Implicit Rule Broken in Chess

 

Implicit Rules Broken in Chess

 

In this blog I will be discussing a recent controversy in the chess community, where a Grandmaster by the name of Hans Niemann was accused of cheating while playing against World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen during a chess tournament earlier this year.

The reason I chose this topic is because we have been looking at the three rule types in games, Structural, Operational and Implicit. What I would like to focus on is how Hans Niemann broke one of the most basic Implicit laws of chess, and of gaming in general, NO CHEATING.

The world of chess is no stranger to cheating, everyone who has ever had an account on a chess website such as Chess.com or Lichess.com and played a few games, has more than likely ran into a player using a chess bot to tell them the winning moves. While Chess.com themselves state that “fewer than 0.2% of players cheat in online chess”, (https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating), cheating in online chess is very difficult to catch, and not every chess game can be monitored by someone to check for cheating.

High class chess tournaments are, however, slightly different. These events usually take place ‘over the board’, in-person tournaments where the worlds greatest square off against each other. One such events took place in St. Louis, Missouri, where Grandmasters Magnus and Hans were taking part in the Sinquefield Cup in early September.

While Magnus and Hans are both Grandmasters, Magnus is quite a stronger chess player than Hans, and everyone expected him to win. It was much to everyone’s surprise then, when a calm Hans Niemann beat the World Champion with an apparent ease. This was however, not thought of as much, upsets happen regularly enough in chess, Magnus is not invincible. What did garner attention then was when Magnus unexpectedly pulled out of the tournament, sparking this whole controversy.

The reason I find this topic so fascinating is the way Hans Niemann was accused of cheating. People claim that he inserted a device in his rectum, which was connected to a computer and someone watching the game being live-streamed, who would then input the game into the chess-bot as it unfolded, and relay the best moves back to Niemann through a series of vibrations. Such ingenuity and cunning could almost be applauded if it weren’t so illegal and unsportsmanslike.

A continued update of the events that transpired can be found here: (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/04/business/chess-cheating-scandal-magnus-carlsen-hans-niemann.html)