FIDE to launch investigation into Carlsen and Niemann

The game Carlsen-Niemann makes perfect sense if you reverse the colours-
Lower rated player tries a rare line in the opening, doesn't get much and his opponent equalizes without trouble. Lower rated player doesn't sense the danger and instead of keeping the balance, he makes more mistakes and lashes out with g4? From then on, it's a trademark grind by the higher rated player who steadily outplays his opponent in the endgame. There are a couple of inaccuracies but the lower rated player misses the chance to put up more resistance.
This was a typical crush of an ordinary GM by a super GM and shows how badly the world champion was playing that day.

@StanFurd said in #8:
> The recent C-squared podcast provides a lot of background and insight that I haven't seen elsewhere. If you're interested in this topic, it's worth listening to.

They interviewed Hikaru and forgot to ask him about any of his "Hans Niemann trolling" content.

The Sep 24th podcast (before Hikaru and after Eric Rosen) was focused on cheating.

I'd hate to be in Carlson's position. He knows Hans has cheated online a lot, he is required to play him, he sees Hans does not appear to be concentrating at all during the game. It is hard for him to play his best moves when he thinks it is pointless trying to beat a computer. Althetes feel this same way competing with trans women or someone who might have used steroids. But if he refuses to play against Hans, he is still the bad guy, and accused of false accusations even though he never made any.

A different world champion one said that merely threatening to smoke a cigar is more distracting than actually smoking one.

Hans should be happy he is allowed to play in tournaments. He is not owed forgiveness. If a few people who worked hard and honestly to get where they are don't want to play against him, they have that right. The tournaments should stop matching Hans with Magnus.

@Chesserroo2 said in #14:
>
> It is hard for him to play his best moves when he thinks it is pointless trying to beat a computer.

Why did he play him - using computers! - just three weeks before then and beat Hans if he thought it was pointless?

Why did he suddenly think it was pointless in an OTB game?

@MidiChlorianCount said in #16:
>

He might not have known Han's past till after seeing his face and researching it. Or he knew but assumed it was past until he saw his face.

@Chesserroo2 said in #17:
> He might not have known Han's past till after seeing his face and researching it. Or he knew but assumed it was past until he saw his face.

Well I certainly hope he does better than "I saw it in his face" when presenting his case to FIDE! Literally LOL!

(Incidentally the Miami event was played on computers but I believe they were in the same room, playing across from each other. To be fair maybe he just didn't see it "in his face" there whilst beating him because his monitor was in the way...)

(... Actually, joking aside, maybe that's why Carlsen was able to beat him in Miami! He couldn't see Hans shifty, cheat face so he wasn't put off...)

@irollthenickels said in #6:

> Edit: Magnus even said that Hans' behavior during the game changed his perspective. I guess before Magnus had suspicions, but Hans' was acting so unusually that his suspicions became a conviction.

Leonard Barden addressed this in his Guardian column today:

"It is also possible to play against a world champion without tension, as evidenced by the reaction of Jonathan Penrose during his famous 1960 victory over Mikhail Tal, where he described the experience as feeling like an Essex v Middlesex county match.

One of the spectators as the game and players were screened live from St Louis was Tim Harding, a Dublin historian and the leading expert on British 19th century chess. Harding wrote in the English Chess Forum: “I was watching pretty much throughout the game and Hans’s interview afterwards. I saw nothing to suggest that Hans was doing anything to put Magnus off, nor anything to suggest that Hans thought Magnus suspected him of cheating. I saw Niemann play well, but not perfectly (as the commentators showed at a few points) and I saw Magnus playing badly and acting pissed off near the end.”"
www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/sep/30/chess-latest-round-of-hans-niemann-saga-expected-in-st-louis-on-wednesday

Once a cheater, always a cheater. Hope Hans meet justice.