[FreakLegion]

> it was one of the best chess interviews ever

It was, but for reasons having nothing to do with his analysis of the game. Stronger players like Hikaru have dismantled Hans' last two interviews pretty convincingly[1]. Those interviews and his history of being banned from chess.com seem to be driving the current speculation more than Hans' actual play.

The interview after Magnus was great because Hans was saying things like "He's just so demoralized because he's losing to an idiot like me. It must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me." People were excited to have a "Conor McGregor of chess", so to speak. That's it.

1. See short clips at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETzdxK7QUmg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qTs-eFgLqc for example.

[systemvoltage]

I don't want to defend Hans further, but Alireza and many other GM's have been falsely banned on Chess.com. It means absolutely nothing.

All I suggest is to stop this speculation, let's wait for evidence and if it is true, then fuck Hans. But at this point, I am just seeing a giant mob coming after him including on HN which is kind of appalling.

We need to be better including Hikaru Nakamura, he seems to be also doing it for the views. Hikaru's accusation or speculations have also been mocked on Twitter.

This just got posted by Gotham, absolutely level headed and facts based: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDUmS_MJceU

[FreakLegion]

> Hikaru's accusation or speculations have also been mocked on Twitter.

Who by? Other 2750+ players? If not, then who cares? Hikaru's analysis of the chess is correct. You can analyze the positions with an engine to confirm. I checked, since they had the engine off after the Alireza game.

For example Hans (with white) said: "I did not believe in this position for black. I just don't see any universe where this is holdable. ... Instinctively I'm like OK, what is this? There's just no way. There's zero chance." But Hikaru saw immediately that this was wrong and black was actually winning. Even Alejandro wasn't having it. Sure enough, Stockfish has black at better than +3.

This kind of thing happens over and over in the last two interviews. Hans' take on a position is wrong, or he rattles off a line that just loses. It's not proof of cheating, it's just, to go back to squidbeak's post, proof that he isn't "able to speak accurately and in depth in his post game interviews".

[systemvoltage]

Still complete speculation, you need far more than bits of an interview analyzed by a popular GM for viewership to accuse someone in a professional OTB game in the legendary Sinquefield Cup.

You need real evidence of cheating. What concerns me is that we won't know the truth as GothamChess said. I am onboard with condemning Hans in the strongest terms if he was caught cheating in OTB game, this just seems like the Boston Bombers vigilante mob doing pscyhoanalysis on reddit and twitter. Terrible.

[FreakLegion]

I'm not accusing him of cheating.

Hans' interviews have been off. This isn't speculation. The positions are right there in the interviews, analyze them and see. Hans says zig and the analysis shows zag.

That's it. That's the whole conversation. Someone said the interviews were bad, you disagreed citing Levy and King, I explained what they (and I!) liked about the interviews and pointed out that the actual chess analysis was, in fact, bad.

[systemvoltage]

Alright, fair enough. So far, the best take was Gotham's it was the most reasonable but also discussing Hikaru's video. We need to give the guy benefit of the doubt, he is a little autistic and has all the signs of aggressive/unstable personality. People like him are often the first ones to get lynched so to speak by the mob on Twitter.

[pgwhalen]

Crucially, Alireza was banned because of his skyrocketing rating (which is of course indirectly an indication of potential cheating), not because of suspicious play.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Oh come on, "dismantling". The guy is just a few points below 2700, he is extremely good at playing chess and he is up there in the top 0.001% of chess players. Sure Hikaru might be a bit stronger in certain aspects of the game (and being just slightly less prone to small mistakes is enough at that level to have much higher rating), but it is unlikely that he possesses some kind of superior insight.

[FreakLegion]

There's an objective reality here. You can watch the interviews and evaluate the positions yourself to verify it. I checked, since the interview today left the engine off and I was curious if Hikaru's ad hoc analysis was right. It was[1].

Anyway, one small but important logical issue. When you say "the guy is just a few points below 2700", that's begging the question. Other people are arguing, in effect, that "Niemann's play can't be that good, his analysis is too bad", and your counter is "Niemann's analysis can't be that bad, his play is too good".

1. Example I gave elsewhere, now timestamped: https://youtu.be/ETzdxK7QUmg?t=145. Black is better than +3 here and Hans is saying it's completely lost.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

I did miss the exact context of this video, what is the position being discussed? It's that from a game Hans played with somebody which he then drew?

[joshuamorton]

It's from a line that ultimately wasn't entered into in the game, but Hans mentioned to Alireza in the postgame. So it's a position that Hans should have considered during the game. He claims it's obviuosly winning for white. It isn't, and Hikaru is ~immediately able to see that the position is (significantly) losing for white.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

> Hikaru is ~immediately able to see that the position is (significantly) losing for white.

Hikaru could have followed the game with an automatic engine evaluation, that would make it 'slightly' easier for him to '~immediately' evaluate the position with better precision.

You are comparing a tired guy answering the questions on the spot to a person who could have had all the computer help in the world (and they do when they are following live matches).

[joshuamorton]

Yes hikaru could have, but he didn't, if you watch the stream. He doesn't have engine analysis on while hes looking at lines. It's off the cuff analysis without engine help.

Like compare hans to alireza in their interviews. Hans clearly just has a worse understanding of the position he chose to go into.

I mean to me it feels less like cheating and more like just absolutely wild prep, hans played like a 3200 up to the midgame and then couldn't convert a winning position, but it's suspicious to have such completely insane prep, especially without clear compensation

[FreakLegion]

Starting from this position in the game against Alireza today, which was even: https://lichess.org/editor/r2q1rk1/1pbn1pp1/2p1b2p/p2pP3/P1N...

The interviewer (Alejandro Ramirez, also a GM) asks Hans what happens if black takes the knight on c4, which didn't happen in the game but is the engine's best move. Hans says Bh6, starts down one line with g6, Bg5 (good moves) but backtracks the latter and blunders with f4, and says "At this point my pieces are literally perfect, his pieces are terrible" (Hans is -2). The position in the video is two moves later. By then white is completely lost, but Hans says black has no chance.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

So how did he make it to +3 position against #4 player in the world if he is so terrible? If he cheated and used a computer, what is your suggestion, that his cheating method had failed mid-game?

As for his 'blundering' in a live Q&A talk, that's not indicative at all, I have posted my reasoning in a sibling comment.

[FreakLegion]

> So how did he make it to +3 position against #4 player in the world if he is so terrible?

There are two answers to this question. One is obvious and is the subject of the article we're all responding to: Cheating. Some people think he's cheating.

The other is that nobody actually thinks Hans is terrible. Even if he cheated he's still at least a 2500-level player and perfectly capable of taking the odd game off of super GMs. Being very good and cheating aren't mutually exclusive possibilities.

> that's not indicative at all

The word you want is conclusive. The interviews are certainly indicative, but they're very far from conclusive.

[xeromal]

>As for his 'blundering' in a live Q&A talk, that's not indicative at all, I have posted my reasoning in a sibling comment.

Specifically on this, I agree with you. Who knows if he's just nervous at giving interviews.