The world’s top-ranked chess player has accused the teenager who beat him of cheating “more – and more recently – than he has publicly admitted”.
The controversy stems from a Sept. 4 match in St. Louis between Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen, 31, and American Hans Niemann, 19. cheating, which Niemann denied. When the two grandmasters faced off online again on September 20, Carlsen quit after a single blow.
Niemann is currently ranked 49th by the International Chess Federation while Carlsen has been the reigning world champion since 2013. There is no evidence that Niemann cheated in either game against Carlsen, experts say.
“It is extremely difficult to cheat in over-the-board games and tournaments,” Vladimir Drkulec, president of the Canadian Chess Federation, told CTVNews.ca. “The [was] no obvious cheating in the game. Magnus just played badly; like, he played at my level in terms of the number of mistakes he made.”
Drkulec, a national master, describes himself as Canada’s chess cheating expert. He has to be: the federation he leads is the governing body of sport in Canada.
“Usually people get caught, so it doesn’t pay off,” Drkulec said. “They’re going to be banned from [the International Chess Federation] probably for at least three years, but possibly for life. A top player is not going to do that, because if he does, he loses his livelihood.”
Drkulec’s position is supported by Kenneth Regan, a chess cheating expert and professor of computer science and engineering at the University at Buffalo. Following a computer analysis of the original controversial match, as well as all of Niemann’s matches over the past two years, Regan found no reason to suspect the player of cheating on Carlsen.
“There is no concrete basis on which to assess his charge,” Regan, who consulted the St. Louis tournament, told CTVNews.ca. “Neither I nor the tournament team found any indication of cheating in this game, or any combination of Niemann’s other games at the tournament.”
“THERE IS A LOT OF CHEATING AROUND, BUT USUALLY THEY ARE ONLINE”
Cheating in online chess is easy – just enter moves into a chess program on another device.
“Computers on phones have been king since at least 2010, and that’s been a major factor to worry about in tournaments,” Regan said. “Deep Blue in 1997 was a supercomputer, but you don’t need that much hardware anymore.”
Deep Blue was the towering computer that defeated Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
Niemann himself admitted to cheating online when he was 12 and 16; a confession that contributed to his recent ban on online platform Chess.com.
“I don’t want to play against people who have cheated repeatedly in the past because I don’t know what they are capable of in the future,” Carlsen wrote in a statement of September 26 on the scandal.
For his part, Niemann recently said, “I’ve never cheated in an overboard game.”
This would be far from easy in a high-level tournament, where players are closely monitored and prohibited from carrying electronic devices such as phones. Some tournaments even forego spectators, search participants with handheld metal detectors, or use a 15-30 minute broadcast delay to ensure players don’t receive outside help.
Despite the safeguards, the chess world has already been rocked by cheating controversies. Tactics have included consulting an associate or concealing a phone in the toilet; or receive instructions through a hidden camera and earpiece, through Morse code, or signals from an accomplice in the crowd. A more outlandish theory suggests that Niemann could even have received messages via a vibrating sex toy remotely controlled by a co-conspirator using a device to find the best moves.
Still, cheating remains relatively rare for over-the-board matches. Regan estimates the cheat rate to be one in 5,000 to one in 10,000 for International Chess Federation in-person tournaments, which is about five to 10 credible cases per year. On the other hand, he calculates that the cheat rate for online games is significantly higher, by one to two percent.
“There are a lot of cheaters out there,” Drkulec added. “But usually they’re online, and the platforms catch them. But they also catch people who aren’t cheaters, who just got a lot better quickly.”
Drkulec says he saw several players falsely accused of cheating after making significant progress practicing online during the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-person tournaments came to a halt. Only in-person games count towards the International Chess Federation rating.
“A lot of kids were working really hard during the pandemic, and now they’re bothering the top-rated players,” Drkulec explained. “Niemann is only 19 and he was invited to the tournament for a reason, because he improved very quickly.”
With files from Reuters.