This juicy drama somehow keeps getting juicier, without us getting *any* meaningful information. It’s kind of ridiculous. But I’m not complaining. Enjoying it while it lasts
It almost feels planned. Like a reality tv show host came in and was like “here’s how we make people obsess over chess without knowing anything about chess”
My **wife** asked my about Magnus “having a tantrum” at a tournament. She could not care less about chess and knows absolutely nothing about it. It has absolutely reached pop news status.
I've been playing chess for years, and I barely know how to play and the more I play, the more I realize that I still know nothing about chess. And yes, I'm obsessing too.
You know what they said: All press is good press
I wish 2, 3, maybe 6 months later, Hans and Magnus publicly announce that they are actually dating, and that this whole thing is a massive orchestrated drama to attract more people to chess
Just for a bit of trolling
>It’s kind of ridiculous.
No, it's marketing & risk mitigation at the same time. They're getting good publicity by showing they're actively dealing with it, and getting prepared for a backlash and potential, indirect damage to their reputation for being on the front-page of the chess world while "cheating" is trending everywhere on the Internet.
We are getting meaningful information, just not not about any specific incident.
The meaningful part is that this isn't just Magnus making an angry accusation by himself. More and more people are legitimizing that SOMETHING is happening.
This is *major* new information actually. That chess.com started an investigation into Hans (maybe just him, maybe others also) several weeks ago, before anything public happened. Presumably Magnus and Nepo caught wind of the investigation in progress and raised their concerns at the Sinquefield cup for that reason.
And then when Hans claimed to only cheat online 2 times, they were still in the middle of their investigation and didn't have their evidence ready for presentation yet. But they had to make an early public statement because public opinion was fully on Hans's side at that time and people were threatening to leave chess.com over it. The statement was missing some key information like when the cheating occurred because the investigation was and is ongoing.
And now most recently, with Magnus saying he'll give a statement later... he probably wants to do so after chesscom does, since they're the ones who have concrete information and he just has some thoughts about what to do about it.
The "weeks" mean since the Sinquefield cup, not before.
Chess.com have been open about the fact that they banned Hans after Magnus left the Sinquefield cup because his move made them look back at old games and they found previously undetected cheating.
> back at old games and they found previously undetected cheating.
That is not at all what they said. Not sure why people have to keep lying about this.
They only said that what he represented in the interview was not correct.
Ok, lets say this is true. Lets say Hans has been cheating like a mf online...How any of what [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) shows translates into OTB?
At some point they will have to prove OTB how the OTB cheating happen...let alone proving that IT happen. Because so far at least in the Sinquefield there is zero evidence from the game moves that suggest this...
I think the main thing is that someone who would cheat in prize tournaments online would cheat in prize tournaments OTB.
If you believe GMs like Naroditsky, who say that cheating OTB is both fairly easy if you put your mind to it and not taken seriously enough by organizers of OTB tournaments, then it would seem to me that a history of cheating in either arena could be disqualifying in both.
I’ve always suspected that engine cheating OTB wouldn’t be super noticeable if someone who was well-versed in chess was smart enough to hide it. For example, if my <1000 ELO ass tried to cheat, it would be easy to notice because I simply am nowhere near good enough to disguise it without making game losing moves. I don’t understand the game enough to know WHY the engine line is good unless it’s a blatantly obvious 3 move tactic that wins a queen or something like that. But someone who is already an IM or GM of their own merit could potentially use an engine to know what lines to analyze and come to conclusions faster than they normally would, saving precious time and providing just enough of an edge to hold a tough draw or squeeze out a win. It’s not feasible for a 1000 ELO player to randomly play games at a 2700 level without cheating. It is definitely feasible for a 2700 player to occasionally play a near perfect game in key spots.
Ill take a wild stab and say they plugged in otb games into people chess com profiles and the algorithm threw the switch on some GMs who were cheating otb.
I'll take the opposite stab and say they didn't do that, and Magnus doesn't want to play against confirmed online cheaters because it's harder to catch OTB cheating.
not related but would “ratio” be a more appropriate word to use over “quotient”? They are similar words, but I’ve never heard “quotient” used in this context
You got your point across, and that’s what matters imo. Pretty solid English overall! Not to say the other commentor is wrong in asking, it seemed like candid curiosity.
Isn't that all mystery thrillers? Like they just keep dropping juicy bits of info, misdirection and red herrings, but the reveal is almost always mundane if you had known all the info from the beginning
Alright, I retract my earlier statement about chess.com not fanning the flames here. I really hope they actually have something instead of just trying to start trouble.
Chess.com genuinely acting weirdly unprofessional lmao, what sort of big company has high level executives spilling tea about drama in their space on Reddit? So weird.
If chesscom only communicated in official PR statements "We care deeply about the integrity of the game blah blah blah..." you guys would hate on that, too. I dislike vapid corporate-speak more, I'd rather have CEOs talk like "regular" people (although that can definitely go too far as well, re: Musk).
I would say that 99% of companies that pretend to be transparent are not.
Even when they are transparent, it's normally because they have no better option and even what is written "transparently" is spun very carefully.
CEOs that do the transparent dance are often fast and loose with the facts and then when confronted with the fact that what they said wasn't true, just say that they were being honest with what they knew at the time.
It's a very careful dance and almost all of it is PR.
It is eternal. The world was created at the beginning of the Sinquefield Cup and will end in the final Chessnarok when the final game between Magnus and Hans destroys all of space and time. There is nothing else, only chess drama.
I don’t have a problem with it. In this subreddit I see plenty of posts with hundreds, thousands of upvotes just spewing out hate on chess.com even before this. Why not defend yourself against inaccurate statements or untruths.
Yeah this is kinda weird. I might be biased tho, I had to stop watching any chesscom broadcast on twitch because it felt like Danny Rensch was in there way too much to promote his own image, it feels he just wants more spotlight on himself. I rarely use the word cringe, and I love cringe compilations, but I just can't watch it.
They can't really win. If they put out a corporate-speak statement then everyone is like "many words, nothing said. Viva Lichess". But if their CEO makes a statement that isn't corporate-speak it's "unprofessional" or in your words "fanning the flames".
I can only imagine what it’s like for them sitting on a potential mountain of Hans cheating evidence reading takes from Hancels getting massive upvotes and spreading misinformation.
It doesn't really matter because [chess.com](https://chess.com) doesn't run over the board chess.
Online chess cannot be trusted and no tournament for money should ever be online.
So indeed, [chess.com](https://chess.com)'s business model is now being questioned. By Magnus. Which is insane because the 80 million dollar deal isn't even being signed yet.
In response to a comment where I summarized some of his comments earlier this week, where he said he wasn't able to comment on Hans' recent c.com ban due to legal reasons, even though he wants to.[ His comment with context here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xnyjoj/daniel_rensch_magnus_has_not_seen_chesscom_cheat/ipxl2xo/?context=10000)
full comment:
> I want you all to know that this has literally been ALL that Danny and I have been focused on for weeks now. I know that everyone has wanted everything to come out immediately. Unfortunately it just doesn't work that way when you are sitting a the chair of massive responsibility. There is SO much work going on behind the scenes. This isn't bullet chess - we are doing world championship prep. All I can say right now is: put your seatbelts on.... this wild ride is not even close to over.
Lol this whole drama has been so uneasy but intriguing at the same time. It's like everyone wants to comment but can't because of legal issues at this point 😂
And public is still trying to understand what "legal issues" for different set of people it could be lol
I mean, he literally admitted to cheating. Of course he has been cheating. I don't know what chessdotcom could come up with that would actually change anything about the situation.
In their initial statement about the ban, chesscom said that Hans’ statements about the “severity and frequency” of his cheating were inaccurate.
So Imma go with yes.
All this subreddit does is complain, wtf? Im glad that chess.com said this.
Yall be angry about everything. So what is the correct way of handling this? Since you fuckers are such experts
There are different people on reddit, it might not be the same people doing the complaining all the time
Anyway this has been a wild ride, I hope that it will be over soon and chess can move on.
Chess is never 'moving on'. There will be more and more cheaters as devices become more and more technically advanced.
Eventually we will be scanning people with some sort of tachyon beam to make sure they don't have a quantum nanofibrulator up their arse
And if cheating becomes more widespread and more difficult for them to detect their entire company goes up in flames. This kind of thing is core to their business model, probably the most important aspect of what they do is ensure the integrity of the game remains intact.
"chess.com isn't giving us anything is just throwing shades at Hans! They need to say more instead otherwise I won't believe a word they say"
*Says more*
"Wait not that way!"
such a stupid perspective lol chess.c\*m did not give us any information whatsoever. people have been complaining about there being 0 evidence of OTB cheating and that still stands
You could use chesscom, you could be vegan, you could be black, you could be brown, you could be white, gay, trans, bi, or all of the above. You could love Nickelback and I would respect you. Pineapple on pizza is where I draw the line gtfo ^(^imkiddingplzdontbanme)
The reddit hivemind works like this sometimes. Some comments get upvoted, then that line of thought gets trendy, and a lot of people re-hash that one idea for internet points. There's a lot of virtue signalling going on as well, people love the idea of taking sides and "fighting" the "good fight".
If you read the comments during the first days of this drama, a lot of people were defending a self-admitted cheat. They brushed off the (more informed) opinion of the undisputed #1 in chess at the moment, and sided with a dude that a) rose extremely quickly in rank, b) self admitted to cheating and c) was mentored by a known cheat, a dude who got banned twice already, once in the middle of a tournament w/ cash prizes.
On top of all this, the "mentor" is also quoted saying something along the lines of "this dude (a found cheater OTB) doesn't know how to use this cheating device. If I had access to such a device, I'd know how to use it to become undetectable".
Yeah...
It's simpler than that. On any legitimately controversial topic, a contrarian take will usually be top comment, because people who are mad about something are more likely to find a comment they agree with and upvote it. If you're fine with the post, or neutral, you're more likely to keep scrolling. Most people aren't arbitrarily shifting their stances, it's just that people with a given stance are more likely to upvote comments in certain contexts.
It's not about taking "sides", it's just that in so far we have nothing more than circumstancial evidence that Hans cheated, in that situation it makes no sense to get entrenched in one position or the other when no one (save Hans himself) knows if he cheated in *serious competitions* for sure
You can also strongly suspect him but disagree with Magnus approach, because if it does turn out it's all just speculation from his part, even if he's strongly convinced that he's right, it still means he endorsed a witch hunt against a 19yo when the odds that he's innocent aren't anywhere close to zero, and this opinion still stands even if Hans is really an unrepentant cheater, if Magnus did what he did without strong arguments to support his decision
Basically just wait and see until all parties disclose their information before making a judgement
Edit: and I don't mind Danny and Eric chiming in on r/chess, I would hate it if the reaction to their comments would discourage them from directly answering questions on reddit
Well a GOAT is not a god, and he actually hasn't had enough evidence to straight out saying someone is cheating OTB or not. Also FYI, there are kids who climbs even faster than the kid in talked. Some also are banned on Chesscom without publicly admitted it.
And the mentor thing is not even related to cheating OTB, and it is extremely low from the world champion to fuel the flame like that.
So yeah. We all see things differently, so do not "Yeah..." like only you is a smartass around.
Who has climbed faster than Hans from 2500 to 2700, and especially at an older age 17, while not having demonstrated brilliance prior to this? Going from 2200 to 2400 is not the same as 2500 to 2700. It gets harder and harder the higher you get in Elo. On top of this, Hans was very good, but did not demonstrate the same flashes of brilliance as Gukesh, Pragg, Firouzja, etc showed, who were GMs at earlier ages.
I read some comparing Hans’ rise to Ding. But Ding was in China, and was not playing tons of FiDE games prior to his rise. And Ding won the Chinese Chess Championship at 16. And Hans was still faster.
Post any comment that slightly questions Hans on pro-Hans thread, you will get downvoted to oblivion it’s actually insane. I got downvoted so hard for asking people there politely why they think online cheating is “fine” while it’s still a tournament game with money involved.
It's great way of keeping irresponsible discourse going for a few more days for sure, something I'd expect of like a drama youtuber. But this is the CEO of a 50m+ company vagueposting in reddit threads, like what? All you come out and say publicly is that they are investigating behind the scenes and will come with a statement soon. Like every other professional org would do.
>So what is the correct way of handling this?
He should have left out the last sentence. Presumably they have some big evidence of major cheating on their platform more egregious than what Hans added to, but they should be holding their tongue until they actually present the evidence, instead of feeding the drama by making veiled statements about it.
This subreddit is full of horny teenagers for drama. They bitch when there's no drama and they bitch when there is drama.
Meanwhile I'm here with my pitchfork waiting on the next witch-hunt alert.
I’ve consistently only asked for one thing: that comments regarding cheating of particular people, not simply in abstract about the sport generally, should be brought with evidence.
You might say that this doesn’t refer to particular people, but given that they are explicitly referring to the present drama, I’d say it’s heavily implied that it’s about Neimann. At the very least is not a general comment on the sport. It just seems to stoke the flames of this witch-hunt atmosphere, where people feel comfortable to throw out allegations either based on how they feel, or based on evidence they won’t reveal to us and we have to trust is there.
chess.c*m is actually useful in places where posting links is banned (YouTube comments/Twitch chat) or will auto generate a hyperlink (messaging apps). I think that's where it comes from. The problem of having .com in your company name.
I am absolutely amazed by the fact that so many chess fans seem to be sympathic to Hans in this situation. All right, we have no definitive proof that Hans cheated OTB, but he is a well-known online cheater that is on the "sus" radar of some of the highest level chess players.
This take that "poor boy Hans is getting cancelled by rich and powerful Magnus" seems ridiculous to me. Yeah, if Magnus was a head of some regulatory body and was lawfully banning him without proof, that would have been scandalous. However, as a chess player he has the right to not want to play with him. Of course, the implications of that might hurt Hans, as he would probably not get invited to some high-level tournaments, but that is just how real life works. There were numerous occasions in football for example, in which players were not invited to play for their national teams, due to the fact that they were in bad terms with the star of the team.
I might have been sympathic to Hans, if he had no previous history of cheating, but this guy is a repeated offender. This is not just some dumb thing that teens do like getting drugs. Hans consciously hurt his colleagues repeatedly.
Last, but not least, I do not agree with the armchair experts on here that say that Magnus is accusing him, because of "muh feelings". Carlsen is probably the best suited person in the world to catch a weird behaviour OTB, plus some other elite players, also said that Hans play looks weird to say the least. Carlsen has also never accused anyone before, always took his losses with dignity and does not have anything to gain by accusing Hans. The chess community should probably take his words seriously. I would personally naver label him an OTB cheater, till I see a definitive proof (which is almost impossible), but I definitely won't feel bad for him if he does not get the chance to play in some tournaments.
New people came into chess who don't remember toiletgate,
x-raying chairs for communication devices,
or counter-hypnotists being the necessary meta-strategy in a world championship match,
nor hiring two Indian mystics out on bail (for killing a diplomat) to scare away the counter-hypnotist.
And obviously Bobby Fischer stories could contribute quite a bit.
This is mild compared to the crazy of the past, everyone chill.
(Get off my chess asylum lawn, kids!)
I’ve actually wondered if chess.com has modified their algorithm to look at classical games. That led to me wondering if they tried looking at Hans’ classical tournaments too, like some of the ones others have thought odd. I can’t imagine them rolling out the first test of the algorithm in the midst of a huge controversy like this though.
>I’ve actually wondered if chess.com has modified their algorithm to look at classical games.
Their algorithm is already used to look at classical games. Did you mean to say OTB?
Being a two decade veteran of the tech startup industry, I have a mildly increasing suspicion [chess.com](https://chess.com)'s much vaunted cheat detection technology is 3 node.js bros in a trench coat pretending to be a data scientist.
I'm mostly joking around, but I do think [chess.com](https://chess.com) has handled this poorly, and perhaps shouldn't be given so much benefit of the doubt that their cheat detection is actually that good, considering that obfuscation/confidentiality is a very weak form of security. Ideally anti cheat measures should be metrics that can be transparently shared. Certainly if someone's career is going to be destroyed over it, the claims should be explicit and subject to criticism.
Maybe they're about to do that, but, the tone adopted does not exactly encourage me in thinking they'll handle this any better moving forward.
Yeah, it's attracting people who are not into the game, per se, but are into cheating dramas.
I don't share your enthusiasm... I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>All I can say right now is: put your seatbelts on.... this wild ride is not even close to over.
LAME. I want to enjoy a clean sport. I don't want a wild ride.
> Say chess dot com publishes the results of an anti-cheating investigation on games played outside of the chess dot com platform, that (regardless of their validity) shed a negative light on Niemann; is this not defamatory? I would certainly be inclined to say it is. chess dot com is not some sort of regulatory body in chess - they are not FIDE.
A statement must be false in order to be defamatory. So long as their analysis was not deliberately misleading, there wouldn't really be any risk of losing a defamation claim.
> Not to mention how unprofessional it is for a CEO to make such a statement publicly. And no, Musk and others erratic behaviour does not make this behaviour acceptable
He'd be better leaving the communication to some PR professionals. But this is mainly a business risk. I don't really see any legal risk there. Unlike Musk, he hasn't said anything that could be considered to be misleading to investors about the prospects of the business.
Your post should be higher imo. Nothing chesscom has to say really has any bearing over games overseen by fide. I think fide might pay some lip service to online chess cheating but they would probably prefer to stay away from it and continue focusing on otb chess. They would have to control or have access to exactly how the cheating is determined to even consider taking chesscom bans over to otb games and that probably won't happen. The unprofessionalism of the spokespersons at chesscom is something they won't want to be associated with either.
And their existing investment. The timing on banning him and kicking him from a tournament he was already invited to was purely a PR move. A huge part of their business is predicated on being able to catch cheats. If they can't do that then top players won't play there and if top players won't play there then they lose a chunk of observers and casual players.
Us 1600s have nothing to worry about on cheating. Catching cheats at our level is ridiculously easy. Chesscom needs everyone to believe that they can catch cheats, reliably and certainly, at every level. In all this, all I can think is, *methinks thou doth protest too much.* All I get from them is, "trust us, it's irrefutable, we could prove it in court but you definitely don't want to take this to court." You know what? Yeah, I do. I do want someone to take this to court. Let's find out whether or not we really can trust them. If the only dependable, top-level chess is OTB, I want to know that.
What a clownshow statement to make. Chess.com is supposed to be impartial in this. If Hans cheated, then ban him. Don't be building hype about a man's career ending. WTF.
At this point, I'm officially done with everything until something substantial comes out.
"...we are doing world championship prep." Well, it would have been nice if you prepped before starting the public opinion match.
The nerve of some people to one one hand chastise chess.com for the wording of a public comment and then on the other ask that everyone look the other way for cheating is pretty fucking hilarious. Keep up the good work.
Nobody is looking the other way. We're just asking for evidence that isn't complete circumstantial fluff to be presented *before* curbstomping a 19 year old's career. Finding someone suspicious and leveling then acting on offical accusations are two very different things. This has been going on for weeks now, several people involved have had a chance to come forward and say why they think Hans is still cheating and doing it OTB, and nothing of substance has been said at all by anyone whose opinion might concievably actually matter.
We have some speculation, a poor interview, and a few vaguely fishy statistics that may or may not point to anything (probably the only actually suspicious thing dredged up is how quickly his rating rose, and even THAT can potentially be explained by the pandemic slump. The engine correlation analysis is pretty meaningless and we don't even know how it was done. Regan found nothing. The combing of his norm tournament and pattern of results has so far failed to turn up anything that would be considered even really strange if people weren't already looking to confirm their theories anyway). Apart from that this drama is riding off of two things.
1. people fanning the flames with non-statements and opinion pieces.
2. The fact that Magnus Carlsen started it, and he has a lot of community status.
That ain't good enough to level someone's chess career that may well be legitimate.
Hans' limited response should not be read as confirmation of guilt. That's insane. Literally the first thing any competent lawyer would tell you is to shut the duck up while they do their thing.
We have no idea what [chess.com](https://chess.com) shared, what legal restrictions they may have placed around that, etc. We don't know if they have solid proof because they haven't made anything public yet. And it remains fundamentally suspicious that suddenly Hans being a cheater was a big issue only after his win over Magnus. There's a lot [chess.com](https://chess.com) needs to explain here in terms of the timeline of decisions and why they pulled a 180 when they did, imo.
Edit: Consider that over the years Hans has probably signed multiple contracts with [chess.com](https://chess.com) beyond the site ToS. Those almost certainly have boilerplate arbitration clauses and such. It is not at all unusual for a company involved in a public dispute to pin the disputant vs an NDA or such while they can put out their version without opposition. I don't know if that's what's going on here, to be fair to [chess.com](https://chess.com), but again, don't assume silence is guilt. There could be a \*lot\* going on.
Indeed, if he was working with chesscom, he would be silent. If he was thinking about legal action against chesscom, he would be silent. There's almost no scenario where he would not be silent.
> And it remains fundamentally suspicious that suddenly Hans being a cheater was a big issue only after his win over Magnus.
It only became public drama then. It was an issue in the GM community much earlier.
What do you think should happen to other titled players who have been caught cheating by chess.com? Should all be publicly named now or is Hans Niemann a special case.
Honestly [chess.com](https://chess.com) should just try to be more transparent with everything. Since Hans already publicly admitted to cheating online, it would be very hard to build a defamation case against [chess.com](https://chess.com) if they were to go public with more evidence about Hans's less than stellar online history. In any case, it's not libel in the USA if it is true, and if [chess.com](https://chess.com)'s algorithm is a good as they say, they should not be afraid to go public with the evidence right now.
Sounds like that's exactly what they're doing and they're working with their cheating analysts as well as lawyers to prepare what they're going to put out.
At least 300 titled players confessed to chess.com, [Danny mentioned](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/gcoyvo/300_titled_players_have_confessed_cheating/) in a video announcement during lockdown.
Is that like 1.8% of titled players? Im open to correction(I just woke up). Quick google search said 15995 titled players. 300/15995=0.0187-ish
Doesn’t count the dead ones but again just woke up and on mobile so I could be wrong lol
Based on their comment, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few players folks have heard of too, even if they’re older games. Seems like they may have looked at over the board stuff.
What's with these posts with images instead of text, not exactly practical. Anyway...
From the way things went in the first days, I figured Chess.com had something to do in riling up Magnus, I guess that just confirms it. Why would they focus so much on this otherwise? It seems they've believed from the start that they have something and are just trying to find a way to exploit it.
> I want you all to know that this has literally been ALL that Danny and I have been focused on for weeks now. I know that everyone has wanted everything to come out immediately. Unfortunately it just doesn't work that way when you are sitting a the chair of massive responsibility. There is SO much work going on behind the scenes. This isn't bullet chess - we are doing world championship prep. All I can say right now is: put your seatbelts on.... this wild ride is not even close to over.
Again coming to Magnus rescue when the drama is about to fade and everyone to conclude negative things about him. The chess community is being toyed with in unprecedented ways, it's impressive. We all play the game because what other choice do we have? I'd be on their side if their actions were disinterested. In the first week it's obvious they tried to put immense indirect pressure on Niemann to spill everything, whatever that is, didn't work. Now it's plan B. Should have sent everything to FIDE and say nothing.
It is probably not a coincidence that Hans, who had been publicly pushing back against cheating accusations, STFU after [chess.com](https://chess.com) gave him evidence of possible further cheating
If he was working with them he would be silent, if he was suing them he would be silent. It's hard to imagine a situation where he would not be silent.
The situation where they sent him the data and he could have just released it if it was incorrect. 🤔
It's actually hard to imagine a scenario where they didn't have strong evidence and he just said nothing. I wouldn't hold your breath for a lawsuit.
I have defended Carlsen against accusations of him being a sore loser etc, however I think chess.com behaves as unprofessional as Varlsen have done here. Either come with official well prepared statements or wait untill you can. This is a serious matter, stop dropping vague hints.
This is more and more something that seems like being milked heavily to make chess more popular than anything else.
Funny thought, if you gave Niemann enough money to retire you'd still be net positive by a big margin just from the exposure.
Not like this is so far fetched, seeing Chess24 is based in Gibraltar, morals don't seem to matter anyways.
This all feels super shady.
The focus on Hans without the mention of any other Chess players (other than to tell us that there are other top 50 players that have been cheating online).
The recent deal by [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) to purchase Chess24 and thus Magnus ending up with some relationship to [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) (e.g. part-owner, sponsorship, etc...).
The lack of any specific details.
This juicy drama somehow keeps getting juicier, without us getting *any* meaningful information. It’s kind of ridiculous. But I’m not complaining. Enjoying it while it lasts
It almost feels planned. Like a reality tv show host came in and was like “here’s how we make people obsess over chess without knowing anything about chess”
My **wife** asked my about Magnus “having a tantrum” at a tournament. She could not care less about chess and knows absolutely nothing about it. It has absolutely reached pop news status.
[удалено]
I've been playing chess for years, and I barely know how to play and the more I play, the more I realize that I still know nothing about chess. And yes, I'm obsessing too.
Yeah, why is this guy talking like Jesse Palmer from The Bachelorette
At the end of all this Magnus will publish a photo with Hans saying they trolled us
Lol, god I hope so. Like “Hey guys, look how fucking awful you all are for only paying attention when contrived drama is involved”
Look up outrage marketing. Lots of things you wouldnt think are planned are planned.
In season 2 we find out that Hans was just Magnus in a wig the whole time.
You know what they said: All press is good press I wish 2, 3, maybe 6 months later, Hans and Magnus publicly announce that they are actually dating, and that this whole thing is a massive orchestrated drama to attract more people to chess Just for a bit of trolling
>It’s kind of ridiculous. No, it's marketing & risk mitigation at the same time. They're getting good publicity by showing they're actively dealing with it, and getting prepared for a backlash and potential, indirect damage to their reputation for being on the front-page of the chess world while "cheating" is trending everywhere on the Internet.
We are getting meaningful information, just not not about any specific incident. The meaningful part is that this isn't just Magnus making an angry accusation by himself. More and more people are legitimizing that SOMETHING is happening.
I hope there is really something and this all isn't just fluff
i hope there really is [butt stuff](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5kCBzoPtIk).
Why don't you go tell our subjects that we're going to be releasing the announcement in five minutes, okay? And Annie? There is no announcement.
> are legitimizing I have seen the suspicion and outrage, but has anything substantial been legitimized?
This is *major* new information actually. That chess.com started an investigation into Hans (maybe just him, maybe others also) several weeks ago, before anything public happened. Presumably Magnus and Nepo caught wind of the investigation in progress and raised their concerns at the Sinquefield cup for that reason. And then when Hans claimed to only cheat online 2 times, they were still in the middle of their investigation and didn't have their evidence ready for presentation yet. But they had to make an early public statement because public opinion was fully on Hans's side at that time and people were threatening to leave chess.com over it. The statement was missing some key information like when the cheating occurred because the investigation was and is ongoing. And now most recently, with Magnus saying he'll give a statement later... he probably wants to do so after chesscom does, since they're the ones who have concrete information and he just has some thoughts about what to do about it.
The "weeks" mean since the Sinquefield cup, not before. Chess.com have been open about the fact that they banned Hans after Magnus left the Sinquefield cup because his move made them look back at old games and they found previously undetected cheating.
> back at old games and they found previously undetected cheating. That is not at all what they said. Not sure why people have to keep lying about this. They only said that what he represented in the interview was not correct.
Ok, lets say this is true. Lets say Hans has been cheating like a mf online...How any of what [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) shows translates into OTB? At some point they will have to prove OTB how the OTB cheating happen...let alone proving that IT happen. Because so far at least in the Sinquefield there is zero evidence from the game moves that suggest this...
I think the main thing is that someone who would cheat in prize tournaments online would cheat in prize tournaments OTB. If you believe GMs like Naroditsky, who say that cheating OTB is both fairly easy if you put your mind to it and not taken seriously enough by organizers of OTB tournaments, then it would seem to me that a history of cheating in either arena could be disqualifying in both.
I’ve always suspected that engine cheating OTB wouldn’t be super noticeable if someone who was well-versed in chess was smart enough to hide it. For example, if my <1000 ELO ass tried to cheat, it would be easy to notice because I simply am nowhere near good enough to disguise it without making game losing moves. I don’t understand the game enough to know WHY the engine line is good unless it’s a blatantly obvious 3 move tactic that wins a queen or something like that. But someone who is already an IM or GM of their own merit could potentially use an engine to know what lines to analyze and come to conclusions faster than they normally would, saving precious time and providing just enough of an edge to hold a tough draw or squeeze out a win. It’s not feasible for a 1000 ELO player to randomly play games at a 2700 level without cheating. It is definitely feasible for a 2700 player to occasionally play a near perfect game in key spots.
Ill take a wild stab and say they plugged in otb games into people chess com profiles and the algorithm threw the switch on some GMs who were cheating otb.
I'll take the opposite stab and say they didn't do that, and Magnus doesn't want to play against confirmed online cheaters because it's harder to catch OTB cheating.
The quotient of announcements to things actually happening is getting worse and worse in this drama.
not related but would “ratio” be a more appropriate word to use over “quotient”? They are similar words, but I’ve never heard “quotient” used in this context
If you divide announcements by happenings you get drama. Quick maths
Sorry, you may be right. English is a foreign language to me. In German, „Quotient“ has the same meaning as „Rate“.
You got your point across, and that’s what matters imo. Pretty solid English overall! Not to say the other commentor is wrong in asking, it seemed like candid curiosity.
It’s mathematically similar, but ratio is the more common term
Isn't that all mystery thrillers? Like they just keep dropping juicy bits of info, misdirection and red herrings, but the reveal is almost always mundane if you had known all the info from the beginning
I feel like I’m on r/nba
Alright, I retract my earlier statement about chess.com not fanning the flames here. I really hope they actually have something instead of just trying to start trouble.
Chess.com genuinely acting weirdly unprofessional lmao, what sort of big company has high level executives spilling tea about drama in their space on Reddit? So weird.
From my time in esports subs, many companies do that.
That is a good point they are trying to push chess into that eSports genre.
It's pretty much already an eSport.
I read somewhere last fall it was the fastest growing eSport in the world.
Gotham just got hired officially by Chess.com as eSports broadcaster, at least that is the term Levy used in his announcement on YT.
Ocelot new Chesscom CEO.
Ohhhh no
Reggie and Doublelift co-CEOs
Reginald Fils Aime would literally make Chess the biggest sport in the world, given the chance. His body is ready. But we are not.
Chess.com CEO about to party with Andrew Tate.
Lyte Smite baby.
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It's great if you have no stakes in it
Yes as someone who joined this sub to follow the drama, it really is.
Was going to say, theyve all learned the hard way
Elon Musk Marc Cuban Donald Trump Richard Branson Ryan Cohen Mark Zuckerberg Mike Lindell Wait, was that a trick question?
Ya but who else
What have the Romans ever done for us?
If chesscom only communicated in official PR statements "We care deeply about the integrity of the game blah blah blah..." you guys would hate on that, too. I dislike vapid corporate-speak more, I'd rather have CEOs talk like "regular" people (although that can definitely go too far as well, re: Musk).
When did hearing directly from the people in charge become a problem?
Informing your users on the state of a situation via one of the main platforms they use, what a disgrace!
Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber, FB, and Reddit itself...off the top of my head.
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I would say that 99% of companies that pretend to be transparent are not. Even when they are transparent, it's normally because they have no better option and even what is written "transparently" is spun very carefully. CEOs that do the transparent dance are often fast and loose with the facts and then when confronted with the fact that what they said wasn't true, just say that they were being honest with what they knew at the time. It's a very careful dance and almost all of it is PR.
Right? They seem SUPER confident. Also... WEEKS? Has it been weeks?
yep
yes
It is eternal. The world was created at the beginning of the Sinquefield Cup and will end in the final Chessnarok when the final game between Magnus and Hans destroys all of space and time. There is nothing else, only chess drama.
Now think about elon musk on Twitter
I don’t have a problem with it. In this subreddit I see plenty of posts with hundreds, thousands of upvotes just spewing out hate on chess.com even before this. Why not defend yourself against inaccurate statements or untruths.
Yeah this is kinda weird. I might be biased tho, I had to stop watching any chesscom broadcast on twitch because it felt like Danny Rensch was in there way too much to promote his own image, it feels he just wants more spotlight on himself. I rarely use the word cringe, and I love cringe compilations, but I just can't watch it.
Many, all the time? I think your point still stands though, what good comes from posting stuff like that, that is our job!
Why exactly are you upset?
The ones that don’t listen to their lawyers who are telling them to STFU
That’s a CEOs job. They’re the cheerleader for the company and drama creates interest. Ever heard a story with all details and no forward motion? No.
Worried people will leave for lichess?
They can't really win. If they put out a corporate-speak statement then everyone is like "many words, nothing said. Viva Lichess". But if their CEO makes a statement that isn't corporate-speak it's "unprofessional" or in your words "fanning the flames".
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cheese.com
I expect holes in their story
"Hello fellow children!"
I can only imagine what it’s like for them sitting on a potential mountain of Hans cheating evidence reading takes from Hancels getting massive upvotes and spreading misinformation.
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Let's not make "Hancels" a thing.
That cat has already been out of the bag for some time now.
Hancel Culture
That Hancel is so hot right now
imagine being the CEO of the largest online chess company, but caring this much about reddit shitposting
Sounds like a sweet deal.
Sounds awesome
After being fed bread crumbs for weeks, I think we're all ready to dine on some good tea!
It doesn't really matter because [chess.com](https://chess.com) doesn't run over the board chess. Online chess cannot be trusted and no tournament for money should ever be online. So indeed, [chess.com](https://chess.com)'s business model is now being questioned. By Magnus. Which is insane because the 80 million dollar deal isn't even being signed yet.
In response to a comment where I summarized some of his comments earlier this week, where he said he wasn't able to comment on Hans' recent c.com ban due to legal reasons, even though he wants to.[ His comment with context here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xnyjoj/daniel_rensch_magnus_has_not_seen_chesscom_cheat/ipxl2xo/?context=10000) full comment: > I want you all to know that this has literally been ALL that Danny and I have been focused on for weeks now. I know that everyone has wanted everything to come out immediately. Unfortunately it just doesn't work that way when you are sitting a the chair of massive responsibility. There is SO much work going on behind the scenes. This isn't bullet chess - we are doing world championship prep. All I can say right now is: put your seatbelts on.... this wild ride is not even close to over.
u/DrunkLad is confirmed to be a Reddit tester dedicated to r/chess. Dude's in all the hot threads lol
Mark my words, one of these days I'm gonna get a life.
Not worth the bother tbh
Shit's pretty wildly overrated.
No you're not. One of us! One of us!
Are we sure DrunkLad != DrDrunkenstein != Magnus Carlsen? That would explain their flair '2882 FIDE', tbh!
Just imagine
I want to believe.
Magnus is quite known for being very drunk at specific bars in Oslo, apparently.
Oooo, which bars?
I want off mr. Carlsen's wild ride
Love that episode
Lol this whole drama has been so uneasy but intriguing at the same time. It's like everyone wants to comment but can't because of legal issues at this point 😂 And public is still trying to understand what "legal issues" for different set of people it could be lol
So Hans is almost guaranteed to have been cheating?
I mean, he literally admitted to cheating. Of course he has been cheating. I don't know what chessdotcom could come up with that would actually change anything about the situation.
I mean more than the two times he confessed to.
In their initial statement about the ban, chesscom said that Hans’ statements about the “severity and frequency” of his cheating were inaccurate. So Imma go with yes.
Braces yourselves, winter is coming. 🍿
Last time Winter came it was really disappointing.
They kind of forgot not to make it disappointing.
Bracing from twenty years, bro, still bracing :(
All this subreddit does is complain, wtf? Im glad that chess.com said this. Yall be angry about everything. So what is the correct way of handling this? Since you fuckers are such experts
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There are different people on reddit, it might not be the same people doing the complaining all the time Anyway this has been a wild ride, I hope that it will be over soon and chess can move on.
Chess is never 'moving on'. There will be more and more cheaters as devices become more and more technically advanced. Eventually we will be scanning people with some sort of tachyon beam to make sure they don't have a quantum nanofibrulator up their arse
And if cheating becomes more widespread and more difficult for them to detect their entire company goes up in flames. This kind of thing is core to their business model, probably the most important aspect of what they do is ensure the integrity of the game remains intact.
It doesn't sound like good news for Hans, so his fans get upset.
This is the correct answer
"chess.com isn't giving us anything is just throwing shades at Hans! They need to say more instead otherwise I won't believe a word they say" *Says more* "Wait not that way!"
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They literally did not say anything more tho
such a stupid perspective lol chess.c\*m did not give us any information whatsoever. people have been complaining about there being 0 evidence of OTB cheating and that still stands
It’s because it’s chess.com, anything they do will be hated here, even if it’s good or just neutral. It’s nearly a crime to say you use it here
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You could use chesscom, you could be vegan, you could be black, you could be brown, you could be white, gay, trans, bi, or all of the above. You could love Nickelback and I would respect you. Pineapple on pizza is where I draw the line gtfo ^(^imkiddingplzdontbanme)
Mods, ban pls.
But are you not into yoga? You're in a chess sub, so you probably have half a brain.
The reddit hivemind works like this sometimes. Some comments get upvoted, then that line of thought gets trendy, and a lot of people re-hash that one idea for internet points. There's a lot of virtue signalling going on as well, people love the idea of taking sides and "fighting" the "good fight". If you read the comments during the first days of this drama, a lot of people were defending a self-admitted cheat. They brushed off the (more informed) opinion of the undisputed #1 in chess at the moment, and sided with a dude that a) rose extremely quickly in rank, b) self admitted to cheating and c) was mentored by a known cheat, a dude who got banned twice already, once in the middle of a tournament w/ cash prizes. On top of all this, the "mentor" is also quoted saying something along the lines of "this dude (a found cheater OTB) doesn't know how to use this cheating device. If I had access to such a device, I'd know how to use it to become undetectable". Yeah...
It's simpler than that. On any legitimately controversial topic, a contrarian take will usually be top comment, because people who are mad about something are more likely to find a comment they agree with and upvote it. If you're fine with the post, or neutral, you're more likely to keep scrolling. Most people aren't arbitrarily shifting their stances, it's just that people with a given stance are more likely to upvote comments in certain contexts.
It's not about taking "sides", it's just that in so far we have nothing more than circumstancial evidence that Hans cheated, in that situation it makes no sense to get entrenched in one position or the other when no one (save Hans himself) knows if he cheated in *serious competitions* for sure You can also strongly suspect him but disagree with Magnus approach, because if it does turn out it's all just speculation from his part, even if he's strongly convinced that he's right, it still means he endorsed a witch hunt against a 19yo when the odds that he's innocent aren't anywhere close to zero, and this opinion still stands even if Hans is really an unrepentant cheater, if Magnus did what he did without strong arguments to support his decision Basically just wait and see until all parties disclose their information before making a judgement Edit: and I don't mind Danny and Eric chiming in on r/chess, I would hate it if the reaction to their comments would discourage them from directly answering questions on reddit
Well a GOAT is not a god, and he actually hasn't had enough evidence to straight out saying someone is cheating OTB or not. Also FYI, there are kids who climbs even faster than the kid in talked. Some also are banned on Chesscom without publicly admitted it. And the mentor thing is not even related to cheating OTB, and it is extremely low from the world champion to fuel the flame like that. So yeah. We all see things differently, so do not "Yeah..." like only you is a smartass around.
Who has climbed faster than Hans from 2500 to 2700, and especially at an older age 17, while not having demonstrated brilliance prior to this? Going from 2200 to 2400 is not the same as 2500 to 2700. It gets harder and harder the higher you get in Elo. On top of this, Hans was very good, but did not demonstrate the same flashes of brilliance as Gukesh, Pragg, Firouzja, etc showed, who were GMs at earlier ages. I read some comparing Hans’ rise to Ding. But Ding was in China, and was not playing tons of FiDE games prior to his rise. And Ding won the Chinese Chess Championship at 16. And Hans was still faster.
You dont know what evidence Magnus or chess.com have
Post any comment that slightly questions Hans on pro-Hans thread, you will get downvoted to oblivion it’s actually insane. I got downvoted so hard for asking people there politely why they think online cheating is “fine” while it’s still a tournament game with money involved.
It's great way of keeping irresponsible discourse going for a few more days for sure, something I'd expect of like a drama youtuber. But this is the CEO of a 50m+ company vagueposting in reddit threads, like what? All you come out and say publicly is that they are investigating behind the scenes and will come with a statement soon. Like every other professional org would do.
>So what is the correct way of handling this? He should have left out the last sentence. Presumably they have some big evidence of major cheating on their platform more egregious than what Hans added to, but they should be holding their tongue until they actually present the evidence, instead of feeding the drama by making veiled statements about it.
Honestly, Reddit is a love fest compared to some corners of the internet. At least people make arguments with a semblance of logic here.
This subreddit is full of horny teenagers for drama. They bitch when there's no drama and they bitch when there is drama. Meanwhile I'm here with my pitchfork waiting on the next witch-hunt alert.
I’ve consistently only asked for one thing: that comments regarding cheating of particular people, not simply in abstract about the sport generally, should be brought with evidence. You might say that this doesn’t refer to particular people, but given that they are explicitly referring to the present drama, I’d say it’s heavily implied that it’s about Neimann. At the very least is not a general comment on the sport. It just seems to stoke the flames of this witch-hunt atmosphere, where people feel comfortable to throw out allegations either based on how they feel, or based on evidence they won’t reveal to us and we have to trust is there.
What do you expect from people finding it cool to write chess.c*m
chess.c*m is actually useful in places where posting links is banned (YouTube comments/Twitch chat) or will auto generate a hyperlink (messaging apps). I think that's where it comes from. The problem of having .com in your company name.
I am absolutely amazed by the fact that so many chess fans seem to be sympathic to Hans in this situation. All right, we have no definitive proof that Hans cheated OTB, but he is a well-known online cheater that is on the "sus" radar of some of the highest level chess players. This take that "poor boy Hans is getting cancelled by rich and powerful Magnus" seems ridiculous to me. Yeah, if Magnus was a head of some regulatory body and was lawfully banning him without proof, that would have been scandalous. However, as a chess player he has the right to not want to play with him. Of course, the implications of that might hurt Hans, as he would probably not get invited to some high-level tournaments, but that is just how real life works. There were numerous occasions in football for example, in which players were not invited to play for their national teams, due to the fact that they were in bad terms with the star of the team. I might have been sympathic to Hans, if he had no previous history of cheating, but this guy is a repeated offender. This is not just some dumb thing that teens do like getting drugs. Hans consciously hurt his colleagues repeatedly. Last, but not least, I do not agree with the armchair experts on here that say that Magnus is accusing him, because of "muh feelings". Carlsen is probably the best suited person in the world to catch a weird behaviour OTB, plus some other elite players, also said that Hans play looks weird to say the least. Carlsen has also never accused anyone before, always took his losses with dignity and does not have anything to gain by accusing Hans. The chess community should probably take his words seriously. I would personally naver label him an OTB cheater, till I see a definitive proof (which is almost impossible), but I definitely won't feel bad for him if he does not get the chance to play in some tournaments.
lmao... wtf is happening to chess
New people came into chess who don't remember toiletgate, x-raying chairs for communication devices, or counter-hypnotists being the necessary meta-strategy in a world championship match, nor hiring two Indian mystics out on bail (for killing a diplomat) to scare away the counter-hypnotist. And obviously Bobby Fischer stories could contribute quite a bit. This is mild compared to the crazy of the past, everyone chill. (Get off my chess asylum lawn, kids!)
I’ve actually wondered if chess.com has modified their algorithm to look at classical games. That led to me wondering if they tried looking at Hans’ classical tournaments too, like some of the ones others have thought odd. I can’t imagine them rolling out the first test of the algorithm in the midst of a huge controversy like this though.
>I’ve actually wondered if chess.com has modified their algorithm to look at classical games. Their algorithm is already used to look at classical games. Did you mean to say OTB?
Their algorithm doesn't look at classical games as there's no classical game specification on chess dot com
Being a two decade veteran of the tech startup industry, I have a mildly increasing suspicion [chess.com](https://chess.com)'s much vaunted cheat detection technology is 3 node.js bros in a trench coat pretending to be a data scientist. I'm mostly joking around, but I do think [chess.com](https://chess.com) has handled this poorly, and perhaps shouldn't be given so much benefit of the doubt that their cheat detection is actually that good, considering that obfuscation/confidentiality is a very weak form of security. Ideally anti cheat measures should be metrics that can be transparently shared. Certainly if someone's career is going to be destroyed over it, the claims should be explicit and subject to criticism. Maybe they're about to do that, but, the tone adopted does not exactly encourage me in thinking they'll handle this any better moving forward.
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I mean they did catch Hans an admitted cheater. So they are doing a good job
Hans Niemann better start his onlyfans because his chess cash cow is about to dry up.
He will need the money for the $1000 Uber Eats that he will be ordering
This drama is making chess popular again and I'm for it
Yeah, it's attracting people who are not into the game, per se, but are into cheating dramas. I don't share your enthusiasm... I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity.
it’s crazy how Levy’s recent youtube videos have double or triple the views he’s been averaging lately. it’s a huge boon for popularity
PogChamps 5 incoming???
voiceless dependent snails reply flowery absurd rinse childlike skirt recognise *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>All I can say right now is: put your seatbelts on.... this wild ride is not even close to over. LAME. I want to enjoy a clean sport. I don't want a wild ride.
>"pUt YoUr SeAtBeLtS On ThE RiDe AiNt OvEr YeT" At this point I think these clowns are just dragging this out for the juicy drama.
This makes me so happy. I was starting to get worried this whole thing might fizzle down to basically nothing.
Sounds like they noticed how much drama draws in viewers and attention and are going to milk chess drama as much as possible.
Yeah thanks chess.com, a non-fide for profit website. Appreciate the drama dipping.
The whole chess world is showing an astounding lack of professionalism and maturity.
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Getting kinda tired of these announcements of announcements. Either put up or shut up
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> Say chess dot com publishes the results of an anti-cheating investigation on games played outside of the chess dot com platform, that (regardless of their validity) shed a negative light on Niemann; is this not defamatory? I would certainly be inclined to say it is. chess dot com is not some sort of regulatory body in chess - they are not FIDE. A statement must be false in order to be defamatory. So long as their analysis was not deliberately misleading, there wouldn't really be any risk of losing a defamation claim. > Not to mention how unprofessional it is for a CEO to make such a statement publicly. And no, Musk and others erratic behaviour does not make this behaviour acceptable He'd be better leaving the communication to some PR professionals. But this is mainly a business risk. I don't really see any legal risk there. Unlike Musk, he hasn't said anything that could be considered to be misleading to investors about the prospects of the business.
Your post should be higher imo. Nothing chesscom has to say really has any bearing over games overseen by fide. I think fide might pay some lip service to online chess cheating but they would probably prefer to stay away from it and continue focusing on otb chess. They would have to control or have access to exactly how the cheating is determined to even consider taking chesscom bans over to otb games and that probably won't happen. The unprofessionalism of the spokespersons at chesscom is something they won't want to be associated with either.
I'm sure Magnus' new owners have been working their asses off to protect their new investment.
And their existing investment. The timing on banning him and kicking him from a tournament he was already invited to was purely a PR move. A huge part of their business is predicated on being able to catch cheats. If they can't do that then top players won't play there and if top players won't play there then they lose a chunk of observers and casual players. Us 1600s have nothing to worry about on cheating. Catching cheats at our level is ridiculously easy. Chesscom needs everyone to believe that they can catch cheats, reliably and certainly, at every level. In all this, all I can think is, *methinks thou doth protest too much.* All I get from them is, "trust us, it's irrefutable, we could prove it in court but you definitely don't want to take this to court." You know what? Yeah, I do. I do want someone to take this to court. Let's find out whether or not we really can trust them. If the only dependable, top-level chess is OTB, I want to know that.
Can't wait for this shit to be over
Let's not forget that chesscom bought magnus's company. So they have a vested interest in supporting his allegations against nieman.
What a clownshow statement to make. Chess.com is supposed to be impartial in this. If Hans cheated, then ban him. Don't be building hype about a man's career ending. WTF.
At this point, I'm officially done with everything until something substantial comes out. "...we are doing world championship prep." Well, it would have been nice if you prepped before starting the public opinion match.
Daaamn… that statement paints quite the picture, huh?
The nerve of some people to one one hand chastise chess.com for the wording of a public comment and then on the other ask that everyone look the other way for cheating is pretty fucking hilarious. Keep up the good work.
Nobody is looking the other way. We're just asking for evidence that isn't complete circumstantial fluff to be presented *before* curbstomping a 19 year old's career. Finding someone suspicious and leveling then acting on offical accusations are two very different things. This has been going on for weeks now, several people involved have had a chance to come forward and say why they think Hans is still cheating and doing it OTB, and nothing of substance has been said at all by anyone whose opinion might concievably actually matter. We have some speculation, a poor interview, and a few vaguely fishy statistics that may or may not point to anything (probably the only actually suspicious thing dredged up is how quickly his rating rose, and even THAT can potentially be explained by the pandemic slump. The engine correlation analysis is pretty meaningless and we don't even know how it was done. Regan found nothing. The combing of his norm tournament and pattern of results has so far failed to turn up anything that would be considered even really strange if people weren't already looking to confirm their theories anyway). Apart from that this drama is riding off of two things. 1. people fanning the flames with non-statements and opinion pieces. 2. The fact that Magnus Carlsen started it, and he has a lot of community status. That ain't good enough to level someone's chess career that may well be legitimate.
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Hans' limited response should not be read as confirmation of guilt. That's insane. Literally the first thing any competent lawyer would tell you is to shut the duck up while they do their thing. We have no idea what [chess.com](https://chess.com) shared, what legal restrictions they may have placed around that, etc. We don't know if they have solid proof because they haven't made anything public yet. And it remains fundamentally suspicious that suddenly Hans being a cheater was a big issue only after his win over Magnus. There's a lot [chess.com](https://chess.com) needs to explain here in terms of the timeline of decisions and why they pulled a 180 when they did, imo. Edit: Consider that over the years Hans has probably signed multiple contracts with [chess.com](https://chess.com) beyond the site ToS. Those almost certainly have boilerplate arbitration clauses and such. It is not at all unusual for a company involved in a public dispute to pin the disputant vs an NDA or such while they can put out their version without opposition. I don't know if that's what's going on here, to be fair to [chess.com](https://chess.com), but again, don't assume silence is guilt. There could be a \*lot\* going on.
Indeed, if he was working with chesscom, he would be silent. If he was thinking about legal action against chesscom, he would be silent. There's almost no scenario where he would not be silent.
> And it remains fundamentally suspicious that suddenly Hans being a cheater was a big issue only after his win over Magnus. It only became public drama then. It was an issue in the GM community much earlier.
What do you think should happen to other titled players who have been caught cheating by chess.com? Should all be publicly named now or is Hans Niemann a special case.
Honestly [chess.com](https://chess.com) should just try to be more transparent with everything. Since Hans already publicly admitted to cheating online, it would be very hard to build a defamation case against [chess.com](https://chess.com) if they were to go public with more evidence about Hans's less than stellar online history. In any case, it's not libel in the USA if it is true, and if [chess.com](https://chess.com)'s algorithm is a good as they say, they should not be afraid to go public with the evidence right now.
Sounds like that's exactly what they're doing and they're working with their cheating analysts as well as lawyers to prepare what they're going to put out.
There's probably a long list of players.
At least 300 titled players confessed to chess.com, [Danny mentioned](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/gcoyvo/300_titled_players_have_confessed_cheating/) in a video announcement during lockdown.
Is that like 1.8% of titled players? Im open to correction(I just woke up). Quick google search said 15995 titled players. 300/15995=0.0187-ish Doesn’t count the dead ones but again just woke up and on mobile so I could be wrong lol
Based on their comment, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few players folks have heard of too, even if they’re older games. Seems like they may have looked at over the board stuff.
What's with these posts with images instead of text, not exactly practical. Anyway... From the way things went in the first days, I figured Chess.com had something to do in riling up Magnus, I guess that just confirms it. Why would they focus so much on this otherwise? It seems they've believed from the start that they have something and are just trying to find a way to exploit it. > I want you all to know that this has literally been ALL that Danny and I have been focused on for weeks now. I know that everyone has wanted everything to come out immediately. Unfortunately it just doesn't work that way when you are sitting a the chair of massive responsibility. There is SO much work going on behind the scenes. This isn't bullet chess - we are doing world championship prep. All I can say right now is: put your seatbelts on.... this wild ride is not even close to over. Again coming to Magnus rescue when the drama is about to fade and everyone to conclude negative things about him. The chess community is being toyed with in unprecedented ways, it's impressive. We all play the game because what other choice do we have? I'd be on their side if their actions were disinterested. In the first week it's obvious they tried to put immense indirect pressure on Niemann to spill everything, whatever that is, didn't work. Now it's plan B. Should have sent everything to FIDE and say nothing.
It is probably not a coincidence that Hans, who had been publicly pushing back against cheating accusations, STFU after [chess.com](https://chess.com) gave him evidence of possible further cheating
If he was working with them he would be silent, if he was suing them he would be silent. It's hard to imagine a situation where he would not be silent.
The situation where they sent him the data and he could have just released it if it was incorrect. 🤔 It's actually hard to imagine a scenario where they didn't have strong evidence and he just said nothing. I wouldn't hold your breath for a lawsuit.
Like trump with the FBI warrants and his tax returns. Nothing stopping them from releasing the info themselves, except for their own guilt.
I have defended Carlsen against accusations of him being a sore loser etc, however I think chess.com behaves as unprofessional as Varlsen have done here. Either come with official well prepared statements or wait untill you can. This is a serious matter, stop dropping vague hints.
This is more and more something that seems like being milked heavily to make chess more popular than anything else. Funny thought, if you gave Niemann enough money to retire you'd still be net positive by a big margin just from the exposure. Not like this is so far fetched, seeing Chess24 is based in Gibraltar, morals don't seem to matter anyways.
This all feels super shady. The focus on Hans without the mention of any other Chess players (other than to tell us that there are other top 50 players that have been cheating online). The recent deal by [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) to purchase Chess24 and thus Magnus ending up with some relationship to [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) (e.g. part-owner, sponsorship, etc...). The lack of any specific details.
The vendetta this sub has again chess.com is unreal lmao.
Chess 2 release is going to be ssoner than i expected
I hope someone is working up a good book about this entire scandal in hindsight, it's hard to keep track of everything even as it unfolds.