World Beating Champion, Cheating Suspicions, and Connected Sex Game: Dramas in the Chess Kingdom

It was 7pm on Monday, September 19, and while the day was marked for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, another queen, the King set at E8 on a virtual chessboard for Magnus Carlsen. The Norwegian chess leader, world number one Elo ranking and world champion, Hans Niemann, faces off against a 19-year-old American in an online mini tournament organized on the Chess24 platform.

“I don’t like to express myself, if I talk I will have problems and I don’t want to have problems.”

If the cameras of the whole world are installed in London, then the excitement of the media is not empty about this match. It must be said that the meeting has an air of revenge. On September 5, during the third round of Sinquefield Cup In 2022, in St. Louis, Missouri, the underdog youth of the tournament achieved the feat by defeating the highest-ranked Elo in history, higher even than legend Garry Kasparov.

In the wake of this defeat, Magnus Carlsen contacted his Twitter account, issuing an encrypted tweet to his 700,000 subscribers. He explains that he gave up on continuing the tournament, without giving any specific reason, and explains his few words with GIFs that have long become a meme, that of Jose Mourinho, the Portuguese football coach, in response to journalists. “I don’t like to express myself, if I talk I’ll have problems and I don’t want to have problems”. So on the contrary, the oscilloscope for scandals is running out, and in a sport already afflicted with paranoia, everyone sees in it a sign of veiled condemnation of cheating.

Hans Niemann Stand out in this cold chess world. He is completely unsympathetic, looks like a slightly crazy character from a novel, with arrogant eyes and disheveled hair. He never changes his jacket, won’t wash it, and seems to bother other players in real tournaments. And then, its progress has been amazing since the Covid-19 pandemic. In the face of the drama created by Carlsen, Neiman had to justify himself during an interview, defending himself from being a cheater, arguing that he was willing to play naked if necessary, and that, yes, it could happen that he cheated at chess. Com in his youth, two or three times, but he never did it in serious events or in real tournaments.

Trapped in the whirlwind, Chess.com publishes a press release explaining that Hans Niemann is now banned from the podium, and that she has glass balls that conflict with the youngster’s version of his reluctance to cheat. And in St. Louis, the tournament organizers decided to introduce a 15-minute delay between the real game and its webcast. Neiman also didn’t shine at the end of the tournament, scoring draws and defeats as he took the lead with a victory over his new Norwegian opponent.

Trollesque Theory of the Connected Sex Game

With Carlsen disappearing from radar screens after his provocative tweet, the internet is racing. It is also said that Neiman could have used a connected object derived from a sex toy to transmit strokes to him via a vibration system. The subject clearly appeals to the general media, which is quick to spread the rumour. Even Elon Musk went there with his little Twitter comment before finally deleting it. But there is no evidence. And the illusion of the “connected anal plug” comes, more often than not, from a few trolls on Reddit and elsewhere. Delirium was not even very young since the joke would revive for several years with each new suspicion of cheating. Other theories: Neiman could have used a vibrating sole, or was informed of Carlsen’s game plan. In short, a lot of noise, but only noise.

What caused the uproar in the Niemann case was the hypothesis of an anal flapsays Kevin ‘Blitzstream’ Bordi, the discipline’s premier operator in France, who also seems to enjoy keeping crazy rumors alive. Who would have the right to search the anus before a game of chess? This is the least dangerous fraud in the world.”. However, the assumption, as crazy as it sounds, hides the real problem of modern chess. continues: “Before modern technologies, we were not using cheating systems that radically changed the outcome. But there, anyone using technology could beat Magnus Carlsen. It is not even necessary to know the rules, just for computer guidance”.

There are some examples of cheating that happened before the advent of technology, with cheat sheets, for example. But they are more like memory devices with vulgar descriptions of movements. In 2019, the 58-year-old Czech Grand Master Igors Rausis, the 53rd player in the world, was caught on mobile during the Strasbourg Open. Investigators from the International Chess Federation (FIDE) found him playing during a pee break.

Georgian master Gayuz Nigaldze was revealed in 2015 at the Dubai Open. The man rushed into the bathroom with every movement of his opponent, arousing suspicion and then the judges found a phone hidden behind a toilet seat with headphones and connected to a program that analyzed the game in progress. Finally, on several occasions, Borislav Ivanov, the great Bulgarian teacher, was faced with such strong suspicions of cheating that an entire room was lied to find a potential partner, or he was asked to undress. During one of the tournaments, an electronic device was also found in one of his shoes. Ivanov preferred to leave the tournament rather than allow the organizers to enter it.

YouTube, and the Internet in general, is also full of examples of electronic cheating methods in the game of chess. Here, the Raspberry Pi is hidden in a shoe. There, one of the players shows how he was able to cheat with secret earphones. We’re also considering subcutaneous implants that can be virtually undetectable and make it possible to communicate in Morse code with the strikes to be performed. With sometimes huge sums at stake, the investment is tempting.

“There is a bad atmosphere in a high-level scene because there is clearly not enough security in the tournamentssays Kevin Purdy. We live in a world of doubt. Once some do big shows, there are doubts, then Omerta. This Nieman story is just another illustration of the problem.”. According to him, the challenge is: How, in a world where technologies are becoming increasingly small and undetectable, to ensure that no one uses them in professional chess games? A priori, discipline lacks solutions.

The security of the real tournaments is described as quite old. Often, a simple metal detector is passed over the body. On rare occasions, such as at the World Championships in Sochi, a jammer is activated in the hall to block electronic communications. Rulers can also ask to hunt heroes, but they are obviously limited to the field of the visible. And unlike cycling, where suspicion leads to police investigations, no one will knock on the door of Carlsen, Neimann or Firouzja.

The flip side of the chess update is that tournaments are proliferating online. On Chess.com, in tournaments where little money is at stake, the platform requires players to install a dual-camera system, a classic front-facing camera, and a rear-facing camera to photograph themselves and their environment.French streamer details. “The referee can request, even during a match, that the player take the camera and film the play. There is also a time lag between the broadcast of the game and the game itself. Since these matches are fast, c is sufficient to prevent some cheating”. Again, the system probably does not cure all failure diseases.

Magnus Carlsen, predator or ‘whistleblower’?

Specifically, the Monday, September 19th segment runs online, and the cameras. But the curious and the curious were not shaken for a long time by the new Niemann-Carlsen duel. The American, who plays white, starts the game by moving his first pawn to D4. The Norwegian responds with his rider in F6. And as Niemann prepares to continue his opening by throwing a new pawn at C4, the unimaginable happens. Magnus Carlsen has just given up on the game, without expressing any particular facial emotion. A few seconds later, his camera went off. Neiman looks at his face, barely looking surprised, and the connection in turn breaks.

The day after this second episode, neither Neiman nor Carlsen communicated. Laughs aside, it now remains to be seen if FIDE will investigate Niemann and launch an ethics committee on Carlsen for his stance that threatens to damage the image of the system.