Viswanathan Anand He is a chess legend: he was a five-time world champion, he is vice president of FIDE and he also remains in the top 10 of the classification, at 52 years of age. He is a competitive longevity prodigy; the next youngest is 34. The Indian grandmaster participated in the 20th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi, where he discussed the problem of cheating and Carlsen–Niemann scandal. You can tell that she got wet. Next to her was the young prodigy D. Gukeshwho at only 16 years old is already number 25 in the world.
Vishy Anand spoke about his impressions of the case since it broke, in statements collected by Chess24: «I saw the Carlsen-Niemann game and thought: ‘Wow, what a great game from this guy! When you play Carlsen, you desperately want to finish him off. Many people have that problem, they want to finish now. They can’t handle the stress of playing him for a couple of hours, so even if they have a better position, they use it to liquidate the pieces and get to an even endgame that guarantees a draw.”
In Anand’s opinion, Niemann did not make this mistake and “kept his lead, worked very hard and converted it very well into a victory.” “I think in the end, Carlsen literally snapped. From his movements, I thought he had collapsed ».
Indeed, Niemann defeated the world champion in the third round of the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis. A day later, Carlsen left the tournament and wrote the famous tweet of him, with Mourinho as protagonist. There everything exploded.
“I read that cryptic tweet of yours and had no idea what you were referring to.” When Nakamura began to comment on the suspicions of many about Niemann as well, Anand realized what was happening: “’They really are accusing him of cheating! Do you have any proof? It is one thing that the movements did not tell me anything. Am I naive or are my colleagues paranoid? Maybe I’m too confident or I’ve got a habit: if you can’t prove it, it’s better to keep your mouth shut.’
Vishy, on the other hand, doesn’t think anything can be proven. And he is vice president of FIDE, which opened a commission of inquiry into the case, not without criticizing the joy with which Carlsen accused a colleague without evidence. “With the help of computers, we won’t find a smoking gun or a witness at the crime scene. You have to trust, to some degree, your hunch. There are quite a few strong chess players who have no particular reason for swimming in these waters, but decided to be suspicious of Niemann. At this moment I keep an open mind and there are commissions that investigate the matter, trying to analyze it slowly.
Carlsen, discussed
“There will be no proof,” Anand insisted. “We will come to the conclusion that, first of all, there is a crime, and then we will have to see who has really committed it.” The legendary Indian player ended by saying that even on the internet the number of cheats is negligible, one in 10,000 games, which is very little, although he acknowledged that given the huge volume of games played, tens of millions, “it still produces a high number of complaints for cheating. “I trust that we will find a solution“, he claimed. “In the long run, if you cheat, you’ll get caught at some point.”
The case, on the other hand, is still pending in the multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by Hans Niemann against Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Chess.com, Daniel Rensch and Play Magnus Group. On the other hand, the Norwegian champion cannot rule out that FIDE will impose a sanction on him. The main precedent, cited by Anand in his talk, was the so-called ‘toiletgate’ and the threat against another former champion, Veselin Topalovafter the interview he gave to ABC in which he assured that Vladimir Kramnik he had cheated on him in the World Championship final. The Bulgarian first denied his words, but then admitted that he had said everything published and apologized to avoid a sanction -probably exaggerated- of three years without playing.
It is curious that in another recent interview, when he was participating in the Salamanca festival, Topalov admitted that he still thinks that Kramnik did something strange and that FIDE did not want to get to the bottom of the matter.
Hans NiemannFor his part, he makes his debut this week as the first board of the United States team in the World Team Championship. It is significant that none of the big stars from their country participate in the competition. But not only will Nakamura be missing, Caruana, So y Dominguez. Nor will Magnus Carlsen be there, in the absence of the Norwegian team, so we miss out on an exciting duel and save ourselves a new controversy that seemed assured.
