CHENNAI: Around noon on Monday, the calm world of professional chess was thrown into chaos following Magnus Carlsen’s shock withdrawal from the ongoing Sinquefield Cup at the Saint Louis Chess Club. The world champion and World No 1, who had lost with white pieces to a self-taught US teen Hans Niemann on Sunday, put out a cryptic tweet to confirm his withdrawal after a few chess journalists had heard the news via unofficial sources.
“I have withdrawn from the tournament,” the Norwegian posted on Twitter. “I have always enjoyed playing in the St Louis Chess Club, and hope to be back in the future.” He had attached a famous Jose Mourinho press conference video to the tweet. In it, the current Roma manager says, “I prefer not to speak. If I speak, I’m in big trouble. And I don’t want to be in big trouble.”
As soon as Carlsen’s tweet landed, a lot of GMs started theorising that foul play was one of the reasons why the 31-year-old took the decision to withdraw during a tournament. On Twitch, world No 6 Hikaru Nakamura, echoed that same sentiment.
“The thing about Magnus withdrawing is, to me, just seems like Magnus thinks (Hans) cheated. Magnus would never do this in a million years, he just doesn’t do that. He’s the ultimate competitor, he’s a world champion. He wouldn’t do this unless he strongly believes Hans is cheating with a very strong conviction.”
In the same stream, Nakamura also mentioned that Niemann has been banned previously from Chess.com because of suspected foul play.
“This is probably something I should not say, but I will say this anyway. There was a period of over six months where Hans did not play any prize money tournaments on Chess.com... that’s not up for debate, that’s a known fact (Nakamura didn’t provide any proof of this allegation).”
What added a few litres worth of gasoline to an already raging fire was Niemann’s post-match assertion that he saw Carlsen play this exact way against fellow GM Wesley So at the London Chess Classic in 2018. It only took a few minutes to confirm that not only did So not take part there, the way Carlsen played the moves in that tournament was entirely different from the one he employed against Niemann on Sunday.
All of this translated to enhanced anti-cheating measures before Monday’s fourth round at the Sinquefield Cup, one of the most prestigious chess events on the calendar.
“As requested by the anti-cheating arbiter, David Sedgwick, a 15-minute broadcast delay was implemented for today’s round, as well as increased RFID (Radio-frequency Identification) checks,” the organisers tweeted.
St Louis Chess Club’s executive director, Tony Rich, refused to be drawn into speculation. “Magnus’ decision to withdraw from the event is his personal decision and until he makes a public statement, we feel it’s best to honour his wishes and we have accepted the fact he’s withdrawn. We look forward to hosting Magnus at a future event.”
While Carlsen has not provided any further reasoning for his withdrawal, the 19-year-old Niemann was happy to talk about it following his drawn fourth-round match against Alireza Firouzja.
“I was struggling to even focus. I was thinking about it the entire game. I have never in my life heard of a top player forfeiting a game... it’s very strange, but at least I got to beat him before he left.”
While Nakamura and a few other GMs were happy to speculate, one GM who came in favour of Niemann was Levon Aronian, another GM taking part in the tournament. “When young players play well... all of my colleagues are pretty much paranoid. I always think that young players can play well,” he said after the fourth round.