Cheating in chess

[Peelee]

True, but there is still a world of difference between even 16 and 19.

[snip]
Yea, but in Chess if you aren't a GM by 14 you likely never will be. Playing early on seems to be genuinely important to developing as a chess player and you only get good by playing people who are good.

There is, generally, a world of difference between 16 and 19. However, as you yourself point out, chess is a young person's game, and the upper echelons of chess have no shortage of yoots. And yet they can, for the most part eschew cheating, even young as they are.

If teenagers or younger want to play on the same field as adults, then they get treated the same as adults. Their age does not protect them from writing a check their ass can't cash in these situations.

[Dragonus45]

I don't have a lot of time for the "Hans is a teenager, give him a break" line. If he were 14 or 15, maybe, but although at 19 you still have a lot to learn, you're also functionally an adult. While the US has a couple of uniquely high age threshholds, you can still vote, drive, buy a gun, serve in the armed forces (indeed, you can have been doing that for years), get locked up in big boy prison, etc.

He didn't cheat at 19 though, he cheated at 12 and 16/17.

Chess is a game where there have always been a number of young players, especially since the 50s. All the top players went through this and presumably remember what it was like. While young players can't expect any mercy over the board, I think there is something of a culture of encouraging and looking after younger players to some extent, and it's not a new issue for coaches and the like. And most of these players don't cheat.

True, and playing against older more experienced opponents is really importent for a developing chess player so cutting them off would be stunting their growth.

Moreover, Niemann is noted as being almost uniquely disrespectful to other players among chess players of any age. Chess, like most professional sports (even though it's not a sport) has a kind of unwritten code of conduct around how you behave to and about other players. It has started to get a bit wobblier with the rise of streaming and the trash-talk you get in live online matches (whereas OTB tournies are played effectively in silence, of course), but if you watch top players in almost any sport, whatever kind of sledging goes on before and during a match, they tend to revert to a respectful tone after a match. You look at someone like Nakamura, who is gobby and brash and opinionated and is happy to throw shade during online friendly games, but when he talks to or about his fellow super-GMs you can tell there's a respect there even if they're not friends.

Overall he isn't much worse then how tilted Hikaru could get when he was younger. He himself admitted he had a ton of mellowing out to do on Lex Friedman's podcast recently where he mentioned knowing he had streaming as a real and steady source of income had had a big effect on how he used to act when he lost games as a kid.

Obviously this is not an actual rule of the game, but if you're going to be the person to come in and disrupt things by failing to observe it, you really need to be both very, very good, and also on a reasonably firm moral footing. Niemann is very good, no disputing that. But he's not a transcendent generational genius like Fischer or Kasparov or even Carlsen himself. After his recent surge he probably just about qualifies for "super GM" status but he's not unambiguously a member of the club. Nor is he unusually young for a top player: he's ranked 40th in the world and there are five younger players ranked above him. But more importantly, he's an admitted cheat, and if he wants people to respect him after that, he ought to conduct himself with more humility and respect. As a result he's made himself very unpopular among super GMs even if he's now clean.

Yea I'm not fan of the rules for some people and not others thing. If the chess community wants to purge everyone person who ever cheated online do so but don't pick out one guy because he pissed off King Magnus to be the face of the issue and burn his life to the ground after he seems to have gotten his life together and started working harder at the actual game. Assuming that narrative is true at least.

So now looking at Carlsen's reaction, "temper tantrum" may be putting it a bit harshly but he certainly reacted worse to this than one would normally expect him to do for a loss. That is surely in part because this loss ended his winning streak and more importantly scuppered his realistic chances of achieving his stated career goal of a 2900 rating. And if Niemann followed this up with his usual "lol you suck" nonsense, it's not surprising that he would have reacted more angrily than if he had lost to, say, Firouzja.

I dunno, temper tantrum does feel too harsh, but only barely and because I feel like what he did has been too calculated to be just a spur of the moment bit of anger.

Does that excuse an accusation of cheating? Well no, not unless he had reason to believe that Niemann was cheating. In the heat of the moment, given the way the opening went down, some kind of suspicion might have been justified, especially after Niemann's smirking "oh yeah by some miracle I looked up this unheard-of opening line this morning and that's why I was able to respond effectively" interview after the match. Carlsen did also play quite badly, of course (albeit I wouldn't be surprised if he got in his own head about fair play after Niemann refuted his surprise line).

So he had actually played that line before, but he transposed into it and it was against someone other then who Hans said he played during the post game interview. Which is an easy enough mistake to make and I could honestly believe that since he was a last second replacement into the game he had been cramming up till the last moment and just got the details wrong. He seems a bit scatterbrained at the best of tim

As Dragonus45 notes, there was then a situation with weird parallel narratives comparing what Carlsen actually said and did and what he was taken as saying and doing - and that Carlsen was fully aware of what people were assuming and did nothing to contradict that. I have to wonder whether his prolonged silence on the issue, when there was a clamour for him to come forward and explain publicly, was on legal advice, that he was advised not to say anything until there was some harder evidence to substantiate his allegations. That would also explain the discrepancy between the initial reaction (which suggested he thought Niemann was cheating in the moment) and his later clarifying statement, which was much more vague about the extent of Niemann's cheating and had the chess.com report to back it up.

The prolonged silence could be damning in front of a jury if it actually gets that far, and could go to reckless disregard for the truth since he was able to see it had been taken as a statement he was calling Hans a cheater but went radio silent. The real argument will be the question of what he meant by sharing the meme in the first place and if you can even ascribe a specific definition to a meme clip being shared supposedly out of context from an interview that took place many years ago and has been potentially been shared and shared again many times and who knows how many contexts.

The person I have least sympathy with in all this (except Elon Musk) is Hikaru. But that's probably because I don't like him much. If Niemann has been clean since his last admitted incident, then he has been badly treated in all this, but he hasn't done himself any favours with the way he's conducted himself.

Hikaru is poo stirrer extraordinaire, and if Hans is innocent he has absolutely earned the right to some of the shade he has been throwing. In particular his bit about chess streamers and commentators right Cristian Chirila's face had me dead.

This isn't the first major cheating scandal in chess recently. There was Igors Rausis in 2019, and Tigran Petrosian (not that one) in 2020, but this is the first one to have really caught the attention of the wider public. Worth noting that Petrosian still denies everything, responded ungraciously and publicly to the accusation of cheating (from Wesley So) and is still playing, even though banned from chess.com. The Petrosian scandal in particular made some waves in chess circles but didn't really escape into the wider media. I guess chess is more popular than it was then, even though the chess boom was definitely underway by late 2020. Still, I doubt Carlsen expected this one to blow up to the extent it has.

Hikaru did a lot to magnify it. I don't particularly think it was a conspiracy but given the way things dovetailed together so cleanly I can see how someone could.

There is, generally, a world of difference between 16 and 19. However, as you yourself point out, chess is a young person's game, and the upper echelons of chess have no shortage of yoots. And yet they can, for the most part eschew cheating, even young as they are.

If teenagers or younger want to play on the same field as adults, then they get treated the same as adults. Their age does not protect them from writing a check their ass can't cash in these situations.

And the adults have gotten a pass for their online cheating as well, because up until this exact moment no one cared unless you cheated OTB.

[Peelee]

Yea I'm not fan of the rules for some people and not others thing. If the chess community wants to purge everyone person who ever cheated online do so but don't pick out one guy because he pissed off King Magnus to be the face of the issue and burn his life to the ground after he seems to have gotten his life together and started working harder at the actual game. Assuming that narrative is true at least.

[snip]

And the adults have gotten a pass for their online cheating as well, because up until this exact moment no one cared unless you cheated OTB.

I agree wholeheartedly, and think they should all be outed as such. As for whether they continue to play in tournaments and prize competitions, thats for the organizers to say. Unless people cheat OTB, I don't much care either way.

True, and playing against older more experienced opponents is really importent for a developing chess player so cutting them off would be stunting their growth.

I also agree, and cheating online for more clout and money (explicitly the reasons Neimann claimed when he admitted to cheating previously) does nothing to spur such potential growth and is solely for building their own personal brand. Once it's known, people can make their own choices about whether to keep backing the player.

[tomandtish]

As long as professional sport exists, there will always be cheating, that's kinda the point. I'm a long time quiet supporter of abolishing the whole thing altogether, since it produces nothing of value, compared to almost everything, while generating a lot of scandals, corruption and ruined health in the process.




And then after proper investigation it'll turn out that Carlsen cheated first, but threw a fit because it wasn't enough.

Speaking of cheating will always exist.....

[Dragonus45]

I agree wholeheartedly, and think they should all be outed as such. As for whether they continue to play in tournaments and prize competitions, thats for the organizers to say. Unless people cheat OTB, I don't much care either way.

Considering the disconnect that existed before and the simple fact that Chess.com and FIDE are two separate organizations with separate rules and procedures the answer is to actually figure out the official policy for this and get it clearly stated before grandfathering existing players in under the new rules.

I also agree, and cheating online for more clout and money (explicitly the reasons Neimann claimed when he admitted to cheating previously) does nothing to spur such potential growth and is solely for building their own personal brand.

And? Sure he had silly reasons for cheating and assuming his current ELO is legit trying to go into streaming was pretty clearly taking his focus away from actual chess, but I don't particularly care about a 16 year old cheating at online chess, getting caught, and then cleaning up his act and moving on with their life and all reasons to cheat are pretty silly.

[Peelee]

Considering the disconnect that existed before and the simple fact that Chess.com and FIDE are two separate organizations with separate rules and procedures the answer is to actually figure out the official policy for this and get it clearly stated before grandfathering existing players in under the new rules.

No? To the best of my knowledge, chesscom doesn't give FIDE ratings and has no FIDE ranked games, and there is no known issue with people cheating in FIDE tournaments. FIDE can make their own determinations on what happens when players are caught cheating playing games outside of their system. As can any private organization that holds prize competitions as to who can enter or be invited.

I don't see the disconnect here. If Tiger Woods cheats in a charity game it doesn't affect his PGA record but it should still be published.

And?

And if caught, it should be noted. I don't see the issue here.

[Dragonus45]

No? To the best of my knowledge, chesscom doesn't give FIDE ratings and has no FIDE ranked games, and there is no known issue with people cheating in FIDE tournaments. FIDE can make their own determinations on what happens when players are caught cheating playing games outside of their system. As can any private organization that holds prize competitions as to who can enter or be invited.

FIDE isn't making that decision though, they already cleared him of wrongdoing and have made clear they do not care about any of their players being caught cheating in online chess. It would be hypocritical to suddenly start banning him from events retroactively for a rule that does not currently exist when they have let this slide for a ton of other people and would probably never go for mass banning like that. And ultimately it's not FIDE or the people organizing specific tournaments making the decision to ban him from inviationals. It's Magnus strong arming them to pick between the two of them.

And if caught, it should be noted. I don't see the issue here.

I was saying and to the commentary about why he cheated. There isn't a good reason to cheat and all the reasons people gave in the report or in response to it were equally stupid and probably just excuses. Parham Maghsoodloo's "I wanted to see if you were good enough to catch me, I didn't want the money at all" for example is an interesting claim. I'm even inclined to believe him. Doesn't make it any less cheating.

As for it being noted? People do notice when your Chess.com account gets banned and generally it isn't hard to work out why. They didn't bump into Magnus' ego though so no retroactive punishment for them I guess.

[Peelee]

FIDE isn't making that decision though, they already cleared him of wrongdoing and have made clear they do not care about any of their players being caught cheating in online chess. It would be hypocritical to suddenly start banning him from events retroactively for a rule that does not currently exist when they have let this slide for a ton of other people and would probably never go for mass banning like that. And ultimately it's not FIDE or the people organizing specific tournaments making the decision to ban him from inviationals. It's Magnus strong arming them to pick between the two of them.

Ok, I'm not sure what you're arguing with me about here. I've never said that FIDE should ban Neimann. I've never said that Neimann has cheated OTB (and would wager he hasn't as there is no evidence whatsoever that he did). I did say that FIDE should make their own determination about continued association with him (and, by extension, any other player) at their own discretion, which you seemingly agree with (and which you note they have done). I did say that the organizers of other tournaments should also make their own determination about continued association with Neimann (and, by extension, any other player). You seemingly agree with this as well.

What, exactly, are you disagreeing with me about here?

I was saying and to the commentary about why he cheated. There isn't a good reason to cheat and all the reasons people gave in the report or in response to it were equally stupid and probably just excuses. Parham Maghsoodloo's "I wanted to see if you were good enough to catch me, I didn't want the money at all" for example is an interesting claim. I'm even inclined to believe him. Doesn't make it any less cheating.

As for it being noted? People do notice when your Chess.com account gets banned and generally it isn't hard to work out why. They didn't bump into Magnus' ego though so no retroactive punishment for them I guess.

Again, what exactly are you disagreeing with me here? Neimann cheated previously. Chess.com has issued a statement saying that they privately reached out and dealt with him regarding this previously. Neimann has not refuted this and has admitted, on his own, to cheating previously. Neimann, prior to recent events and prior to his confessions of cheating, still had a chess.com account.

Magnus can be an egotistical jerk who is upset that he lost his shot at the prize and separately those who cheat should also have it be known that they cheat. Both things can happen.
Again, if you have a professional competition player who cheats while playing, even if done outside of the scope of their professional competition, it should be published as discovered. I'm not saying they should be banned from anything, I'm not saying they should be removed from any events. I'm only saying that the public that supports the person has the right to know. His stated reason for doing this (IE money and fame) bolsters this argument, he fe my pointing it out.

I really don't see why there would be any pushback against that assertion.

[Radar]

... have no shortage of yoots.

No shortage of hwat?

Sorry, could not help myself. Also a great movie showing pretty accurately how criminal court proceedings in US work.

[Peelee]

No shortage of hwat?

Sorry, could not help myself. Also a great movie showing pretty accurately how criminal court proceedings in US work.

That's why I wrote it that way.

Also, I've been told no small amount of law schools use it as a teaching aide. And I've heard at least one lawyer say that his opening argument was exactly what you want to say in an opening argument, just not in those exact words.

[Liquor Box]

Carlsen had issues with his loss. Neimann has almost certainly cheated online significantly more than he has admitted to. Just because Carlsen was sore doesn't mean the claims aren't accurate.

On what do you base your view that he has almost certainly cheated more than he admitted? Have you read and understood chess.com's report, or are you just basing it off the fact that chess.com has reached that conclusion and you trust its judgment?

[Aedilred]

An article I saw earlier today: https://cyclingtips.com/2022/10/ches...was-he-really/

tl;dr: Niemann said in an interview with ChessLife, published in 2021, that he had been a top cyclist in the Netherlands, and was ranked #3 in the US for his age. Cycling Tips has investigated both claims, and found that the former is hard to verify due to (a) lack of specificity in the claim, and (b) absence of reliable records for the period. The second claim has been proven false by examining rankings from the relevant period.

It's not directly relevant to the chess furore, obviously, but Niemann is staking a lot on his integrity and this is an instance of his lying on the record, well after his admitted cheating "phase".

What puzzles me more than anything is why he lied about this. Saying simply "I cycled at a high level", which seems to be true, is likely to elicit the same level of impression from chess fans, i.e. a bit but not that much, and it is (as proven) fairly easily falsifiable to claim a ranking he never got close to. So why lie? That there is no benefit to the lie makes it all the more curious. There isn't enough of an established pattern here to make even an armchair-psychologist diagnosis as to why, but it does seem like his relationship with the truth in a public-facing capacity is, er, non-exclusive.

[Peelee]

An article I saw earlier today: https://cyclingtips.com/2022/10/ches...was-he-really/

tl;dr: Niemann said in an interview with ChessLife, published in 2021, that he had been a top cyclist in the Netherlands, and was ranked #3 in the US for his age. Cycling Tips has investigated both claims, and found that the former is hard to verify due to (a) lack of specificity in the claim, and (b) absence of reliable records for the period. The second claim has been proven false by examining rankings from the relevant period.

It's not directly relevant to the chess furore, obviously, but Niemann is staking a lot on his integrity and this is an instance of his lying on the record, well after his admitted cheating "phase".

What puzzles me more than anything is why he lied about this. Saying simply "I cycled at a high level" is likely to elicit the same level of impression from chess fans, i.e. a bit but not that much, and it is (as proven) fairly easily falsifiable. So why lie? That there is no benefit to the lie makes it all the more curious. There isn't enough of an established pattern here to make even an armchair-psychologist diagnosis as to why, but it does seem like his relationship with the truth in a public-facing capacity is, er, non-exclusive.

Josh Waitzkin famously left quit and got into martial arts, winning a world championship in one and becoming a master under the tutelage of a world champion in another. Maybe Neimann was trying to emulate him in some way, at least in reputation?

[Radar]

That's why I wrote it that way.

Also, I've been told no small amount of law schools use it as a teaching aide. And I've heard at least one lawyer say that his opening argument was exactly what you want to say in an opening argument, just not in those exact words.

Interestingly, all the automotive details are also spot-on. Level of attention to details was astonishing.

Josh Waitzkin famously left quit and got into martial arts, winning a world championship in one and becoming a master under the tutelage of a world champion in another. Maybe Neimann was trying to emulate him in some way, at least in reputation?

Still, trying to inflate his reputation like that is in a really bad taste. This is not all that unusual as there are people who just like to boast and like to invent or at least jazz up stories about themselves. It almost never works though and I am wondering why anyone tries this in the long run.

I know about Waitzkin mostly because he made a really good tutorial for the Chessmaster game (3000 I think?). Did not know about his achievements in martial arts - quite impressive.

[Aedilred]

I said I wasn't going to do an armchair-psychology thing on Niemann but I've changed my mind. Here is my totally uninformed, unqualified hypothesis.

Deep down, he wants respect within the chess community. It must sting him to see contemporaries like Firouzja being feted when he is something of a pariah. But he's probably also aware that the stain of the admitted cheating is going to be almost impossible to erase and to claw his way back into the good graces of the international chess community will be a steep uphill struggle. The only concrete way to really establish some kind of status is therefore to put in performances that are so good that he can't be ignored. In practice, this means winning the world championship. Become a world champion and your reputation will survive, inter alia, collaboration with Nazis, spouting antisemitic conspiracy theories, and advocacy for gibberish like the Fomenko timeline.

But while he's a very good player, he may also be aware that he's not quite good enough to earn a permanent seat at the very top table or take a realistic crack at the title unless something strange happens. Carlsen has plenty of gas in the tank timewise and the main threat to his continued reign as "king of chess" in Niemann's own words, for at least another ten years, is probably his losing interest. Firouzja is the obvious heir presumptive, and he's younger than Niemann. There are several other players out there of similar quality. At best Niemann is likely to end up a perpetual "bridesmaid", like Caruana. So (re)gaining the respect he craves is unlikely through performance is unlikely to happen.

So how can he (re)gain the respect he craves? He can bootlick his way back into favour, grovelling and forelock-tugging and making public shows of atonement, building up enough credit in humility that eventually people forgive him for the cheating. This kind of thing can work! Wesley So's reputation has not been seriously damaged by the bizarre hate-speech incident, although it's worth noting that there his reputation as a nice guy was sufficiently well-established that it was obviously very out of character, and his explanation of a hack seems to have been readily accepted.

But it's probably not a very attractive course to anyone with a real ego (which Niemann obviously has) especially since it's not guaranteed to work anyway. So instead he self-sabotages by playing up his impulse to be a jerk, telling him he doesn't care whether his opponents like or respect him, and therefore he's going to return the lack of favour. It's a toxic attitude, but it's in a family of approaches that's familiar to anyone who's ever failed to apply for a job they want because they don't want to be rejected.

Underneath though, he still wants that respect, so he exaggerates his accomplishments in interviews, and bristles at criticisms of his chess performances. And now he sees the opportunity to score a technical victory against his critics, so he sues the biggest names in chess for damage to the reputation which in his own mind he deserves.

(Ironically, that same impulse to win respect through game performance may also make him more inclined to continue to cheat in order to improve his results - which is not to say that he necessarily has cheated).

Anyway, that's my hot take on Niemann's state of mind in all this.

I didn't know that. THen why bring proceedings in Missouri when the allegations have been published around the world.

Presumably because Missouri has limited anti-SLAPP laws; it also has a tenable connection to the case in that it's where the match took place. But whether Missouri has jurisdiction over all the causes of action and all the defendants is an interesting question and one that will presumably be tested early.

[Liquor Box]

Presumably because Missouri has limited anti-SLAPP laws; it also has a tenable connection to the case in that it's where the match took place. But whether Missouri has jurisdiction over all the causes of action and all the defendants is an interesting question and one that will presumably be tested early.

Google suggests it is one of the 31 US states with anti-SLAPP laws, so presumably less limited than the other 19 states which apparently have no such laws.

[Aedilred]

Google suggests it is one of the 31 US states with anti-SLAPP laws, so presumably less limited than the other 19 states which apparently have no such laws.

He'll have had to pick a state with relevance to the case. That means a state where one of the parties is based (Connecticut, Florida, California, possibly Arizona) or Missouri, where the incident took place. All of them have anti-SLAPP laws. I don't know how these compare, but according to a video I saw on YT (a highly reliable source) Missouri's anti-SLAPP is relatively weak.

[Dragonus45]

What, exactly, are you disagreeing with me about here?

Sorry, when I said he shouldn't be banned and you replied saying they had the right too it seemed like you saying he should be banned and not just saying they would have the right to ban him. Sorry I misunderstood.

Again, what exactly are you disagreeing with me here? Neimann cheated previously. Chess.com has issued a statement saying that they privately reached out and dealt with him regarding this previously. Neimann has not refuted this and has admitted, on his own, to cheating previously. Neimann, prior to recent events and prior to his confessions of cheating, still had a chess.com account.

Well, the Chess.com account has some internal logical inconsistencies around what they new and when, Ben Finegold of all people had a great breakdown of the report really and you should check it out. Plus it's blatantly hypocritical at best and fairly suspect at worstthat they chose to name and shame and then ban only him years after the fact and not any of the other people who have ever cheated on there.

[Aedilred]

Sorry, when I said he shouldn't be banned and you replied saying they had the right too it seemed like you saying he should be banned and not just saying they would have the right to ban him. Sorry I misunderstood.



Well, the Chess.com account has some internal logical inconsistencies around what they new and when, Ben Finegold of all people had a great breakdown of the report really and you should check it out. Plus it's blatantly hypocritical at best and fairly suspect at worstthat they chose to name and shame and then ban only him years after the fact and not any of the other people who have ever cheated on there.

I don't really see how it's hypocritical, or that suspect really. They do ban players for cheating all the time, but few of them have this kind of profile so you don't hear about it.

Producing this kind of report is probably pretty labour-intensive, and while they have anti-cheat bots constantly in operation they only inspect a small fraction of games of their own volition. A full investigation of an individual is only going to happen on the basis of a specific suspicion or tip-off. Likewise, the police keep an eye out for crime happening under their noses, but they don't make a habit of investigating random individuals for no reason; that's a waste of time and resources. They only look into the people who catch their eye, and we don't expect them to do anything else. And yeah, there is a lot of chaff to wade through around the question of who gets investigated and precisely why and who doesn't, but in principle, the idea that the police only investigate people they have a reason to investigate is uncontroversial.

I don't think chess.com are claiming that this report was coincidental, rather that it was a response to the implication (from Carlsen) and the loud yelling (from Hikaru) that Niemann's play was suspect and Niemann's equally loud protestations that he was clean. It seems fair enough to me for them to conduct such an investigation under the circumstances. Whether the methodology is flawed is a different question.

[Dragonus45]

I don't really see how it's hypocritical, or that suspect really. They do ban players for cheating all the time, but few of them have this kind of profile so you don't hear about it.

They process they have is pretty clear and well outlined in their report and it's emails. They ban the cheater, and if they apologize they let them open up a new account with a clean slate. Clean slate being the key word here. As far as I know they don't have anyone who they have come back to years later and retroactively banned a clean account with no cheating on it.

I don't think chess.com are claiming that this report was coincidental, rather that it was a response to the implication (from Carlsen) and the loud yelling (from Hikaru) that Niemann's play was suspect and Niemann's equally loud protestations that he was clean. It seems fair enough to me for them to conduct such an investigation under the circumstances. Whether the methodology is flawed is a different question.

Of course it was produced because of all the hullaballoo Magnus and Hikaru kicked up. They banned him for the same reason, not for anything he actually did.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Still, trying to inflate his reputation like that is in a really bad taste. This is not all that unusual as there are people who just like to boast and like to invent or at least jazz up stories about themselves. It almost never works though and I am wondering why anyone tries this in the long run.

Is there a way to know how many people cheat and get away with it?

If not, you can't really say it "almost never" works.

[Radar]

Is there a way to know how many people cheat and get away with it?

If not, you can't really say it "almost never" works.

I was referring to Niemann's boasts about being an accomplished cyclist.