[tjwhitaker]

Agreed. Not only the firouzja interview but also the post game interview after the magnus match. It struck me as someone cheating on a test and being unable to show their work after the fact. Alejandro was pushing back against his analysis even before the cheating allegations came out. And his apology interview was full of inconsistencies where he couldn’t keep his story straight. This video does a body language analysis of the apology. While I don’t think you can put too much stock into the defensive postures, his behavior and his story is suspect at best https://youtu.be/OK9ZkoSQNFs

[roflyear]

The issue I have with this is Hans is obviously either some god-level cheater (who can also cheat at rapid formats?? in casual settings - like in parks, on the beach, etc??) or he's actually 2500-2600 (or, let's even say 2400).

If he's 2400, he can still analyze. This leads me to believe that the dude is just trolling. IDK. I haven't watched all his interviews, but he seems like a troll.

[tjwhitaker]

I don’t think he necessarily has to be god level. This has been talked about ad nauseum but it’s not that hard to cheat just a little to gain significant advantage. Security has been lax at these events and there are numerous examples of cheating at the top level of many sports and throughout chess history. It’s definitely not that outrageous to see the possibility. Rapid and classical are different games that require different skill sets. He is definitely strong regardless which I think most people agree on. So you may have a point that he should still be able to have better analysis than what he showed. Especially if it’s a classical game where you have been thinking and calculating deeply for 2 hours. Perhaps the analysis was whack exactly because he wasn’t thinking and calculating deeply in these critical positions as magnus suggests in his statement.

None of us know for sure and it’s all speculation at this point. He could be trolling. He could be cheating. At some level he lied in his apology interview. He has not acknowledged the statement chess.com made in which they accused him of lying and cheating more often and more recently than he admitted. There’s just a lot of suspicion and sometimes where there’s smoke there is fire. My guess is he is a strong grandmaster that desperately wanted to be a super gm and took some shortcuts to get there.

[roflyear]

My point is the argument "he can't even do analysis" does not match up with the argument "it’s not that hard to cheat just a little to gain significant advantage"

To do the second, you need to still be extremely good at chess. Way beyond the level required to do any type of analysis.

"Perhaps the analysis was whack exactly because he wasn’t thinking and calculating deeply in these critical positions as magnus suggests in his statement."

You'd still need to calculate, if you're "just cheating a little"

[me_me_me]

trolling?

Throwing suspicion over your career is great way of destroying it, and what for? trolling?

What you suggest is akin to being a cop and trolling other cops by doing suspicious things to pretend to be dirty cop... for jokes?

[roflyear]

Hans is obviously a troll, is what I'm saying. He likes being edgy during interviews.

I don't really like the guy TBH. I don't watch his interviews because I don't think he's funny or entertaining or informative.

I'm just saying, he says a lot of weird shit - but other GMs do, too.

I'm not saying he's trolling by cheating ???

[me_me_me]

trolling is 'playing stupid' (saying or doing something) in order for others to get annoyed, offended or waste their time.

in his case it would be to pretend to cheat so everybody looses their shit.

being edgy , wierd or socially anxious is not trolling when its not on purpose.

[roflyear]

I clarified what I meant, not sure what you're trying to accomplish with your comment.

[jquery]

Well he obviously can’t cheat at the beach because Magnus absolutely destroyed him there: https://youtu.be/T1OBEY99inw

[roflyear]

Lol both those games only show the opening. There's no way for me to analyze these games. Lots of speculation as the dude in the video says.