Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann sat down to play each other in the Chess Generation Cup earlier in September, where few could have predicted that mere chaos would unfold.


Niemann, who is a 19-year old player and was the lowest-ranked player in the tournament, faced the five-time dominating World Chess Champion Carlsen last week.

But after confidently taking advantage following Carlsen’s first move, he gradually took over and forced Carlsen to resign in a hopeless ending position.


The result was initially shocking, but what followed startled the chess world even more.

Just hours after his loss, Magnus took an enigmatic withdrawal from the tournament, despite only having played his first round.


This fuelled an uproar of speculation on social media and raised suspicions as to whether his opponent, Niemann, was in fact cheating during their game.


As fans tried to comprehend Carlsen’s decision, his tweet included a video of football manager Jose Mourinho saying, “If I speak, I am in big trouble”, and thus Magnus has made no further comments to date.

 

Despite there being no concrete evidence presented, to many the message appeared as if Hans had done something dodgy.

Then on 8 September, only a day after the controversy, Chess.com, which is the world’s biggest online chess platform, confirmed its removal of Niemann from their site for cheating.


As the allegations swirled, Niemann admitted to cheating on the website in his past, but repeated in a Twitter post that he would “never cheat over the board, especially on such an occasion”. 

 

He then went on to accuse numerous prominent figures such as Chess Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura for attempting to demolish his career.


According to the Financial Times, Hans later launched a $100 million defamation lawsuit against Magnus Carlsen and others, upon defacing his career with supposedly false claims.


The case is still being investigated as there is no solid evidence concerning Hans cheating in his match with Magnus, and the official chess cheating boards have said that they will “make a public announcement once evidence and reasons have been compiled together.”