In Go, (and in competitive Starcraft, I've noticed) they talk about "overplay", making a move that's trying to claim too much, biting over more than you should be able to chew. And if you spot it, and are good enough, you can "punish" an overplay. If you are playing with a handicap, you have to make overplays, and hope your opponent can't punish them. As the weaker player in a handicap game you know this, but you face a constant dilemma: do you think you know how to respond and punish, or do you play carefully, sacrificing a little of the edge of your handicap? What's best depends a lot on your confidence in your own strength.

Now in Chess, it's much harder to see what's an overplay or not, especially for us who aren't GMs. But the basic thing exists, it exists in all games. Players still have to make decisions about whether to concede a little of their edge (it starts off with white, but can change across the game) with a safe move, or go for a potentially risky counter.

Now imagine what suspectimg your opponent might on decisive moves have engine help, does with that dilemma.

> If you are playing with a handicap, you have to make overplays

Some players may feel they have to, but others manage to refrain from making overplays, and just keep playing moves they consider objectively best, patiently waiting for their weaker opponent to make big mistakes. Usually such patience does get rewarded.

For small handicaps, maybe you can see it that way. But it's harder to call a move "objectively best" when you're technically in a dead lost position.

With objectively best I refer to maximizing territory. A much stronger player of course realizes they're in a technically lost position throughout most of the game, but that doesn't make resigning objectively best.

So why even begin the match? The story would hold a lot more water if he boycotts from the outset

Because its more within the rules to resign than to withdraw in their contract probably

Just a guess may be Carlsen set the whole thing up. Like make a move and see if the opponent makes a move that could only be recommended by a chess engine. Do it in your preparation time and see this.

Like in your preparation you make an opening move and see what move the engine makes in response. Now do this in your live game and see if the opponent made the very same move. If they do, this confirms cheating. In this case may be that's the first he would do given he already suspects cheating?

There’s absolutely no way this is the case.

Chess GMs at Magnus and Hans’ level wouldn't even need to cheat on every move and certainly not on any opening where something like the first 20 best moves are all memorised. These guys would only need the engine to tell with them one or two moves per game to pretty much always win.

Why did Magnus start the game and then resign? Maybe he thought it would make a statement. Maybe he needed to technically show up to the game to avoid a penalty.

One opening move can’t possibly confirm cheating since the opening moves played by the best chess engines are also the same moves played by the vast majority of human players.

But if there is no obviously desirable move, and instead a wide array of potential equally good moves, then picking the same as the computer picked gives a high probability of cheating. That being said, I find it unlikely that that's the case here.

I believe you're starting from a false premise.

In case of the first moves, there's definitely not a wide array of potentially equally good moves. There's a very well known set which is studied by every serious chess player.

Literally every GM (including Magnus) will have studied all the possible moves a computer will make for the first N moves to memorize what the optimal move/response is etc.

Niemann had moved one piece. There were exactly 24 possible moves he could have made. Being in line with "the engine" would have been easy.

I dont know if he is cheating. Evidence is not clear. My theory is one of two things.

1) Carlsen doesn't want to play with anyone that has ever cheated. Fair enough. But be more vocal about it.

Pet theory 2) Carlsen is on tilt. We could be seeing a shift in play style, like we have several times with poker. GTO came on the scene and suddenly the whole game changed, and those on the top many times found themselves unable to deal with how the newer players were approaching the game.