The Niemann-Carlsen Mystery

‘Chess speaks for itself,’ Hans Niemann said last month after unexpectedly defeating the world number one, Magnus Carlsen, in Miami. He beat him again in the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis on 4 September. The following day Carlsen pulled out of the tournament, announcing his withdrawal on Twitter ten minutes before play was scheduled to start. He wouldn’t give a reason, but embedded a YouTube clip of Jose Mourinho saying: ‘If I speak, I am in big trouble.’

Rumours spread that Carlsen suspected Niemann of cheating. As amateur online Pinkertons speculated how a competitor might evade the tournament’s airport-style security checks, one of the more sensational suggestions involved the transmission of computer-aided moves via Morse code to vibrating anal beads. It was quickly forgotten that what was at stake was the career of a fast-rising 19-year-old, accused of unfair, outside help – the chess equivalent of doping.

Carlsen may not have spread any allegations himself, but he did nothing to stop them either. And then, yesterday evening, facing Niemann again in the sixth round of the Julius Baer Generation Cup, he resigned on the second move. He once more refused to explain his actions, turning down requests for comment or interview. The Generation Cup is an online tournament where players dial in from home; Carlsen is in Norway, Niemann in New York; both were live on camera, both expressionless for the few seconds of connection. It was a divisive gesture. Spectators and media tended to view it as unsporting: a dirty protest that should perhaps see Carlsen ejected from the competition for bringing the game into disrepute.

There’s a chance that Carlsen will be drawn against Niemann in the knockout stages that begin on Thursday. If he resigns then, he’ll be eliminated from the competition. The Generation Cup is part of a tour initiated by Carlsen and organised by the Play Magnus Group. He still holds a minority stake in the company and acts as its public face, which makes his behaviour all the harder to understand: the pairing had long been scheduled and was an obvious flashpoint given what had happened two weeks earlier.

The Generations Cup’s tournament director, Arne Horvei, said on Sunday that the organisers had no concerns about Niemann after examining his recent games and there were no grounds for rescinding any invitations. Ken Regan, a computer scientist who runs a model designed to spot players getting covert assistance, has also given Niemann’s recent play a pass. He did concede, however, that his model would not be able to spot if Niemann had managed to spy on Carlsen’s opening preparations, a separate avenue of online speculation.

The only evidence of cheating in the public domain relates to Niemann’s early track record in online play. It raises complex questions about the participation of children in adult competition and the relative status of online misdemeanours, whether youthful or otherwise. Niemann insists that he has never cheated in chess played across a board and stopped cheating online when he stopped being a child.

He has admitted to being twice barred from chess.com, the largest online chess platform (hosting ten million games a day). The first time was at the age of 12, when he and a friend played in a prize money online tournament while consulting a device; the second time at 16, when he used engine assistance in what he described as ‘random’, ‘unrated’ games. This has raised suspicions, as he claimed he was merely trying to improve his rating, but you cannot improve your rating by playing unrated games.

On 8 September, chess.com put out a press release indicating that they had ‘detailed evidence … that contradicts his statements regarding the amount and seriousness of his cheating’. It turned out they had suspended Niemann again immediately after his St Louis game against Carlsen and removed him from their flagship tournament, the Global Championship.

This is all very murky. On 4 September, the platform’s ‘chief chess officer,’ Danny Rensch, was tweeting his excitement at the prospect of Niemann defeating Carlsen. The next day Niemann was persona non grata and the target of endless online speculation.

There is a serious discrepancy here: chess.com has done what the Generation Cup did not even though it is not directly involved in either of September’s controversial tournaments. Niemann appears to have played no games on the site since late August.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that at the end of August, the Play Magnus Group accepted a takeover bid of $80 million from chess.com. It’s possible that Carlsen is party to information held by chess.com that he is not at liberty to pass on to other parts of the Play Magnus Group until the deal goes through.

The multiplicity of possible interpretations is exhausting. At the moment, nothing speaks for itself, and that’s a big problem for the state of the game at large as well as Carlsen’s personal reputation, with this all coming so soon after he chose to relinquish his world title.