Magnus Carlsen senses fraud - without expressing his allegations specifically. His competitor Hans Niemann is suspected of having sought illegal help in a game against the world champion. About a computer. An expert is now apparently providing overwhelming evidence.
Allegations of cheating against the young American Hans Niemann have been causing a lot of unrest in the chess world for weeks. And now this strange scandal threatens to take a new turn. The subtly counted grandmaster is coming under more and more pressure. After his opponent, chess legend Magnus Carlsen, announced a statement on his allegations of cheating against the American for this week, new evidence emerged on Sunday that corroborates the serious suspicion against Niemann.
A brief look back for classification: Last Monday, the scandal, which is considered the biggest in years, reached its peak so far. Carlsen met 19-year-old Niemann in a top-class online tournament - and ended the game after a move without comment. Carlsen had already withdrawn from a face-to-face tournament at the beginning of September after a surprising defeat against the American. That was the trigger for this thundering chess quake.
The Norwegian apparently accused Niemann of fraud, but he did not say so. "I will not comment on that," he said in an interview with "chess24" when asked specifically whether he suspected Niemann of cheating. After all, Carlsen promised to shed some light on the "Julius Baer Generation Cup" held online: "I hope to be able to say something more after the tournament."
FIDE Master Yosha Iglésias has now published on her YouTube channel the analysis of some of Niemann's games, which she examined with the help of databases and chess programs. She analyzed specific moves as well as entire games and compared its precision with the accuracy with which Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer play or have played. "I was shocked by the result," the FIDE Master told NRK. According to this, Niemann plays in several games with an accuracy of 100 percent - exactly as the computer would have done it. For example in 2020 in a game against Matthieu Cornette and also three months later against Christopher Woojin Yoo.
For comparison: The same analysis model spits out standard values of around 70 percent in the case of world champions Carlsen and Kasparov - two of the best players of all time. The only player who ever achieved a similarly high value as Niemann was Frenchman Sébastien Feller (98 percent) in 2011. And this was later proven to be cheating in said game. "People don't play games like that. And it showed that Niemann played many of these games," said Norwegian chess expert Atle Grønn, who was convinced of Iglésias' new results.
Iglésias judged that the fact that nobody had noticed Niemann's values so far shocked her: "I'm not a mathematician or a fraud expert. I just wanted these data to be publicly accessible for experts so that they can be discussed. For me there is But there are no longer any doubts. Even if my analyzes are not completely error-free, that does not change the overall result." Among other things, the average tournament values of Niemann from 2019 to 2022 are freely accessible (click here for the document).
Niemann, who rose 150 places in the world rankings in a short space of time during the pandemic, recently admitted to having cheated twice in online games as a teenager, aged 12 and 16, but never in person at the chessboard. For Carlsen there is no difference. Fraud should not be treated lightly, "neither online nor on the board," said the world champion. He can understand that it's "tempting" in internet tournaments in particular, "but I wouldn't recommend it". Whether the organizers and the World Chess Federation would do enough against manipulation in his opinion, Carlsen couldn't or didn't want to answer: "It's hard to say."
The fact is: the case and the hints will not improve the already tense relationship between Carlsen and the world association and large parts of the chess world. The chess genius, who won the title of grandmaster at the age of 13, has already claimed special paths for himself in the past, alienating many in the process. Some even think that the chess king considers himself untouchable. His current feud with Niemann has met with great criticism in the scene, especially since there is no evidence that his adversary cheated. Carlsen couldn't just "provoke a witch hunt," said British grandmaster Jovanka Houska, demanding: "He has to say: Here's my proof."
Now the final turning point could actually be pending. Because the figures from Iglésias also cause a lot of headaches for other experts. In 2021, the American already had a series of four tournaments in a row, in which he played with a precision of 70.29, 78.65, 79.14 and 78.56 percent. "If these numbers are correct, then they are numbers that I have never seen at this level," chess professional Kristoffer Gressli told "Dagbladet". His compatriot Grønn agrees: "I've never seen people play like that." Carlsen may have come to the same conclusion. The world champion announced again on Sunday that he would like to comment and present evidence this week. A moment that the chess world has been waiting for for three weeks now.
