This article delves into the tumultuous career of Hans Niemann, a young American chess grandmaster facing accusations of cheating. After a meteoric rise in the rankings, Niemann was embroiled in controversy following his victory over Magnus Carlsen, the world champion. Despite vehemently denying any wrongdoing, Niemann was banned from Chess.com and his reputation was severely tarnished. Now, seeking to rehabilitate his image and reclaim his place in the chess world, Niemann opens up about his experiences and aspirations.
The American grandmaster Hans Niemann had not left his apartment for four days before our lunch on a cold afternoon in the Flatiron District in New York City. He’d been playing with his table tennis robot, accepting food deliveries and practicing chess. He’d been searching for novelties in the ancient game and analyzing himself for weaknesses. He can play for 10 hours a day, and keeps a series of sparring partners on speed dial.
Niemann, 21, ought to be enjoying the shine of a bright young chess career. Five years ago, he ranked 1,157th in the world — today he is 20th. But during that feverish rise, Niemann has also cultivated a reputation as the game’s pre-eminent anti-hero, quick to conflict and controversy. This cultivation appears purposeful and remarkably effective. He arrives at our table late, with a tousled mop of hair and a rumpled Polo shirt. He’s chosen Mari Vanna, a maximalist Russian restaurant near Gramercy Park. It is empty when I arrive — of people, anyway. Antiques, curios and nesting dolls line shelves, Christmas decorations are stuck on walls, lace curtains screen the windows and my seat is a floral couch with matching pillow. Our waiter Volodymyr is glad to finally have something to do. Niemann’s seclusion is part of his “orchestration of fate”, as he calls it, an effort to rehabilitate himself from a headline-making cheating scandal that continues to vex the elite chess world. He describes himself as a “survivor”, illuminating truths and overcoming the barrages of his “greatest enemies”. The only salvation available now is becoming world champion. “My idea of reinstating the balance will be on the chessboard,” he tells me, leaning back in his chair. Balance was lost more than two years ago. In September 2022, when he was 19 years old, Niemann defeated Magnus Carlsen — the world number one, world champion and probably greatest player of all time — in a game at the prestigious Sinquefield Cup in St Louis. Any celebration was abbreviated. Carlsen, the most powerful man in chess, withdrew from the tournament in protest and tacitly accused Niemann of cheating, later arguing that Niemann’s “over-the-board progress has been unusual” and that he “wasn’t tense or even fully concentrating” during their game. Niemann admits to cheating in a number of games online, when he was 12 and 16 years old, but vehemently denies ever cheating in an in-person encounter. “We’re going from stealing a comic book to, like, CIA-level,” he says of the accusations. Some speculated that he was receiving moves from a technologically aided accomplice via a concealed device, but there is no evidence that he cheated in St Louis. One elaborate theory, amplified by Elon Musk to more than 100mn Twitter followers, prompted only the second occurrence of the phrase “anal beads” in this newspaper. It was the biggest chess scandal since Toiletgate in 2006 (possible phone consultation in a bathroom) and until last year’s Jeansgate (denim-based violation of a tournament dress code). Niemann was exiled from his cloistered world. In the aftermath, Niemann sued Carlsen and others for defamation, conspiracy and $100mn damages. The suit was eventually dismissed and parties reached an undisclosed agreement. After that case I had asked Niemann if, with the benefit of some hindsight, he wanted to talk about the affair. Fifteen months later, he responded. “I’m ready to do the lunch.” Chess is typically traced back some 1,500 years, to an Indian game called chaturanga, supposedly created to simulate military strategy. It is now the canonical board game of the west. So canonical that skill at the game is often metaphorically equated with intelligence itself. Chess was and is the object of a decades-long assault by artificial intelligence, summiting in the late 1990s when an IBM supercomputer defeated the world champion Garry Kasparov — if a machine can play good chess, it must be smart. But technology is both the root and the plough of cheating in chess: your phone is now a far stronger player than any human, and algorithms are used to identify scofflaws. The game’s very recent history is one of boom times, driven by pandemic lockdowns, the smash Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, and charismatic streamers on YouTube. Chess is now an unlikely e-sport, an ancient game played and broadcast to eager young audiences by eager young grandmasters. There are chess influencers and Niemann wants to be one — “a young guy challenges the old guard”, as he puts it. He mentions the Esports World Cup, in Saudi Arabia this summer, which recently added chess. “There’s a lot of money there,” he says — $1.5mn in prizes. There may also be a rematch with Carlsen — he is the event’s global ambassador. Whatever Niemann did in St Louis and before, Chess.com — a playing venue, news hub and superpower in the game — banned him and in October 2022 issued a 72-page technical report concluding that he “likely cheated” in more than 100 online game
CHEATING CHESS HANS NIEMANN MAGNUS CARLSEN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP REPUTATION SCANDAL ELITE CHESS
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