[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.