Did chess 'bad boy' Niemann cheat?

NEW YORK The day before he beat the greatest chess player in the world, Hans Niemann was a curly-haired 19-year-old American known only to serious fans of the game and mostly as an abrasive jerk.

Everyone, it seems, has a story. Like that time in June, when he lost in the finals of a tournament in Prague, then stood in the ballroom of the hotel where the event was held and ranted against the city and the accommodations.

On Sept 4, Niemann defeated Magnus Carlsen, an even-tempered, 32-year-old Norwegian who had become a grandmaster at 13.

The loss to Niemann at the Sinquefield Cup, a prestigious round-robin tournament in St Louis with a US$350,000 (S$472,600) purse, was what sparked off the circus after Carlsen accused his opponent of cheating, though he did not say so outright.

In a post-match interview with a Sinquefield commentator two days later, Niemann confessed to cheating on Chess.com, the largest online playing platform, once when he was 12 and again at 16. But he had learnt his lesson and toiled for redemption.

He had never, he stated emphatically, cheated in a live match.

The site has become the virtual hangout, so the scarlet "C" on Niemann burned even brighter after Chess.com released a 72-page report in early October concluding that he had cheated in more than 100 games on its platform. Niemann's rise in the ranks of overthe-board chess, as the in-person version of the game is known, was "uncharacteristic", the report stated, implying that he had cheated at live tournaments.