The unprecedented controversy over allegations of cheating is tearing the soul of chess apart. One is reminded of the match-fixing scandal that began rocking the world of cricket in the late 1990s.
At the centre of the tumult is 19-year-old American Hans Niemann, whom world champion Magnus Carlsen has accused of dishonest practices. It all began early last month when the Norwegian went down in a shock defeat against Niemann in a third-round match of the Sinquefield Cup, one of America’s most prestigious tournaments. This ended a remarkable 53-game unbeaten run for Carlsen. He then quit the tournament in a huff, despite there being six rounds left.
Carlsen started off with some oblique allegations. But then, when he faced Niemann again some days later in a game of online chess, in an unprecedented act, he walked out after just one move. He then openly accused Neimann, saying: “Throughout our game in the Sinquefield Cup, I had the impression that he wasn't tense or even fully concentrating on the game in critical positions while outplaying me…in a way I think only a handful of players can do.”
Niemann has admitted that he did indeed cheat in a couple of online chess games, when he was younger (and he was suspended briefly for this), but never in any competitive chess match, and not in “over-the-board” or in-person chess. But chess.com, the world’s largest site for the game, where most of the world’s top players compete, has banned him, and last week published a report that it is “likely” that he cheated in more than 100 online matches, including in prize money events and against highly-rated “well-known” figures in the game.
Among other things, chess.com analysts compared Niemann's moves to those suggested by “chess engines” and the probability of his results. Chess engines are powerful software programs that can crunch through millions of possible moves in the blink of an eye, which even the best players can never hope to do.
Chess.com noted “anomalies” in Niemann's rate of improvement—the American teen has soared up the rankings from around 800 in the world to the top 50 in less than two years. Apparently, this rise is the fastest in “modern recorded history”. But the report also notes that although his results are “statistically extraordinary”, there is no “direct evidence” Niemann cheated in his win against Carlsen or in any other over-the-board game. The Sinquefield Cup organisers have officially stated that they found no sign of any fraud.
Computer scientist Ken Regan, creator of a well-respected algorithm to detect cheating in chess, has said that though his analysis suggests that Neimann may have cheated in several online matches till August 2020, he has not found any issues with the player’s results—either online or in-person—in the past two years.
Yet, an accusation by Carlsen carries enormous weight—after all, he has dominated the game for a decade now. Interestingly enough, chess.com is also in the process of buying Carlsen's Play Magnus app for $83 million. While denying that its decisions are influenced in any way by Carlsen, the platform has barred Niemann from its 2022 Global Chess Championship.
The fact that one can cheat in online chess is nothing new, but how do you cheat in a physical match? Because that is what Carlsen has accused Niemann of. The only possibility seems to be that the player has a tiny gadget hidden or implanted somewhere in their body through which he receives instructions from an accomplice who is watching the moves and running a chess engine.
Neimann has said that he is willing to play naked if that will satisfy his critics or while locked up in a box insulated against all electronic transmission.
Right now he is competing in the US Chess Championship, where the organizers have installed security systems at the level of those used to guard high-threat-perception sites against terrorists. Each competitor goes through two body scans. The first is for metal devices. The next one, involving a machine called a non-linear junction detector, detects the presence of silicon-based electronic instruments like sex toys. The playing arena is installed with a radio frequency machine, which detects infrared radiations—signals to and from the players.
If all this is not enough, the matches are being telecast at a 30-minute lag, to ensure that players can’t get either a machine or a person to help them with their next move.
There seems to be absolutely no way that anyone can cheat here.
Niemann, seeded eighth in the tournament, won his first game against No 12 seed Christopher Yoo without much trouble, but the accusations are dogging him. He is under relentless scrutiny, from each word he utters to his body language. He has 12 more matches to go, and to have a crack at the $60,000 first prize, he will have to beat several players ranked much higher than he is internationally. As things stand, it looks like a lot of people may simply go ahead and decide that he cheated against Carlsen if he can’t make it to the top three in this championship.
This seems unfair. The chess.com report says that he “likely” used unfair means to win as many as 100 online matches, but also acknowledges that there was no direct evidence that he had ever cheated in any over-the-board game. To make the accusations stick, the chess establishment needs far more substantial proof than the reasoning that the speed of Niemann’s rise in the rankings is a statistical outlier.
The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has announced a panel to investigate his allegations against Niemann. This probe should be completed as urgently as possible. A young man’s personal and professional reputation is at stake.
Former world champion Garry Kasparov has never been one to mince his words. He tweeted a strong cautionary warning: “Creating favour and factions based on hearsay and cryptic bulls**t is damaging to the game. These players, especially the world champion, and companies should realize that. Sponsors and organizers don’t enjoy the toxic environment as much as social media might."
He then went on to call Carlsen’s behaviour, resigning a game after one move, “unacceptable”. “I understand his frustration and his anger after losing the game (in the Sinquefield Cup) and finding other reasons than his own poor play in his game to blame for his loss,” he wrote. “Even if he had proof, and as to the specific game Magnus lost there was no evidence of any wrongdoing, I think that was really bad for chess.”
Surely, a man is innocent till he is proven guilty? The former British world title contender Nigel Short—he lost his bid to Kasparov in 1993—has said that Niemann is at risk of suffering “death by innuendo”. Niemann has confessed to cheating in two “random” online games and has been already punished for that, and he was just a 16-year-old kid then. Should someone be stigmatised all his life for some casual youthful misdemeanour? Yet the ruling narrative is: We have no real evidence, but we find him suspicious—how did he improve his game so much in so short a time? And Magnus has been saying so.
Even if he is found innocent, as is very likely, Hans Neimann will possibly have a shadow hanging over his head for years to come. But the one clear message from all this is that the people who run world chess will have to get their act together quickly. The pandemic forced all the tournaments to go online for quite some time, and pure logic tells us that many players would have been illegally using chess engines while playing their matches on the net (all you need to do that is a smartphone).
As long as human beings compete with one another, some will try to devise short cuts to victory. FIDE needs to make its watchdog bodies much more vigilant, and its technologies and algorithms much more sophisticated and real-time. It could also learn a bit from all the successes and errors and cover-ups that world cricket saw during the sordid match-fixing episode. The credibility of a game is at stake.
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