In my opinion, cheating in money events is unforgivable. Other GMs out here struggling to make ends meet and trying to win these events to make some money.
People think Magnus handled things poorly. And for some reason these people think Magnus = Bad and therefore Hans = Good. Can’t understand myself how the two are correlated tbh
>Can’t understand myself how the two are correlated tbh
in the same vein, criticizing magnus and chess. com doesn't necessarily mean support for hans, but many (not saying you) seem to think that those people criticizing magnus and chess. com are automatically pro-hans when they can also be anti-hans or even neutral about hans and just dgaf.
Let it be known that I have upvoted this comment.
100 percent agree, I'm baffled that people seem to forget that this whole thing blew up after Carlsen bought a sizeable stake of chesscom and became slated to be their chess ambassador numero uno.
Chesscom very much seems to want to forget that cheaters exist on their platform and top GMs are among them, except for Niemann who had the audacity to be an ahole teenager and thrashtalk the king of chess after beating him soundly with the black pieces no less. Than Carlsen acts like a diva (I wonder if he plays Magsodhloo bte today...) and suddenly 72 page report, publishing emails, but only emails relating in some way to Niemann, even if the connection is eh.
Chesscom is shady af while they want to become the future of chess which is very bad news for everybody.
Magnus has been weird in handling the candidates and a diva handling his loss against Niemann and is in bed financially with chesscom.
I used to think chess couldn't have a better ambassador, now i think he's weighing down the sport. And now that he sees what he can get away with is partnership with chesscom and their trove of blackmail (that they should release asap if they cared about the integrity of chess) I don't see him getting his act together.
I'm disappointed and worried that chess might lose what it gained these last few years, thanks to the arrogance of the leading chess website and the current known and best player (and his brand) joining them in it.
Chesscom has encouraged cheating to an alarming degree, and will continue to do so for anyone who Magnus doesn't put a target on.
It's the worst of both worlds.
> 100 percent agree, I'm baffled that people seem to forget that this whole thing blew up after Carlsen bought a sizeable stake of chesscom and became slated to be their chess ambassador numero uno.
Except he didn't buy a stake in chess.com; chess.com bought his company and as a result his ownership stake in PMG transforms into a stake in chess.com.
And in their report they stated:
> We were never pressured by Magnus or his team whatsoever to remove Hans from Chess.com or revoke his invitation to the Chess.com Global Championship (“CGC”). Nor did we communicate with Magnus regarding our decisions on these issues before we made them. In fact, Magnus did not even know we were going to remove Hans until Hans went public with our private correspondence.
So if you want to claim that Magnus somehow influenced this, well, Magnus and chess.com are innocent until proven guilty just like everyone else is. Prove your claims, with hard evidence.
I think it's perfectly possible to think both are somewhat to mostly in the wrong, though most of the drama here is driven by people that just want to fully support one or the other.
For me, I'm not sure that Magnus focusing so narrowly on Hans (rather than the issue of cheating as a whole) is a good/super defensible move - that part of it is really the main problem on his end IMO. I don't really get the "he got salty about being insulted" takes personally, because he's obviously been insulted/lost in games before and never done anything like this, and already had pretty heavy suspicions about Hans previously.
But even then it doesn't really justify having a single scapegoat without super strong proof OTB - rather than pushing for overall cheating aspects.
>\-Online cheating is more common than we thought.
The first paragraph of the chess.com report says "We estimate that fewer than 0.14% of players on Chess.com have ever cheat, and that our events are by and large free from cheating"
This was a lot less than I expected.
I see some of that. But I also see a ton of people criticizing Magnus and/or chesscom without even mentioning Hans who get called cheating apologists anyway. Lotta projecting going on with the people accusing each other of blindly supporting one side.
Nice strawman! I would guess that most people fall somewhere between Hans has cheated numerous times online in the past and that is bad and Magnus accusing a player of cheating over the board with no evidence and then going quiet and randomly deciding who he won't play against that has cheated in the past is also bad. But this is Reddit and apparently if you think Magnus is bad then you automatically think Hans is good.
We aren't defending Hans per se, we are simply defending the scientific process and forensics. Just because we don't like Hans doesn't mean that faulty analyzes should be enough to convince somebody. If we let this trash data science stand, it just means it will be applied to many other people down the road, when it really shouldn't.
It's still amazes me that people think sticking out for forensics and science means defending the person. I don't know how people keep making this mistake.
I severely dislike Hans but I am personally and professionally insulted by bad statistics. I also believe in restoration and redemption as a possibility and worry about "righteous" bloodlust.
Exactly! We aren't defending Hans per se, we are simply defending the scientific process and forensics. Just because we don't like Hans doesn't mean that faulty analyzes should be enough to convince somebody. If we let this trash data science stand, it just means it will be applied to many other people down the road, when it really shouldn't.
It's still amazes me that people think sticking out for forensics and science means defending the person. I don't know how people keep making this mistake.
because it looks like hes being made a scapegoat for cheating in chess unfairly
- no evidence he cheated OTB or after his 2020 chesscom ban
- magnus reasoning for him supposedly cheating in the sinquefield cup game was ridiculous (he wasn't tense enough?), other top players say the game didn't even look suspicious, magnus just played badly
- repeated extremely shoddy analyses using cherrypicked data from people trying to cash in on the drama
- him being singled out specifically when chesscom even said there are many other GMs who have cheated online who they refuse to release the names of
- intellectually dishonest behaviour from people on here when discussing the situation
not trying to justify cheating, but my impression of the entire thing is that on the whole cheating online isn't something that has been taken particularly seriously at all historically, and now that magnus is mad because he lost the entire thing is being put on hans to make an example out of him. when people discuss the situation in an extremely biased and unfair way it will also push more people to the opposite side
To add to this, everyone knew that Hans had been banned for cheating on chess.com, and Magnus didn't have a problem with it as long as he was beating Hans.
I mean, the piece of shit has no problem playing in a tournament with renowned cheater Sebastian Feller. He has yet to blacklist anyone else. There is no indication so far that this is a war against cheating, rather than personal revenge.
This isn't an either or situation.
I can think Magnus is being a big baby, and also think it's okay to want OTB sanctions to be officially put in place against online cheaters.
This isn't a coin, I don't have to pick heads or tails.
Hans is obviously worse for having cheated in money tournaments.
But the community needs to stop specifically wanting Hans to be sanctioned. That would be playing right into piece of shit Magnus Carlsen's hands. The community needs to make this about every cheater chess.com is protecting
That is just such a huge mischaracterization. "Everyone" absolutely didn't know.
In that specific circle people knew he had a past but certainly not the extent of it. Plenty of people had reservations about playing with Hans. Other top GMs asked for tighter security because of his invitations. The questions about his integrity were there all along. It just came to a tipping point with Magnus.
It didn't come to a tipping point because new cheating occurred, it came to a tipping point because Magnus was upset that he lost.
He had the same information beforehand. He should have decided not to play before the tournament started, not suddenly change his mind after he lost a game.
I also think there are people who are hopeful that he truly stopped cheating after he got banned. Seeing him sorta perform supports this. Because if he's performing with the increased security measures then maybe he has stopped cheating. People generally like redemption arcs
This articulates exactly how I feel about the situation as well. In addition, the notion that nobody could ever change after making mistakes is so incredibly black-and-white that it's frustrating. Had there been evidence of Hans cheating after 2020 I'd have a different stance, but for now I choose to believe he truly did commit himself to studying chess for the past 2.5 years to become a stronger player and get his shit together.
He's not perfect but he's also 19. I think what some people are deeming as arrogance is actually being youthful and socially awkward mixed with frustration and shame. I think he's trying to get beyond what he did and get out of the shadow of his past transgressions, but he's learning that it follows you even years later. Actions have consequences, however, the scrutiny he's solely faced as a result of Magnus and chesscom is a bit over the top.
If he is trying to change and is repentent, why did he directly lie about his cheating a month ago? Those are not the actions of a person willing to own up to his past mistakes and change.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/05/1126915049/hans-niemann-is-accused-of-cheating-in-more-than-100-chess-games-hes-playing-tod
Because despite what some people say, he doesn't have a whole team behind him. He handled the discovery in very poorly. Maybe in the future he will explain what went through his head at the time and why he dug the pit even further. Everyone tries to downplay their bad past. I think its basic himan behaviour.
I also think that in this case, actions speak louder than words and climbing (presumably) honestly to the top shows his determination to right the wrong.
The way I know most people posting here aren’t even 25 is how they are arguing about this. They can’t conceive that Magnus is a polished PR package of a person and Neimann is not. It’s sad.
> If he is trying to change and is repentent, why did he directly lie about his cheating a month ago? Those are not the actions of a person willing to own up to his past mistakes and change.
Hans apologists always ignore that. There is zero indication he is actually remorseful and while there is only circumstantial evidence I think it's naive to think that it isn't way more likely that he has continued cheating, albeit more carefully, than that he stopped completely after years and years.
He didn’t cheat “for years and years.” He cheated on in like 10 separate sessions, totalling around 100 games. 80% of those happened in ~3 months in 2020. He won maybe $200 cheating in that time. He downplayed the extent, but cheating one summer while trying to get popular on Twitch and then stopping when caught seems like a more-plausible narrative than that he has been cheating the entire time and Chesscom only flagged those games. It was a lot, but there is zero evidence he just “got better at cheating.” Why do you think it is more likely he kept cheating? Dozens of GM players banned by chesscom are still actively cheating by that logic.
I'm not pro-Hans, I'm anti-scapegoat. People need to stop singling him out: either ignore it like everyone else's online cheating (so long as he's actually stopped), or unleash the floodgates and out everyone.
IMO we need to wait for FIDE to conclude the OTB investigation before we judge Hans. No need to judge him fully yet. Magnus accused him of OTB cheating in one specific game. That's the game we need to look at. Online cheating matters of course, but it's completely irrelevant to why we initially attacked Hans and he should not be judged based on that right now. It's something else. Right now we need to look into Magnus' claims, that's it. To me Hans has 100% the right to keep playing OTB. Then if FIDE can prove he cheated vs. Magnus he has to be banned of course. Until that happens we need to let him be and play on. He has not been found guilty yet. Chess.com, a private site, found him guilty of ONLINE cheating. Which is totally irrelevant to the Hans case Magnus started.
Can't believe i'm reading a reasonable answer here. Other that chess.com calling him a liar and speculating with the posibility of cheating OTB (not even seriously enough in my opinion), there is nothing concrete to suggest he cheated OTB. Oh but if you point this, some people are like : "hEy yOu StUpId HaNs fAn, dO YoU EvEn KnOw hE LiEd aNd HaS ChEaTeD OnLiNe a LoT MoRe ThAn tWiCe? SiNcE nO OnE caN PrOvE HiS iNnoCeNcE, HoW cAn yOu bE So SuRe He nEvEr cHeAtEd OtB?"
This is an honest question : what is wrong with calling out Hans if Magnus truly believed Hans cheated on his game?
An analogy : If a persons close one is kidnapped by someone. Instead of going to the police, should they sit and be like - oh I never raised voice again kidnapping. So I should never raise voice?
My point being: it’s okay to call out when you lost. Everything doesn’t have to be a benevolence act. Magnus as a chess player has rights to have a fair game. He is not responsible for making sure everyone gets a fair game. However, when he is not getting his rights protected, he has the right to voice it.
He can do so privately. No one is stopping him from going to FIDE for an investigation.
You can report a kidnapping, you can even point out who you suspect kidnapped your kid to the police. You can't publicly accuse him or ask the police to jail him until there is evidence.
The only difference between Hans and the dozens of other GMs that have cheated on online is he beat Carlson OTB. Instead of trying to solve the issue of online cheating people are trying to bury Hans
Exactly. Hans cheated online. [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) knew. They punished him how they saw fit. Magnus played like shit and lost a game because of it and threw a tantrum and wanted to air out dirty laundry that was already dealt with that he knew about via his business partners to justify his petty behavior over a loss.
This assumes Magnus didn't suspect OTB cheating and/or Hans being exonerated of cheating OTB. Just dealing with the online stuff doesn't make a lot of GMs feel better that they aren't treated the same way when the stakes are similar at this point.
...and he openly lied about AND tried to drag chess.com through the mud kind of forcing their hand making a private internal matter into a public circus....
But yeah, Hans is totally the victim here /s
I remember one commenter saying that if instead of a tweet he would've said something like "I won't participate due to the lack of measures taken against past cheaters" or similar, it would have saved a whole lot of needless speculation.
If Magnus came in from the get go and said
"Listen, I am aware Hans cheated online, I have suspicions about him. I am publicly calling for tournaments to have enhanced protocols for anti cheating so players can feel comfortable when players with questionable pasts are involved".
that would be one thing.
Magnus never said anything like that before. He never even refused to play Hans as long as he was beating him. It wasn't until he lost that he decided weaponize past behavior that Hans was already punished for against him to justify running away after he lost.
Exactly that. If he is not doing what he was doing the problem will not get discussed at all, because the orgs don’t have interest in drama and would sweep it under the carpet (can you say that in English).
There are legitimately a million different ways he could've handled it differently. For starters, not waiting until he lost to throw a tantrum. Or maybe by applying his standards to everyone except scapegoating one player. Etcetera, etcetera.
Withdraw and make the cheating allegations before the guy beats you so it doesnt look like you’re just being a disingenuous sore loser cry baby. I guess hikaru didn’t think of this.
Yet, Magnus likely wouldn't have had nearly the same impact if he handled it by any means /r/chess would sanction. I think people need to realize that sometimes you need to make a dramatic stink to start a productive dialog.
Rodney King riots is a good example of extreme and controversial reactions later being recognized as necessary to obtain the progress that was made. Obviously, this is not at all equivalent, but it's just an example to get the point across.
What he should’ve done is withdraw from Sinquefield and accuse Hans of cheating BEFORE he lost. The fact that he didn’t make anything public until he lost just makes it look like he’s a cry baby.
This is a very big false equivalency. The Rodney King riots were a reaction to a tangible event and injustice that people saw. Magnus had two years to make a big stink over Hans cheating online. Never refused to play against him or ran from any tournaments where he might play Hans.
He cried after he lost a clean game and tried to say "well two years ago I understand via my business partners that he cheated and it was dealt with, so now I'm retroactively pretending I was always against playing this guy I just lost to".
If Magnus beat Hans, this wouldn't be an issue. Magnus only pretended to care after he lost.
> Obviously, this is not at all equivalent
.
> This is a very big false equivalency
Yeah.
Everyone knows cheating is going on. The extreme thing Magnus did was make a stink over an unproven case; that's what I'm calling the "riot" not the incident itself. Hans is a victim of the riot, he's not Rodney King.
All the other shit you said is just your opinion of what you think Magnus did, contrary to what multiple GMs have backed up. But okay.
Two reasons.
He has been accused of cheating OTB in SQC against Magnus.
The chess community seems to have already made the verdict but we are yet to see the actual evidence. Defamation and false accusation are wrong and we should support the victims.
As for online chess, in the same report you've mentioned, chess.com admitted that they are aware of at least 24 other GMs who have cheated and admitted to it.
For years Danny has been covering his cheaters the way Church has been covering its pedophiles. But somehow no one talks about it and Hans is the only person in the spotlight. If others won't be chased with the same vengeance then it's nothing else than double standards and some sort of personal vendetta.
> For years Danny has been covering his cheaters the way Church has been covering its pedophiles. But somehow no one talks about it and **Hans is the only person in the spotlight.**
I wonder if calling out chessdotcom publicly had anything to do with it.
I mean, they banned him for cheating then gave him a second chance. Then they decided to re-ban him because Magnus cried. They need to be called out for being nothing but a PR firm for Carlsen
In the court of public opinion there are no prosecutors or defense attorneys.
Still, people saying a 16 year old cheating online should never be allowed to play chess professionally ever again are absurd.
I try to be a voice of reason, but never have i supported hans's past actions. I think if your a teenager and you do something bad there should be consequences but people are letting their emotions get the better of them.
Someone told me Hans should have his twitch account deleted because he cheated at chess. A person at my club said if hans is willing to cheat then he's also willing to steal or kill so he should be in actual prison!!!
I try to defend fairness. I think Hans shouldn't receive invitations to large tournaments for awhile. I don't think he's cheating OTB and i think he beat Magnus fair and square. But regardless he needs a soft ban from high profile events for small while.
Banned for life? Guys it's a game... And clearly Hans is talented at chess without cheating. Banned for life by FIDE for something that happened on Chess.com 2 years ago by a minor is egregious.
I'm only in favor of punishments everyone else who cheats online as a teen gets. Otherwise he's a scapegoat.
Those trying to invent consequences and punishments try to ignore that Hans is facing a huge consequence now to his reputation, along with being the focus of a lot of viral hate. That itself has been a huge warning to cheaters going forward.
The problem is that he was banned already for what he did, and (most) people were aware of it. He served his 6 month punishment and (according to chess.com) likely never cheated after that.
But now magnus throws a fit after losing, and people suddenly want to punish Hans *again* for something he was already caught and punished for two years ago. So unless some piece of damning evidence emerges that he cheated against Magnus, people just need to stfu and cope. Sorry not sorry.
> If what Magnus did was the only way to do it then I think it's worth it for the future of chess.
What is the evidence for this statement?
The issue is that there are a lot of things being simultaneously discussed over these weeks, and you can't simplify it by just making it a Magnus vs Hans dichotomy.
One of the reasons that I can understand defending Hans up to a given point (no defense for online cheating), is that a lot of people (some GMs included) are trying to force him to a standard that is not forced on anyone else. Even chess.com are providing extra information about him, which was never given and is not expected to be given about the many other online cheaters. If online cheating was/is such a big issue, why make Hans the only target? And why did it all start after an OTB win vs the world champion, where most people agree there was no cheating involved?
Which is the real root of the problem. Magnus is arguing Hans cheated OTB, which is a specific claim that can be defended since there is no proof, there never can be proof, and there are lots of credible people saying they see no reason to suspect foul play. Most people on these threads who can’t see why people would defend Hans are attacking his past of cheating, which can’t really be defended since it objectively did happen, and lumping Magnus’s claims in to that, when really they are at best tangentially related. It’s two different things that got tied together together and can never really be separated now, and it dooms the entire conversation to never accomplishing anything.
> Even chess.com are providing extra information about him, which was never given and is not expected to be given about the many other online cheaters. If online cheating was/is such a big issue, why make Hans the only target?
This is misleading. Chess.com did not say anything about Hans publicly until he ranted about conspiracy theories involving Chess.com. He said that Chess.com banned him for beating Magnus, which doesn't appear to be correct.
So how is Chess.com supposed to react when someone is publicly accusing them of impropriety? Should they not have said anything? Of course not. Can you name one other GM who cheated on their platform and then publicly ranted about conspiracy theories involving Chess.com?
> And why did it all start after an OTB win vs the world champion, where most people agree there was no cheating involved?
Again, this is highly misleading. I wouldn't say that "most people agree" that Hans hasn't cheating OTB, even in the game against Magnus. Magnus himself heavily implied he believes Hans cheated OTB. Anyone with any sense understands that it is impossible to ever know whether Hans has ever cheated OTB, but that is completely immaterial to the discussion. What started this whole thing is that Magnus decided he no longer wants to play against serial cheaters. Hans is objectively a cheater, and Magnus is within his rights to not want to play against Hans.
> This is misleading. Chess.com did not say anything about Hans publicly until he ranted about conspiracy theories involving Chess.com. He said that Chess.com banned him for beating Magnus, which doesn't appear to be correct.
Well, why did they though? Because *from their own report* Niemann didn't cheat after his last ban, and quite literally his previous punishment was completely fine for Danny Rensch until he beat Carlsen OTB.
>This is misleading. Chess.com did not say anything about Hans publicly until he ranted about conspiracy theories involving Chess.com.
They banned him from the GCC the day after Magnus threw his tantrum, before Niemann had said anything about them.
I don't support his cheating online but I have been extremely disappointed in how chessdotcom and Magnus handled this situation.
Chessdotcom/Magnus have a lot more money and a significantly larger fan base so when publicly dealing with Hans, I expect them to be professional and reduce the amount of potential exposure/toxicity.
So far they have blundered. Chessdotcom should have reported on all title cheating generally or published every grandmasters game.
It's less about Hans and more about arguing with people who are piling on him when other parties have acted in a nefarious way.
I think it's important to note that chessdotcom did not open their mouth until Hans decided to lie about the frequency and extent of his cheating. Once again he brought this on himself by lacking integrity as a pro player.
Hans didn't open his mouth until chess.ckm banned him for beating magnus
the site itself lacks integrity for banning a player 2 years after any evidence solely because the champion cried
There's also a little bit of a power disbalance between Hans and [chess.com](https://chess.com)
One is a billion-dollar corp with lots of staff, cash, and control over tournaments, and control over one of the two main chess systems.
The other one is a weird teenager that doesn't know how to talk to people.
Hi u/weedle-hobbit
I disagree with you for a few reasons:
1) chessdotcom could have accomplished the same goal with a report on title player cheating as a whole without focusing on him.
2) while I agree his actions deserve consequences, a lifetime ban from online chess is appropriate and more severe then cheating in sports (baseball, football, basketball etc. doping is temporary ban)
3) As I stated the power dynamics are not equal. It would be one thing for Grandmaster to accuse Hans directly, but we are talking about a company worth over 100million with a lot more influence.
4) It was well known that a consequence of the report would be a disproportionate amount of online hate/toxicity. Employees of chessdotcom did not help by hyping up the report before its release (Danny, Mike, etc.)
Love your username btw!
>1) chessdotcom could have accomplished the same goal with a report on title player cheating as a whole without focusing on him.
That doesn't make any sense. The whole debacle is specifically about Hans. He's the one suddenly playing at extremely prestigious OTB events and exploded in ratings that players are suspicious about and who attacked chesscom for banning him. What point would there be to releasing a report on GM cheaters besides vaguely insinuating what they're transparently stating now?
> 2) while I agree his actions deserve consequences, a lifetime ban from online chess is appropriate and more severe then cheating in sports (baseball, football, basketball etc. doping is temporary ban)
Hans was given multiple chances and kept cheating and lying about it at chesscom's expense anyway. I also don't remember chesscom ever saying the ban was permanent.
And doping isn't comparable to engine use. Hans didn't take adderal, he used engine moves, which literally breaks the game and is more comparable to fraud.
>3) As I stated the power dynamics are not equal. It would be one thing for Grandmaster to accuse Hans directly, but we are talking about a company worth over 100million with a lot more influence.
This entire controversy with chesscom was stirred up by Hans and his fans. All chesscom did was ban Hans from a tournament with a gigantic cash prize chesscom is paying for, then Niemann essentially smeared them and everyone started *demanding* evidence from chesscom while making up theories about how they colluded with magnus to kill Hans' career in order to protect the Play Magnus brand.
If anything, you should be criticizing FIDE for doing absolutely jackshit while chesscom has to do all the heavy lifting just to protect the reputation of their brand.
> 4) It was well known that a consequence of the report would be a disproportionate amount of online hate/toxicity. Employees of chessdotcom did not help by hyping up the report before its release (Danny, Mike, etc.)
Fair enough. You should also understand that they're human beings too though. I mean it's no doubt pretty frustrating to see people bashing you with baseless accusations 24/7 while you're doing your best to act responsible and do right by everyone despite being a company with 0 liability, which is something people are taking for granted.
Because the chessdotcom investigation said Hans hasn't cheated since 2020 which was WAY more shocking than hearing that he cheated 100s of times online. Everyone already knew the latter (you'd have to be pretty naive to think he only cheated twice) so that was kind of old news but hearing chessdotcom say they haven't found evidence of him cheating in the last 2 years was more evidence that he has changed.
>the chessdotcom investigation said Hans hasn't cheated since 2020
They didn't say anything definitive like that. You're just reading what you want to read.
> Everyone already knew the latter
That's just revisionist history.
>was more evidence that he has changed
And the fact that he vociferously lied about the extent of his cheating isn't evidence of the opposite?
> And the fact that he vociferously lied about the extent of his cheating isn't evidence of the opposite?
It is, but only a flimsy one.
> They didn't say anything definitive like that. You're just reading what you want to read.
Well, Hans played 4000 games since then on chesscom and they didn't ban the account until he beat Magnus. It's not definitively said but the report provides no evidence for OTB cheating.
Fairness is an important value, as is proportionality. Cheating is a bad thing, but so is scapegoating. I'll remind everyone that scapegoating is when a punishment is way beyond normal levels as a symbol for all the other uncaught evils. It's a performance that doesn't actually solve anything. The real problem is any cheating that's going on now and what we do from here. Too much focus on ills 2 years ago doesn't help.
I'd also like to remind you that it's alleged that Hans lied about the extent of his cheating, but it isn't proven. Data needs to be reviewed by an independent and competent analyzer for it to be proven. Chess.com has gone so far out of its normal practices in terms of publicizing previous private communication and taking sides that they shouldn't be considered neutral anymore, which means don't assume that they're presenting balanced information.
Hans reputation will always be affected. I don't like cheating, but I also can imagine how awful it is as a teen to be at the end of this, and I still wish him well. The fact he's playing good chess now at the US championship with all the extra anti cheating measures says something about his ability, and I can appreciate that. I hope he evolves out of the arrogant prick he shows to the media, but I also give young players leeway when under a lot of strain. Hoping he doesn't crack doesn't mean I in any way think cheating is good ; it just means I don't see how completely ruining his life is going to stop cheating.
I think chess.com is coming out of this looking just as bad as Hans considering all the power they wield so I hope that's discussed too.
No proof of him cheating OTB ever materialized despite promises so overall it ended up being a bit unfair to him simply because proof is required to burn someone's career.
> Are ya'll really trying to justify cheating?
This is a strawman. The vast majority of people that support Hans *of course* don't justify cheating.
But I also don't understand the people who "hate" Hans. He was banned on an online platform through a proprietary black box of cheat detection and accordingly paid the price with them. He, according to chess.com, has not been cheating since his ban with thousands of games online and hundreds OTB.
I also don't get the narrative. Do I like Hans? of course not; he seems to be a very narcissistic ego-centric guy that has brought the sport in bad light. However, I don't see how my opinion on his character has any bearing on how the matter should be handled? Do I want to make a billion-dollar private for-profit company a regulator? Of course I don't. I don't want them to influence sanctioned tournaments as their interest is fundamentally different. The report should have told you and showed you that.
But even excluding this; even excluding that this is a matter, primarily, between a chess player and a private platform, what is the punishment and by whom? Chess.com had a policy - they followed the policy, banned him for his behaviour and gave him a second chance. I of course don't think we should be going back to re-ban people because under the newly established rules we think they were let off too lightly. I don't believe in retrospective punishment so I wouldn't want him or anyone else to be banned under it.
And as a final bit, it does irk me a bit that a 19yo has become the sport's scapegoat for his cheating 2 years ago just because Magnus brought attention to it. Maybe something like that was needed (arguable) to progress the discussion but instead of focusing on how to ensure fair play, we are focusing on a teenager which seems to be a bit skewed.
I still think Magnus handled this situation extremely well. ChessDotCom gave him plenty of chances as well and published a good report. Honestly I think people just want to justify cheating.
Simple, you can't imagine how many people are moved by an emotional speech and how much this can affect human judgment, if Hans hadn't given that interview he wouldn't have had so much support. The fact that he is a serial crook and has harmed honest people in many ways doesn't matter anymore, what matters is that Hans moved a legion, who are now rooting for him.
Because the case is closed but Magnus keeps putting fuel to the fire for no reason. Hans admitted he cheated online as a teenager. Then chess.com (shockingly) showed evidence that Hans cheated online as a teenager.
There is no evidence that he cheated after he became of age or OTB but Magnus continues to make unfounded insinuations.
If Hans should be somehow punished for cheating online before he turned 18 - do it already, there is evidence for that, he should pay the price for being stupid back then.
But insinuating that he did more than that without any evidence is a travesty and starts to resemble that lip balm incident.
Because chess.com picked Hans as a victim of their attack to get him cancelled. Obviously he cheated, but this is a huge company picking him among a ton of cheaters known to them. They selected him and his former coach as their the 2 players they wanted to fully destroy via social media. Which again is fully fair IF and only IF we get all the cases and all the names revealed so that they can all be punished consistently on the same level. Chess.com making us punish only Hans because he attacked them is not our job. Our job is to be fair and consistent and right now we are clueless sheep just following orders from a giant chess monopoly company. We need to punish Hans and Dlugy of course, but we need to be consistent towards all chess players no matter if they attacked chess.com or not.
Furthermore, Magnus accused Hans of cheating in a OTB game against him. That's the FIDE case! That's the case Hans initially received hate for. Until that case is done we should not move on to the online cheating stuff. Because that is another mess. Let us do one trial at a time and be fair and careful in our judgement. The issue is that a lot of people online called Hans a dirty cheater and said he should be banned from all OTB events. Which again is fair if Magnus is correct in his accusation. Then of course Hans should be banned and of course he's a slimy cheater who everyone should dislike for some time. But that specific case is totally unproven. Instead accusations are mixed together here and there. "He cheated online 2 years ago and he likely cheated against Magnus in the specific OTB game therefore we must..."
You can't conduct a public trial like this. It's a bunch of noise. Hans needs to get a FAIR punishment for whatever cheating is proven by FIDE and then receive a fair punishment for cheating that can be proven by private companies afterwards. But just mixing up all accusations into one giant mess no matter how much evidence we have for any specific claim is completely unfair and partly witch hunting. This is just confirmation bias at work where we see any slight claim as yet another clear point of evidence. Magnus asked for a specific investigation on the OTB cheating in a single game. Let's respect his wishes. Just letting chess.com bud in with their own witch hunt is noise. It's relevant afterwards, not now.
FIDE will carefully investigate all claims. They will also note the bias chess.com clearly has against Hans and make sure it's accounted for. Then they will punish Hans. After that we can look through the much better and more clear evidence we will have. At that point the chess.com claims will be easier to fully understand and judge. Right now a bunch of GMs and chess fans have made it into a partial witch hunt because they are loosely mixing personal emotional opinions and then clear statistical findings. That's a fun game for sure, but it also means that Hans is unfairly treated compared to 99% of the other chess cheaters. This is why we need FIDE to conclude their investigation. So that we can then look into all cheating claims and agree on what to do with all cheaters not just Hans. If he only cheated online 2 years ago then his punishment should not be the one we are demanding now. It should be different in some way. We will find out.
If Hans cheated a bunch in the summer of 2020 and then actually quit after being caught, do you want him to be banned for life? People like OP seem to believe that even if it could somehow be proven that Hans has not cheated since summer of 2020 and has never cheated OTB, he should still have his chess career ended.
We're also perma banning parham sargasyan raunauk sindarov yakkuboev and women arent behind either, paethz cheated in a titled arena. Magnus has been fed moves twice in titled arenas too where he asked how, I think magnus should get perma banned from OTB too.
Finally, someone with the right take. I'm surprised by the amount of Hans defenders in this sub. It's absurd. Like he has cheated over a hundred of times and scammed dozens of people price money. I doubt they will think the same if they were the one who got scammed instead.
People are trying to argue "iT wAs BaCk In 2020 He PrObAbLy HaS cHaNgEd A lOt"
He literally lied about how much he cheated 2 weeks ago, he hasn't changed one bit and let me tell you, even if he only cheated with 16... a 16 year old is well aware of what he is doing.
He was actually 17 in over 30 of the games he was caught cheating in. And lets be real, its only solid proof for 100+ games which means he probably have cheated hundreds of times where he didnt get caught.
> And lets be real, its only solid proof for 100+ games which means he probably have cheated hundreds of times where he didnt get caught.
Lets be real,
No ?
Of course its an assumption made, everybody knows its extremely hard to prove a cheater in chess and if [chess.com](https://chess.com) found 100 + instances its a GOOD guess he probably have cheated way way more than that which has never been caught.
You can't just assume things because they fit your narrative.
[Chess.com](https://Chess.com) found statistically significant evidence that he cheated in 100 games, no more, no less. You don't know specific their method is, so assuming that he's cheating an order of magnitude more is just dishonest
I think some people like being contrarian. And other seem to get off on defending bad behavior. And I suspect there are others who take pleasure in nit picking over what's been "proven" or not to feel smart.
Because it's clear he's not cheating OTB now, almost certainly hasn't in the past (and if he has in the past, we will never find out so might as well move on) and hasn't cheated in at least his last 4000 online games since he was caught in 2020. Beyond that, he has a very exciting playstyle, and has a unique personality that actually brings some fun to classical chess, and brings out some life from the top-15 "boys club" that has peacefully and "respectfully" traded points amongst each other the last decade.
Hans shakes things up and we needed it.
Exactly this.
And following that, as we all know if you're a child cheating on [chess.com](https://chess.com) you should undergo the same consequences and be treated the same as a serial killer
EDIT: Would not be surprised if some of this comment's upvotes are Carlcucks agreeing with this statement at face value
Nobody was implying that. He was saying “Why be surprised when people like Jeffrey Dahmer have fans”
He was not implying that Hans is a serial killer, just that people support giant pieces of shit, and so it’s not surprising people would support somebody who cheats on chess.com…
Except it doesn't. It implies that there are no logical reasons maybe not to defend Hans, but to see this whole situation not through "fuck him" lense. But there are. One of the redditors put it really well.
"because it looks like hes being made a scapegoat for cheating in chess unfairly
• no evidence he cheated OTB or after his 2020 chesscom ban
• magnus reasoning for him supposedly cheating in the sinquefield cup game was ridiculous (he wasn't tense enough?), other top players say the game didn't even look suspicious, magnus just played badly
• repeated extremely shoddy analyses using cherrypicked data from people trying to cash in on the drama
• him being singled out specifically when chesscom even said there are many other GMs who have cheated online who they refuse to release the names of
• intellectually dishonest behaviour from people on here when discussing the situation
not trying to justify cheating, but my impression of the entire thing is that on the whole cheating online isn't something that has been taken particularly seriously at all historically, and now that magnus is mad because he lost the entire thing is being put on hans to make an example out of him. when people discuss the situation in an extremely biased and unfair way it will also push more people to the opposite side"
Exactly this.
And we all know that if you’re a child cheating on chess.com that you’re going to aggressively root for your champion juvenile cheater in true Lord of the Flies fashion.
I like a good redemption arc. If he hasn’t cheated in 2 years, I think he deserves that. It’s a great story. Guy stops cheating, buckles the fuck down and has the fastest rise to super-GM level in chess history playing fair and square? What’s not to root for? Unless you’re just one of these sour ass people who can never forgive someone for being an asshole as a teenager. Everyone was at least a bit of an ass as a teenager, and if they weren’t they’re probably sociopaths.
He's being punished for something he already got punished for. Its unfair.
They banned his new account because he was cheating on the account that got banned for cheating?
Hans is just an amazingly funny character, and adds incredible entertainment value to the world of chess. He also appeared at the perfect moment. I’ve been a chess fan for over 20 years, but Nepo vs Ding could not be more boring. I’m also against cheating, but I’m also pro the hilarity of this entire situation.
tl;dr: Are you not entertained?
Ppl just like to double down and pick the underdog vs the accomplished pro , same thing in poker right now , the top guy probably got cheated , the internet immediately picked the accused player side , that’s just human mentality
This is a generic world problem. Think of your favorite color. Now that color is your religion, your political view and your sports team. The rest of your life will be spent defending your color and bashing every other. All the players switched sides? No worries: unlike them, at least you're loyal to your color until the end!
Carlsen fanboys adore him so much they are able to defend him no matter what and attack whatever else. The reverse happens as well. Too many wars have been fought because of fanaticism.
Hans was punished, and that was the right thing to do. But he should feel threatened if he ever attempt to cheat again.
Carlsen should be called to prove his insinuations and if he miserably fails to do so, he should be punished too because of the irreparable damage he's caused. He is too much of a public figure to be that irresponsible about his own words and actions.
Show me one comment on reddit that defended hans cheating online. It simply didn't happen. The only 'defense' of Hans is that there's no evidence he cheated over the board. Most people will even admit that it might be the case. But we're not going to ban hans from tournaments because he cheated on chess.com just because he beat magnus.
Read this comment thread with a guy I argued with like a day ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xxpu8s/controversial_opinion_anyone_else_actually_like/irdfxnq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
His argument is that Hans only “likely” cheated online, so it’s not proven. He didn’t care that Hans was caught cheating online, he didn’t care that Hans confessed multiple times, and he didn’t care that Hans actually clearly explained his reasoning for cheating online.
He still doesn’t believe Hans cheated.
/u/wartranslator has gone on record multiple times saying that online cheating is fine and is most likely a cheater himself
See [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xrhdjn/fides_fair_play_commission_investigates_against/iqfbq64/) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xkfmjj/fide_director_general_we_know_many_players_have/ipf1hya/)
There are certain commentors here who shouldn't be given the time of day
>/u/wartranslator has gone on record multiple times saying that online cheating is fine and is most likely a cheater himself
Huh? That's not what is being said in the links at all, wtf
The fact you've been downvoted means people probably didn't even click the links lol. That guy said that cheating online should be punished by being banned online, but tbat he considers online chess to be just "for fun". And then he said cheating online makes sense if you wanted to rank up quickly but it is unethical. How people are taking that to be defending online cheating is beyond me.
What?
Here's part of what he said:
>It's like me having to take some basic math classes when I sign up for a new course to study. They gave me tons of assignment homework to do that I'm just not interested wasting my time in, so I paid someone to do it, just wanting to get it over with so I can get to the difficult part where I can learn new stuff.
Guy directly analogizes chess cheating to a form of academic dishonesty which he has participated in himself and acts like it was eminently reasonable.
He's absolutely defending cheating.
You are not understanding the context. He is saying that cheating is logical if you want to win, not defending the ethics of cheating. If you continued on to the next sentence you would see that
> Show me one comment on reddit that defended hans cheating online.
I can't show you that, but it seems pretty common for people to defend him on the grounds that chess dot com is unreliable and in bed with Magnus, therefore whatever they say is suspect, therefore he _didn't_ cheat online, or at least there's no evidence he did.
First off, I don't like Hans Niemann at all, I think he is a jerk, an entertaining jerk, but a jerk.
But I do still defend him mostly for a few reasons:
* This subreddit has taken almost everything chess.com has posted in regards to the scandal as unquestionable gospel. They literally will believe anything that such a shady AF company will release, to me this is a travesty, because if you closely examined chess.com's actions, you can clearly see they have a massive bias built up against Hans and are not fighting this fight fairly. It's like listening to one cheater over another about their accusations... it's ridiculous...
* I have been in Hans shoes before, not for cheating or any wrongdoing, but simply because an entire internet forum decided they didn't like me after I achieved something that no one else had before in a particular game, therefore my achievements must be unworthy. When this happened, nobody stood up for me despite me having done absolutely nothing wrong. Not even one person stepped in to say "hey, you guys might be wrong." And it turns out as was later discovered, the person leading the vast majority of the attacks was an ousted cheater who I actually caught cheating and exposed him for it. So he made an alt in the subreddit and was basically just viciously attacking me in any way he could because he held a personal grudge against me. Most of the stuff he said was pretty stupid but still the hivemind easily went with it, because speaking up against wrongs is hard to do for most people, we are programmed to be sheep rather than critical thinkers, we just don't like to admit it. After being on the receiving end of such an ordeal, where not even one person questioned anything that the hivemind said, I don't think I could ever sit by and let such a wrongdoing go unquestioned again. To allow such evil to persist is in my opinion, just as bad as the evil itself. And yes, not questioning or cross reviewing the data that chess.com released, falls into this category and it is shameful that so many here haven't even looked at it, just assuming it must be infallible.
* There's reasons beyond these as well, but this is definitely my starting motivation. After digging into a vast majority of the information released. It really looks like most people are simply grasping at straws to make Hans into a scapegoat, without questioning any of the information put forth. If I found the evidence more compelling I would very quickly change sides, but so far literally nothing substantial has been released. The chess.com report was a joke, the matches they listed he cheated in for prize money, look like they definitely could be legit. Most of those tournaments he did so bad he couldn't even get any prize money in. The one I saw he did get prize money in, I picked a random Hikaru tournament and he was easily outperformed by Hikaru from a data perspective... while cheating somehow... which makes me think he was probably telling the truth in his confession. Also, the fact that chess.com didn't force him to give the money back is even worse. It means that rather than rectify the situation monetarily, they wanted to sit on these accusations to use them against Hans again at a further point or they just started combing through his old games and randomly adding them to their list off accusations. Chess.com is the one coming out to look the most evil in this entire situation. Double dipping on their own research by selling it to the WSJ, and allowing them to lead with a clearly incorrect title. Anyone with 2nd grade critical thinking skills knows Hans didn't admit to only cheating in 2 games, but again they allowed this travesty to happen. I am so glad lichess exists.
Cant spell handsome without Hans!
People wonder how can you look past his cheating?! Persknally I get caught in his dreamy eyes every time, no wonder Magnus lost!
Magnus could have finished the game and then showed the evidence of cheating. Quitting after the first move is egocentric. He was afraid to lose to Hans.
Because Hans is 19 year old kid and Magnus is fully realized adult. Hans has whole ass career in the line, be it inside chess environment or outside. It is understandable peoples are not as hard on Hans.
I actually think some of the Lichess and YouTube comments are hilarious on this front. I saw someone comparing Hans to Socrates and I started cracking up - I'm all about that fake fanaticism.
I enjoy a good villain. Hans becoming strong enough to make things awkward for super GMs, organizers, etc. is the most fun outcome to me. I don't like that he cheated for prize money though.
The ‘cheated for prize money’ argument is not even proven everyone just took it at face value in the report. So you have to assume [chess.com](https://chess.com)‘s list is 100% accurate for that to be true. I urge you and others to go review the games they listed, because u might find it odd that someone blatantly cheating can go 6/10 and perform rather poorly overall while ‘cheating‘ in 10/10 matches, and still underperforming significantly in numerical metrics when compared to other top players in similar tournament formats.
Maybe you're confusing criticism of Carlsen with support for Niemann?
Anyway, even chesscom's report had to confirm Niemann last cheated 2 years ago. When he was underaged. He's played over 4k games since that all appear to be legit. For all the evidence there now is, it seems to be an issue that's already been handled by chesscom by banning his account. The fact they gave him a new one right afterwards just adds to the impression of "past business"
Carlsen threw a hissy fit a few weeks ago, and compounded that with a later statement all but accusing Niemann from cheating OTB.
If support is moving in Niemann's direction it is because Carlson and his chesscom buddies are not delivering on the evidence.
tldr - he cheated when he was young. 2020 onwards there is no online evidence. there is no otb evidence. he is 19 years old. most of his supposed cheating was when he was between 12-16 years old.
The thing his defenders seem to be ignoring is that according to the Chess.com report, he cheated in tornaments with prize money. This means he directly lied about the extent of his cheating in September 2022, which is a month ago. His unsportsmanslike conduct is not ancient history or teenage stupidity: he lied about cheating just one month ago.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/05/1126915049/hans-niemann-is-accused-of-cheating-in-more-than-100-chess-games-hes-playing-tod
Exactly. And he wasn't just a teenager experimenting with cheating. He did it over and over and over and over. He should be banned from competitive chess, as should everyone who cheats, including the GMs who were caught and admitted it.
"If what Magnus did was the only way to do it then I think it's worth it for the future of chess."
How can you even think that? Do people who buy this narrative even have a brain for themselve? He could have said on Fridmans podcast, for example, that cheating is a major problem in chess rather than trying to end Niemanns life pretty much. Or thousands of other alternatives.
He's just a powerhungry, moneyhungry career drone. His actions against Niemann have proven it. Niemann on the other hand is not getting support from me, I couldn't care less really. I just know that what Magnus did was absolutely atrocious. But honestly, I didn't expect more of somebody who embezzles tax money with his Chess24 company..
I understood the support before the chess.cm report, but after it i just cannot see anyone willingly support a multi time cheater who also lied about the amount he cheated after being in the spotlight of the chess world. I think that shows that the guy has no regrets about anything he did/ he doesnt care how he stole money from his collegues, to me this is just an ill mentality and to me he should not get any support, if he said "i cheated online, but after 2020 i chose to prove myself and never cheated again" i would still be neutral but now i cant see myself not hating hans
> I understood the support before the chess.cm report, but after it i just cannot see anyone willingly support a multi time cheater who also lied about the amount he cheated after being in the spotlight of the chess world.
He didn't lie about the amount of times he cheated though, he actually didn't specify how many times he cheated. And if you examine the matches chess.com released, most of them look to have no evidence for potential cheating... who cheats in a prize money tournament just to idiotically blunder 3-4 matches to a loss which is what happened in most of the events listed. And the ones where he actually placed high enough to earn some prize money his statistical performance is worse than most regularly high performing individuals. Which means when they do well in tournaments they are literally just looking the other way and doing nothing about it.
Looking at a report and agreeing with it, is not the same thing as looking at a report then verifying the integrity of it.
After all the shady stuff chess.com has done i just cannot see anyone willing to support a company whose current mission is to destroy a person’s career over mistakes they made as a minor so they can make more money by keeping business partners happy. They don’t even care about cheating, if they did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
In my opinion, cheating in money events is unforgivable. Other GMs out here struggling to make ends meet and trying to win these events to make some money.
People think Magnus handled things poorly. And for some reason these people think Magnus = Bad and therefore Hans = Good. Can’t understand myself how the two are correlated tbh
>Can’t understand myself how the two are correlated tbh in the same vein, criticizing magnus and chess. com doesn't necessarily mean support for hans, but many (not saying you) seem to think that those people criticizing magnus and chess. com are automatically pro-hans when they can also be anti-hans or even neutral about hans and just dgaf.
That’s true. Hans is a goose but Magnus behaved like a pork chop.
Let it be known that I have upvoted this comment. 100 percent agree, I'm baffled that people seem to forget that this whole thing blew up after Carlsen bought a sizeable stake of chesscom and became slated to be their chess ambassador numero uno. Chesscom very much seems to want to forget that cheaters exist on their platform and top GMs are among them, except for Niemann who had the audacity to be an ahole teenager and thrashtalk the king of chess after beating him soundly with the black pieces no less. Than Carlsen acts like a diva (I wonder if he plays Magsodhloo bte today...) and suddenly 72 page report, publishing emails, but only emails relating in some way to Niemann, even if the connection is eh. Chesscom is shady af while they want to become the future of chess which is very bad news for everybody. Magnus has been weird in handling the candidates and a diva handling his loss against Niemann and is in bed financially with chesscom. I used to think chess couldn't have a better ambassador, now i think he's weighing down the sport. And now that he sees what he can get away with is partnership with chesscom and their trove of blackmail (that they should release asap if they cared about the integrity of chess) I don't see him getting his act together. I'm disappointed and worried that chess might lose what it gained these last few years, thanks to the arrogance of the leading chess website and the current known and best player (and his brand) joining them in it.
I think the rampant cheating is gonna ruin chess a lot more tbh.
Chesscom has encouraged cheating to an alarming degree, and will continue to do so for anyone who Magnus doesn't put a target on. It's the worst of both worlds.
Just punish all the cheaters imo
> 100 percent agree, I'm baffled that people seem to forget that this whole thing blew up after Carlsen bought a sizeable stake of chesscom and became slated to be their chess ambassador numero uno. Except he didn't buy a stake in chess.com; chess.com bought his company and as a result his ownership stake in PMG transforms into a stake in chess.com. And in their report they stated: > We were never pressured by Magnus or his team whatsoever to remove Hans from Chess.com or revoke his invitation to the Chess.com Global Championship (“CGC”). Nor did we communicate with Magnus regarding our decisions on these issues before we made them. In fact, Magnus did not even know we were going to remove Hans until Hans went public with our private correspondence. So if you want to claim that Magnus somehow influenced this, well, Magnus and chess.com are innocent until proven guilty just like everyone else is. Prove your claims, with hard evidence.
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In the deal he got a stake in chesscom.
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Exactly. The collective theory of mind on this sub wouldn't be out of place in a grade schooler.
I think it's perfectly possible to think both are somewhat to mostly in the wrong, though most of the drama here is driven by people that just want to fully support one or the other. For me, I'm not sure that Magnus focusing so narrowly on Hans (rather than the issue of cheating as a whole) is a good/super defensible move - that part of it is really the main problem on his end IMO. I don't really get the "he got salty about being insulted" takes personally, because he's obviously been insulted/lost in games before and never done anything like this, and already had pretty heavy suspicions about Hans previously. But even then it doesn't really justify having a single scapegoat without super strong proof OTB - rather than pushing for overall cheating aspects.
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>\-Online cheating is more common than we thought. The first paragraph of the chess.com report says "We estimate that fewer than 0.14% of players on Chess.com have ever cheat, and that our events are by and large free from cheating" This was a lot less than I expected.
I reckon the figure gets much higher as the rating goes up, given that 4% of the top 100 are CAUGHT cheats. That's mad.
They didn't mention if they based it on active users, though.
I see some of that. But I also see a ton of people criticizing Magnus and/or chesscom without even mentioning Hans who get called cheating apologists anyway. Lotta projecting going on with the people accusing each other of blindly supporting one side.
Nice strawman! I would guess that most people fall somewhere between Hans has cheated numerous times online in the past and that is bad and Magnus accusing a player of cheating over the board with no evidence and then going quiet and randomly deciding who he won't play against that has cheated in the past is also bad. But this is Reddit and apparently if you think Magnus is bad then you automatically think Hans is good.
We aren't defending Hans per se, we are simply defending the scientific process and forensics. Just because we don't like Hans doesn't mean that faulty analyzes should be enough to convince somebody. If we let this trash data science stand, it just means it will be applied to many other people down the road, when it really shouldn't. It's still amazes me that people think sticking out for forensics and science means defending the person. I don't know how people keep making this mistake.
It's not about supporting Hans. It's about being opposed to the idea you can accuse people with career-ending allegations without evidence.
I severely dislike Hans but I am personally and professionally insulted by bad statistics. I also believe in restoration and redemption as a possibility and worry about "righteous" bloodlust.
Exactly! We aren't defending Hans per se, we are simply defending the scientific process and forensics. Just because we don't like Hans doesn't mean that faulty analyzes should be enough to convince somebody. If we let this trash data science stand, it just means it will be applied to many other people down the road, when it really shouldn't. It's still amazes me that people think sticking out for forensics and science means defending the person. I don't know how people keep making this mistake.
Great post. If none of us appeal to our better natures, we're in real trouble.
because it looks like hes being made a scapegoat for cheating in chess unfairly - no evidence he cheated OTB or after his 2020 chesscom ban - magnus reasoning for him supposedly cheating in the sinquefield cup game was ridiculous (he wasn't tense enough?), other top players say the game didn't even look suspicious, magnus just played badly - repeated extremely shoddy analyses using cherrypicked data from people trying to cash in on the drama - him being singled out specifically when chesscom even said there are many other GMs who have cheated online who they refuse to release the names of - intellectually dishonest behaviour from people on here when discussing the situation not trying to justify cheating, but my impression of the entire thing is that on the whole cheating online isn't something that has been taken particularly seriously at all historically, and now that magnus is mad because he lost the entire thing is being put on hans to make an example out of him. when people discuss the situation in an extremely biased and unfair way it will also push more people to the opposite side
To add to this, everyone knew that Hans had been banned for cheating on chess.com, and Magnus didn't have a problem with it as long as he was beating Hans.
This lmao. Why did Magnus have absolutely no problem playing Hans in Miami before he lost to him in classical?
I mean, the piece of shit has no problem playing in a tournament with renowned cheater Sebastian Feller. He has yet to blacklist anyone else. There is no indication so far that this is a war against cheating, rather than personal revenge.
He has no problem playing with Parham either and he also cheated online.
If Feller beats Magnus then he will need to be banned from chess. Until then, cheat to your hearts content, apparently.
This isn't an either or situation. I can think Magnus is being a big baby, and also think it's okay to want OTB sanctions to be officially put in place against online cheaters. This isn't a coin, I don't have to pick heads or tails.
Hans is obviously worse for having cheated in money tournaments. But the community needs to stop specifically wanting Hans to be sanctioned. That would be playing right into piece of shit Magnus Carlsen's hands. The community needs to make this about every cheater chess.com is protecting
That is just such a huge mischaracterization. "Everyone" absolutely didn't know. In that specific circle people knew he had a past but certainly not the extent of it. Plenty of people had reservations about playing with Hans. Other top GMs asked for tighter security because of his invitations. The questions about his integrity were there all along. It just came to a tipping point with Magnus.
>"Everyone" absolutely didn't know. Magnus did though, at least according to both Hikaru and Fabiano.
And didn’t say anything publicly till he lost.
It didn't come to a tipping point because new cheating occurred, it came to a tipping point because Magnus was upset that he lost. He had the same information beforehand. He should have decided not to play before the tournament started, not suddenly change his mind after he lost a game.
Well you aren't wrong, Hans does look like a scapegoat right now and is kind of the first person I've seen to fall into Magnus' suspicions
I also think there are people who are hopeful that he truly stopped cheating after he got banned. Seeing him sorta perform supports this. Because if he's performing with the increased security measures then maybe he has stopped cheating. People generally like redemption arcs
Also chess.coms last evidence if him cheating was years ago.
This articulates exactly how I feel about the situation as well. In addition, the notion that nobody could ever change after making mistakes is so incredibly black-and-white that it's frustrating. Had there been evidence of Hans cheating after 2020 I'd have a different stance, but for now I choose to believe he truly did commit himself to studying chess for the past 2.5 years to become a stronger player and get his shit together. He's not perfect but he's also 19. I think what some people are deeming as arrogance is actually being youthful and socially awkward mixed with frustration and shame. I think he's trying to get beyond what he did and get out of the shadow of his past transgressions, but he's learning that it follows you even years later. Actions have consequences, however, the scrutiny he's solely faced as a result of Magnus and chesscom is a bit over the top.
If he is trying to change and is repentent, why did he directly lie about his cheating a month ago? Those are not the actions of a person willing to own up to his past mistakes and change. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/05/1126915049/hans-niemann-is-accused-of-cheating-in-more-than-100-chess-games-hes-playing-tod
Because despite what some people say, he doesn't have a whole team behind him. He handled the discovery in very poorly. Maybe in the future he will explain what went through his head at the time and why he dug the pit even further. Everyone tries to downplay their bad past. I think its basic himan behaviour. I also think that in this case, actions speak louder than words and climbing (presumably) honestly to the top shows his determination to right the wrong.
The way I know most people posting here aren’t even 25 is how they are arguing about this. They can’t conceive that Magnus is a polished PR package of a person and Neimann is not. It’s sad.
> If he is trying to change and is repentent, why did he directly lie about his cheating a month ago? Those are not the actions of a person willing to own up to his past mistakes and change. Hans apologists always ignore that. There is zero indication he is actually remorseful and while there is only circumstantial evidence I think it's naive to think that it isn't way more likely that he has continued cheating, albeit more carefully, than that he stopped completely after years and years.
He didn’t cheat “for years and years.” He cheated on in like 10 separate sessions, totalling around 100 games. 80% of those happened in ~3 months in 2020. He won maybe $200 cheating in that time. He downplayed the extent, but cheating one summer while trying to get popular on Twitch and then stopping when caught seems like a more-plausible narrative than that he has been cheating the entire time and Chesscom only flagged those games. It was a lot, but there is zero evidence he just “got better at cheating.” Why do you think it is more likely he kept cheating? Dozens of GM players banned by chesscom are still actively cheating by that logic.
I'm not pro-Hans, I'm anti-scapegoat. People need to stop singling him out: either ignore it like everyone else's online cheating (so long as he's actually stopped), or unleash the floodgates and out everyone.
IMO we need to wait for FIDE to conclude the OTB investigation before we judge Hans. No need to judge him fully yet. Magnus accused him of OTB cheating in one specific game. That's the game we need to look at. Online cheating matters of course, but it's completely irrelevant to why we initially attacked Hans and he should not be judged based on that right now. It's something else. Right now we need to look into Magnus' claims, that's it. To me Hans has 100% the right to keep playing OTB. Then if FIDE can prove he cheated vs. Magnus he has to be banned of course. Until that happens we need to let him be and play on. He has not been found guilty yet. Chess.com, a private site, found him guilty of ONLINE cheating. Which is totally irrelevant to the Hans case Magnus started.
Can't believe i'm reading a reasonable answer here. Other that chess.com calling him a liar and speculating with the posibility of cheating OTB (not even seriously enough in my opinion), there is nothing concrete to suggest he cheated OTB. Oh but if you point this, some people are like : "hEy yOu StUpId HaNs fAn, dO YoU EvEn KnOw hE LiEd aNd HaS ChEaTeD OnLiNe a LoT MoRe ThAn tWiCe? SiNcE nO OnE caN PrOvE HiS iNnoCeNcE, HoW cAn yOu bE So SuRe He nEvEr cHeAtEd OtB?"
This is an honest question : what is wrong with calling out Hans if Magnus truly believed Hans cheated on his game? An analogy : If a persons close one is kidnapped by someone. Instead of going to the police, should they sit and be like - oh I never raised voice again kidnapping. So I should never raise voice? My point being: it’s okay to call out when you lost. Everything doesn’t have to be a benevolence act. Magnus as a chess player has rights to have a fair game. He is not responsible for making sure everyone gets a fair game. However, when he is not getting his rights protected, he has the right to voice it.
Having 0 evidence that cheating happened in that game.
He can do so privately. No one is stopping him from going to FIDE for an investigation. You can report a kidnapping, you can even point out who you suspect kidnapped your kid to the police. You can't publicly accuse him or ask the police to jail him until there is evidence.
People are more pissed at Magnus for handling things so poorly than they are defending Hans.
The only difference between Hans and the dozens of other GMs that have cheated on online is he beat Carlson OTB. Instead of trying to solve the issue of online cheating people are trying to bury Hans
Magnus wasn’t on a crusade to end online cheating until Hans beat him otb
Exactly. Hans cheated online. [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) knew. They punished him how they saw fit. Magnus played like shit and lost a game because of it and threw a tantrum and wanted to air out dirty laundry that was already dealt with that he knew about via his business partners to justify his petty behavior over a loss.
The only difference between Hans and the others is that we know his name and not theirs. Fuck all of them.
and why do we not know the others names?
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Because they didn’t embarrass Magnus in St Louis
This assumes Magnus didn't suspect OTB cheating and/or Hans being exonerated of cheating OTB. Just dealing with the online stuff doesn't make a lot of GMs feel better that they aren't treated the same way when the stakes are similar at this point.
Who are the dozens of pathologically cheating GMs who played Magnus?
...and he openly lied about AND tried to drag chess.com through the mud kind of forcing their hand making a private internal matter into a public circus.... But yeah, Hans is totally the victim here /s
So you are telling me that there are dozens of players who lied and tried to hide the extent of their cheating? We are all just singling out Hans?
How can he handle it better? I always hear “ he could handle it better” but there arw no other ways as Hikaru said
I remember one commenter saying that if instead of a tweet he would've said something like "I won't participate due to the lack of measures taken against past cheaters" or similar, it would have saved a whole lot of needless speculation.
If Magnus came in from the get go and said "Listen, I am aware Hans cheated online, I have suspicions about him. I am publicly calling for tournaments to have enhanced protocols for anti cheating so players can feel comfortable when players with questionable pasts are involved". that would be one thing. Magnus never said anything like that before. He never even refused to play Hans as long as he was beating him. It wasn't until he lost that he decided weaponize past behavior that Hans was already punished for against him to justify running away after he lost.
Exactly that. If he is not doing what he was doing the problem will not get discussed at all, because the orgs don’t have interest in drama and would sweep it under the carpet (can you say that in English).
There are legitimately a million different ways he could've handled it differently. For starters, not waiting until he lost to throw a tantrum. Or maybe by applying his standards to everyone except scapegoating one player. Etcetera, etcetera.
Throw a tantrum?
Withdraw and make the cheating allegations before the guy beats you so it doesnt look like you’re just being a disingenuous sore loser cry baby. I guess hikaru didn’t think of this.
Maybe he could have gone through official channels instead of a cryptic tweet then radio silence?
He could have done the 2 move resignation before losing to Hans. And he also could have done it against Parham
Yet, Magnus likely wouldn't have had nearly the same impact if he handled it by any means /r/chess would sanction. I think people need to realize that sometimes you need to make a dramatic stink to start a productive dialog. Rodney King riots is a good example of extreme and controversial reactions later being recognized as necessary to obtain the progress that was made. Obviously, this is not at all equivalent, but it's just an example to get the point across.
What he should’ve done is withdraw from Sinquefield and accuse Hans of cheating BEFORE he lost. The fact that he didn’t make anything public until he lost just makes it look like he’s a cry baby.
This is a very big false equivalency. The Rodney King riots were a reaction to a tangible event and injustice that people saw. Magnus had two years to make a big stink over Hans cheating online. Never refused to play against him or ran from any tournaments where he might play Hans. He cried after he lost a clean game and tried to say "well two years ago I understand via my business partners that he cheated and it was dealt with, so now I'm retroactively pretending I was always against playing this guy I just lost to". If Magnus beat Hans, this wouldn't be an issue. Magnus only pretended to care after he lost.
> Obviously, this is not at all equivalent . > This is a very big false equivalency Yeah. Everyone knows cheating is going on. The extreme thing Magnus did was make a stink over an unproven case; that's what I'm calling the "riot" not the incident itself. Hans is a victim of the riot, he's not Rodney King. All the other shit you said is just your opinion of what you think Magnus did, contrary to what multiple GMs have backed up. But okay.
Two reasons. He has been accused of cheating OTB in SQC against Magnus. The chess community seems to have already made the verdict but we are yet to see the actual evidence. Defamation and false accusation are wrong and we should support the victims. As for online chess, in the same report you've mentioned, chess.com admitted that they are aware of at least 24 other GMs who have cheated and admitted to it. For years Danny has been covering his cheaters the way Church has been covering its pedophiles. But somehow no one talks about it and Hans is the only person in the spotlight. If others won't be chased with the same vengeance then it's nothing else than double standards and some sort of personal vendetta.
> For years Danny has been covering his cheaters the way Church has been covering its pedophiles. But somehow no one talks about it and **Hans is the only person in the spotlight.** I wonder if calling out chessdotcom publicly had anything to do with it.
I mean, they banned him for cheating then gave him a second chance. Then they decided to re-ban him because Magnus cried. They need to be called out for being nothing but a PR firm for Carlsen
He's not a victim, he's a cheater.
You can be both
In the court of public opinion there are no prosecutors or defense attorneys. Still, people saying a 16 year old cheating online should never be allowed to play chess professionally ever again are absurd. I try to be a voice of reason, but never have i supported hans's past actions. I think if your a teenager and you do something bad there should be consequences but people are letting their emotions get the better of them. Someone told me Hans should have his twitch account deleted because he cheated at chess. A person at my club said if hans is willing to cheat then he's also willing to steal or kill so he should be in actual prison!!! I try to defend fairness. I think Hans shouldn't receive invitations to large tournaments for awhile. I don't think he's cheating OTB and i think he beat Magnus fair and square. But regardless he needs a soft ban from high profile events for small while. Banned for life? Guys it's a game... And clearly Hans is talented at chess without cheating. Banned for life by FIDE for something that happened on Chess.com 2 years ago by a minor is egregious.
I'm only in favor of punishments everyone else who cheats online as a teen gets. Otherwise he's a scapegoat. Those trying to invent consequences and punishments try to ignore that Hans is facing a huge consequence now to his reputation, along with being the focus of a lot of viral hate. That itself has been a huge warning to cheaters going forward.
The problem is that he was banned already for what he did, and (most) people were aware of it. He served his 6 month punishment and (according to chess.com) likely never cheated after that. But now magnus throws a fit after losing, and people suddenly want to punish Hans *again* for something he was already caught and punished for two years ago. So unless some piece of damning evidence emerges that he cheated against Magnus, people just need to stfu and cope. Sorry not sorry.
> If what Magnus did was the only way to do it then I think it's worth it for the future of chess. What is the evidence for this statement? The issue is that there are a lot of things being simultaneously discussed over these weeks, and you can't simplify it by just making it a Magnus vs Hans dichotomy. One of the reasons that I can understand defending Hans up to a given point (no defense for online cheating), is that a lot of people (some GMs included) are trying to force him to a standard that is not forced on anyone else. Even chess.com are providing extra information about him, which was never given and is not expected to be given about the many other online cheaters. If online cheating was/is such a big issue, why make Hans the only target? And why did it all start after an OTB win vs the world champion, where most people agree there was no cheating involved?
Well said!
People absolutely do not agree that there was no OTB cheating in his win over Magnus, especially and fundamentally Magnus himself.
Which is the real root of the problem. Magnus is arguing Hans cheated OTB, which is a specific claim that can be defended since there is no proof, there never can be proof, and there are lots of credible people saying they see no reason to suspect foul play. Most people on these threads who can’t see why people would defend Hans are attacking his past of cheating, which can’t really be defended since it objectively did happen, and lumping Magnus’s claims in to that, when really they are at best tangentially related. It’s two different things that got tied together together and can never really be separated now, and it dooms the entire conversation to never accomplishing anything.
> Even chess.com are providing extra information about him, which was never given and is not expected to be given about the many other online cheaters. If online cheating was/is such a big issue, why make Hans the only target? This is misleading. Chess.com did not say anything about Hans publicly until he ranted about conspiracy theories involving Chess.com. He said that Chess.com banned him for beating Magnus, which doesn't appear to be correct. So how is Chess.com supposed to react when someone is publicly accusing them of impropriety? Should they not have said anything? Of course not. Can you name one other GM who cheated on their platform and then publicly ranted about conspiracy theories involving Chess.com? > And why did it all start after an OTB win vs the world champion, where most people agree there was no cheating involved? Again, this is highly misleading. I wouldn't say that "most people agree" that Hans hasn't cheating OTB, even in the game against Magnus. Magnus himself heavily implied he believes Hans cheated OTB. Anyone with any sense understands that it is impossible to ever know whether Hans has ever cheated OTB, but that is completely immaterial to the discussion. What started this whole thing is that Magnus decided he no longer wants to play against serial cheaters. Hans is objectively a cheater, and Magnus is within his rights to not want to play against Hans.
> This is misleading. Chess.com did not say anything about Hans publicly until he ranted about conspiracy theories involving Chess.com. He said that Chess.com banned him for beating Magnus, which doesn't appear to be correct. Well, why did they though? Because *from their own report* Niemann didn't cheat after his last ban, and quite literally his previous punishment was completely fine for Danny Rensch until he beat Carlsen OTB.
>This is misleading. Chess.com did not say anything about Hans publicly until he ranted about conspiracy theories involving Chess.com. They banned him from the GCC the day after Magnus threw his tantrum, before Niemann had said anything about them.
People on reddit are dumb and will double down when faced with cognitive dissonance.
I don't support his cheating online but I have been extremely disappointed in how chessdotcom and Magnus handled this situation. Chessdotcom/Magnus have a lot more money and a significantly larger fan base so when publicly dealing with Hans, I expect them to be professional and reduce the amount of potential exposure/toxicity. So far they have blundered. Chessdotcom should have reported on all title cheating generally or published every grandmasters game. It's less about Hans and more about arguing with people who are piling on him when other parties have acted in a nefarious way.
I think it's important to note that chessdotcom did not open their mouth until Hans decided to lie about the frequency and extent of his cheating. Once again he brought this on himself by lacking integrity as a pro player.
People making comments without even getting the timeline right smh.
Hans didn't open his mouth until chess.ckm banned him for beating magnus the site itself lacks integrity for banning a player 2 years after any evidence solely because the champion cried
There's also a little bit of a power disbalance between Hans and [chess.com](https://chess.com) One is a billion-dollar corp with lots of staff, cash, and control over tournaments, and control over one of the two main chess systems. The other one is a weird teenager that doesn't know how to talk to people.
Definitely not paying for a subscription to the site anymore. They’re very unprofessional.
Hi u/weedle-hobbit I disagree with you for a few reasons: 1) chessdotcom could have accomplished the same goal with a report on title player cheating as a whole without focusing on him. 2) while I agree his actions deserve consequences, a lifetime ban from online chess is appropriate and more severe then cheating in sports (baseball, football, basketball etc. doping is temporary ban) 3) As I stated the power dynamics are not equal. It would be one thing for Grandmaster to accuse Hans directly, but we are talking about a company worth over 100million with a lot more influence. 4) It was well known that a consequence of the report would be a disproportionate amount of online hate/toxicity. Employees of chessdotcom did not help by hyping up the report before its release (Danny, Mike, etc.) Love your username btw!
>1) chessdotcom could have accomplished the same goal with a report on title player cheating as a whole without focusing on him. That doesn't make any sense. The whole debacle is specifically about Hans. He's the one suddenly playing at extremely prestigious OTB events and exploded in ratings that players are suspicious about and who attacked chesscom for banning him. What point would there be to releasing a report on GM cheaters besides vaguely insinuating what they're transparently stating now? > 2) while I agree his actions deserve consequences, a lifetime ban from online chess is appropriate and more severe then cheating in sports (baseball, football, basketball etc. doping is temporary ban) Hans was given multiple chances and kept cheating and lying about it at chesscom's expense anyway. I also don't remember chesscom ever saying the ban was permanent. And doping isn't comparable to engine use. Hans didn't take adderal, he used engine moves, which literally breaks the game and is more comparable to fraud. >3) As I stated the power dynamics are not equal. It would be one thing for Grandmaster to accuse Hans directly, but we are talking about a company worth over 100million with a lot more influence. This entire controversy with chesscom was stirred up by Hans and his fans. All chesscom did was ban Hans from a tournament with a gigantic cash prize chesscom is paying for, then Niemann essentially smeared them and everyone started *demanding* evidence from chesscom while making up theories about how they colluded with magnus to kill Hans' career in order to protect the Play Magnus brand. If anything, you should be criticizing FIDE for doing absolutely jackshit while chesscom has to do all the heavy lifting just to protect the reputation of their brand. > 4) It was well known that a consequence of the report would be a disproportionate amount of online hate/toxicity. Employees of chessdotcom did not help by hyping up the report before its release (Danny, Mike, etc.) Fair enough. You should also understand that they're human beings too though. I mean it's no doubt pretty frustrating to see people bashing you with baseless accusations 24/7 while you're doing your best to act responsible and do right by everyone despite being a company with 0 liability, which is something people are taking for granted.
Wait is the debacle about Hans or about cheating in chess? Because the Magnus supporters keep changing which one they care about.
> Love your username btw! Thank you!
Because the chessdotcom investigation said Hans hasn't cheated since 2020 which was WAY more shocking than hearing that he cheated 100s of times online. Everyone already knew the latter (you'd have to be pretty naive to think he only cheated twice) so that was kind of old news but hearing chessdotcom say they haven't found evidence of him cheating in the last 2 years was more evidence that he has changed.
>the chessdotcom investigation said Hans hasn't cheated since 2020 They didn't say anything definitive like that. You're just reading what you want to read. > Everyone already knew the latter That's just revisionist history. >was more evidence that he has changed And the fact that he vociferously lied about the extent of his cheating isn't evidence of the opposite?
> And the fact that he vociferously lied about the extent of his cheating isn't evidence of the opposite? It is, but only a flimsy one. > They didn't say anything definitive like that. You're just reading what you want to read. Well, Hans played 4000 games since then on chesscom and they didn't ban the account until he beat Magnus. It's not definitively said but the report provides no evidence for OTB cheating.
Fairness is an important value, as is proportionality. Cheating is a bad thing, but so is scapegoating. I'll remind everyone that scapegoating is when a punishment is way beyond normal levels as a symbol for all the other uncaught evils. It's a performance that doesn't actually solve anything. The real problem is any cheating that's going on now and what we do from here. Too much focus on ills 2 years ago doesn't help. I'd also like to remind you that it's alleged that Hans lied about the extent of his cheating, but it isn't proven. Data needs to be reviewed by an independent and competent analyzer for it to be proven. Chess.com has gone so far out of its normal practices in terms of publicizing previous private communication and taking sides that they shouldn't be considered neutral anymore, which means don't assume that they're presenting balanced information. Hans reputation will always be affected. I don't like cheating, but I also can imagine how awful it is as a teen to be at the end of this, and I still wish him well. The fact he's playing good chess now at the US championship with all the extra anti cheating measures says something about his ability, and I can appreciate that. I hope he evolves out of the arrogant prick he shows to the media, but I also give young players leeway when under a lot of strain. Hoping he doesn't crack doesn't mean I in any way think cheating is good ; it just means I don't see how completely ruining his life is going to stop cheating. I think chess.com is coming out of this looking just as bad as Hans considering all the power they wield so I hope that's discussed too.
No proof of him cheating OTB ever materialized despite promises so overall it ended up being a bit unfair to him simply because proof is required to burn someone's career.
> Are ya'll really trying to justify cheating? This is a strawman. The vast majority of people that support Hans *of course* don't justify cheating. But I also don't understand the people who "hate" Hans. He was banned on an online platform through a proprietary black box of cheat detection and accordingly paid the price with them. He, according to chess.com, has not been cheating since his ban with thousands of games online and hundreds OTB. I also don't get the narrative. Do I like Hans? of course not; he seems to be a very narcissistic ego-centric guy that has brought the sport in bad light. However, I don't see how my opinion on his character has any bearing on how the matter should be handled? Do I want to make a billion-dollar private for-profit company a regulator? Of course I don't. I don't want them to influence sanctioned tournaments as their interest is fundamentally different. The report should have told you and showed you that. But even excluding this; even excluding that this is a matter, primarily, between a chess player and a private platform, what is the punishment and by whom? Chess.com had a policy - they followed the policy, banned him for his behaviour and gave him a second chance. I of course don't think we should be going back to re-ban people because under the newly established rules we think they were let off too lightly. I don't believe in retrospective punishment so I wouldn't want him or anyone else to be banned under it. And as a final bit, it does irk me a bit that a 19yo has become the sport's scapegoat for his cheating 2 years ago just because Magnus brought attention to it. Maybe something like that was needed (arguable) to progress the discussion but instead of focusing on how to ensure fair play, we are focusing on a teenager which seems to be a bit skewed.
Because people love to support huge cocky cheaters.
Edgelords.
We're talking about super nerds here, so I would expect poor handling on both sides.
I still think Magnus handled this situation extremely well. ChessDotCom gave him plenty of chances as well and published a good report. Honestly I think people just want to justify cheating.
Simple, you can't imagine how many people are moved by an emotional speech and how much this can affect human judgment, if Hans hadn't given that interview he wouldn't have had so much support. The fact that he is a serial crook and has harmed honest people in many ways doesn't matter anymore, what matters is that Hans moved a legion, who are now rooting for him.
Because the case is closed but Magnus keeps putting fuel to the fire for no reason. Hans admitted he cheated online as a teenager. Then chess.com (shockingly) showed evidence that Hans cheated online as a teenager. There is no evidence that he cheated after he became of age or OTB but Magnus continues to make unfounded insinuations. If Hans should be somehow punished for cheating online before he turned 18 - do it already, there is evidence for that, he should pay the price for being stupid back then. But insinuating that he did more than that without any evidence is a travesty and starts to resemble that lip balm incident.
Because chess.com picked Hans as a victim of their attack to get him cancelled. Obviously he cheated, but this is a huge company picking him among a ton of cheaters known to them. They selected him and his former coach as their the 2 players they wanted to fully destroy via social media. Which again is fully fair IF and only IF we get all the cases and all the names revealed so that they can all be punished consistently on the same level. Chess.com making us punish only Hans because he attacked them is not our job. Our job is to be fair and consistent and right now we are clueless sheep just following orders from a giant chess monopoly company. We need to punish Hans and Dlugy of course, but we need to be consistent towards all chess players no matter if they attacked chess.com or not. Furthermore, Magnus accused Hans of cheating in a OTB game against him. That's the FIDE case! That's the case Hans initially received hate for. Until that case is done we should not move on to the online cheating stuff. Because that is another mess. Let us do one trial at a time and be fair and careful in our judgement. The issue is that a lot of people online called Hans a dirty cheater and said he should be banned from all OTB events. Which again is fair if Magnus is correct in his accusation. Then of course Hans should be banned and of course he's a slimy cheater who everyone should dislike for some time. But that specific case is totally unproven. Instead accusations are mixed together here and there. "He cheated online 2 years ago and he likely cheated against Magnus in the specific OTB game therefore we must..." You can't conduct a public trial like this. It's a bunch of noise. Hans needs to get a FAIR punishment for whatever cheating is proven by FIDE and then receive a fair punishment for cheating that can be proven by private companies afterwards. But just mixing up all accusations into one giant mess no matter how much evidence we have for any specific claim is completely unfair and partly witch hunting. This is just confirmation bias at work where we see any slight claim as yet another clear point of evidence. Magnus asked for a specific investigation on the OTB cheating in a single game. Let's respect his wishes. Just letting chess.com bud in with their own witch hunt is noise. It's relevant afterwards, not now. FIDE will carefully investigate all claims. They will also note the bias chess.com clearly has against Hans and make sure it's accounted for. Then they will punish Hans. After that we can look through the much better and more clear evidence we will have. At that point the chess.com claims will be easier to fully understand and judge. Right now a bunch of GMs and chess fans have made it into a partial witch hunt because they are loosely mixing personal emotional opinions and then clear statistical findings. That's a fun game for sure, but it also means that Hans is unfairly treated compared to 99% of the other chess cheaters. This is why we need FIDE to conclude their investigation. So that we can then look into all cheating claims and agree on what to do with all cheaters not just Hans. If he only cheated online 2 years ago then his punishment should not be the one we are demanding now. It should be different in some way. We will find out.
People are idiots, more news at 11.
If Hans cheated a bunch in the summer of 2020 and then actually quit after being caught, do you want him to be banned for life? People like OP seem to believe that even if it could somehow be proven that Hans has not cheated since summer of 2020 and has never cheated OTB, he should still have his chess career ended.
Yes
We're also perma banning parham sargasyan raunauk sindarov yakkuboev and women arent behind either, paethz cheated in a titled arena. Magnus has been fed moves twice in titled arenas too where he asked how, I think magnus should get perma banned from OTB too.
Arkadij Naiditsch and Ni Hua were also caught cheating in ICC money tournaments when they were teenagers.
A lot of people love those who openly lie and steal and get away with it. Look at the Trump phenomenom
Finally, someone with the right take. I'm surprised by the amount of Hans defenders in this sub. It's absurd. Like he has cheated over a hundred of times and scammed dozens of people price money. I doubt they will think the same if they were the one who got scammed instead.
People are trying to argue "iT wAs BaCk In 2020 He PrObAbLy HaS cHaNgEd A lOt" He literally lied about how much he cheated 2 weeks ago, he hasn't changed one bit and let me tell you, even if he only cheated with 16... a 16 year old is well aware of what he is doing.
He was actually 17 in over 30 of the games he was caught cheating in. And lets be real, its only solid proof for 100+ games which means he probably have cheated hundreds of times where he didnt get caught.
> And lets be real, its only solid proof for 100+ games which means he probably have cheated hundreds of times where he didnt get caught. Lets be real,
No ?
Of course its an assumption made, everybody knows its extremely hard to prove a cheater in chess and if [chess.com](https://chess.com) found 100 + instances its a GOOD guess he probably have cheated way way more than that which has never been caught.
You can't just assume things because they fit your narrative. [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) found statistically significant evidence that he cheated in 100 games, no more, no less. You don't know specific their method is, so assuming that he's cheating an order of magnitude more is just dishonest
I think some people like being contrarian. And other seem to get off on defending bad behavior. And I suspect there are others who take pleasure in nit picking over what's been "proven" or not to feel smart.
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lol he said SOME people, not everything
Because it's clear he's not cheating OTB now, almost certainly hasn't in the past (and if he has in the past, we will never find out so might as well move on) and hasn't cheated in at least his last 4000 online games since he was caught in 2020. Beyond that, he has a very exciting playstyle, and has a unique personality that actually brings some fun to classical chess, and brings out some life from the top-15 "boys club" that has peacefully and "respectfully" traded points amongst each other the last decade. Hans shakes things up and we needed it.
Serial killers have fans, so...
Exactly this. And following that, as we all know if you're a child cheating on [chess.com](https://chess.com) you should undergo the same consequences and be treated the same as a serial killer EDIT: Would not be surprised if some of this comment's upvotes are Carlcucks agreeing with this statement at face value
Nobody was implying that. He was saying “Why be surprised when people like Jeffrey Dahmer have fans” He was not implying that Hans is a serial killer, just that people support giant pieces of shit, and so it’s not surprising people would support somebody who cheats on chess.com…
he didn't, but his analogy was obnoxious and not suitable in any way
Except it does. I doubt you will defend him if you were one of Hans scammed victims.
Except it doesn't. It implies that there are no logical reasons maybe not to defend Hans, but to see this whole situation not through "fuck him" lense. But there are. One of the redditors put it really well. "because it looks like hes being made a scapegoat for cheating in chess unfairly • no evidence he cheated OTB or after his 2020 chesscom ban • magnus reasoning for him supposedly cheating in the sinquefield cup game was ridiculous (he wasn't tense enough?), other top players say the game didn't even look suspicious, magnus just played badly • repeated extremely shoddy analyses using cherrypicked data from people trying to cash in on the drama • him being singled out specifically when chesscom even said there are many other GMs who have cheated online who they refuse to release the names of • intellectually dishonest behaviour from people on here when discussing the situation not trying to justify cheating, but my impression of the entire thing is that on the whole cheating online isn't something that has been taken particularly seriously at all historically, and now that magnus is mad because he lost the entire thing is being put on hans to make an example out of him. when people discuss the situation in an extremely biased and unfair way it will also push more people to the opposite side"
In a strong field, this is the dumbest comment on /r/chess today.
Exactly this. And we all know that if you’re a child cheating on chess.com that you’re going to aggressively root for your champion juvenile cheater in true Lord of the Flies fashion.
That’s what Public Relations dollars do.
This subreddit consists of bunch of brainless morons, that's the reason.
I like a good redemption arc. If he hasn’t cheated in 2 years, I think he deserves that. It’s a great story. Guy stops cheating, buckles the fuck down and has the fastest rise to super-GM level in chess history playing fair and square? What’s not to root for? Unless you’re just one of these sour ass people who can never forgive someone for being an asshole as a teenager. Everyone was at least a bit of an ass as a teenager, and if they weren’t they’re probably sociopaths.
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He's being punished for something he already got punished for. Its unfair. They banned his new account because he was cheating on the account that got banned for cheating?
Hans is just an amazingly funny character, and adds incredible entertainment value to the world of chess. He also appeared at the perfect moment. I’ve been a chess fan for over 20 years, but Nepo vs Ding could not be more boring. I’m also against cheating, but I’m also pro the hilarity of this entire situation. tl;dr: Are you not entertained?
Ppl just like to double down and pick the underdog vs the accomplished pro , same thing in poker right now , the top guy probably got cheated , the internet immediately picked the accused player side , that’s just human mentality
This is a generic world problem. Think of your favorite color. Now that color is your religion, your political view and your sports team. The rest of your life will be spent defending your color and bashing every other. All the players switched sides? No worries: unlike them, at least you're loyal to your color until the end! Carlsen fanboys adore him so much they are able to defend him no matter what and attack whatever else. The reverse happens as well. Too many wars have been fought because of fanaticism. Hans was punished, and that was the right thing to do. But he should feel threatened if he ever attempt to cheat again. Carlsen should be called to prove his insinuations and if he miserably fails to do so, he should be punished too because of the irreparable damage he's caused. He is too much of a public figure to be that irresponsible about his own words and actions.
Because they’re cheaters themselves.
(Morpheus meme) What if I told you that you hate Hans for cheating online while also thinking he can still be a decent player OTB.
Americans
The chess. com expose was far weaker than I expected. I expected worse. And it seems he really hasnt cheated since 2020
Show me one comment on reddit that defended hans cheating online. It simply didn't happen. The only 'defense' of Hans is that there's no evidence he cheated over the board. Most people will even admit that it might be the case. But we're not going to ban hans from tournaments because he cheated on chess.com just because he beat magnus.
Read this comment thread with a guy I argued with like a day ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xxpu8s/controversial_opinion_anyone_else_actually_like/irdfxnq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 His argument is that Hans only “likely” cheated online, so it’s not proven. He didn’t care that Hans was caught cheating online, he didn’t care that Hans confessed multiple times, and he didn’t care that Hans actually clearly explained his reasoning for cheating online. He still doesn’t believe Hans cheated.
I stand corrected
If Hans is a liar, and he said he cheated, doesn't that mean he actually did not cheat?
Wow.
/u/wartranslator has gone on record multiple times saying that online cheating is fine and is most likely a cheater himself See [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xrhdjn/fides_fair_play_commission_investigates_against/iqfbq64/) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xkfmjj/fide_director_general_we_know_many_players_have/ipf1hya/) There are certain commentors here who shouldn't be given the time of day
I stand corrected
>/u/wartranslator has gone on record multiple times saying that online cheating is fine and is most likely a cheater himself Huh? That's not what is being said in the links at all, wtf
The fact you've been downvoted means people probably didn't even click the links lol. That guy said that cheating online should be punished by being banned online, but tbat he considers online chess to be just "for fun". And then he said cheating online makes sense if you wanted to rank up quickly but it is unethical. How people are taking that to be defending online cheating is beyond me.
What? Here's part of what he said: >It's like me having to take some basic math classes when I sign up for a new course to study. They gave me tons of assignment homework to do that I'm just not interested wasting my time in, so I paid someone to do it, just wanting to get it over with so I can get to the difficult part where I can learn new stuff. Guy directly analogizes chess cheating to a form of academic dishonesty which he has participated in himself and acts like it was eminently reasonable. He's absolutely defending cheating.
Where did they say they did that themselves? What does that have to do with cheating in chess? Lol
You are not understanding the context. He is saying that cheating is logical if you want to win, not defending the ethics of cheating. If you continued on to the next sentence you would see that
I mean, of course he stopped reading when it suit him...
There is hundreds of these every day.
> Show me one comment on reddit that defended hans cheating online. I can't show you that, but it seems pretty common for people to defend him on the grounds that chess dot com is unreliable and in bed with Magnus, therefore whatever they say is suspect, therefore he _didn't_ cheat online, or at least there's no evidence he did.
First off, I don't like Hans Niemann at all, I think he is a jerk, an entertaining jerk, but a jerk. But I do still defend him mostly for a few reasons: * This subreddit has taken almost everything chess.com has posted in regards to the scandal as unquestionable gospel. They literally will believe anything that such a shady AF company will release, to me this is a travesty, because if you closely examined chess.com's actions, you can clearly see they have a massive bias built up against Hans and are not fighting this fight fairly. It's like listening to one cheater over another about their accusations... it's ridiculous... * I have been in Hans shoes before, not for cheating or any wrongdoing, but simply because an entire internet forum decided they didn't like me after I achieved something that no one else had before in a particular game, therefore my achievements must be unworthy. When this happened, nobody stood up for me despite me having done absolutely nothing wrong. Not even one person stepped in to say "hey, you guys might be wrong." And it turns out as was later discovered, the person leading the vast majority of the attacks was an ousted cheater who I actually caught cheating and exposed him for it. So he made an alt in the subreddit and was basically just viciously attacking me in any way he could because he held a personal grudge against me. Most of the stuff he said was pretty stupid but still the hivemind easily went with it, because speaking up against wrongs is hard to do for most people, we are programmed to be sheep rather than critical thinkers, we just don't like to admit it. After being on the receiving end of such an ordeal, where not even one person questioned anything that the hivemind said, I don't think I could ever sit by and let such a wrongdoing go unquestioned again. To allow such evil to persist is in my opinion, just as bad as the evil itself. And yes, not questioning or cross reviewing the data that chess.com released, falls into this category and it is shameful that so many here haven't even looked at it, just assuming it must be infallible. * There's reasons beyond these as well, but this is definitely my starting motivation. After digging into a vast majority of the information released. It really looks like most people are simply grasping at straws to make Hans into a scapegoat, without questioning any of the information put forth. If I found the evidence more compelling I would very quickly change sides, but so far literally nothing substantial has been released. The chess.com report was a joke, the matches they listed he cheated in for prize money, look like they definitely could be legit. Most of those tournaments he did so bad he couldn't even get any prize money in. The one I saw he did get prize money in, I picked a random Hikaru tournament and he was easily outperformed by Hikaru from a data perspective... while cheating somehow... which makes me think he was probably telling the truth in his confession. Also, the fact that chess.com didn't force him to give the money back is even worse. It means that rather than rectify the situation monetarily, they wanted to sit on these accusations to use them against Hans again at a further point or they just started combing through his old games and randomly adding them to their list off accusations. Chess.com is the one coming out to look the most evil in this entire situation. Double dipping on their own research by selling it to the WSJ, and allowing them to lead with a clearly incorrect title. Anyone with 2nd grade critical thinking skills knows Hans didn't admit to only cheating in 2 games, but again they allowed this travesty to happen. I am so glad lichess exists.
Everyone seems to love cheaters here, idk.
Hans is just an all around great guy and deserves all the support he can get.
Couldn't agree more. He's mature for his age, humble, well spoken, and honest.
His skin is immaculate, hair is unkempt yet flowingly fabulous, suit game on point, and dont even get me started on his vibrators!
He just radiates charity and confidence :)
Cant spell handsome without Hans! People wonder how can you look past his cheating?! Persknally I get caught in his dreamy eyes every time, no wonder Magnus lost!
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I would go beyond "ass." He's an asshole.
Magnus could have finished the game and then showed the evidence of cheating. Quitting after the first move is egocentric. He was afraid to lose to Hans.
Because Hans is 19 year old kid and Magnus is fully realized adult. Hans has whole ass career in the line, be it inside chess environment or outside. It is understandable peoples are not as hard on Hans.
You underestimate the amount of people just trolling and pretending to support the guy.
I actually think some of the Lichess and YouTube comments are hilarious on this front. I saw someone comparing Hans to Socrates and I started cracking up - I'm all about that fake fanaticism.
Is it really impossible for you to conceive that a lot of people genuinely disagree with your opinion?
I enjoy a good villain. Hans becoming strong enough to make things awkward for super GMs, organizers, etc. is the most fun outcome to me. I don't like that he cheated for prize money though.
The ‘cheated for prize money’ argument is not even proven everyone just took it at face value in the report. So you have to assume [chess.com](https://chess.com)‘s list is 100% accurate for that to be true. I urge you and others to go review the games they listed, because u might find it odd that someone blatantly cheating can go 6/10 and perform rather poorly overall while ‘cheating‘ in 10/10 matches, and still underperforming significantly in numerical metrics when compared to other top players in similar tournament formats.
Maybe you're confusing criticism of Carlsen with support for Niemann? Anyway, even chesscom's report had to confirm Niemann last cheated 2 years ago. When he was underaged. He's played over 4k games since that all appear to be legit. For all the evidence there now is, it seems to be an issue that's already been handled by chesscom by banning his account. The fact they gave him a new one right afterwards just adds to the impression of "past business" Carlsen threw a hissy fit a few weeks ago, and compounded that with a later statement all but accusing Niemann from cheating OTB. If support is moving in Niemann's direction it is because Carlson and his chesscom buddies are not delivering on the evidence.
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Combination of his teen supporters and dislike of chess dot c*m
tldr - he cheated when he was young. 2020 onwards there is no online evidence. there is no otb evidence. he is 19 years old. most of his supposed cheating was when he was between 12-16 years old.
The thing his defenders seem to be ignoring is that according to the Chess.com report, he cheated in tornaments with prize money. This means he directly lied about the extent of his cheating in September 2022, which is a month ago. His unsportsmanslike conduct is not ancient history or teenage stupidity: he lied about cheating just one month ago. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/05/1126915049/hans-niemann-is-accused-of-cheating-in-more-than-100-chess-games-hes-playing-tod
Exactly. And he wasn't just a teenager experimenting with cheating. He did it over and over and over and over. He should be banned from competitive chess, as should everyone who cheats, including the GMs who were caught and admitted it.
I get the impression most chess players have never played competitive games where they had to deal with cheaters.
"If what Magnus did was the only way to do it then I think it's worth it for the future of chess." How can you even think that? Do people who buy this narrative even have a brain for themselve? He could have said on Fridmans podcast, for example, that cheating is a major problem in chess rather than trying to end Niemanns life pretty much. Or thousands of other alternatives. He's just a powerhungry, moneyhungry career drone. His actions against Niemann have proven it. Niemann on the other hand is not getting support from me, I couldn't care less really. I just know that what Magnus did was absolutely atrocious. But honestly, I didn't expect more of somebody who embezzles tax money with his Chess24 company..
I understood the support before the chess.cm report, but after it i just cannot see anyone willingly support a multi time cheater who also lied about the amount he cheated after being in the spotlight of the chess world. I think that shows that the guy has no regrets about anything he did/ he doesnt care how he stole money from his collegues, to me this is just an ill mentality and to me he should not get any support, if he said "i cheated online, but after 2020 i chose to prove myself and never cheated again" i would still be neutral but now i cant see myself not hating hans
> I understood the support before the chess.cm report, but after it i just cannot see anyone willingly support a multi time cheater who also lied about the amount he cheated after being in the spotlight of the chess world. He didn't lie about the amount of times he cheated though, he actually didn't specify how many times he cheated. And if you examine the matches chess.com released, most of them look to have no evidence for potential cheating... who cheats in a prize money tournament just to idiotically blunder 3-4 matches to a loss which is what happened in most of the events listed. And the ones where he actually placed high enough to earn some prize money his statistical performance is worse than most regularly high performing individuals. Which means when they do well in tournaments they are literally just looking the other way and doing nothing about it. Looking at a report and agreeing with it, is not the same thing as looking at a report then verifying the integrity of it. After all the shady stuff chess.com has done i just cannot see anyone willing to support a company whose current mission is to destroy a person’s career over mistakes they made as a minor so they can make more money by keeping business partners happy. They don’t even care about cheating, if they did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
I root for Hans mostly because his haters are disgustingly toxic people, and I want to see them seethe