On Tuesday night, The Wall Street Journal published a high-level overview of a report produced by Chess.com, all about Hans Niemann, the player suspected of cheating at the Sinquefield Cup against the reigning five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen. (Possibly, the Internet has joked many times, with the help of anal seeds.) Not only did the chess site defend its decision to ban Niemann from playing online, it also made the shocking allegation that it concluded that the young grandmaster cheated in more than 100 online games. Now that the full report is out, and it’s a huge 72 pages full of charts, appendices and proofs that more or less says the same thing, but in more detail. The report also highlights many other fraud cases in addition to the ones that are causing a stir, but we’ll address that in a moment.
I’m sure many would argue whether it’s fair to punish Niemann without proof he’s ever cheated in a real-world setting, and why Chess.com thinks letting Niemann out initially. is suitable. keep playing on its website if, in fact, there are dozens of pages of information that suggest he is a regular and longstanding cheater. The evidence was immediately overwhelming, and was five, however Chess.com insists that its system is world-class in finding cheaters, to the point that many people subject to the site’s surveillance end up confessing their wrongdoing. Chess.com apparently discovered Niemann was a cheater, but didn’t think his history was a danger until it became a major controversy. Niemann was temporarily banned from the site in 2020, but continued to play in a real-world setting along with prize money online tournaments shortly thereafter. Somehow, it wasn’t until now that the events actually took place, as Niemann was re-banned on the site and also banned from competing in the Chess.com championship, with a prize pool of $1 million. la, to which he was previously invited.
The website’s report literally says, emphasizing us, “…we had doubts about Hans’ match against Magnus at the Sinquefield Cup, enhanced by the public outburst from the event, ” Meaning that public perception played a part in the timing of all of this. And the introduction of the document showed that Chess.com positioned itself as the game manager, with responsibility for growing the game’s fan base and keeping things fair. Arguing that with $1 million in the Chess.com Global Championship, it’s simply impossible to ignore the ongoing boom.
To the site’s credit, the document’s introduction also acknowledges that the organization could have made a better decision about the situation; After all, it’s run by people. But if you’re confused as to how or why events turned out the way they did, I’ll bring your attention to the report’s “Exhibit C.” It contains a series of emails that Chess.com cites as an example of an interaction it had with another top player who appeared to have cheated, and I think it’s pretty illustrative of how the site works. overall motion.
“This person competed in a single event with a total of 10 games in 2020. Their Power Points alone are not necessarily sufficient for action, but indicate a potential for cheating,” the report said. read, refer to the scoring system that the site uses to catch business fish. “Even considering this player Rated elo close to 2700, our team of experts was able to discern the fact that this player was actually selectively cheating using a chess engine. When faced with our allegations that they used outside assistance, they confessed, as shown in the compiled email exchange attached as Appendix C to this report. . This email sequence reflects the consideration in our process and how we interact with players like Hans who are suspected of cheating on the platform.”
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Read more: Chess Champion Breaks Silence During ‘Anal Bead’ Cheating Controversy
While the players initially played silly, it became clear that they were eventually caught. But here’s where it gets really interesting, instead of simply banning the cheater outright, Chess.com gives him a chance to come clean:
As a title player, we want to give you the opportunity to re-establish yourself in the Chess.com community and as such, we make no public statements as to the reasons for the funding. your account is closed or our findings. If you choose to acknowledge any behavior that you feel could result in your account being closed within the next 72 hours, we may attempt to work with you individually to open a new, approved account. title and Diamond Membership.
And here is the player, in compliance (their grammar error):
Hi, I have written to you in previous emails that I will fully cooperate. I only use help in a few games not because I want to win prizes but because I get bored and just want to see how good your team is. Before that I made sure everyone did it, now I see that your team is very serious and good. I want to apologize for my behavior, this will never happen again! I apologize for what I did and feel ashamed of the truth. Thanks so much for giving me this opportunity and for not making this public. I’m really surprised you caught me because I only cheated in 5 games in this. I cheated the game. Others I don’t know that’s why I think you’re doing a great job. Once again I apologize for my behavior.
Sure, this whole thing is mainly here for Chess.com to boast about its cheat detection: Not only has it attracted many former players, some of those players are top level! You should trust its methodology when it says that Niemann cheated a lot, that’s the whole point of it. Even cheaters give the props detection team how good they are. But what I want you to get out of this is that there is a big element of trust placed in the scammer, as long as they are willing to own what they did. Consequences have been suffered, but they still let players continue to use the site assuming that as promised, they will never again infringe. It doesn’t matter if they’re a top 100 player, they still have a chance to redeem themselves.
Now take us to Niemann. The website says Exhibit C is an introduction to how it approaches situations like Niemann and perhaps something very similar happened in 2020, when he was initially arrested. Chess.com said in the even more recent report, “It has historically been Chess.com’s overall policy to handle account suspension/closed and invitations for titled players (such as: Hans) in a non-public manner.” Obviously it trusts him to come back and play and hopes he will keep it clean, because the original ban only lasted six months. It’s probably not too much to say that this is a random moment, since those who consider themselves chess managers always want to create a healthy community where resilience is possible. Niemann may be a cheater, but they wanted to give him a chance to become a better player.
It would appear that withdrawing this now is a breach of Chess.com, but keep in mind that, in light of the accusations, Niemann assured the public that he had only cheated a few times, and that these cases happened quite a while ago, when he was young. If Niemann lied about it and did so recently, you could argue that he broke the pact here first and therefore can’t count on Chess.com’s larger goal of keeping the game. Play honestly.
Of course, many observers will still doubt them, especially when you consider that the site made an offer to acquire the company of Magnus Carlsen for millions of dollars. The report repeatedly tries to assure readers that it does not favor Carlsen in any way, with one of the first large sections dedicated to whether its decision was influenced by the grandmaster. Never mind that we still don’t have proof that Niemann ever cheated in an excessive setting, with theoretical anal particles.
However, I encourage you to take some time to read Chess.com’s massive 72-page report: Whatever you dismiss it, it’s a fascinating and unprecedented look at one of the scandals. biggest competition of the year.
