| I finally got a chance to look this up, and I think saying that Hans "lied outright" is fair. (Obviously on the assumption that you believe chess.com's analysis of his play on the site, and their claims of Hans' admissions to cheating there.) I listened to the entirety of Hans' interview again, and also read a transcript thereof. But I could've saved some time because the chess.com report itself quotes (and paraphrases, separately) Hans' statements about his play there, and calls Hans' statements false outright.[1,2,3] Here is a selection of Hans' direct quotes from the post-Sinquefield interview which are outright falsehoods according to chess.com:[4] "I have never, ever in my life cheated in an over the board game, or in an online tournament. They were in unrated games." "Other than when I was 12 years old, I have never, ever, ever--and I would never do that, that is the worst thing I could ever do--cheat in a tournament with prize money." "Never when I was streaming did I cheat." "I did this when I was 12 years old. And then when I, and then the second, the other times I did it, it was not even in an over the board tournament, it was not even a prize money online tournament. It was in absolutely random games." According not only to chess.com's analysis and the evidence they present, but apparently to Niemann's own admissions to them, each of these statements is outright false on their own. (And if they are false, then together they also grossly misrepresent the overall picture of his behavior.) It appears Hans did in fact cheat in rated games, and in cash prize games, as well as cheating while streaming, and while playing against highly rated players in "real" games. 1: "Consistent with the letter we sent Hans privately on September 8, 2022, we are prepared to show within this report that he, in fact, appears to have cheated against multiple opponents in Chess.com prize events
(beyond the Titled Tuesday event that Hans admitted to having cheated in when he was 12), Speed Chess Championship Qualifiers, and the PRO Chess League. We also have evidence that he appears to have
cheated in sets of rated games on Chess.com against highly-rated, well-known figures in the chess
community, some of which he streamed online. These findings contradict Hans’ public statements. In particular, in interviews given during the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, Hans made several comments to the
press about alleged instances of prior cheating
: • “Other than when I was 12 years old, I have never, ever, ever – and I would never do that, that is
the worst thing that I could ever do – cheat in a tournament with prize money.” • “Never when I was streaming did I cheat.” • “Keep in mind I was 16 years old, I never wanted to hurt anyone, these were random games. I
would never – could even fathom d
doing it – in a real game.”" -Page 4 of the chess.com report on Neimann. 2:"If you are willing to correct the false statements you made about having never cheated when it mattered (now that you have said these untruths publicly), acknowledge the full breadth of the above violations, and cooperate with us to compete under strict Fair Play measures, Chess.com would be happy to consider bringing you back to our events. In fact, I think it would be a wonderful redemption story for the full truth to come out, for the chess world to see this and acknowledge your talent regardless of your past, and give the community what they deserve: The truth." -Page 58 of the chess.com report on Neimann. 3: "In your
interview you mentioned (paraphrased) that you “cheated when you were 12” and then “later when
you were 16 in an unrated game”. This directly contradicts our statistical evidence, as well as the conversation you and I had in our private call when you confessed to cheating, and there is written
evidence from you that substantially corroborates this. You also contradicted your own statement that
you had only cheated in unrated games in the interview by later stating that you did it to gain rating
points, which obviously indicates cheating in rated games." -Page 57 of the chess.com report on Neimann. 4: https://youtu.be/CJZuT-_kij0 |