He's admitted to cheating at 12 years old and at 16 years old (just 3 years ago)

And the worst part is that Chess.com released a statement saying they've suspended Niemann's account because they have evidence that his cheating was not limited to these two instances. They've invited him to look at the evidence and respond privately to their concerns but it is not publicly known if he has done so.

Yes, the maturity jump from 16 to 19 is marginal at best. If you generalize from crime statistics, a 19 year old is actually more likely to be dishonest than a 16 year old. Criminality peaks in the late teens and drops in the early 20s.

https://pinkerton.com/our-insights/blog/age-crime-curve

(Yes yes I know, Pinkerton are evil. they have the best plot of this correlation I could find. The crime-age correlation is the strongest that exists in the entire field of criminology.)

I wonder if you plotted "risk/reward" behavior during that same time if you'd get a similar curve, just going to show that adolescents are bad at risk/reward calculations.

It is relevant to remember that he "admitted" to cheating on two different occasions only after he was caught and banned for doing so. He did not voluntarily come forward and confess of his own volition.

This is the biggest suspicious fact. That he only cheated two times and was caught both times is a bit hard to believe.

Just 3 years ago in that age is a lot. Also he said that he didn't cheat in prize money tournaments or tournaments at all at 16, he cheated because he wanted to boost his rating and play better players, not saying that is okay. I don't know if he cheated against Magnus or not, but to say that he cheated because something he did at twelve is stupid. Magnus saying that Hans wasn't tense and concentrated is far more important than this other stuff.

He only (recently) admitted to those two cases because he was publicly outed. It seems extremely unlikely that the only two times he was caught was also the only two times he cheated. I think it's very probable he has cheated dozens or hundreds of times and not been caught or not been publicly outed for it.

Right but the claim he made is at 16 he cheated only in no-stakes games, not for prize money.

That argument doesn’t make sense to me. If someone has acknowledged that they will cheat when there are NO stakes, why does that make it less likely they will cheat if something is on the line?

If anything someone who is already known to cheat “just because” is even more likely to cheat when there is something to gain.

The claim in the original comment that I replied to was that Hans had admitted to cheating in "real, official, prize money online tournaments", which was when he was 12.

As for cheating and stakes I think it all depends. His claim is he cheated when he was 16 to boost his rating so he could player higher level opponents on stream and boost his career. If you accept that claim it would make sense that he rationalized it that he was just cheating to get to his "true" Elo and stopped cheating once he got there. Now Chess.Com seems to believe that he cheated beyond that but they haven't specified more at this point.

How can a game be no-stakes and also rating-boosting?

It sounds like he's saying he cheated to get to where he was going faster, but that he would have gotten there eventually so it's fine.

It would be like Armstrong saying he only cheated during trials and training.

Well steroids and doping are different because they effect your body but sure, if Armstrong had cheated during trials with something like a small motor but not during the actual tour it would have tarnished his legacy but I don't think it would have ruined it like his cheating did.

You realize you're putting your trust in the word of someone admitting they cheated. It only goes downhill from there.

No, just trying to put into perspective that people are morons and witch hunts are not fun for anyone. He's just a kid, he made a mistake.

> He's admitted to cheating at 12 years old and at 16 years old (just 3 years ago)

I see the pattern forming. He clearly has improved his play since but he could also have improved the cheating technique, as others pointed out, just needing a hint or two in the most decisive moments of the game. Has he not cheated against Magnus it's a pity that he got accused with no proofs.

Chess.com (Magnus is a 20% shareholder) did put out a public statement calling out Niemann for cheating more than the once or twice that Niemann admitted to. Chess.com forwarded evidence to Niemann. We're still waiting for a response.

The Chess.com merger has not closed yet. Magnus is not an owner.

If it's reasonable for a 12yo to be able to play in a for-money tourney, then I don't think it's unreasonable to think they should know the difference between right and wrong.

As a parent of a now 13 year old - it is not reasonable for a 12 year old to play a for money tournament. 12 year olds may "know right from wrong" in some sense, but they do not have adult brains. Expecting them to make decisions like an adult, or understand "right and wrong" the same way an adult does, is ludicrous.

This is equally true of a 19 year old.

Then why should they be able to win money off adults?

Classic "have your cake and eat it too". If you want to play in tournaments with adult prizes then you should expect adult consequences for misbehavior.

They shouldn't be able to. But either way, kids don't have adult brains, and there's nothing anyone can do about that. They are physically different. You can't expect a 12 year old to dunk a basketball, and you can't expect a 12 year old to think like an adult.

He admitted to cheating at 16. He's only 19 now.

Look, maybe he did not cheat but it's hard to prove he didn't nor that he did. The fact that historically he's not blemish free makes it harder to celebrate his victory. Tough luck indeed..

It's one thing to say an old man cheated when he was 12 years old, it's yet another to say a 19 year old did it just a handful of years ago. He's still a kid.

My intuition is that there's evidence out there that shows he cheated more, but people grow up a lot from age 12 to 19. That time period is basically the entirety of adolescence! I don't think it's fair to pin the actions of their 12 year old self on a 19 year old.

> but people grow up a lot from age 12 to 19.

I did broadly equivalent stupid shit when I was 12, 16, 19... I don't think I mellowed out until I was 25-30. 19 is young, 19 year olds are generally still in their peak stupid teenager years. Crime stats back this up: https://pinkerton.com/our-insights/blog/age-crime-curve

Again, as so many others have already pointed out, he was caught cheating at age 12 and again at age 16.

It's a third of his life ago. Were you the same person at 19 as you were at 12?

The trust is broken and equating it to fractions of someones life is the wrong measure. What has he done since he cheated at 12? Oh, he cheated in random games at 16. Surefire way to rebuild trust...

He cheated at 16 by his own admission.

A third of a life at 19 is barely a life at all