Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Hans Niemann sues Magnus Carlsen and others for $100m over chess cheating allegations

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The teenage American chess player Hans Niemann has filed a lawsuit seeking $100m in damages from the world champion Magnus Carlsen and others who have more or less explicitly accused him of cheating.

He has accused them of colluding to blacklist him from the strongest tournaments.

If you are interested in his chances of success, listen to the latest edition of Perpetual Chess Podcast, where a law professor gives his views. He feels that Niemann may face an uphill struggle to prove his case.

In the mean time, Niemann has answered his critics with a strong performance in the US Championship.

As Leonard Barden wrote in the Guardian:

St Louis’s expensive state-of-the art security precautions, with metal-detecting wands, radio-frequency scanners, and scanners for checking silicon devices, were probably the most thorough for any chess tournament in history. They did the trick, and there have been no serious suggestions that any game was played abnormally.

The outcome is that Niemann, competing without outside assistance as a US championship debutant, and playing under extreme pressure from all the many allegations before and during the tournament, has still performed at the level of the world’s top 40 grandmasters, and has maintained his elite 2700 rating.

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