Chess (rolling)

Seems mad for Magnus to have staked his reputation on it for there to be nothing in the accusations. But then it feels a bit like siding with a megacorp against a disruptive newcomer. And really weird for chess.com to suddenly ban him saying he’s done way more cheating but presumably they already knew about it and weren’t acting on it?? Bizarre. Maybe Magnus amd Niemann are both in on it. The former has technically said nothing and stirred up huge interest in chess around the chesscom/playmagnus merger…

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hoooooo boy

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I reckon Magnus fucked it today. Gave up whatever moral high-ground he had with that little stunt.

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Chess is great

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Sales of vibrating anal beads must be through the roof right now

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More shots fired

Went past 1500 this morning :partying_face:. Was a satisfying way to get there. Seems having a bad cold befuddles my brain in most days, but improves my chess :man_shrugging:.

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Interesting!

Unless I’m missing something, this is absolute madness:

He may be banking on the fact that if they can’t 100% prove it, they have to retract. But suing Hikaru? As far as I’m aware (and correct me if I’m wrong), all he’s done is report what’s in the public domain on this…

Whatever the truth of the matter and the ethics of Carlsen’s approach, the wording in that suit is absolutely wild. All the “king of chess” references and the like.

He was a proper shit-stirrer in all this in fairness. Probably the one who has strayed closest to slander?

Hikaru mined the drama for content (what with streaming being I think his primary income), but I still don’t think he said anything that wasn’t out there?

I think the Hikaru inclusion is a bit of a step too far and will likely fail, but for Niemann to propose that there was a conspiracy orchestrated by Magnus and Chess.com then it makes sense to also include Hikaru as he’s also very much part of that machine. I think the conspiracy bit justifies his inclusion, rather than it just being about Hikaru calling him a cheater, which I don’t even think he did directly.

The opening statement of that document is very emotive and charged, does read a bit silly in places and the damages are set pretty eyewateringly high, but aside from that I think he has a reasonable case to make.

My take was that Hikaru was implying very heavily that Hans cheated as opposed to, say, Levy who aimed for more of an objective coverage of what was going on (within the realm of views being dollars)

As far as I can see, Hikaru has reported on everything as it has gone along, including the statements from Hans and the long report from chess.com that showed their statistical basis for banning him. You get the impression he agrees with most of it but he has never said “Hans is a cheater”. So there’s nothing there that I can see.

That leaves chess.com and they’ve come up with a lot of detailed statistical analysis that definitely highlights a big anomaly, along with the revelation that he publicly admitted to cheating aged 12 and 16, while their private correspondence showed that he had admitted to more than that. As for the private correspondence, chess.com intended to keep it private until Hans went public. It shows them giving him an incredible amount of second chances in the circumstances. The questions for them are: 1) should they have gone public at all in retrospect, 2) do they have cast-iron evidence of cheating (as opposed to “highly likely”) and 3) if not, does Hans have a case? Not to mention 4) why did they give him so many more chances, although that’s not relevant to the lawsuit.

Something else on this. Hans has sued four entities with money for $100 million each. The amount he’s asking for is clearly insane and that says something in itself. Others have publicly provided a lot of statistical analysis towards this situation, are not wealthy, and he hasn’t sued them.

An interesting Twitter thread:

tl;dr - this author believes the wording/basis in legality of much of the suit is frequently ludicrous, that including Hikaru was madness, but that he might have had some basis for a more modest claim if he had stuck to the actual facts and chosen the defendants more carefully.

Those involved would be highly unlikely to want to do this, but the chances of someone wanting to make a fictionalised drama are pretty high. I say “fictionalised” because while there is confessed online cheating from the past, the over-the-board stuff is only implication based on chess engines measuring the performance, and the alleged possible means of cheating for that are… well, you may have read the articles.

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Proposed title: Beads of Fury

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