Chess grandmaster Hans Niemann accused of cheating
By Zoie Calora 23’
From Bloomberg, Photographer: Tim Vizer/AFP/Getty Images
Hans Neimann, a 19-year-old chess grandmaster has gotten into a major cheating controversy in recent months. On September 4, 2022, Niemann beat Magnus Carlsen, the world chess grand champion, in an over-the-board game during the Sinquefield Cup. The Sinquefield cup is an annual invitation-only chess tournament. This was a major upset in the chess community which lead to Carlsen tweeting out a statement alluding to the fact that he thought Neimann cheated.
“I believe that cheating in chess is a big deal and an existential threat to the game. I also believe that chess organizers … should seriously consider increasing security measures and methods of cheat detection for over-the-board chess…I believe that Niemann has cheated more- and more recently - than he has publicly admitted.”
The idea that Neimann cheated in an in-person chess game became an internet meme with people theorizing the different ways he could even cheat.
Neimann has put forward many statements defending himself, saying he has never cheated in an over-the-board chess game, only admitted to cheating in online chess games when he was 12 and 16,
“I have never, ever, ever - and I would never do that, that is the worst thing that I could ever do - cheat in a tournament with prize money.”
He also claims he has never cheated while streaming.
Chess.com, a popular website for online chess games, decided to do a formal investigation on Niemann because firstly, he had admitted to cheated in recently 2020. Secondly, they found his over-the-board chess game to be suspicious. And lastly, they were concerned with the inconsistency of Niemann's rise in rank.
Chess.com used its analytical team to assess the potential cheating. The two common ways people cheat are using a computer engine to choose the best move for every move they play and comparing the sophistication of the chess move made to the player who made its skill to see if the move is unusually advanced based on statistical possibility. Chess.com based on their findings deemed that Niemann broke their standards of play and used the cheating tactics mentioned to cheat.
Data from Chess.com’s Hans Niemann Investigation
Chess.com found that Niemann has cheated in over 100 matches, 25 of which he was streaming. The two measures they use of Niemann's chess strength are his FIDE Elo and Chess.com strength score. Elo is used to showing the relative skill of players in zero-sum games. Chess.com's strength score is assessing each move a player makes and how strong of a move they are and giving an overall strength score for a game or set of games.
Statistically, just because something is improbable doesn’t mean it's impossible. So in each of Niemann’s games, it could be possible that he could play them without cheating, but the probability of anyone playing this well over the course of many games is extremely low.
Cheating in chess is extremely hard to catch. To precisely analyze if someone is cheated you have to understand the difference between human vs computer chess. Chess.com describes how if Carlsen was put up against the best computer engine, Stockfish, he would lose every game. Beginner players may try to use an engine like Stockfish to make every move for them which is easy to detect, but players with Niemann’s caliber don’t have to use a chess engine for every move.
For grandmasters, even getting one to three moves from a chess engine can completely alter the course of a game. Although Niemann has admitted to some cheating in online games it is still up to debate on whether he cheated in person against Carlsen.