Today, Explained - The teen’s gambit

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

The chess world is in chaos after its top player accused 19-year-old Hans Niemann of using AI to cheat. Niemann is responding with a $100 million lawsuit against his accuser and the chess website that says he likely cheated in scores of games. This episode was produced by Amanda Lewellyn and Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Efim Shapiro and Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's a big, huge cheating scandal in professional sports right now. Now, to a huge scandal in the world of professional chess. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is chess even a sport? It depends who you ask. Some might call it a game, some might call it a sport. I think the people who think it's a sport point to things like the World Championship match, where the games can last hours upon hours, and players actually even physically train to

prepare for that type of grueling affair. Whatever chess is, one of the best players to ever sit behind pawns just got beaten by a 19-year-old everyone seems to think is a punk. And now that 19-year-old is suing that chess grandmaster for $100 million. It's today explained. The all new fan dual sports book and casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications. Or how about more ways to customize your casino page

with our new favorite and recently played games tabs? And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. Today Explained, Sean Ramos from here with Andrew Beaton, who writes about sports for the Wall Street Journal, which means he also writes about chess,

which means lately he's been spending a lot of time covering the most dramatic cheating scandal to ever hit the board. All of this has produced not just a bombshell that has turned chess boards everywhere upside down. It's also leading to this introspective moment for the game of chess, where we've known for a while now that computers are better than humans at the game of chess. And that has given rise to the idea that if someone found a way to do so, they could cheat. And there's this bigger question looming over the game now, is this being policed rigorously enough? Magnus Carlsen has been the golden boy of chess for a while now. He's a five-time world champion, the highest rated player ever,

and he's the type of person whose fame and celebrity has transcended chess. He's appeared as a guest on The Simpsons. He has a fashion contract. He's friends with Hollywood A-listers. This will cement... And then on the other hand, you have Hans Nieman. He is a teenage American. He's 19 now, who has rapidly risen in the world rankings. He has a reputation of being brash. 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. He has this big curly mop of brown hair and then all of a sudden his world was upended by an accusation from none other than the number one player in the world, Magnus Carlsen. Now to a huge scandal in the world of professional chess. It centers around world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, who has, for the first time, openly accused fellow player, 19-year-old Hans Niemann, of cheating. At a prestigious tournament in St. Louis in early September, Neiman beat Carlson. That ended a 53-match unbeaten streak in classical chess for Carlson. And more stunningly, Neiman was playing with the black pieces,

which is a considerable disadvantage. White has the advantage. Since it always has the first move, it always has the advantage. Even more fascinating than what happened in the game was what happened shortly afterward, which was when Carlsen

resigned from the tournament abruptly. Breaking news, a tweet from the world chess champion, Magnus Carlsen. He has withdrawn. Verbatim. Could you repeat that for us, Alejandro? What was the tweet exactly, if you please? I've withdrawn from the tournament.

I've always enjoyed playing at St. Louis Chess Club and hope to be back in the future. That is what the world champion has tweeted. This was completely unprecedented for Magnus Carlsen. He does not have a reputation as a sore loser. He had never withdrawn entirely from a tournament such as this. And he didn't say anything officially accusing Neiman of cheating at the time,

but he tweeted a video of the famously crotchety soccer manager, Jose Mourinho, where Mourinho says, 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 the implication for Mourinho back when he said that was that he got jobbed by the refs in a soccer game and he'd be stepping out of line if he officially said that out loud. The chess world was quick to read the tea leaves about Carlson's implication. It didn't take long for the commentators, the streamers, anybody who pays attention to chess to interpret Carlson's withdrawal as an act of protest.

And on the one hand, you started having people uncover evidence that Neiman had seemingly cheated in online games in the past. For five tournaments in a row, Hans played better. Hans played better than Bobby Fischer when he won 20 games in a row on his path becoming the world champion.

Wow. Okay. Wow. In 2020, he gets banned by chess.com for cheating. Afterward, he makes a rise in over-the-board chess, and he shot up so much in his rating and world ranking that it was basically unprecedented. That left people kind of wrestling with the question of either he has made this incredibly remarkable run due to incredible skill,

or is part of that run because maybe he got some illegal assistance? Like it's either the game of a genius or something fishy. I mean, it's one of the two. But on the other hand, there was definite scrutiny of Carlson with people saying, is it unfair to make this type of very serious allegation without presenting any evidence? You know, everything that people have said about Hans Nieman on the internet and all you people that are commenting on this that don't know even, you know, any of the people involved or any of the coaches or any of the trainers or any of the people that have been involved with these two guys

in their chess development, you really don't know what you're talking about. And this is all just a lot of rumor mongering. I mean, I think everybody was trying to figure out how someone might cheat. Because cheating online, it's not that difficult. I mean, your cell phone that you're holding right now, or any computer can access various apps or websites that can deliver someone the best moves, moves that would beat the best players in the world. But cheating in person requires a little bit more spycraft.

Suspicions were raised when Georgian Gaius Nigalitsis started making regular trips to the toilet. They discovered that he was using his smartphone to log into a chess analysis app while the phone had been hidden in the toilet. And beyond that, pretty much any spy scheme you could think of, in theory, could be possible. Because when you're at that level of chess, like these players are, they don't need to be knocked on the head and told directly every move to make. They simply need a nudge in the right direction

on a couple critical moves in the game, and that would be enough to tilt the balances. So you could imagine something like, what if you had an accomplice who is using one of the computers, and you have a buzzer in your shoe? One buzz means move your rook. Two buzzes means move your queen.

There's all sorts of systems you could devise. And this is how Anal Beads enters the chat. Fans speculate Neiman had an accomplice who was watching the game being broadcast live online and consulting an AI chess program, then using wireless anal beads that vibrate to Neiman the correct moves. I mean, you have pretty much everybody,

including Elon Musk, weighing in on wild, unsubstantiated theories. And unfortunately, one of the things that caught on without evidence was could someone cheat using anal beads? Which is not a sentence you thought would be ever said in connection with chess ever before. I know it's unlikely, but it would explain his unique style of play. Knight to king, seven. How does Neiman respond to the chess world and various fandoms alleging that he cheated and I guess even alleging that he may have done something involving anal beads? So at this tournament in St. Louis, which has been completely upended, the drama is consuming all of it. You have players saying they can't sleep with all the chaos going on. During a post-game interview, Neiman says, yes, he has cheated online in the past, and he chalked them up to youthful indiscretions as a 12-year-old and 16-year-old and said,

I was living alone in New York City. It was the peak of the pandemic. And at that, I had been financially independent since I was 16 years old. I left my family and I was living alone at 16. I had rent to pay and I wanted to, and I was willing to do anything to grow my stream. So of course I made a childish mistake and I will have to live with that. But he said he has never cheated in over the board chess and called out Carlsen for calling him out. To see my absolute hero try to target,

try to ruin my reputation my chess career and to do it in such a frivolous way is really really disappointing a few things happened next a few weeks later they were in another tournament together this tournament was an online tournament and eventually when their games against each other came up, Neiman made the first move, then Carlson moved, then Neiman moved, then Carlson just resigns. What happened? That's it? We're gonna try and get an update on this. Magnus Carlsen just resigned got up and left switched off his camera and that's all we know right now Carlsen then still went on to win the tournament anyway

but it was yet another act that indicated he was specifically refusing to play with Hans Nieman and shortly after that tournament finished was when Carlson put out a statement saying he believes that Niemann has cheated more often and more than he has admitted. And he more broadly says that the chess world needs to take the idea of cheating more seriously.

So there's a controversy. No one ever really figures out if anyone was cheating, but there's a controversy. No one ever really figures out if anyone was cheating, but there's a lot of allegations. Is that the end of the story? It's definitely not the end of the story, because one of the big questions that has loomed over all of this is, was Hans Nieman being honest about the extent of his online cheating in the past?

And we reported on an investigation by chess.com that found that Neiman had cheated more and more recently than he had admitted to. It said that he likely cheated in over 100 games online. That includes other events with prize money. And that is why they had banned him. And that includes when he was a 17-year-old, so it was more recently than Hans Niemann had said. And that was really explosive because now you don't just have somebody random, seemingly,

being accused of cheating. It's somebody who you know now has cheated in the past. And what that investigation showed was they were saying he wasn't being forthright about the extent of his cheating. But at the end of the day, it says there's no evidence yet that Neiman has cheated in person or specifically in that game against Carlson. At the same time right now, FIDE, the international governing body of chess, is conducting its own investigation into the Neiman-Carlson affair. And I think we'll all be very interested to see what that probe finds. And in the meantime, his reputation is essentially tarnished. What's he doing about that? Well, Neiman filed a lawsuit against chess.com, against Magnus Carlsen, and various other high-profile figures saying they defamed him and that Neiman denies cheating as much as chess.com says he did. This lawsuit is demanding $100 million. I mean, they're claiming that he's been defamed. They're all in cahoots together.

Chess.com is buying Magnus's app, Play Magnus, for over $80 million, and it's claiming that it's this giant conspiracy to take down Hans Nieman. But one of the things that we are all going to be interested in watching is how seriously the courts take his claims. You know, obviously it gets a lot of publicity when someone sues some high-profile people for a lot of money, but the figures involved are probably pretty confident that they can beat this. And do you get any sense of what this controversy means for the future of the sport? It feels like it's dredged up a lot of things that people were happier to not talk about before. I think the future of the sport is It feels like it's dredged up a lot of things that people were happier to not talk about before. I think the future of the sport is going to be different forever because of this.

I was talking with one grandmaster who told me that cheating in chess was a ticking time bomb. Basically, what happened here is that Carlson lit the fuse. May 3rd, 1997. The ultimate test of man versus machine. You know, there was the days in the 1990s where Garry Kasparov was playing against the computer Deep Blue. And whoa! Deep Blue, the answer has been machine at this point. And these days, it doesn't require a supercomputer to run the calculations. Any smartphone, any computer can just pull up a website that can deliver you the moves that would beat even the best player in the world, Magnus Carlsen.

He would lose to a computer. That was Andrew Beaton from The Wall Street Journal. When we're back on Today Explained, a chess master weighs in on his game's biggest cheating scandal. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame.

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Is chess a gift? Could a guy who doesn't have a gift for it learn to be a great chess player? Great? No, he could be good though. Today, explaining back with Nate Solon, who's a data scientist, but also a chess master. It means I have a rating over 2200. So when you play in a chess tournament, you get this numerical rating. So over 2200 is a master. I actually played Hans Nieman many years ago and lost when he was, you know, he was a talented young kid, you know,

long before the whole scandal sort of blew up. He's still a talented young kid. He's 19 years old now. Yeah. He was a talented, much younger kid, but good enough to beat me in that game. Do you think he was cheating when he beat you? No, I definitely had no suspicion. Actually, it was kind of a messy game. Like neither of us played very well. But in chess, there's something called a post mortem where you analyze the game with your opponent. That's sort of a tradition. Oddly, based on what people are saying now, he was very impressive in the post mortem. Like he showed a lot of lines that he had seen during the game that were very impressive. Whereas now people are criticizing these post game conferences, but I don't read too much into that. I think it's

sort of an adversarial environment and he's kind of playing a heel role. But I don't read too much into that. I think it's sort of an adversarial environment, and he's kind of playing a heel role. But I definitely feel sure that whether or not he cheated or how much he's cheated, he's a really strong chess player. He's for sure capable of seeing deeply into a chess position and analyzing a lot of lines. So as a chess master, as a data scientist, do you think Hans Nieman was cheating in this match in question? In the game against Magnus at the Sinkfield Cup? No, I don't think he was cheating in that game. We know he cheated online.

He admitted that. It would not shock me if he had cheated over the board at least once in his career. But in that game, nothing about the moves of the game was suspicious. Very high profile, like highly scrutinized event. So it'd be quite hard just in terms of like, you know, the sort of device or the mechanics of how he would have done that. So yeah, of all the games he could have cheated in, I think that one's really unlikely. Have you ever cheated? I have not. I mean, honestly, it doesn't make a ton of sense to me because like, you know, the fun of chess is kind of playing for yourself.

And like, and for me, I'm not, you know, I'm not competing for world championships or anything. So it just wouldn't make much sense to me in any way to kind of put my whole reputation on the line to, to what, you know, win it, win a game online or something. Why do you think it's so widespread cheating? Well, what are people trying to, to gain if not, you know, have an honest chess match and, and, and, and use their, their prowess? You know, it is weird. Like online cheating, especially is weird. Like, especially in games that don't count for anything. I don't know, I think people sort of feel smart to kind of put one over on the system. And they don't they don't realize that, you know,

they're not the first person to have the idea to do that. But then, you know, you do have games that do have real stakes, like tournaments with prize money, or if you increase your rating, that can increase your opportunities in the chess world in various ways. So there are kind of material reasons that someone might want to cheat to win a certain game or a certain tournament. I'm sure people are listening to this and thinking, wow, it's ruining chess. But are there positive uses for this kind of technology? Yeah, there definitely are.

You're allowed to use these engines away from the board when you're not playing to study. And that's actually a huge part of how chess players study now, because in effect, we have the answer key now. You can input any chess position with one of these engines and get back a very accurate, detailed answer of what best play looks like. It's not absolutely perfect. Chess is not technically solved, but these things are much better than humans. They don't exactly spell out for you why they're doing what they're doing. So there's a lot of skill involved in sort of parsing those engine lines and wrapping your mind around what you as a human can take for them and apply

to your own game. But it's tremendously powerful to just be able to take any, any position, give it to the engine and get back basically the right answer, which, you know, before, before engines, like if you wanted to know what was really going on in a chess position,

you just had to sit there and analyze it for like, you know, maybe for days or weeks, if it was really complicated. So do you think these chess engines have changed the game for the better or the worse? It's a mixed bag. So cheating, obviously, is a huge concern that I think that the chess world hasn't really grappled with as far as like, how do we catch this?

What is the process for investigating someone? What are the consequences? That's, that's kind of what's being worked out now, now that this is all out in the open. I mean, I would say it, it democratized chess learning and chess access, because you can use it, you know, anyone, if you have an internet connection, you can go online and use one of these things. So people who might not have like a chess coach, you know, anyone, if you have an internet connection, you can go online and use one of these things. So people who might not have like a chess coach, you know, maybe there's not a grandmaster in your area or you can't afford that type of coaching. You can put your game into this and if you know how to use it, actually get really valuable feedback. So it is a great way to study.

Which is to say what? That That tech has forever altered this game? Yeah, I mean, there's no question that it's altered it in terms of how we study, how we think about the game, and the possibility of cheating. Yeah, I think we can definitely do a better job on catching the cheating, but I mean, the chat's kind of out of the bag in some sense. How do you think the chess world recovers from this saga? Or do you think this was ultimately good for chess because it got a whole lot of people, myself included, thinking about a game that they sort of never think about? Yeah, well, I mean, it's that whole thing of any publicity is good publicity, right? Or is it? So it certainly got chess a lot of attention.

A lot of it has been negative. I guess it comes down to are people going to see this and want to play chess? Or is it just something there? You know, is it more like watching a train wreck kind of thing? Within the chess world, it's really shown that we need to develop a better way to address this cheating issue. And I think there's, you know, a lot of progress can be made on that in terms of you can look at the statistics of how well people play. You can kind of up the security at tournaments, add time delays to broadcast and stuff like that. And I do think we're going to need a more formal process for how these cases are investigated, maybe more severe sanctions for cheating online, especially.

So that's the big thing within the chess world. I mean, the issue is just that these engines are so good and the top players are so good that if they cheat in a sort of subtle way, it's just really hard to catch. That was chess master Nate Solon. He writes a newsletter about chess, but also data. It's called Zwischenzug. Maybe easier to just Google nate solon chess master newsletter or something like that our show today was produced by amanda llewellyn and hadima wagdi

edited by matthew collette fact checked by laura bullard and engineered by a theme the scream shapiro it's today explained Bye.