Pavel Mikheyev/Reuters
Hans Niemann at the 2022 FIDE Rapid and Blitz World Championship – Blitz Open in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
CNN
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A cheating scandal involving five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen and American Grandmaster Hans Niemann that has gripped the sport appears to have finally come to a conclusion following the publication of a report by FIDE, the sport’s world governing body.
US chess prodigy Niemann accused of cheating by Carlsen after Americans beat the Norwegian at Sinquefield Cup 2022 in St. Louis.
In an interview with the St. Louis Chess Club shortly after his match against Carlsen in 2022, Niemann said he had never cheated in away games, CNN previously reported. However, he admitted to cheating in “random games on Chess.com” as a younger player, which he called “the biggest mistake of my life”.
Following an investigation by a Fair Play Commission (FPL) research team IRegarding the cheating allegations, FIDE’s statement on Wednesday said that “Carlsen’s suspicions of cheating were based on reasonable grounds, despite the final conclusion that GM Niemann had not been found guilty of cheating.
“The rationale for GM Carlsen’s conviction was based on GM Niemann’s own confession of online cheating and a report released by Chess.com,” the FIDE statement said.
A 72-page report compiled by Chess.com in 2022 claimed that Niemann “likely cheated” in more than 100 online matches between July 2015 and August 2020, “including several with prize money.”
The FIDE report said analysis by Professor Kenneth Regan – a chess cheating expert – showed “instances of cheating” by Niemann in around 32-55 games on the online chess platform. far less than the 100 recommended by Chess.com.
According to the FIDE report, Regan also found “inconsistencies” in Niemann’s statement that he had only cheated between the ages of 12 and 16.
However, the 2017 games and the games against Bok in August 2020 came after he turned 17 in June. Another major discrepancy is that the cheating took place in rated online games,” the FIDE report says
The report also said there was “no statistical evidence to support GM Niemann’s table game cheating” in an analysis of 13 tournaments over the past three years.
“Furthermore, GM Niemann’s overall Sinquefield Cup results were found to show no statistical basis for cheating,” the report said.
“GM Niemann’s performance over the years has been marked by highs and lows, consistent with his expected level of play,” according to the FIDE report.
FIDE’s Ethics and Disciplinary Committee (EDC) said in the report that it concluded the case was “an intermediate situation,” “where a complaint can be substantiated without the suspect being found guilty of fraud.
“(Carlsen’s) statement that Niemann is a fraud was made after Niemann’s confession. In the Chamber’s view, this mitigates his comment from being reckless or manifestly unfounded, as Niemann himself admitted fraud.’
The report also included analysis by two unnamed grandmasters on whether match-fixing might have occurred.
“Neither did the GM believe cheating occurred, as the games were ‘normal for a GM-level player,'” the FIDE report said. “However, one GM noted that some of the games were ‘somewhat suspicious.’
CNN has reached out to Niemann’s lawyers and Carlsen’s representatives for comment.
The EDC also found Carlsen not guilty of three charges – a reckless or manifestly unfounded charge of cheating at chess, discrediting the reputation and interests of FIDE and attempting to undermine the honor.
However, the EDC found Carlsen guilty of withdrawing from the 2022 Sinquefield Cup “without good reason”. As a result, he was fined 10,000 euros ($10,800).
Kamran Jebreili/AP
Carlsen plays during the Global Chess League 2023 against Poland’s Jan-Krzysztof Duda.
“The EDC considered that GM Carlsen’s withdrawal from the Sinquefield Cup was without valid reason and that if he had concerns about the fair play of his opponent, he should have followed the prescribed procedure of making a confidential complaint of in-tournament cheating to the organizers. ,” FIDE said in its statement on the decision.
“I’m happy to be done with the case,” Carlsen told TV 2 in Toronto, according to Chess.com. “Clearly there were worse scenarios.”
Niemann had filed a $100 million defamation lawsuit against Chess.com, Carlsen and popular streamer and player Hikaru Nakamura, but it was dismissed by a judge in June, CNN previously reported.
He was restored to Chess.com, which bills itself as the world’s largest online platform for chess and says it hosts more than 10 million games each day, shortly thereafter.