Niemann’s Gambit

Two weeks ago, the world chess champion Magnus Carlsen issued a statement explaining the reasons for his ‘unprecedented’ departure midway through the Sinquefield Cup and his one-move forfeit loss in the Champions Chess Tour a few days later. ‘I have only been able to speak with my actions,’ he wrote, ‘and those actions have stated clearly that I am not willing to play chess with [Hans] Niemann.’

Niemann has admitted to cheating in online play (the ‘childish mistake’ of a sixteen-year-old) but insists he has been clean since being sanctioned by Chess.com and has never cheated in real life tournaments.

Carlsen however believes Niemann has cheated ‘more – and more recently – than he has publicly admitted’. He offered no objective supporting evidence, but expressed his preference plainly: ‘I don’t want to play against people that have cheated repeatedly in the past, because I don’t know what they are capable of doing in the future.’

A class above his rivals, Carlsen has either used his privileged position to take a principled stand or abused it to blight the career of an up-and-comer (Niemann turned nineteen in June) who claims to have learned his lesson.

Bloggers, podcasters and streamers have pored over Niemann’s more recent efforts, competing to produce an analysis that lays to rest the debates over reform or recidivism. None has really cut it. Now Chess.com have released an internal report alleging that Niemann cheated in more than a hundred online games in the lead-up to his second ban from the site in 2020.

But the report fails to advance our understanding of the main issue: what should we make of Niemann’s current play? As the report puts it, nothing in Chess.com’s investigation raises ‘any red flags’ regarding Niemann’s subsequent play, recent rise or indeed the game in which he defeated Carlsen. Their anti-cheating methods cannot produce anything substantive to match what they found in 2020; they also say they have ‘carefully analysed many other presentations found online that claim to have found potential evidence of cheating’ and ‘concluded that the methodology and the underlying tools used in those analyses do not meet our standard’.

You might then wonder why they have issued a seventy-page dossier that will inevitably add to the speculation. Its pointers for further investigation could have been passed privately to the governing body, FIDE, which has announced its own panel to study the affair. Perhaps Chess.com are trying to be even-handed; perhaps they’re trying to justify their own recent behaviour.

When he first chose to respond to the online speculation, Niemann revealed that Chess.com had, immediately following his victory over Carlsen, again suspended his account and rescinded his invitation to its new flagship event, the Global Chess Challenge. If there was no evidence of recent cheating, why did they do this? Not, they say, under pressure from Carlsen (there’s no mention in the report that Chess.com is in the process of taking over the Play Magnus Group for $82.9 million):

We uninvited Hans from our upcoming major online event and revoked his access to our site based on our experience with him in the past, growing suspicions among top players and our team about his rapid rise of play, the strange circumstances and explanations of his win over Magnus, as well as Magnus’s unprecedented withdrawal.

This seems to have been a rushed decision from senior management. In early September, their support for Niemann drained away when Carlsen aired his concerns publicly, if obliquely. Other Global Chess participants had raised questions about what anti-cheating measures would be in place for the new online tournament with a million-dollar prize fund. Some had apparently identified Niemann as a specific concern.

With their big event imminent, Chess.com felt they had to respond urgently. The integrity and reputation of the tournament was threatened. ‘In order to have more time to investigate the OTB [over-the-board] situation and our own internal concerns, we uninvited Hans from our event and prevented his access to Chess.com.’ Perhaps they would not have published this report at all had Niemann not, in their eyes, gone on to downplay his past use of computer assistance and complained about their U-turn.

As regards what happened in 2020, their allegations contradict Niemann’s own account. He claimed to have cheated only twice: once at 12, when he was led astray by a friend, and again at 16, when he cheated in some ‘random’, ‘unrated’ games – but never for money. Chess.com, however, say that Niemann’s violations included at least two prize-money tournaments and private rated matches against top players that he live-streamed to his followers. Directly and indirectly, the misbehaviour was for stakes.

In a private email sent to Niemann last month, included as ‘Exhibit B’ in the report’s appendices, Danny Rensch, Chess.com’s chief chess officer, wrote: ‘In addition to the direct monetary benefit that a top standing/prize position in those events would earn you, the rating points gained were significantly beneficial to you.’ A higher rating would lead to more followers on his channel.

Chess.com pledged to keep the matter confidential at the time but clearly think they are justified in releasing the information now, perhaps because Niemann’s interviews in September breached the terms of an agreement. There is no appeal to any legal framing, however, and, as presented, the written record is patchy.

A lot appears to hinge on a one-to-one call and a subsequent instant message exchange that Rensch had with Niemann in 2020 (when Niemann, aged sixteen, was by his own account living alone in New York City during the pandemic, and had rent to pay). ‘During this call,’ the report says, ‘Hans confessed to the cheating offences.’ How much weight can be put on what a teenager may or may not have said when a company executive collared him and threatened to pull the plug on his streaming career? No one else seems to have been privy to these conversations and Chess.com does not outline what steps it took to ensure that Niemann (ostensibly a minor) was accompanied, or advised independently as to the repercussions of any admission of guilt.

The report acknowledges in its conclusion that Chess.com ‘can do better in our transparency, timing and messaging moving forward’ and indicates that they will be proposing changes to the way they handle cheating. They haven’t made any changes yet, however. Only last week, they passed emails relating to their banning of another grandmaster – who happens to have been Niemann’s coach – to Vice magazine.

Rensch has offered Niemann the prospect of a ‘wonderful redemption story’, but only if he confesses to the ‘full breadth’ of his past ‘violations’. Niemann has responded in his own fashion. He returned to competitive chess on Wednesday, winning his first game in the US Championship and announcing afterwards: ‘This game is a message to everyone. This game spoke for itself and showed the chessplayer that I am. I am not going to back down.’