Front Burner - The cheating scandal rocking pro chess

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

Last month, Hans Niemann, a 19-year-old grandmaster chess player and rising star, defeated the reigning five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen in a round robin tournament game. After the match, Carlsen, who is also a grandmaster, dropped out of the competition and posted a tweet insinuating that Niemann had cheated. The accusation has rocked the chess world, and Niemann has confessed that he has cheated in online games in the past. But there is no evidence of him cheating in over-the-board games played face-to-face, let alone in the match against Carlsen. Today on Front Burner, Nate Solon, a chess master, data scientist and co-author of the book Evaluate Like a Grandmaster, brings us up to speed on the scandal.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Allie Janes, in for Jamie Poisson. It's not bad, yeah. He played quite poorly, so I didn't do anything special. He just went, well, okay, I think I played quite well. But I was actually very fortunate that this opening came on the board, and I looked at this today. You guessed this opening today? I didn't guess it, but some, and I looked at this today. You guessed this opening today.

I didn't guess it, but some miracle. I had checked this today, and it's like, it's such a ridiculous miracle that I don't even remember why I checked it. So that is 19-year-old Grandmaster chess player Hans Niemann. He had just won a surprising upset against an absolute legend of the game, Magnus Carlsen. Undisputed. Undisput absolute legend of the game, Magnus Carlsen.

Undisputed. Undisputed champion of the world, the young Norwegian has beaten Vishayanand six and a half, three and a half. At 22, Magnus Carlsen is seen as one of the best players in the history of the game. He has the look, the confidence and an unconventional style for the game of chess. He's a true fighter. He's not compromising. So he's taking the game into a much more fighting game than it used to be. These two guys could not be more different.

Magnus is this clean-cut, button-nosed Norwegian, and Hans is this messy-haired, tired-looking young American with this unplaceable accent. And these two chess wizards are at the center of a cheating scandal that is rocking the chess world, which has become incredibly popular in the last couple years. It was all sparked when Magnus dropped out of a tournament and sent out this incendiary tweet implying that Hans was a cheater.

To hear this kind of allegation is truly troubling. And coming from the world chess champion, implying that Hans was a cheater. To hear this kind of allegation is truly troubling. And coming from the world chess champion, maybe the greatest player who's ever touched a chess piece, that is truly troubling. Nate Solon is here today to bring us up to speed on the whole scandal. He's a chess master, data scientist, and the co-author of the book, Evaluate Like a Grandmaster. Hi, Nate. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to get into it. I'm very excited too. This story has a lot of twists and turns. So can you just firstly, just get us up to speed here on how this whole scandal broke open? Right. So I think you already covered the way it all kicked off with Hans Niemann with this very surprising win against Magnus Carlsen. That was the beginning of all of it. And then what really blew it open is Carlsen reacted to that by immediately withdrawing from this tournament. The next day, he sent out a tweet announcing that he was withdrawing. He didn't really explain himself at all, except he linked to this famous video of a football manager saying, I prefer really not to speak. If I speak, I am in big trouble, in big trouble, and I don't want

to be in big trouble. And everyone sort. And I don't want to be in big trouble. And everyone sort of interpreted that as he was saying that Hans Niemann had cheated against him in this game. So Carlsen's out of the tournament. Everyone's speculating. Hans Niemann continues to play in the tournament. A few days later, in a sort of post-game interview, he spoke in his own defense. He actually admitted to cheating online in the past,

which was a pretty big revelation. But he said it was just a couple times many years ago, only in games that didn't really count for anything. So this is what happened. When I was 12 years old, I was with a friend and I was playing Tidal Tuesday. And I was playing and he came over on the iPad with Andrin, and he said, you know, he started giving the moves. This happened once in an online tournament. I was just a child. And four years later, when I was 16 years old,

doing my streaming career, I wanted to gain some rating. You know, I just wanted to get higher ratings so I could play stronger players. So I cheated in random games on chess.com. Now, I was confronted, I confessed, and this is the single biggest mistake of my life. He said he had never cheated over the board and he would never do that. I have never cheated in an over-the-board game. Other, when I was 12 years old, I have never, ever, ever, and I would never do that,

that is the worst thing I could ever do, cheat in a tournament with prize money. And basically challenged, you know, said, hey, don't insinuate anything against me. If you've got any evidence, you know, kind of come out with it. Okay. And over the board, just for non-chess connoisseurs, we're meaning like real life in-person play, not online. Exactly. There's kind of a big divide between online chess and over the border in person where you're actually physically at a tournament sitting across the board from someone playing them. statement, you know, basically saying they've removed Hans from the platform because they have information that suggests that he cheated more than he said that he'd cheated, which added fuel to this fire. Exactly. Some of his accounts had been shut down previously related to this cheating in the past. He had been reinstated. But then when there was this blow up with Magnus Carlsen,

his accounts were shut down again. And yes, you're right. Chess.com issued a statement saying he cheated more on our platform than what he admitted to in that public statement. So in the wake of all of this, Magnus and Hans actually ended up facing off against each other again. So can you tell me what happened there? Right. So this is an online tournament now. They were paired against each other. Magnus Carlsen shows up for the game, but he plays one move and then resigns the game and walks away from the board.

But everything else is still in the air. Sorry, Alejandro. I just have to interrupt you because the game started. Magnus has resigned the game against Hans Niemann. Yes. At least that's what it says in our transmission. So he made one move and resigned. Yes.

It looks that way. Wow. What do we say now? This is not something Magnus had ever done before. On the first one, I don't think he had ever withdrawn from an over-the-board tournament in this way in his career. And certainly when you're playing online as well, it's not a normal thing to do to just resign the game and walk away. I mean, normally you play all your games. resign the game and walk away. I mean, normally you play all your games.

So that basically sets off this kind of, you know, explosion of this idea that Hans Nieman cheated. And earlier this month, chess.com, again, we're talking about online chess here, published this explosive report, and they titled it the Hans Nieman Report. And so what did that say? Right, this is this is the latest big thing to drop. And this was a pretty extensive 72-page report where they went into a lot more detail about what they had hinted at earlier, that he had cheated more online. So they said he's cheated actually in more than 100 games, including some tournaments with prize money. Also more recently than he admitted to, although the report still didn't say that there was any cheating since 2020. So more extensive, more recent, but still not up into the present. In addition to the online stuff on their platform,

they also had a pretty extensive analysis of his over the board in person history. They said there were there were definitely some things that were unusual. He's had an explosive rise, you know, maybe too explosive, but they ended up concluding there's not very strong evidence to say that he's cheated over the board. Because, I mean, just to get into that a little, like when we're talking again over the board, like these live in-person games, like how, like do people cheat? Like how would they cheat? Yes, it's possible. And yes, it has happened. So, I mean, maybe to just step back a little bit, the whole issue with chess cheating and what makes it so difficult is that we're at a point now where chess computers, what we call engines, are much stronger than humans. You know, even Magnus Carlsen. So you can run a computer on a laptop on your cell phone that can beat Magnus Carlsen. So in that sense, it's very easy to cheat in chess online, especially because all

you have to do is be looking at your cell phone or looking at a different window on your computer or anything. Over the board, it's clearly more difficult because you need some way to get access to this computer input. You're not supposed to have a cell phone or any device with you. And the very elite tournaments that Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann play in,

there's security where they'll check if you have your cell phone, they'll do a metal detector, they'll do various various things but as far as how someone could do it it's been as crude as someone just goes into a bathroom stall they gets their cell phone out and looks at it people have been busted doing that um there was a case where someone had a device in his shoe that was you know somehow sort of transmitting some sort of coded message. There's also, you could also do it with an accomplice. If there's any sort of audience or anyone else present, they could maybe be signaling to you somehow. So it's definitely

a lot harder over the board because you have to get into this sort of spy stuff. But it is possible and it has happened. To come back to the chess.com report, am I right that they found out that a bunch of other grandmasters had actually cheated on chess.com as well? So in the report, there are at least 25 grandmasters who have confessed to cheating on chess.com. They shared sort of a table that Hans was in the middle of with names of the other players not included. And they also say four players currently in the top 100 in the world. So I think the surprise chess fans cheating amongst the top players, at least online, was more common than people may have thought. Although I think that

surprised fans, I think a lot of grandmasters maybe were not so surprised by that. They kind of knew behind the scenes, they kind of knew what was going on. Right, right. But I mean, coming back to Hans and Magnus, I mean, I know you've done your own analysis here. Do you think that it's possible that he was cheating in that match against Magnus? Possible? Yes. Likely? No. against magnus possible yes likely no i just think the sinkfield cup it's it's one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world the security is pretty good it's highly scrutinized there's no

physical evidence as to how hans would have done that um additionally with you also you look at the moves in the game this is another way to look for cheating look at the moves in the game. This is another way to look for cheating. Look at the moves that were played. Are they too accurate? Are they too close to the computer moves in the case of this specific game? Not really. Hans played well, but not perfectly. Matt Magnus played very poorly for her, for his very high standards.

So it seems really likely that the concern he had going in that Hans would cheat against him caused him to play worse. I think that seems pretty clear. So if you say, has Hans ever cheated over the board? Hard to say. It would not shock me if he had. Wouldn't really shock me if he hadn't either. But that wouldn't surprise me too much. I think of all the games he could have cheated in, this one does not seem like an especially likely one. Let's talk a little bit more about these two characters now. I mean, starting with Magnus Carlsen, can you give me a sense of just the power and the prestige that he has in the chess community? Well, he's the world champion. He's been the number one player in the world for quite some time.

Magnus Carlsen has had a phenomenal rise as a chess player. He became a chess grandmaster just at the age of 13. And there has been no looking back ever since. He's defended his world championship in numerous matches. What separates me from some of the others is that I fight till the end. I like to try and put pressure on my opponent. I think that's the most important thing. And people crack under pressure.

That's my impression so far. He's the clear top dog, and his word carries a lot of weight in the chess world. I think people have mixed reactions to how he's handled this latest scandal, but he's someone that definitely commands a lot of respect and people follow what he says. He seems, and again, I'm speaking as someone who's very much outside of this community, but he seems very much like this kind of golden boy, like I've seen him described both as the Mozart of chess and the Justin Bieber of chess. I mean, how would you describe

kind of what he's like and what his vibe is like? He's still a pretty young guy, you know, pretty good looking. He's had like modeling contracts and stuff. So in that sense, I think he's made chess more marketable. You don't really see him as the typical chess player. He's got more of a glamour. He's been called a sex symbol. And I think that makes his appeal

broader than the regular chess player, obviously. Maybe not quite as clean cut as he appears on the surface. He does some streaming too, and when he's on his playing speed chess with the video running, it's him in the foreground,

maybe a few of his buddies in the background, maybe having some beers and trash talking. There we go. I tricked him and it was not even intentional. I mean, I guess in a sense, Hans has sort of upstaged him as being younger and kind of wilder and edgier. But Magnus is maybe known for being edgier than the old school chess mainstream. Okay, so, I mean, let's move on to Hans now. I mean, our producer, Mac, had this way that I love that he kind of described the dynamic where he's like, Hans is kind of like the Joker to Magnus' Batman. So, give me a sense of what his personality is like.

Absolutely, yeah. I think that's a great comparison. Hans is, he's a young guy. He's 19. He's made a very fast rise. He's definitely confident, you know, maybe cocky. I think he's just so demoralized because he's losing to such an idiot like me.

You know, it's just, it must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me i feel bad for him so he's playing in the u.s championship right now several of his his opponents in that tournament have called him disrespectful why well well he's been doing this thing in interviews where his answers will be very um brusque famously after one game uh he just said the chess speaks for itself and just walked away. Hans, yesterday was a terrible day for you, and today you start out with a masterpiece.

How would you summarize it? Chess speaks for itself. It's such a character. I wasn't expecting that. In the US Championship, similar thing where he said uh something like that this game was so beautiful i i don't even have to say anything else about it and then the next day his opponent said he felt that was disrespectful you know as to why that was disrespectful to the opponent i'm not sure exactly you kind of get the sense that um

maybe these guys are reacting to interactions they've had in private, not only his public statements, but it does seem like he's rubbed a lot of his colleagues the wrong way. And maybe that's why so much of this suspicion has fallen on him, even though we know other players have cheated online. You've actually, many years ago, played Hans. What did you make of him? Yeah, this is many years ago before there was any sort of controversy, but I played him in a tournament in Boston. It was a back-and-forth game. We both made a lot of mistakes.

He came out on top. We did what in chess is called a post-mortem, where you analyze the game with your opponent after the game. That's sort of a tradition. And yeah, it was totally cordial and normal. I mean, I just came away from it thinking he was clearly already very confident. So, I mean, I just thought he was a really talented chess player, basically. Okay. And I mean, speaking of these interviews, he is American, but he has this mysterious accent. Do you know what the deal is with his mysterious accent? being honest he sort of responded to that his response was basically look i've been locked in my room doing nothing but um studying chess for a year the people i do hang out with are these chess players who have accents so that's why i talk like that and and if anyone is using my newfound uh accent to make any conclusions about anything chess related is like absolutely insane. I just want to talk about like the different world that Hans came up in in the chess world you know compared to to Magnus

like in the past just the past few years chess has totally exploded in popularity online. I saw that chess.com's users more than doubled just over the pandemic. So can you tell me a little bit about what this new chess world looks like compared to like even just a few years ago? Right. It's changed a ton in the last few years. We've had sort of a perfect storm with first the pandemic. So people were stuck inside looking for something to do. A lot of people got into online chess. Then, of course, The Queen's Gambit on Netflix. Chess isn't always competitive. Chess can also be beautiful.

This wildly popular show that presented chess in this really glamorous light that got a lot of people excited. And then streaming on sites like Twitch where people are playing chess with a video of themselves chess becoming sort of an e-sport 92 c2 hit cars oh no we're nice to see one take on a three basically three a brilliant pre-move not a pre-move he stopped the pre-move so all of that's exploded han sort of grew up uh right in the of that. And he even cited what one of

the reasons he said he had done this online cheating in these games with no prize money was that he wanted to increase his rating to build at that at that time, he was trying to be a chess streamer. So he wanted to kind of raise his profile that way. Okay, so how big a deal is that becoming kind of like a chess streamer influencer? Like, is that that's something that a lot of people are trying to do right now? Yeah, if you want to make a living playing chess, in 2022, that's one of the main ways to do it. It's always been hard to make a living just by competing in chess tournaments to to do that successfully, you really have to be maybe one of the top 10 in the world. You really have to be up there. So traditionally,

chess professionals who weren't at that level would make ends meet by teaching lessons, writing books, stuff like that. Now, with streaming being so popular, there's actually a fairly realistic way to make a living at chess as a streamer where it's not even really about being such a great chess player. It's really about having an engaging personality that people want to connect with. So that is definitely part of the professional landscape now. life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix.

I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cops. I mean, you've kind of described like this different world that Hans has been living in.

This is a guy that's like, you know, he basically spent a year locked in his room. And also you've described, you know, someone that you saw be a really good chess player and that seems to be a really good chess player now. So I'm wondering, like coming back to this debate over whether he cheated against Magnus or whether he's cheating in general these days, I guess I'm also left wondering, like, is it possible that he's just this new kind of chess player that's, like, playing the game differently and that the older generation just, you know, didn't see coming? Yeah, that's a great point. And I think that's exactly what makes it so fascinating, but also so frustrating in a way that we're not exactly getting the clean resolution

to this we want, because it's not an either or, it's more of a both in that he's a really, really good chess player, but he may also have cheated. Well, we know he cheated online. He may also have cheated over the board. know he cheated online. He may also have cheated over the board. So it's possible he could have done this all clean. I don't think he did cheat

in that game against Magnus. Some would disagree with that, but that would suggest he's at least capable of playing at this very top level. Additionally, after his old chess.com accounts were closed because he cheated on them, his new accounts have higher ratings and chess.com didn't say he cheated on those. So this guy is definitely insanely good at chess. He may also have cheated, you know, more than he admitted to. engines, they're firstly like an amazing tool for chess players, but also obviously like a threat against this, you know, very old, very classic, revered game. So do you think that the cheating problem that obviously, like seems to be kind of rampant in online chess is going to end up leading to new rules for the game? I think it's going to have to in some way now that this is all out in the open,

and there's been so much pent up frustration about it. I think that the chess world is going to finally have to reckon with this and probably make some new rules, some more consistent formal procedures for how do you level a cheating allegation? How is that addressed? Who looks into that? You know, sort of like an anti-doping policy in sports. What exactly is the procedure for how that gets dealt with? Because it's not very worked out at this point. Something that that's very clear from from talking to you is that Hans is in Magnus's head oh for sure I would say Hans is living uh rent-free in Magnus's head for sure which as a chess fan I kind of love because if he didn't cheat because if he you can't cheat if he cheated all bets are off but if he didn't I mean Magnus has been on top so long I would love to see someone challenge him and get under his skin and shake things up. So, so in that sense, I would kind of

like to, if somehow it could be proved that Hans didn't cheat, he's such a fascinating character and he's introducing so much drama. But I think at this point, it's going to be hard for us to get the proof we want one way or another. We're probably just going to have to kind of live with this uncertainty. Well, all right, Nate, thank you so much for talking to me about this. It's fascinating. Thank you so much. All right, that's all for today. FrontBurner was produced this week by Imogen Burchard, Mackenzie Cameron, Lauren Donnelly,

Shannon Higgins, and Derek VanderWijk. Our sound design was by Sam McNulty. Our music is by Joseph Shabison. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. And I'm Allie Janes. Jamie will be back next week. Thank you for listening. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.