high-level player could probably use an engine once or twice in a game in a judicious way and not raise statistical alarm bells. But still, Ken's work tries to suss out things like that--e.g. does the player in question make good moves in 'key' positions. Plus, continued use of such techniques over time would leave a statistical trail.
Honestly, Magnus' statement of, "well, he beat me and it didn't look like he was thinking hard" is pretty thin. Magnus knows that Hans has a history of cheating in online games when he was younger and to me it feels like he's just seeing ghosts and deep into confirmation bias territory. Especially since the game in question took place at a high-level tournament with rigorous anti-cheating scanning, etc.
Re: Dear Chess World
#44I’m a Magnus fanboy. He’s been and continues to be a great champion. He’s up there in the pantheon with Kasparov, Anand and Fischer. We’re lucky to have him. That kinda settles this for me.
Re: Dear Chess World
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I could also decide to cheat when being in the top players in the world. Even better, because I would only need to use my cheats sometimes and hide it even better because my knowledge holds up enough.
The second best player in the world would be best positioned to cheat; they'd need a small advantage to become best. And the best player in the world could cheat, too, reducing their mental load and taking it easy. Both cases would likely be exposed by the cheaters getting lazy.
I don't think you become the best or second best player through a mindset that includes "I'll cheat if that's what it takes to reach the top".
Re: Dear Chess World
#46Why are known cheaters even allowed to participate in top level tournaments? It’s insulting to all the other chess players.
Magnus is setting the right example by refusing to play Niemann
Re: Dear Chess World
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The extent that anti-cheating measures in Contract Bridge have gone to is hilariously insane. The players are effectively in telephone booths and cannot say or do anything except mark a bid indicator or slide a card, and at regulated intervals, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_bridge Bridge is an imperfect information game so the opportunities are much larger, but something similar can happen in chess.
Then by all means, I'd encourage Carlsen to start the XFL of chess tournaments! The XCL? Whatever the case is, I don't think a public crusade is the right option. If he had conclusive evidence of him cheating during the match, he wouldn't have made such a protracted statement on it weeks afterwards.
Yeah, some of it seems like regret that he didn't withdraw from the tournament before the match, and some of it doubling down.
Still could be correct, however. I suspect that Carlsen has certain knowledge of Hans cheating at games later than 16 but not the one he lost that hasn't been revealed yet.
Re: Dear Chess World
#48Dear Chess World, At the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, I made the unprecedented professional decision to withdraw from the tournament after my round three game against Hans Niemann. A week later during the Champions Chess Tour, I resigned against Hans Niemann after playing only one move. I know that my actions have frustrated many in the chess community. I'm frustrated. I want to play chess. I want to continue to play chess…
"I'm not saying Hans Niemann cheated in this very specific instance against me. I'm just saying he's a professional cheater, and that fact may or may not be related to my withdrawal in a game against him after just one move."
Carlsen is all but accusing Niemann of having cheated against him. Why can't he go the extra step? Is this something his lawyers have advised him to do? (I don't have a dog in this fight)
Re: Dear Chess World
#49For all the people defending Hans, he has admitted to cheating in real, official, prize money online tournaments, and chess.com believes that in his apology he still lied about the extent of his cheating. Maybe Hans did cheat OTB, maybe he didn't, but the tough part about reputation is it is very hard to build and very easy to break. And Hans had proven to the world that he would cheat. I personally don't think Hans…
[deleted]
Re: Dear Chess World
#50This is highly disappointing.
For one thing, the fact that Carlsen is making this statement now and not weeks earlier is embarrassing.
For another, the evidence he presents is disappointingly weak. I can understand being suspicious of online games. Fair enough. But the evidence for cheating offline is:
1) Rapid progress in OTB chess. This rapid progress is still much less rapid than many other players and involved Hans quite clearly spending nearly 2 years only focused on chess during and after the pandemic. 2) Him competing as black in a way only a handful of players could. I’d argue there is almost no one who stands even a 10% chance of beating Magnus as black OTB. But, if all the GMs playing Magnus had a 0.1% chance, then there’s a 1/2000 chance he loses, and the loss is not likely to be to one of the top players simply because there are far more non top players. 3) Lack of nervousness. Well, it’s hard to see how Magnus would be beat by someone who was nervous. On 1 hand, Hans had nothing to lose and be nervous about. On the other hand Magnus had a ton of pressure on a quest for 2900.
At the end of the day, Hans didn’t play a brilliancy to beat Magnus. He simply played normal decent moves. The game itself presented no evidence of cheating.