It's also weird that if someone is good enough to beat one of the best chess players in the world, that they would also resort to cheating against much weaker opponents.
Also cheating in online chess is a very low barrier if entry. Anyone can do it. When I did cheat in counter strike, it was as simple as wanting to see how it worked. Downloading some questionable binaries and running them.
A simile might be downloading an illegal copy of windows and stealing a car. Both are technically stealing, but stealing windows is not a predictor that you are going to steal a car.
Cheating in person so discreetly that no one is even sure that it happened is the opposite. It would have required custom hardware, discreet placement, and a lot of practice reading the data. Nothing suggests that he was a hardware engineer if any sort. How many accomplices did he have? The more people, the harder to keep a secret.
Similarly, his offers to rematch and play even naked are really doubling down. Magnus seems scared to entertain these matches.
It might make sense to have a theory of how he was cheating before accepting a rematch.
Magnus also has nothing to gain. If Magnus loses he looks like a jerk for accusing him of cheating, or an idiot for not being able to setup conditions that prevent him from cheating.
If Magnus wins, he proves nothing since he’s expected to win. All it proves is that the first game was a fluke and they’re ratings disparities are accurate.
Apparently, even if this person was or was not cheating, refusing a rematch and calling him a cheater was the best possible move.
And there's the incredible sharp increase of rating, basically from 2400 IM level in 2021 to Super GM 2700 level (live ratings) within 2 years. Yes, that is legitimately possible, other players had similar incredible gains, so it's not completely unheard of, but he is either one of the greatest improvers of all-time or something is wrong.
Secondly, that increase in rating is totally normal for someone playing around that level.
Magnus took about half that time to go from 2300 to 2500.
Ding took like 1yr for similar
Alireza simiar...
To be precise he was 2484 in 2021-Jan as you can verify here https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2093596/chart
Hence he went from IM level to Super GM level within 1 year and 9 month.
Another coincidence is that GM Maxim Dlugy, a coach of Hans, is a known cheater.
He did when he was 12 and 16. It's impossible to assess whether that holds value (particularly difficult because Niemann is 19). I wouldn't be surprised if other professional chess players cheated as young teenagers.
This is a situation where both parties have reasons to lie and there's no solid evidence for anything. There's no reason to do anything or blame anyone until any new information comes up.
Withdrawing from a round-robin and losing a game on purpose are quite strong indications of this.
It's obviously a bad situation for the chess world. ... But, I think if you strongly believe cheating is going on without being addressed, protest seems an entirely understandable.
It seems to me that the entire chess community is absolutely ruining this guy's life on an accusation without any proof. This chess champ had clout to burry this guy with a tweet.
Carlsen won't play in future tournaments where this guy is also there and won't do a rematch. It seems like he is just sulking.
From an outsider of the game, without any proof and without a rematch, everyone is destroying Niemann unjustly. Comedians ripping into him.
This scandal has removed any interest I may have had in competitive chess not because of the possible cheating, but how the chess world handled it.