No area for a rook: Dishonest scandal rocks chess entire world

Jack Birle

September 25, 06:25 AM September 25, 06:25 AM

A weird controversy has taken around the planet of expert chess and thrust it into the mainstream, centered on accusations of dishonest and a intercourse toy.

Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, the world No. 1, abruptly left his on-line match versus American Hans Niemann at the Julius Baer Technology Cup Monday following only 1 transfer. Carlsen withdrew from the Sinquefield Cup, an event in St. Louis, Missouri, a week earlier immediately after losing to Niemann.

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Niemann has admitted to dishonest in his youth, foremost to a ban from chess.com, for every a report from Reuters, but denies dishonest since in any significant tournaments.

When Carlsen withdrew from the Sinquefield Cup, he tweeted a video clip of soccer supervisor Jose Mourinho after a 2014 recreation indicating, "I desire not to converse. If I speak, I am in huge trouble, and I really don't want to be in problems."

Carlsen refused to say what the purpose for withdrawing from the match Monday was in an interview on Wednesday.

"Regrettably, I are not able to especially speak on that. Folks can attract their individual conclusions, and they unquestionably have," Carlsen claimed. "I have to say I am incredibly impressed by Niemann's engage in, and I consider his mentor, Maxim Dlugy, must be doing a fantastic task."

When right asked if it was owing to cheating allegations associated to Niemann, he declined to comment.

The most bizarre idea from a user on Reddit alleges that Niemann cheated in the Sinquefield Cup by working with the vibrations of a wireless intercourse toy to dictate his following move. That wild idea alleges Carlsen himself came up with the ploy but Niemann subsequently stole the procedure from him, for this reason why Carlsen cannot basically say what is heading on.

There is no solid proof to aid these theories, but it has not stopped them from spreading all around the world wide web like wildfire.

Niemann has admitted to dishonest in random games on chess.com when he was youthful to raise his ranking but explained he was confronted about it and admitted to it. In an job interview throughout the Sinquefield Cup, he called it the "best mistake of my lifestyle."

He also mentioned he has never cheated in an above-the-board video game of chess or in a match with prize dollars.

"I am not going to let chess.com, I am not heading to enable Magnus Carlsen, I'm not going to permit Hikaru Nakamura — the three arguably largest entities in chess — only slander my standing," Niemann mentioned in the job interview.

The Sinquefield Cup backed up Niemann towards the allegations, saying there was "no sign that any participant has been playing unfairly."

With Carlsen's most up-to-date withdrawal, the rumors from Niemann have only developed in volume.