I was somewhat following the live game (with commentary and the provided engine analysis) while it was going on. At the point I started watching (in the middle game, didn't see the opening) Magnus had a slightly worse position but with fairly accurate play shouldn't have had any major issues to draw. Then he made some inaccuracies and gave to Hans what should have been a winning advantage, but Hans didn't manage to capitalize and made his own inaccuracies (suggesting he definitely wasn't using some form of move-to-move cheating with a strong engine).
Magnus could have still salvaged a draw in the end game, but made one or two decisive mistakes after which the evaluation bar went from slightly better to winning for black (Hans). After that point, it was more of a matter for technique for Hans to win (at the 2700 GM level).
While I get there are some suspicious circumstances and Hans has a record (albeit some time ago) of cheating, my gut tells me Magnus just got outplayed and is bitter about losing to someone like Hans, especially with white. If anything, maybe somehow Hans got Magnus' opening prep, but Magnus still got outplayed from that point on.
This^^^
Magnus essentially played his worst game against a much lower rated player and lost. Rather than having that loss on the books, Magnus scrubbed the whole tournament and insinuated Hans used foul play. That's some petty ego shift right there.
Agree with this. Look at the game and you’ll see that Magnus just got outplayed in the middle game. He started really losing on move 28. He’s a poor loser, he’s shown it before.
I’m not a follow chess closely, but I’d the dude wasn’t likely cheating, why would Nakamura also accuse him of cheating. I mean, in some ways outright cheating is worse than doping
On-stream Nakamura is an entertainer who’s made millions off his…frankly very abrasive personality. He’s trying to generate clicks and views. Controversy creates views, and he’s happy to fan the flames of something like this since it’ll boost his subscriber numbers.
Also for what it’s worth, while he spent a 10 hour long stream calling Hans suspicious/implying that he believed Hans is cheating, he technically never stated it overtly. I don’t think it really does much good, but…he was careful with how he walked the line here. With that said, I think he’s been pretty awful in terms of how he addressed it all — this is the sort of thing that could destroy Hans’ career, regardless of whether or not he cheated.
I think the best summary of the whole situation as of now is from grandmaster Eric Hansen on the chessbrah YouTube channel. Unfortunately, the key point in the summary is “as of now, only a handful of people know anything and they’re not sharing.”
We’ll see what comes of the new statement from chesscom. 100% chance it was written by a team of lawyers so I’d believe they found significant evidence of Hans cheating in online games…but that doesn’t answer any questions re: his over the board play.
It’s been long enough that it seems unlikely Magnus will have anything more to say to explain his Sinquefield withdrawal. Nothing except a health or family emergency would be a reasonable cause anyway and it seems too late for something like that to emerge. His FIDE rating had nothing to gain by withdrawing as the rules are clear that his previous matches will be annulled for Sinquefield purposes but not for ratings.
So, at the end of the day, this looks at best like a tantrum on part of Magnus and at worst an unfair veiled accusation of cheating without presenting any evidence or even a plausible mechanism after losing to a very young and far lower rated player; beats me why he would squander his professional goodwill like this right on the heels of choosing not to defend his World title.
Hans scored a brilliant 0/7 at the FTX Cup, rapid format.
His slow chess rating rise show very little variability across the last 2 years which is extraordinary.
His inability to give variations, his tactical oversights given during interviews are glaring.
His past cheating on 2 accounts is verified.
These are his liabilities.
He also show decent blitz abilities, albeit at much lower level, which is uncommon for intuitive players.
I think he definitely is 2500+ and smells fishy.
I am however not convinced about anything because chess genius can take many forms, including seemingly impossible ones, like Morphy or Fisher in the US alone.
Kasparov calling our Carlsen via Twitter. Saying that the current champ owes the chess world a full explanation of his withdrawal from the tournament.
I will not delve into the ugly insinuations of the matter now, but must remark on what we do know: World chess champion Magnus Carlsen withdrew from the world's premier tournament in St. Louis, an act with no precedent in the past 50 years, and his explanation is required.
I haven't followed this too closely because I see through a lot of this bs but the interview with Alejandro after drawing Farouja was the one being cited for his misunderstanding of positional strengths.
Hans Niemann talks to Alejandro Ramirez after a draw with Firouzja during the fourth round of the 2022 Sinquefield Cup.2022.09.05KasparovChess.comGrandChessT...
There was a claim that in his post match interview, he was fumbling to explain his strategy that he claimed to have by luck studied just that morning. I didn’t find anything like that in the interviews I found. He seemed to be analyzing the game at the level one would expect of him.
Which video and what timestamp?
Oops, forgot to include your post in my reply above.
It's always hard to appreciate that a 2500 level guy would stand out like a sore thumb among 2750 super GMs. There really is that much separation at the top level in terms of speed, theory, and positional intuition.
There's no doubt Hans is a great chess player, but is he a super GM?
I agree with this poster, most likely leaked prep. Not as exciting as the theory floating around that he had a butt plug signaling him in Morse code lol. It will be very interesting to see how this develops.
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