The chess player Hans Niemann, who gained notoriety after defeating world champion Magnus Carlsen a month ago, filed a defamation case against Carlsen accusing him of cheating in their match for at least $100 million. In addition, Nieman is suing Chess.com for publishing a report alleging that he may have cheated in over 100 online games. Nieman is not permitted to take part in either of the website’s online contests or any of the live events that Chess.com sponsors.
Nieman alleges that the chess competition website and the champion Carlsen colluded to harm his reputation and his ability to make a living. The charges were categorically denied by the attorneys defending Carlsen and Chess.com.
After Carlsen lost to Niemann in a prestigious match in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States, he withdrew from the event and made no public comments about it other than a tweet he posted on Twitter that implied Niemann had cheated. This scandal has been rocking the chess community for more than a month. Soon after the incident, Carlsen and Niemann played another game together. In a live online match in front of cameras, the world champion quit after Nieman made two moves. The action was dramatic and gave extra weight to the claims of Nieman’s cheating.
Nieman, who is only 19 years old, has consistently denied tricking Carlsen or anybody else in a live game, but he has acknowledged that on two prior instances, he solicited unlawful assistance in online games. He claimed that those were errors he made when he was just starting out as a non-professional player.
The accusations against Niemann have appeared among chess experts and other notable players on Twitter and in YouTube videos breaking down his moves, and Carlsen is not the only one to make them. Hikaru Nakamura, an American all-rounder ranked No. 6 in the world, responded after Niemann’s first match with, “I think Magnus believes that Hans is probably cheating,” Because Nakamura made the accusation of cheating multiple times during live broadcasts on the Chess.com website, Nieman also filed a lawsuit against him for false statements and slander.
A history of cheating or defamation?
The chess world champion is charged in the complaint by Niemann with launching a defamation campaign against him through his internet business “Play Magnus” and with the aid of Chess.com, who agreed to purchase his website. Nieman is requesting money in order to “recover from the devastating damages that the defendants caused to his reputation, his career, and his life, by grossly defaming him and illegally adding him to blacklists that prevent him from practicing the profession to which he has dedicated his life,” according to his lawsuit.
Hans Niemann has acknowledged to cheating in the past, thus according to Magnus Carlson’s attorneys, “the allegation that it is not is nothing more than an attempt to shift the burden to others.” The charges were also denied by Chess.com’s legal team, which added that the organization “looks forward to correcting the issues for the sake of the site’s personnel and all honest and reliable chess players.”
Carlsen and the chess website, however, were unable to provide solid proof of Niemann’s wrongdoing. Niman appears to have cheated in more than 100 online games, including some that offered cash prizes, according to a more than 70-page investigation study published by Chess.com. His actions were contrasted to those provided by computers using artificial intelligence software to win games in a site examination.
Nieman previously acknowledged cheating in games on the Chess.com website, but only in informal circumstances and when he was 12 and 16 years old. He made it clear that he never used a cheat code in competitive games. He further asserts that Magnus Carlsen, whose website Chess.com paid 83 million dollars to acquire, exerted considerable pressure on him to withdraw from all of the competitions sponsored by the website.
The lawsuit claims that Carlsen thinks he can do whatever he wants and get away with it because of his status as the “King of Chess,” which he built.