TL:DR - implicates Neimann in cheating in over 100 online games through 2020.
Neimann has had a spectacular rise in the rankings of chess players.
In fact, so spectacular that he has improvement is better than Bobby Fisher, Karpov or Carlson.
Please note that there is NO discussion of his OTB classic games in this report.
The worst part of it was posting reactions of other players who beat Magnus and comparing it with Hans’ non-reaction, as if that’s evidence of anything.
That proves nothing and is evidence of nothing.
This smells too much like a hit job.
Maybe he cheats in online chess, but there’s no evidence of anything other than he beat Magnus straight up over the board.
My suspicion is that the chess world doesn’t want to see Hans as the new king. He’s not photogenic or charismatic. He’s a weirdo who locked himself in hotel rooms for over a year and did nothing but study chess.
XI. Conclusion
After Hans beat Magnus and Magnus withdrew from the Sinquefield Cup, we removed Hans
from Chess.com’s upcoming GCC and withdrew his access to the site until we could conduct further
review. And while Magnus’ actions prompted us to reassess the situation, Magnus did not talk with us in
advance about our decisions or ask for, or directly influence, those decisions at all. Magnus was, and is,
operating entirely under his own direction, as is Chess.com. However, given the circumstances, which
included a player who had a significant and admitted history of cheating, the World Chess Champion
making the loudest statement in chess history, and an invitational event starting in a matter of days, we
felt we had to act. We communicated privately with Hans via email. We never wanted or intended to
have a public discussion about these decisions, and, frankly, we believe we could have resolved things
privately.
We understand that the timing of our email, and Hans’ publicizing of it, may have led a number of people
in the chess community to believe that Chess.com “knew” Hans was cheating over the board, or was under
pressure from Magnus, or had some new evidence indicating that Hans was cheating over the board. The
much less interesting truth is that none of this is true. While there are many remarkable signals and unusual
patterns in Hans’ path as a player, and while some games, behaviors, and actions are hard to understand,
Chess.com is unaware of any concrete evidence proving that Hans is cheating over the board or has ever
Hans Report – 20
cheated over the board. Chess.com has historically not been involved in OTB or classical chess fair play
decisions, as we do not run OTB or classical chess events.
Our investigation has revealed that while there has been some noteworthy online play that has caught our
attention as suspicious since August 2020, we are unaware of any evidence that Hans has engaged in
online cheating since then. Our investigation has concluded that he did, however, cheat much more than
he has publicly admitted to, including in many prize events, at least 25 streamed games, and 100+ rated
games on Chess.com, as recently as when he was 17 years old.
We believe Hans is an incredibly strong player and a talented individual. That said, given his history on
our site, we did not believe we could ensure that he would play fairly in our online events until we could
re-evaluate the evidence and our protocols. Nevertheless, and to be clear, it is not our position that Hans
should be limited or banned from OTB chess. Hans’ online and OTB behaviors may be completely
different, and that should be taken into consideration. We have shared our findings with FIDE and will
cooperate with any investigation or requests they pursue.
It is our belief that OTB event organizers should be taking much stronger precautions against cheating by
all players to ensure fair play. To keep the game fair, all players should be playing under the same
conditions, and checked before, during, and after matches using the appropriate technologies and methods
to counter any outside assistance.
We reiterate our message of September 8th, 2022: that we would like to have a conversation with Hans to
“provide an explanation and response with the hope of finding a resolution where Hans can again
participate on Chess.com.”28
We want the best for Hans. We want the best for Magnus. We want the best for chess. We want stability,
fairness, and joy in the chess community, not turbulence, conspiracy, and accusations. We have a role to
play in this, and we acknowledge that we can do better in our transparency, timing, and messaging moving
forward and look forward to cooperating with FIDE and others in the chess community to serve the game.
– Erik, Danny, and the Fair Play Team at Chess.com