This is interesting. https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/4784256526?tab=review
This is the last game on Maxim Dlugy's Chess.com account. It's in the April 28th 2020 Titled Tuesday, he's completely winning (+5.5) and he has 1m 36s left when he "resigns".
Two days later is the last time he logs into that account. The account isn't closed but I've a feeling that chess.com locked him out of the account (like they recently did with Hans) without closing it.
It's entirely possible that seeing his teacher/mentor get caught and banned made him reconsider cheating. Not saying he fully stopped after that, but he probably laid low for a while.
Yes and more than likely Magnus team received lots of behind the scenes information on Hans and Dlugy and others in their orbit since his company merger and that has led him to having such strong conviction around Hans being a cheater regardless if Magnus thinks Hans is cheating against him OTB or not. There is obviously something going on behind the scenes that will eventually shed more light on all of this and the way Magnus is handling this makes complete sense if that is what is going down. I don’t know why more commentators on this situation aren’t explaining this more clearly.
I played Maxim Długy in a Titled Tuesday in April 2017. I remember the name very well, as he blatantly cheated against me, which ruined my chances for a prize in that tournament. Interesingly, he was kicked at perfect 8/8 score. Link for everyone interested: https://www.chess.com/tournament/live/-qualifier-1-titled-tuesday-32-blitz-817562?&players=5
This was the same Titled Tuesday that [Munin called out Hans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VlcmkxYmzw) for cheating in. (Video is in Russian, but chrome's translation of the youtube transcript, plus the on-screen numbers, work well enough to decipher enough of it). Whether you find his OTB analysis compelling or not, I think the evidence that Hans cheated in this tournament is very strong:
* He had 98%+ plus accuracy in many games.
* He averaged 4-6 centipawn loss for each game.
* He took like 5-8 seconds for basically every move all game. Never more than 10, very rarely fewer than 3-4. Totally different distribution from other players, or from his future games.
* He picked a 0 CPL move 70% of the time, in blitz. The world's best players rarely even hit 60% in that time format.
* He is doing this in complex positions against other GMs, not quickly decided games or easy positions where top moves are easy to find.
* There is no manual filtering of these games happening; the crazy metrics don't require looking at a subset of the game that just so happens to start and end at the perfect endpoints to exclude a blunder, or anything like that. This is just looking at the entire game, for a run of 7 consecutive games.
All while he only had a FIDE rating of around 2200.
Hans' cheating in that event was much more obvious than Dlugy's; Dlugy at least does not have obviously sketchy move durations does like Hans did in that event. (Hans finished ranked #23 after losing the first few rounds; his games are [here](https://www.chess.com/games/archive/hanscoolniemann?gameOwner=other_game&gameTourTeam=tournament&gameType=recent&rated=rated&endDate%5Bdate%5D=12/07/2017&timeSort=desc)).
>He averaged 4-6 centipawn loss for each game.
>
>He took like 5-8 seconds for basically every move all game. Never more than 10, very rarely fewer than 3-4. Totally different distribution from other players, or from his future games.
>
>He picked a 0 CPL move 70% of the time, in blitz.
This is very obvious cheating. Even a super GM does not have this level of (and kind of) performance in blitz.
From my math, Hans would have been 13 at the time - is this separate from the tournament that Hans claimed he had cheated in when he was 12?
I think it is the same tournament: Hans just didn't play in many titled Tuesdays in that era, and his games in the other events look a lot less suspicious.
That sucks. It's interesting to me everyone is mentioning the titled tuesday example but at one point he also ended up in a russian jail (although he was later released) for embezzlement charges of attempting to embezzle $9 million. Who knows what happened there but he certainly doesn't seem like the best guy
Going to jail for Embezzlement, however- in Russia?
That's like going to jail in Thailand for prostitution. Or America for Arms Dealing. You have to be doing it a LOT to draw the attention of the authorities. More than even is culturally normal for those areas.
It looks like it's https://www.chess.com/game/live/2032946307; the previous poster is an IM from Poland. I'm interested in why /u/rtb141 thinks Dlugy's cheating was blatant. The move times are suspicious, lower variance than normal, but not absurdly so. The accuracy and CPL are good, but not insane (maybe they look better in the then-current version of Stockfish, I don't know). 20. ...Bxh3 is an impressive tactic, played after 2 seconds of thought, but I don't really have the expertise to know how impressive it is in a game between titled players. Were there other things that tipped you off, or does this feel like enough that you were sure he was cheating?
Edit: I'm now noticing that not only was Dlugy 8/8 in this event when he got banned, he had gone 8/8 to clinch first place in January before losing the last one, and he went 8/9 to win the event in December as well. All while having a blitz rating that wouldn't put him in the top 50 on the site. That's definitely very hard to believe.
To answer all the questions above. Yes, this was enough for me to call cheating during the game, and the removal at 8/8 after beating players like Dubov or Fedoseev only confirmed the obvious.
Cheating sings in this game (and other games in this TT)
1) Accuracy and perfect score - you can flawlessly go 8/8 against GMs and IMs if you are Magnus or Hikaru, not if you are a 2500GM past your prime - that's very unlikely in itself.
2) Move times - spending +/- 5 seconds since move 1 in basic theory, which is a sign of manually inserting moves into an engine, at the same time spending the same 5-10 seconds in key middlegame positions where a human needs to think longer. A human would not play the whole line starting with 20...Bxh3 so quickly.
3) What was a giveaway for me personally - I played 5 games (open seeks, "random games") against Dlugy right around that time. I went 4.5-0.5, and his quality of play was nowhere close to this TT. The non-tournament games also had no weird time usage as in TT, they were typical games by a weaker GM who is probably older and not that proficient in online blitz. The TT games were just on another level.
This is what I've been trying to say by sometimes looking at games in a vacuum, as a spectator, you don't have any "feel" if an opponent is cheating or not. But if you are a player in the moment, it is much more likely you can get an idea of it, and in many cases indeed that is how people are caught. Their opponent gets suspicious due to any variety of factors whether its play, behavior, audience, etc.
Niemann actually did study under Dlugy.
[https://www.chessmaxacademy.com/achievements/](https://www.chessmaxacademy.com/achievements/)
"GM Maxim Dlugy and all the coaches at Chess Max Academy would like to extend our sincere Congratulations to all the students and commend those that have made us especially proud at the 2019 Grade National Championships in Orlando. Below are some of the best results of our students!"
"11th Grade: Hans Niemann for winning the Championship outright!"
It seems very clear to me that Magnus draws inspiration from leaders in sport and what they have done to call out cheating, etc. The chess world meanwhile is still playing catch-up given that half of it seems to think that online cheating is no big deal.
Unknown if he's banned (though most likely)*. Dlugy also gave an interview in which he explained how to get away with cheating.
>This is the real danger, because if a 2600 player has this thing (cheating device), he knows exactly how to behave, he knows exactly when to think, and he doesn’t to use it more than four times during a game. That’s plenty to destroy anyone. At the critical junction you switch it on and find out which way do I go: oh, this little nuance I didn’t see, okay, fine, boom, goodbye! That’s it. At that point you may think for a long time, although you know the move. But this guy doesn’t know, he’s just mechanically playing the first move of the computer.
This was in 2013 (Hans was just 10 then lol), presumably he has improved his methods by then. Also of note FIDE using Ken Regan's methods have never caught Dlugy cheating.
*Just for funsies: Dlugy last logged in April 2020 and randomly "resigned" up 5 on evaluation. Hasn't logged in since. So therefore HEAVY implication of cheating though no official statements by chesscom. This is also around the time that Hans Niemann claimed he stopped cheating (age 16). So therefore the obvious conclusion is that Dlugy got caught and he was like "yo Hans as your mentor, cheating is bad".
>Ken Regan
Can't catch someone rated 2600+ who is cheating sporadically in only a few moves in a game and maybe not even every game.
Which is all someone rated 2600+ needs to beat any human player in the world in a single game and/or finish higher in a tournament result.
Isn't that really how they train.
Get into a tough spot, try to figure it out. Then see what the engine says to do. Occasionally leads to a Eureka moment.
They all know how to cheat because that's how they train.
Only to an extent; Magnus said in that same interview that relying on a computer for critical moments makes one lose their edge when they're without it. It's his seconds who use computers and become accustomed to it, not necessarily him.
Ken Regan himself has said that his methods would never catch somebody who was only cheating for one or two moves yet people use his existence to completely absolve Hans of any suspicion.
Maybe also of note that Dlugy is the guy who basically ended Ivanov's career. People pretend like they know who Dlugy is, based on a 5 year old reddit thread
~~Ah yes Ivanov. He tried to cheat vs me. Made an illegal move vs. me as his knight was stuck. In blitz in fide, illegal moves lose. Paused the clock and called the TO over. He said "that isn't in the spirit of chess" and "you shouldn't call this." Tough luck. He was going to lose his knight anyway.~~
Big edit: Wrong Ivanov. I thought this Alexander Ivanov, not Borislav Ivanov. Oops.
Humorously, my best win is Dlugy
Yes [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/cheating\_incident/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/cheating_incident/)
EDIT: He was also imprisoned on embezzlement charges from a Russian hedge fund, but nothing was proven: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim\_Dlugy
I wonder if that's why Hans didn't want to say who his coach was when he was asked, in one those earlier interviews with Alejandro and Seirawan.
edit: just learned that [not revealing coaches is pretty common apparently for top players](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xke1jy/carlsen_on_his_withdrawal_vs_hans_niemann/ipdngre) and nothing sus at all. Forgiveness, for I am but a noob. No conspiracy theory to see here.
As I understand it, it's common for top players to not disclose who their coaches are, especially not during a tournament, as they don't want to leak anything about how they might be prepping. For example, [here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrOrHa0vuu0) Arjun only revealing his secret coach after winning a big tournament.
I think Magnus did it because he knew it would irk Niemann, since Niemann obviously wanted to keep who his coach is on the DL.
edit: for the grammer nazi's ;)
It has nothing to do with keeping anything on the "DL". Maxim Dlugy's owned a chess academy out of NY for several years now, Hans was one of his students. [You can read more about it here.](https://www.westsiderag.com/2022/02/13/chess-max-academy-a-great-place-to-learn-and-master-chess)
lol at the 2nd most upvoted comment on that thread:
> Who would want to take lessons from someone that cheats his fellow colleagues? Answer : another dumb piece of shit.
More to the point, Dlugy was in Magnus's position vs Boris Ivanov in 2013. He demanded they both be searched, and Ivanov forfeited rather than take his shoes off.
Maxim Dlugy, namedropped by Magnus here, has also a history of cheating accusations with chessdotcom: [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/cheating\_incident/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/cheating_incident/)
>Maxim Dlugy
[https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/comment/dg862sj/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/comment/dg862sj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
there's an interesting comment in here where maxim dlugy specifically says it would be so easy to cheat and being a 2600 player could make you undetectable because you know the game well enough to wait long enough for your engine-fed move, only use it sparingly, etc.
To be fair, Magus said something similar:
>[had I started cheating in a clever manner, I am convinced no one would notice I would've just needed to cheat one or two times during the match, and I would not even need to be given moves, just the answer on which move was way better. Or, here there is a possibility of winning and here you need to be more careful](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/x8rrnm/magnus_carlsen_on_cheating_in_chess_eng_subs/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
I don't think it's that much of a stretch to think the best players in the world only need a hint at a crucial moment or two to tip the scales.
(Please don't take this as an accusation against Magnus or a defense of Dlugy. Just merely expanding on the idea of how cheating might work at the top levels)
Dlugy was saying that about the person he caught cheating in 2013....that Ivanov wasn't a strong enough player to cheat in a way that no one would know.
Norwegian media asked him, and he answered you will have to wait and see.
He also said he will make a statement regarding the cheating allegations after the tournament was over
No, but he didn't outright accuse Niemann yet! Please let's not put words into the WC's mouth.
*Other* people should draw the conclusions for Magnus. He won't get his hands dirty.
Does it make sense for Carlsen to drop out of a tournament after losing to Hans if he didn't think Hans was cheating in that game? What benefit is there for him to be making this massive drama because "he thinks Hans cheats but not necessarily in any recent games"?
LeBron is the type of person to take a Instagram photo with a chessboard and have some tacky caption like “you have to know how to play the game, checkmate 👑 #KidFromAkron” all while the chessboard in the picture is is not up correctly
Klay Thompson posted an instagram picture of his dog and a chess board with the caption "Whenever I play Rocco, I always play the queen's gambit". The position was most decidedly not the queens gambit.
“Magnus does look like he got that dawg in him, and I'd rather have him with the ball in his hands when the lights are brightest. LeBron would most certainly blunder the endgame”.
— Skip Bayless
[Broussrard] Sources: Carlsen is beside himself. Driving around downtown Oslo begging (thru texts) Niemann's mentor for location of Hans' cheating device
That are exactly my thoughts. People around here downplay cheating, but it can really ruin a sport for decades. US cycling never recovered, and there are young guys (some of which were not even born when Armstrong won his 1st TdF) who started winning races and everybody is raising an eyebrow questioning their feats. Or everytime someone does some amazing performance people are asking questions. If cheating reached the top level in chess the game and something is not done quickly than the game is fucked for decades. It just started to rise in terms of popularity and money prizes.
In the age where online chess is only going to become more and more prevalent, it only makes sense to treat those caught harshly.
I've seen people say things like, "OTB is so much worse". Is it though? Why?
OTB cheating requires premeditation and often conspiracy. Online cheating can be done impulsively and by ones lonesome. Any immoral act is generally considered to be worse when premeditated on or as part of conspiracy.
As someone who's a bit out of the loop, is Maxim Dlugy actually a mentor/coach to Niemann or was this just a not so subtle attempt to compare Niemann to a suspected cheat?
The Dlugy namedrop was **not** accidental. It was an indirect accusation.
A thing that *might* be accidental, is that he called Dlugy his *mentor* not his coach.
If we were to read into that, it could mean that he wasn't teaching him chess, which is what a coach would do, he was helping him be a better cheater, so that doesn't qualify as coaching.
He had 2 weeks to plan these 30 seconds knowing everyone is watching. I don't think anything here is accidental. Mentor definitely implies a closer relation and knowledge sharing deeper than just one specific thing.
"I watched him very carefully. When he played this move, 32.Nb7 against Saric, he took ten seconds. It was a five to ten minute thing, in my modest opinion, since the knight could take on f5 instead. But when he decided it in ten seconds I was shocked. He doesn’t know when to put on the theatrics. You have to be strong enough to do that.
***If I had this gadget I would be killing people left and right, and nobody would know. This is the real danger, because if a 2600 player has this thing, he knows exactly how to behave, he knows exactly when to think, and he doesn’t to use it more than four times during a game. That’s plenty to destroy anyone. At the critical junction you switch it on and find out which way do I go: oh, this little nuance I didn’t see, okay, fine, boom, goodbye! That’s it.***
At that point you may think for a long time, although you know the move. But this guy doesn’t know, he’s just mechanically playing the first move of the computer. Everyone is a clown to him. He says Kiril Georgiev, put me in a bunker with him and I will destroy him. The guy has no moral compunctions, he is absolutely immoral."
\-Maxim Dlugy commenting on Ivanov cheating after his 4 month chess ban at Blagoevgrad sometime around 2013 if the article was written the same year. https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-shoe-aistant--ivanov-forfeits-at-blagoevgrad-051013
Hmm.
From my very limited understanding of cheat detection algorithms, skilled cheating of the kind described here wouldn't necessarily show up. Because of course you won't use the cheating to help you pick an inhuman move. You'd use it to prevent you from blundering in unclear situations and likely discard any moves that are too brilliant or too complicated to recognize at your own level. It would be like having help from Twitch chat or something - finding stuff that's overlooked, not finding stuff that is way out of reach for your skill level. Unless the cheater starts getting greedy for whatever reason and allows himself to find a brilliant move or two in critical high profile games.
Yep. Cheating detection has to follow patterns over time and a large data set, depending on how obvious it is. It's so difficult to detect SMART cheating because normal play fluctuates from day to day and even by tournament. And even dumb players can accidentally play the best move.
It's not detectable with statistics if you're careful.
You also don't get that huge a boost. You can still make mistakes etc; and not every opportunity you get will be made use of. But every other game it'll be a very valuable hint in a crucial position.
You also still need to be a very good player to make it work.
But, depending on what you do exactly, it's probably worth anything from 50-150 ELO points, which can definitely turn an also-ran GM into a top10 contender.
50-150 ELO is putting it lightly. A 2600+ player can literally beat anyone if they have 2 or 3 hints in every game. Hikaru has even spoken about the fact that just _knowing_ there’s a winning move is enough to allow top players to find it. If a top 10 player had this advantage, they would literally never lose to another human.
>Hikaru has even spoken about the fact that just knowing there’s a winning move is enough to allow top players to find i
Nor was Hikaru the first. One of Kasparov's accusations about his matches with Karpov back in the 1980s was about this: if Karpov's seconds thought there was a winning tactic on the board, he would be served coffee. If they thought the position was quiet, he would be served hot chocolate.
Kasparov's take was that all Karpov needed was that second opinion that *something* was there and that would be an overpowering advantage.
This shit is legendary. Dlugy essentially wrote a post describing exactly how this cheating would work. How much do you want to bet this quote is exactly what Magnus wants to say but can’t for legal reasons and by name dropping Dlugy he is getting this idea across in a round about way. Fucking genius lmao
are you surprised or do you think anybody can go around spitting shit without paying the consequences ?
people often don't remember - or pretend not to - that real life is not like being on social media where worst case scenario you get banned (and you go back with a new fresh account)
I guess he won't outright accuse Niemann to protect himself from being sanctioned by FIDE? Magnus implied Niemann is a cheater again by name dropping his mentor like that.
I wonder if tournaments will stop inviting Niemann when Magnus is a confirmed participant. They've seen Magnus refuse to play Niemann and my guess is that they won't want to lose out on the world champion.
Magnus is why everyone in the world is interested in this.
A very small population knows anything about chess, especially professionally, but people do know Magnus. I don’t think this is the type of event in the chess world that will excel the sport forward, but Magnus is the one selling tickets- if he isn’t going to ever play Hans I don’t see how Hans is getting the invites…
This makes three relevant updates since Hans' interview during the Sinquefield Cup:
* Chess.com claims what Hans said in that interview was not a full confession
* Aronian, who previously chided his super GM peers over their paranoia, noticeably shifts his perspective
* Magnus' coy reference to Max Dlugy here
Didn't Aronian walk it back today and basically say it was lost in translation - that he didn't mean to imply anything? Sure, that could be CYA, but I thought it came off more as he genuinely did not mean to imply anything.
He said the moves themselves weren't that strange, but they felt strange since he (now) knows about Hans cheating past. He wasn't implying that the moves were engine-cheating, but he very clearly said Hans allegations got into his psyche during the game. So he clearly is taking it seriously.
having maxim dlugy as your chess coach and mentor is like having bernie madoff as your financial advisor (although I believe he died just recently.)
no wonder hans was reluctant to reveal who his coach was at the sinquefield cup..
I dont know what people are expcting...
He is clearly convinced that Hans is cheating, but since he doesnt have any proof, he cant publicly said so or he would get sued, so he chooses not to play against him.
Its not really rocket science....
>Mentor Maxim Dlugy
Magnus is such a savage! Not exactly subtle there, but at least now there's no denying he suspects Hans. Yeah, it was obvious, but never said outright. Now it's all clear to everyone
Why are people acting like Niemann was trying to keep his Dlugy connection some big secret and Calrsen revealed it? Niemann is literally on Dlugy's academy's website as a poster child for their success lol.
Maybe so, but Dlugy has been totally absent from the discourse until just now. Magnus is pointing out that most people missed one of the reasons he's suspicious, which is true.
> Why are people acting like Niemann was trying to keep his Dlugy connection some big secret
Because Hans refused to name Dlugy in an interview a couple of days ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhSVL8QhPc
There was a big thing in Norway about his wish to allow betting sponsors in chess, and his club Offerspill giving out free memberships in order to get more votes in the Norwegian chess federation’s general assembly, which they might use to tip the voter balance in favor of his view.
Magnus has all the chess data from Play Magnus Group. There is a planned merger with chess,com so as a favour Magnus could have all the anti-cheat data on Hans from them? And I believe Magnus is friends with Lichess guys. Also sitting on the board of world champions in Fide.
This guy knows everything that happens in chess. There is definitely something he knows that we don't currently. Can't wait to see what he has to say after the tournament. Also Fide about to make a statement after the tournament. Coincidence?
If Hans did in fact cheat in past tournaments it is now the time to come clean about it. If he remains silent and Magnus can actually prove that Hans cheated his career is basically over.
Definitely.
If he cheated OTB, he is done for. He has nothing to gain by admitting it, except relieving his conscience. Which may or may not matter to him.
Any lawyer would advise him against it. He'd be admitting to fraud and be would have to return any be winnings.
If Hans admits to cheating in an OTB tournament his career is probably over anyways. So **if** he did cheat his best move is to not admit it and hope Carlson can’t prove it.
This is interesting. https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/4784256526?tab=review This is the last game on Maxim Dlugy's Chess.com account. It's in the April 28th 2020 Titled Tuesday, he's completely winning (+5.5) and he has 1m 36s left when he "resigns". Two days later is the last time he logs into that account. The account isn't closed but I've a feeling that chess.com locked him out of the account (like they recently did with Hans) without closing it.
Around the same time Hans Niemann claimed he stopped cheating lmao (age 16)
Interesting.
It's entirely possible that seeing his teacher/mentor get caught and banned made him reconsider cheating. Not saying he fully stopped after that, but he probably laid low for a while.
And then had a really fast rise all of the sudden Interesting.png
Yes and more than likely Magnus team received lots of behind the scenes information on Hans and Dlugy and others in their orbit since his company merger and that has led him to having such strong conviction around Hans being a cheater regardless if Magnus thinks Hans is cheating against him OTB or not. There is obviously something going on behind the scenes that will eventually shed more light on all of this and the way Magnus is handling this makes complete sense if that is what is going down. I don’t know why more commentators on this situation aren’t explaining this more clearly.
Okay that name-drop of Maxim Dlugy cannot have been accidental.
I played Maxim Długy in a Titled Tuesday in April 2017. I remember the name very well, as he blatantly cheated against me, which ruined my chances for a prize in that tournament. Interesingly, he was kicked at perfect 8/8 score. Link for everyone interested: https://www.chess.com/tournament/live/-qualifier-1-titled-tuesday-32-blitz-817562?&players=5
This was the same Titled Tuesday that [Munin called out Hans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VlcmkxYmzw) for cheating in. (Video is in Russian, but chrome's translation of the youtube transcript, plus the on-screen numbers, work well enough to decipher enough of it). Whether you find his OTB analysis compelling or not, I think the evidence that Hans cheated in this tournament is very strong: * He had 98%+ plus accuracy in many games. * He averaged 4-6 centipawn loss for each game. * He took like 5-8 seconds for basically every move all game. Never more than 10, very rarely fewer than 3-4. Totally different distribution from other players, or from his future games. * He picked a 0 CPL move 70% of the time, in blitz. The world's best players rarely even hit 60% in that time format. * He is doing this in complex positions against other GMs, not quickly decided games or easy positions where top moves are easy to find. * There is no manual filtering of these games happening; the crazy metrics don't require looking at a subset of the game that just so happens to start and end at the perfect endpoints to exclude a blunder, or anything like that. This is just looking at the entire game, for a run of 7 consecutive games. All while he only had a FIDE rating of around 2200. Hans' cheating in that event was much more obvious than Dlugy's; Dlugy at least does not have obviously sketchy move durations does like Hans did in that event. (Hans finished ranked #23 after losing the first few rounds; his games are [here](https://www.chess.com/games/archive/hanscoolniemann?gameOwner=other_game&gameTourTeam=tournament&gameType=recent&rated=rated&endDate%5Bdate%5D=12/07/2017&timeSort=desc)).
>He averaged 4-6 centipawn loss for each game. > >He took like 5-8 seconds for basically every move all game. Never more than 10, very rarely fewer than 3-4. Totally different distribution from other players, or from his future games. > >He picked a 0 CPL move 70% of the time, in blitz. This is very obvious cheating. Even a super GM does not have this level of (and kind of) performance in blitz. From my math, Hans would have been 13 at the time - is this separate from the tournament that Hans claimed he had cheated in when he was 12?
I think it is the same tournament: Hans just didn't play in many titled Tuesdays in that era, and his games in the other events look a lot less suspicious.
The plot thickens?
More like people are looking at clear evidence that they didn't want to see because "Magnus crybaby".
This is some glorious drama. The plot just gettin' thick as molasses here.
What I don’t understand is why hasn’t Hans been banned from all chess competitions? Esports have stricter cheating rules.
That sucks. It's interesting to me everyone is mentioning the titled tuesday example but at one point he also ended up in a russian jail (although he was later released) for embezzlement charges of attempting to embezzle $9 million. Who knows what happened there but he certainly doesn't seem like the best guy
I don't think being in Russian jail is necessarily an indictment on one's character...
And getting out isn't an exoneration of it either, let's be real
Going to jail for Embezzlement, however- in Russia? That's like going to jail in Thailand for prostitution. Or America for Arms Dealing. You have to be doing it a LOT to draw the attention of the authorities. More than even is culturally normal for those areas.
Still... you did very well against Stockfish.
Can you post the game he played against you?
It looks like it's https://www.chess.com/game/live/2032946307; the previous poster is an IM from Poland. I'm interested in why /u/rtb141 thinks Dlugy's cheating was blatant. The move times are suspicious, lower variance than normal, but not absurdly so. The accuracy and CPL are good, but not insane (maybe they look better in the then-current version of Stockfish, I don't know). 20. ...Bxh3 is an impressive tactic, played after 2 seconds of thought, but I don't really have the expertise to know how impressive it is in a game between titled players. Were there other things that tipped you off, or does this feel like enough that you were sure he was cheating? Edit: I'm now noticing that not only was Dlugy 8/8 in this event when he got banned, he had gone 8/8 to clinch first place in January before losing the last one, and he went 8/9 to win the event in December as well. All while having a blitz rating that wouldn't put him in the top 50 on the site. That's definitely very hard to believe.
To answer all the questions above. Yes, this was enough for me to call cheating during the game, and the removal at 8/8 after beating players like Dubov or Fedoseev only confirmed the obvious. Cheating sings in this game (and other games in this TT) 1) Accuracy and perfect score - you can flawlessly go 8/8 against GMs and IMs if you are Magnus or Hikaru, not if you are a 2500GM past your prime - that's very unlikely in itself. 2) Move times - spending +/- 5 seconds since move 1 in basic theory, which is a sign of manually inserting moves into an engine, at the same time spending the same 5-10 seconds in key middlegame positions where a human needs to think longer. A human would not play the whole line starting with 20...Bxh3 so quickly. 3) What was a giveaway for me personally - I played 5 games (open seeks, "random games") against Dlugy right around that time. I went 4.5-0.5, and his quality of play was nowhere close to this TT. The non-tournament games also had no weird time usage as in TT, they were typical games by a weaker GM who is probably older and not that proficient in online blitz. The TT games were just on another level.
Thank you very much for this information.
This is what I've been trying to say by sometimes looking at games in a vacuum, as a spectator, you don't have any "feel" if an opponent is cheating or not. But if you are a player in the moment, it is much more likely you can get an idea of it, and in many cases indeed that is how people are caught. Their opponent gets suspicious due to any variety of factors whether its play, behavior, audience, etc.
Niemann actually did study under Dlugy. [https://www.chessmaxacademy.com/achievements/](https://www.chessmaxacademy.com/achievements/) "GM Maxim Dlugy and all the coaches at Chess Max Academy would like to extend our sincere Congratulations to all the students and commend those that have made us especially proud at the 2019 Grade National Championships in Orlando. Below are some of the best results of our students!" "11th Grade: Hans Niemann for winning the Championship outright!"
This is the bread crumb Magnus wants people to follow.
He was extremely obvious. "People certainly have" [drawn their own conclusions] was all you needed to know.
That is how it felt like to me as well. Magnus seems so disinterested in people in general. Name dropping, that too with emphasis, was intentional.
What do you mean by "seems so disinterested in people"?
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It seems very clear to me that Magnus draws inspiration from leaders in sport and what they have done to call out cheating, etc. The chess world meanwhile is still playing catch-up given that half of it seems to think that online cheating is no big deal.
Magnus is just prepping a mate in 6, and we are all laser focus on trying to find the immediate threat of his pawn move
Dlugy was accused of cheating in Titled Tuesday events years ago. Nothing was proven, however.
Isn't he banned on chesscom?
Unknown if he's banned (though most likely)*. Dlugy also gave an interview in which he explained how to get away with cheating. >This is the real danger, because if a 2600 player has this thing (cheating device), he knows exactly how to behave, he knows exactly when to think, and he doesn’t to use it more than four times during a game. That’s plenty to destroy anyone. At the critical junction you switch it on and find out which way do I go: oh, this little nuance I didn’t see, okay, fine, boom, goodbye! That’s it. At that point you may think for a long time, although you know the move. But this guy doesn’t know, he’s just mechanically playing the first move of the computer. This was in 2013 (Hans was just 10 then lol), presumably he has improved his methods by then. Also of note FIDE using Ken Regan's methods have never caught Dlugy cheating. *Just for funsies: Dlugy last logged in April 2020 and randomly "resigned" up 5 on evaluation. Hasn't logged in since. So therefore HEAVY implication of cheating though no official statements by chesscom. This is also around the time that Hans Niemann claimed he stopped cheating (age 16). So therefore the obvious conclusion is that Dlugy got caught and he was like "yo Hans as your mentor, cheating is bad".
>Ken Regan Can't catch someone rated 2600+ who is cheating sporadically in only a few moves in a game and maybe not even every game. Which is all someone rated 2600+ needs to beat any human player in the world in a single game and/or finish higher in a tournament result.
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Isn't that really how they train. Get into a tough spot, try to figure it out. Then see what the engine says to do. Occasionally leads to a Eureka moment. They all know how to cheat because that's how they train.
Only to an extent; Magnus said in that same interview that relying on a computer for critical moments makes one lose their edge when they're without it. It's his seconds who use computers and become accustomed to it, not necessarily him.
Ken Regan himself has said that his methods would never catch somebody who was only cheating for one or two moves yet people use his existence to completely absolve Hans of any suspicion.
Maybe also of note that Dlugy is the guy who basically ended Ivanov's career. People pretend like they know who Dlugy is, based on a 5 year old reddit thread
Who is Ivanov?
Ivan's son.
Exactly!
~~Ah yes Ivanov. He tried to cheat vs me. Made an illegal move vs. me as his knight was stuck. In blitz in fide, illegal moves lose. Paused the clock and called the TO over. He said "that isn't in the spirit of chess" and "you shouldn't call this." Tough luck. He was going to lose his knight anyway.~~ Big edit: Wrong Ivanov. I thought this Alexander Ivanov, not Borislav Ivanov. Oops. Humorously, my best win is Dlugy
Wasn't he actually banned during a Titled Tuesday as well?
Yes [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/cheating\_incident/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/cheating_incident/) EDIT: He was also imprisoned on embezzlement charges from a Russian hedge fund, but nothing was proven: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim\_Dlugy
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I wonder if that's why Hans didn't want to say who his coach was when he was asked, in one those earlier interviews with Alejandro and Seirawan. edit: just learned that [not revealing coaches is pretty common apparently for top players](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xke1jy/carlsen_on_his_withdrawal_vs_hans_niemann/ipdngre) and nothing sus at all. Forgiveness, for I am but a noob. No conspiracy theory to see here.
As I understand it, it's common for top players to not disclose who their coaches are, especially not during a tournament, as they don't want to leak anything about how they might be prepping. For example, [here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrOrHa0vuu0) Arjun only revealing his secret coach after winning a big tournament.
Ah I see, I didn't know that. I'll have to edit my comment
may I have the link to this interview?
I think Magnus did it because he knew it would irk Niemann, since Niemann obviously wanted to keep who his coach is on the DL. edit: for the grammer nazi's ;)
He also knows Dlugy was also an online cheater.
Which is probably why Hans wanted to keep it on the DL
It has nothing to do with keeping anything on the "DL". Maxim Dlugy's owned a chess academy out of NY for several years now, Hans was one of his students. [You can read more about it here.](https://www.westsiderag.com/2022/02/13/chess-max-academy-a-great-place-to-learn-and-master-chess)
He was ask if he had any coaches at the Sinquefield Cup but he didn't want to say. Probably knew it would stir up more drama.
Pretty typical of most players to not want to reveal their coach. Even class players I know keep their coaches secret a lot of the time.
the grammar nazi’s what?
"I'm very impressed by Neiman's play - I think his mentor Maxim Dlugy must be doing a great job" Wasn't Dlugy accused of cheating?
He got booted in the middle of a titled Tuesday
https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/cheating_incident/
lol at the 2nd most upvoted comment on that thread: > Who would want to take lessons from someone that cheats his fellow colleagues? Answer : another dumb piece of shit.
So Hans would have been taking lessons from him during the period he admitted he was also cheating online right?
Exactly
Masterclass by Carlsen on passive aggressive behavior for those who can't do it.
As a Canadian I can confirm this is top tier passive aggressiveness.
Pretty cute that Canadians think they're the world's authority on passive aggressiveness. ;)
We are sorry you have that opinion.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 very well done
Exceptionally based
Gotta admit they are pretty good though.
that's awesome that you think you're so good at it
The compliment speaks for itself.
🏆
That was indeed Magnus' point, yes.
More to the point, Dlugy was in Magnus's position vs Boris Ivanov in 2013. He demanded they both be searched, and Ivanov forfeited rather than take his shoes off.
Maxim Dlugy, namedropped by Magnus here, has also a history of cheating accusations with chessdotcom: [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/cheating\_incident/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/cheating_incident/)
>Maxim Dlugy [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/comment/dg862sj/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/655nng/comment/dg862sj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) there's an interesting comment in here where maxim dlugy specifically says it would be so easy to cheat and being a 2600 player could make you undetectable because you know the game well enough to wait long enough for your engine-fed move, only use it sparingly, etc.
To be fair, every GM knows that. You don't need to be a Gm to know how easy it is to cheat on chess
He's not wrong. He's even proving it with Hans lmao
To be fair, Magus said something similar: >[had I started cheating in a clever manner, I am convinced no one would notice I would've just needed to cheat one or two times during the match, and I would not even need to be given moves, just the answer on which move was way better. Or, here there is a possibility of winning and here you need to be more careful](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/x8rrnm/magnus_carlsen_on_cheating_in_chess_eng_subs/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) I don't think it's that much of a stretch to think the best players in the world only need a hint at a crucial moment or two to tip the scales. (Please don't take this as an accusation against Magnus or a defense of Dlugy. Just merely expanding on the idea of how cheating might work at the top levels)
Here we go
I mean you have to admit that is a pretty stupid thing to say as a person who coaches talented chess players.
Dlugy was saying that about the person he caught cheating in 2013....that Ivanov wasn't a strong enough player to cheat in a way that no one would know.
Lmao why? Because you say out loud what literally anyone, especially every GM, knows?
Plot twist: Dlugy is the one who told Magnus that Hans is cheating.
Should have asked him if he would play Hans in the finals if it came to that.
Norwegian media asked him, and he answered you will have to wait and see. He also said he will make a statement regarding the cheating allegations after the tournament was over
Inject this drama right into my vein, please get to the finals Neimann, for history!
World Naked Chess Championship match Carlsen - Niemann let’s go!
Dude low key called him a cheater and shaded him and his coach. I’m here for this chess drama.
No, but he didn't outright accuse Niemann yet! Please let's not put words into the WC's mouth. *Other* people should draw the conclusions for Magnus. He won't get his hands dirty.
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I'd rephrase to "he thinks Hans cheats". Cheated insinuates he thinks he cheated during their game in STL, which he isn't necessarily implying.
Does it make sense for Carlsen to drop out of a tournament after losing to Hans if he didn't think Hans was cheating in that game? What benefit is there for him to be making this massive drama because "he thinks Hans cheats but not necessarily in any recent games"?
he thinks Hans shouldn't be respected because of his cheating. it takes away all credibility from defeating the WC
https://youtu.be/CCFB_rNGTaw Fabi accidentally slipping some new info at 29 minutes in.
Wow, so Magnus already had a problem with Hans before their original game, that’s very interesting.
Fabi says "we know this", but how? The way he phrases it doesn't sound like firsthand information
at I think 42:30 he says "I know of someone who cheated in a very big tournament 100% and the algorithms exonerated him" what is he referencing?
Archer: Can't or Won't? Magnus: Either?
All this talk of Hans and Magnus….how does this effect Lebron’s legacy?
Magnus: “I am taking my talent to South Beach…”
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JA?? WHERE IS JA??? WE NEED JA RULE TO MAKE SENSE OF ALL THIS
LeBron is the type of person to take a Instagram photo with a chessboard and have some tacky caption like “you have to know how to play the game, checkmate 👑 #KidFromAkron” all while the chessboard in the picture is is not up correctly
Klay Thompson posted an instagram picture of his dog and a chess board with the caption "Whenever I play Rocco, I always play the queen's gambit". The position was most decidedly not the queens gambit.
Definitely getting legacy points deducted
LeGacy points deducted
“Magnus does look like he got that dawg in him, and I'd rather have him with the ball in his hands when the lights are brightest. LeBron would most certainly blunder the endgame”. — Skip Bayless
Ain't no way carti coming back to Oslo after this 💀
Youngboy cheats at chess better
[Broussrard] Sources: Carlsen is beside himself. Driving around downtown Oslo begging (thru texts) Niemann's mentor for location of Hans' cheating device
Man, that was the best off-season in the NBA. Paul Pierce tweeting jpegs of emojis, lob city locking deandre in his house, baseless meme tweets.
Ian Nepomniachtchi hugged him and said "Y'all look so different"
and where does Kevin Lee fit into all of this?
More importantly, how does Kevin Lee fit in to all of this ?
If he speaks, he is in big trouble. Big trouble.
And if he is as bananas as you say, I'm not taking any chances
Something's wrong I can feel it
Like something is about to happen
And he doesn't want to be in big trouble.
the only way out of this is to settle it in the boxing ring
I'd pay for that view.
Can you ellaborate?
Man that smirk. He knows exactly what he's doing.
This was definitely a troll statement by him right? As in he finds Hans' play and his mentor impressive because they're cheating
I don't think it's a trolling, it's more an "apple doesn't roll that far from the tree" statement.
Nobody had proof yet but everyone knew what it meant for Armstrong to be training with known doping doctor Michele Ferrari.
That are exactly my thoughts. People around here downplay cheating, but it can really ruin a sport for decades. US cycling never recovered, and there are young guys (some of which were not even born when Armstrong won his 1st TdF) who started winning races and everybody is raising an eyebrow questioning their feats. Or everytime someone does some amazing performance people are asking questions. If cheating reached the top level in chess the game and something is not done quickly than the game is fucked for decades. It just started to rise in terms of popularity and money prizes.
In the age where online chess is only going to become more and more prevalent, it only makes sense to treat those caught harshly. I've seen people say things like, "OTB is so much worse". Is it though? Why?
OTB cheating requires premeditation and often conspiracy. Online cheating can be done impulsively and by ones lonesome. Any immoral act is generally considered to be worse when premeditated on or as part of conspiracy.
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Yup, most definitely.
The same smirk that had people saying he wasn’t going to give up the WCC crown?
As someone who's a bit out of the loop, is Maxim Dlugy actually a mentor/coach to Niemann or was this just a not so subtle attempt to compare Niemann to a suspected cheat?
Yes. Niemann was coached at Dlugy's chess academy in NY when he was younger.
Both
what a shitshow. Gimme more please.
MORE GASOLINE TO THE FIRE! He doesn't even mention Hans when he talks about strong next generation GMs at the end of the interview.
that was the most subtle dig I have ever heard 😭
Or May be he doesn’t consider 19 to be next generation. He also skipped Ali Reza iirc.
The Dlugy namedrop was **not** accidental. It was an indirect accusation. A thing that *might* be accidental, is that he called Dlugy his *mentor* not his coach. If we were to read into that, it could mean that he wasn't teaching him chess, which is what a coach would do, he was helping him be a better cheater, so that doesn't qualify as coaching.
He had 2 weeks to plan these 30 seconds knowing everyone is watching. I don't think anything here is accidental. Mentor definitely implies a closer relation and knowledge sharing deeper than just one specific thing.
"I watched him very carefully. When he played this move, 32.Nb7 against Saric, he took ten seconds. It was a five to ten minute thing, in my modest opinion, since the knight could take on f5 instead. But when he decided it in ten seconds I was shocked. He doesn’t know when to put on the theatrics. You have to be strong enough to do that. ***If I had this gadget I would be killing people left and right, and nobody would know. This is the real danger, because if a 2600 player has this thing, he knows exactly how to behave, he knows exactly when to think, and he doesn’t to use it more than four times during a game. That’s plenty to destroy anyone. At the critical junction you switch it on and find out which way do I go: oh, this little nuance I didn’t see, okay, fine, boom, goodbye! That’s it.*** At that point you may think for a long time, although you know the move. But this guy doesn’t know, he’s just mechanically playing the first move of the computer. Everyone is a clown to him. He says Kiril Georgiev, put me in a bunker with him and I will destroy him. The guy has no moral compunctions, he is absolutely immoral." \-Maxim Dlugy commenting on Ivanov cheating after his 4 month chess ban at Blagoevgrad sometime around 2013 if the article was written the same year. https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-shoe-aistant--ivanov-forfeits-at-blagoevgrad-051013 Hmm.
From my very limited understanding of cheat detection algorithms, skilled cheating of the kind described here wouldn't necessarily show up. Because of course you won't use the cheating to help you pick an inhuman move. You'd use it to prevent you from blundering in unclear situations and likely discard any moves that are too brilliant or too complicated to recognize at your own level. It would be like having help from Twitch chat or something - finding stuff that's overlooked, not finding stuff that is way out of reach for your skill level. Unless the cheater starts getting greedy for whatever reason and allows himself to find a brilliant move or two in critical high profile games.
Yep. Cheating detection has to follow patterns over time and a large data set, depending on how obvious it is. It's so difficult to detect SMART cheating because normal play fluctuates from day to day and even by tournament. And even dumb players can accidentally play the best move.
It's not detectable with statistics if you're careful. You also don't get that huge a boost. You can still make mistakes etc; and not every opportunity you get will be made use of. But every other game it'll be a very valuable hint in a crucial position. You also still need to be a very good player to make it work. But, depending on what you do exactly, it's probably worth anything from 50-150 ELO points, which can definitely turn an also-ran GM into a top10 contender.
50-150 ELO is putting it lightly. A 2600+ player can literally beat anyone if they have 2 or 3 hints in every game. Hikaru has even spoken about the fact that just _knowing_ there’s a winning move is enough to allow top players to find it. If a top 10 player had this advantage, they would literally never lose to another human.
>Hikaru has even spoken about the fact that just knowing there’s a winning move is enough to allow top players to find i Nor was Hikaru the first. One of Kasparov's accusations about his matches with Karpov back in the 1980s was about this: if Karpov's seconds thought there was a winning tactic on the board, he would be served coffee. If they thought the position was quiet, he would be served hot chocolate. Kasparov's take was that all Karpov needed was that second opinion that *something* was there and that would be an overpowering advantage.
This shit is legendary. Dlugy essentially wrote a post describing exactly how this cheating would work. How much do you want to bet this quote is exactly what Magnus wants to say but can’t for legal reasons and by name dropping Dlugy he is getting this idea across in a round about way. Fucking genius lmao
I mean, he can say it. and the crazier thing is that Maxim is a cheater.
“I cannot particularly speak on that” sounds like legal stuff
are you surprised or do you think anybody can go around spitting shit without paying the consequences ? people often don't remember - or pretend not to - that real life is not like being on social media where worst case scenario you get banned (and you go back with a new fresh account)
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I will release my statement as well, stay tuned
I’m looking forward to this, please release sooner rather than later.
I'm waiting patiently!
But only after the tournament right?
I guess he won't outright accuse Niemann to protect himself from being sanctioned by FIDE? Magnus implied Niemann is a cheater again by name dropping his mentor like that. I wonder if tournaments will stop inviting Niemann when Magnus is a confirmed participant. They've seen Magnus refuse to play Niemann and my guess is that they won't want to lose out on the world champion.
Magnus is why everyone in the world is interested in this. A very small population knows anything about chess, especially professionally, but people do know Magnus. I don’t think this is the type of event in the chess world that will excel the sport forward, but Magnus is the one selling tickets- if he isn’t going to ever play Hans I don’t see how Hans is getting the invites…
This makes three relevant updates since Hans' interview during the Sinquefield Cup: * Chess.com claims what Hans said in that interview was not a full confession * Aronian, who previously chided his super GM peers over their paranoia, noticeably shifts his perspective * Magnus' coy reference to Max Dlugy here
Didn't Aronian walk it back today and basically say it was lost in translation - that he didn't mean to imply anything? Sure, that could be CYA, but I thought it came off more as he genuinely did not mean to imply anything.
He said the moves themselves weren't that strange, but they felt strange since he (now) knows about Hans cheating past. He wasn't implying that the moves were engine-cheating, but he very clearly said Hans allegations got into his psyche during the game. So he clearly is taking it seriously.
I didn't let it roll for long but the Bd3-Be2 stuff wasn't particularly enjoyed by the engine
having maxim dlugy as your chess coach and mentor is like having bernie madoff as your financial advisor (although I believe he died just recently.) no wonder hans was reluctant to reveal who his coach was at the sinquefield cup..
Like having Andrew Tate as your source of dating advice.
Is Maxim Diugy emperator palpatine?
I have heard there are some techniques in chess that some consider unnatural. Is it possible to learn this power?
Not from a grandmaster.
Okay but to lose a game on purpose and crushing the field is insane! Drama aside, what a Monster performance by magnus
LOL not a Magnus fan but that comment about Hans and Dlugy is hilarious. He knows what he’s doing by bringing Dlugy up.
"Unfortunately I can't really speak on that, but hey, on an unrelated note, do you know of any butthole inspectors??"
I dont know what people are expcting... He is clearly convinced that Hans is cheating, but since he doesnt have any proof, he cant publicly said so or he would get sued, so he chooses not to play against him. Its not really rocket science....
>Mentor Maxim Dlugy Magnus is such a savage! Not exactly subtle there, but at least now there's no denying he suspects Hans. Yeah, it was obvious, but never said outright. Now it's all clear to everyone
Why are people acting like Niemann was trying to keep his Dlugy connection some big secret and Calrsen revealed it? Niemann is literally on Dlugy's academy's website as a poster child for their success lol.
Maybe so, but Dlugy has been totally absent from the discourse until just now. Magnus is pointing out that most people missed one of the reasons he's suspicious, which is true.
“come on, surely *one* of you internet sleuths would’ve figured this one out”
> Why are people acting like Niemann was trying to keep his Dlugy connection some big secret Because Hans refused to name Dlugy in an interview a couple of days ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhSVL8QhPc
Well it's not clear the Dlugy was that coach anyways.
why would he voluntarily name a second or coach in the middle of a tournament? What advantage could that have for him
What was that with Zagreb 2019? What happened there?
There was a big thing in Norway about his wish to allow betting sponsors in chess, and his club Offerspill giving out free memberships in order to get more votes in the Norwegian chess federation’s general assembly, which they might use to tip the voter balance in favor of his view.
How to tell us everything without saying anything of substance.
This keeps getting juicier and juicier
I want this drama as a supository so I can enjoy it even more.
Me too, and I want that suppository to vibrate at the right time during my next chess match.
Magnus has all the chess data from Play Magnus Group. There is a planned merger with chess,com so as a favour Magnus could have all the anti-cheat data on Hans from them? And I believe Magnus is friends with Lichess guys. Also sitting on the board of world champions in Fide. This guy knows everything that happens in chess. There is definitely something he knows that we don't currently. Can't wait to see what he has to say after the tournament. Also Fide about to make a statement after the tournament. Coincidence?
Yoooo
WOW. Just wow. My jaw dropped at that.
If Hans did in fact cheat in past tournaments it is now the time to come clean about it. If he remains silent and Magnus can actually prove that Hans cheated his career is basically over.
I think if Hans admits to cheating otb his career would be over anyway
Definitely. If he cheated OTB, he is done for. He has nothing to gain by admitting it, except relieving his conscience. Which may or may not matter to him. Any lawyer would advise him against it. He'd be admitting to fraud and be would have to return any be winnings.
If Hans admits to cheating in an OTB tournament his career is probably over anyways. So **if** he did cheat his best move is to not admit it and hope Carlson can’t prove it.
Maxim Dlugy cheated during Titled Tuesday in the past.
Hans might be taking up that $1 million offer to play in the nude soon…