Why I believe the so-called "Hans Niemann scandal" was actually a "Magnus Carlsen scandal" only no one dares to call it that:
Magnus Carlsen enjoys a tremendous amount of prestige and respect, adulation even, in the chessworld due to being the acknowledged best player currently alive. (some even say "ever" though there might be some hyperbole to that).
At the 2022 Sinquefield Cup Hans Niemmann, then a up and coming 19 year old relatively newly minted grandmaster plays magnus Carlsen who was just in one of the longest winning streaks of chess history.
Hans played as black (always considered slight disadvantage especially at this level) and was the underdog as he was much lower rated ,albeit still a Grandmaster and Magnus Carlsen hadnt lost i game in dozens.
He won the game pulling off a major upset.
Magnus Carlsen refused to shake his hand, quit the tournament and later insinuated in various tweets and conversations that he is confident Hans cheated.
Never mind, that both were surrounded by 4 or 5 proctors, in on open seating arrangement, well lit and viewed by many folks at the same time.
Never mind, that according to other analysts, the game showed no unsual play pattern indicative of cheating (ie having a chess engine whispering you solutions into your ear via a earbud or the like) except that magnus Carlsen perhaps played a bit weaker than usual.
19 yr old Hans Niemann who thougth the had the best moment of his life, beating his idol, was then accused by the Chess number 2 Nakamura, who has a active channel, and many other online chess personalities of having cheated Magnus, whether implicitly or explicitly..
When pressed in an interview, Hans admitted that as a minor he cheated once or twice in online games. Something that is arguably no uncommon, but he never cheated as an adult or in over the board games.
Absurd, impractical and insulting theories abounded, how he could have cheated (the main one was morse code by beads in ass from a buddy who was morse coding engine solutions, was floated, a freely invented and completly impractical cheat idea, designed to humiliate and ridicule Hans.
Hans was blacklisted from most tournaments and had to grind way in in open tournaments with minimal purses for a year and a half, signifcanlty lowering his lifetime ELO rating and income.
He is still partially blacklisted form some but not all tournaments.
Late last year a wealthy benefactor has sponsored a Hans Niemann World tour with large purses to entice major Grandmasters to play him outside of the normal (blacklisted) tournaments.
These were big name seasoned Grandmasters who stpped up, many of which outranked him in FIDE ELO rating.
He beat all of them handily.
Proving Magnus Carlsen wrong again and again.
He clearly did have the ability to beat him at least on occaision.
There was a Blitz championship in New York following the Hans Niemann Grand Tour in wich he only got 3rd or 4th place.
But again he still proved his point.
Yes Chess commentators who were almost without exception ,Magnus fanboys made it out that he failed to prove his point, because he failed to win that Blitz chamionship (which featered the best players on the planet) because he did not win all or most of this tournaments, the way Magnus would have.
This is of coruse a distortion, because to be proven right Hans does not have to prove himself better than Magnus Carlsen at all times, just good enough that he could beat him on Occasion.
Which he did.
Yes Magnus Carlsen is avoiding to play him (though he finally did play him in two matches beating him in the mateche sbut not in all component games of these matches) and in interviews makes it seem like Hans is somehow a lowlife and beneath him to play as a cheater.
While all along the Sinefield Cup scandal, was not Hans's scandal it was a Magnus Carlsen Temper tantrum scandal.
Needless to say Hans has been having a huge chip on his shoulder since then, against FIDE, chess.com and a whole slew of bandwagoneering chess comentators, which kept him an angry young man all these years.
But despite all the abuse, he has been plugging long and is now rated over 2734 and as the 18th best player in the world (Magnus is 2833 and rated number 1), which still makes Hans a Super Grandmaster capable of beating him on a good day.
All the fanboys who jumped on the bandwagon ("Hans could only beat Magnus with cheating") should be ashamed and apologies should be coming in from all corners, but sadly that is not human nature.
PS: Full disclosure; I am not a rated player myself and not competent to judge games at that level, short of obvious blunders, which do happen on Occasion in Blitz especially, even when Grandmasters play
I played only one tournament in my life and had chess engines estimate what my rating might be, if I was activly playing tournaments and they most come up with 1500-1800 ELO points.
Not great, not terrible.
Here he just played Daniil Dubov in Moscow, in a match in Blitz (Danil is one of the strongest players in the world in this format)
He did this right after placing 2nd in the Aeroflot Open, which is full of strong players despite being an "Open". 1st place was Ian Nepo another world class player who won with 7.0 points vs hans' 6.5 points.
Magnus Carlsen enjoys a tremendous amount of prestige and respect, adulation even, in the chessworld due to being the acknowledged best player currently alive. (some even say "ever" though there might be some hyperbole to that).
At the 2022 Sinquefield Cup Hans Niemmann, then a up and coming 19 year old relatively newly minted grandmaster plays magnus Carlsen who was just in one of the longest winning streaks of chess history.
Hans played as black (always considered slight disadvantage especially at this level) and was the underdog as he was much lower rated ,albeit still a Grandmaster and Magnus Carlsen hadnt lost i game in dozens.
He won the game pulling off a major upset.
Magnus Carlsen refused to shake his hand, quit the tournament and later insinuated in various tweets and conversations that he is confident Hans cheated.
Never mind, that both were surrounded by 4 or 5 proctors, in on open seating arrangement, well lit and viewed by many folks at the same time.
Never mind, that according to other analysts, the game showed no unsual play pattern indicative of cheating (ie having a chess engine whispering you solutions into your ear via a earbud or the like) except that magnus Carlsen perhaps played a bit weaker than usual.
19 yr old Hans Niemann who thougth the had the best moment of his life, beating his idol, was then accused by the Chess number 2 Nakamura, who has a active channel, and many other online chess personalities of having cheated Magnus, whether implicitly or explicitly..
When pressed in an interview, Hans admitted that as a minor he cheated once or twice in online games. Something that is arguably no uncommon, but he never cheated as an adult or in over the board games.
Absurd, impractical and insulting theories abounded, how he could have cheated (the main one was morse code by beads in ass from a buddy who was morse coding engine solutions, was floated, a freely invented and completly impractical cheat idea, designed to humiliate and ridicule Hans.
Hans was blacklisted from most tournaments and had to grind way in in open tournaments with minimal purses for a year and a half, signifcanlty lowering his lifetime ELO rating and income.
He is still partially blacklisted form some but not all tournaments.
Late last year a wealthy benefactor has sponsored a Hans Niemann World tour with large purses to entice major Grandmasters to play him outside of the normal (blacklisted) tournaments.
These were big name seasoned Grandmasters who stpped up, many of which outranked him in FIDE ELO rating.
He beat all of them handily.
Proving Magnus Carlsen wrong again and again.
He clearly did have the ability to beat him at least on occaision.
There was a Blitz championship in New York following the Hans Niemann Grand Tour in wich he only got 3rd or 4th place.
But again he still proved his point.
Yes Chess commentators who were almost without exception ,Magnus fanboys made it out that he failed to prove his point, because he failed to win that Blitz chamionship (which featered the best players on the planet) because he did not win all or most of this tournaments, the way Magnus would have.
This is of coruse a distortion, because to be proven right Hans does not have to prove himself better than Magnus Carlsen at all times, just good enough that he could beat him on Occasion.
Which he did.
Yes Magnus Carlsen is avoiding to play him (though he finally did play him in two matches beating him in the mateche sbut not in all component games of these matches) and in interviews makes it seem like Hans is somehow a lowlife and beneath him to play as a cheater.
While all along the Sinefield Cup scandal, was not Hans's scandal it was a Magnus Carlsen Temper tantrum scandal.
Needless to say Hans has been having a huge chip on his shoulder since then, against FIDE, chess.com and a whole slew of bandwagoneering chess comentators, which kept him an angry young man all these years.
But despite all the abuse, he has been plugging long and is now rated over 2734 and as the 18th best player in the world (Magnus is 2833 and rated number 1), which still makes Hans a Super Grandmaster capable of beating him on a good day.
All the fanboys who jumped on the bandwagon ("Hans could only beat Magnus with cheating") should be ashamed and apologies should be coming in from all corners, but sadly that is not human nature.
PS: Full disclosure; I am not a rated player myself and not competent to judge games at that level, short of obvious blunders, which do happen on Occasion in Blitz especially, even when Grandmasters play
I played only one tournament in my life and had chess engines estimate what my rating might be, if I was activly playing tournaments and they most come up with 1500-1800 ELO points.
Not great, not terrible.
Here he just played Daniil Dubov in Moscow, in a match in Blitz (Danil is one of the strongest players in the world in this format)
He did this right after placing 2nd in the Aeroflot Open, which is full of strong players despite being an "Open". 1st place was Ian Nepo another world class player who won with 7.0 points vs hans' 6.5 points.
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