There is currently no court conviction against Magnus Carlsen for accusing Hans Niemann of cheating without evidence in the September 4 game between the two, which Niemann won. A Missouri (USA) judge has dismissed the American’s lawsuit against the Norwegian (then world champion and still number one) for “not less than a hundred million dollars” on each of the charges: defamation, defamation, violation of antitrust laws and civil conspiracy . The judge considers the last two closed but leaves the door open to a new lawsuit if new evidence is presented on the first two. Defendants in the lawsuit also included platform Chess.com and American grandmaster and streamer Hikaru Nakamura.
No chess grandmaster (except Carlsen) and no reputable expert today claims that Niemann cheated at the auto game played at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, the Missouri state capital. Carlsen played it knowing that Niemann had cheated at internet games when he was a minor (now 20 years old) based on inside information from Chess.com (120 million users). The Scandinavian played this game well below his usual level.
From the next day, Carlsen hinted several times and in different ways that Niemann had cheated in that game. Not only verbally – but always with words that were not a clear direct accusation – but also with deeds: For example, with the resignation after just one move in a game he played with Niemann in an online tournament, the Julius Baer, on April 19 .played September, two weeks after his loss in St.Louis. Or with this sentence: “I think Niemann cheated more than he admits.” In the many online debates since then, several lawyers predicted that the judge would dismiss the lawsuit because Carlsen’s statements as a simple opinion based on freedom of speech and could not be interpreted as a clear case of defamation.
At the time of writing this chronicle, the reasoning behind the judge’s decision is unknown. Niemann did not respond to a request from EL PAÍS for his opinion. Yes, the satisfied words of Carlsen’s lawyers and the directors of Chess.com, which at the time of the events just completed the purchase of Chess24 – another platform of which Carlsen is the majority shareholder – were released for more than 80 million euros.
Hans Niemann at a security check before one of the games after beating Carlsen at the tournament in San Luis (USA) last September Lennart Ootes (Sinquefield Cup)
Niemann admitted right at the start of the scandal that he had cheated on the internet years ago. But he assured that he would never have done them in a face-to-face game, and since then no one has offered any evidence to the contrary. In post-scandal tournaments, his results have been overall good, despite the intense media pressure he has faced: two months ago, he was in the top 35 in the world at 2,706 Elo without anyone raising the slightest suspicion that to have cheated at all game. His recent performances have been worse and he has dropped to 55th place.
The author of these lines watched Niemann for hours at the end of November at the World Cup in Jerusalem from a distance of several meters. And he also analyzed all the American’s notable games (in live tournaments) since 2020. The result was that his talent is as great as his nervous instability, which could explain the irregularity of his results. This opinion is entirely consistent with that of some coaches who have worked with Niemann, such as American Max Dlugy and Briton Jacob Aagard. The American mathematician Ken Reagan, who is considered the world’s leading expert on cheating in chess, claims that he has not found any in Niemann’s games since 2020.
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