Hans Niemann Responds to Insinuations and Accusations

@EvilPyrokar said in #19:
> @BorisOspasky defending him from the accusations at saint louis is one thing, but defending his two times cheating is beyond me...

No one is defending cheating. What some are doing - me included - is pointing out that he was literally a child when this happened. Condemning someone in perpituity for mistakes made in childhood is ridiculous.

If he is found to cheat now as an adult in professional chess where livelihoods are on the line, then the consequences will be significant and appropriate. But he hasn't. No one has even offered evidence yet. Plenty speculation, but no evidence. Innocent until proven guilty.

@radiomartin said in #21:
> No one is defending cheating. What some are doing - me included - is pointing out that he was literally a child when this happened. Condemning someone in perpituity for mistakes made in childhood is ridiculous.
>
> If he is found to cheat now as an adult in professional chess where livelihoods are on the line, then the consequences will be significant and appropriate. But he hasn't. No one has even offered evidence yet. Plenty speculation, but no evidence. Innocent until proven guilty.

He is 2 times proven guilty smartass...

@radiomartin said in #21:
> No one is defending cheating. What some are doing - me included - is pointing out that he was literally a child when this happened. Condemning someone in perpituity for mistakes made in childhood is ridiculous.

Unfortunately, he is still a child. In chess many children will be allowed to take part in the adults' table, and as a consequence they'll be deemed responsible as if they were adults. There is no other solution. Organizers can't just choose to be elastic about cheating in virtue of having children playing. When Hans Niemann was 16, he was already playing professionally, with all the responsibility that it entails. If that's too much to handle, then don't play professionally, it's a choice.

Also, and I can't stress this enough, we are talking about less than 3 years ago, it basically just happened.

Its now a witch hunt and public lynch - destroying guy's reputation and career because he's weird (like half the chess players I guess) and because he taunted badly Carlsen in post interview. Carlsen's move is really low and cruel, even cowardly - basically looks to me like he did it in anger and out of spite. He should have either clarified everything immediately or stayed silent, now its almost too late. Its deliberate damage, how could it not be?!
If he had any kind of proof or doubt they could have stripped him or checked him immediately during the game or post game and ban the guy for life. End of story.

GMHikaru is also very disappointing and dishonest - he made a show for views and subs instead of being reserved and objective.

I don't care if the guy is sus or weird (and he was both), they need to provide proofs or publicly apologize asap. Innocent until proven guilty, because if he is really innocent this is the worst thing in the world. This cancel culture is awful. They should be both sued (Carlsen and Hikaru) to be honest.

And chesscom move is cowardly as well and shameful.

I would first say, that there is nothing surprising in the fact that Carlsen lost a game by Niemann. They are closely rated and each of them would make a blunder once any few hundred moves. So there is a chance involved, and them being so close in rating, doesn't make ones chances that much different than the others chances.
Also, If he had used a computer in that game, even against the world champion, the game would've been much shorter.
So, yeah, he showed a bad move (Qh4) during analysis - it happens once in a while. But the other part was much in line with my chess understanding.

Agree with Boris especially these two lines:-

@BorisOspasky said in #16:

> I think he’s entitled to say.. ‘right, now put up or STFU and apologise’. If they have the evidence, it must be produced now, without delay.
>
> What MC should have done is reported his suspicions but played on in the tournament while things were looked at.
>

I watched the whole interview, and my one big concern was the pressure he must be under. I remember the stress of playing tournament OTB chess in my low twenties, about forty years ago, and I can't imagine the magnitude of stress Hans Nieman is under now. Overall, he displayed considerable maturity for this age, however I did wonder if all this might end with him doing something silly.

Certain people and organisations know full well the dangers here, you just can't subject a 19-year-old to such pressures in order to achieve 'good' aims - a wisdom that comes with age and life experience. Produce any evidence to FIDE (or whoever) or apologise now. Otherwise, FIDE should act now to sanction the witch hunters.

Whether Nieman is a cheat or not he should not be subject to such witchfinder endeavours by certain people and organisations. There are non-public wholly objective processes in place which in time will entrap chess cheats.

@EvilPyrokar Nobody defended his cheating. Smartarse.

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FIDE needs to act, one way or another.

@AlexiHarvey said in #28:

> FIDE needs to act, one way or another.

My prediction is that nothing will happen. No official accusations will be made, no one will be sanctioned (although Hans Niemann will find it way more difficult to be invited to tournaments in the future), and this will forever remain a big unresolved scandal. At this point there's no reason to think that anything better than that is going to be the case.

Very sad time for chess.

Magnus Carlsen often handles losses poorly. This should be the focus of discussions. Jacob Aagaard is one of the few who calls it as it is:

forum.killerchesstraining.com/t/paranoia-and-insanity-by-jacob-aagaard/856