Magnus has followed up on his withdrawal from the World Championship match by effectively accusing an opponent who beat him of cheating.
Thus far he's provided no proof whatsoever, merely alluding to wrong doing by pulling out the tournament he was beaten by Hans Niemann in and then subsequently resigning after one move in their next encounter!
Has Magnus psychologically lost it?
Lets let it play out to find out.
shareI think we will find out soon - He has said he will make a statement in the coming days...
shareHe's convinced me that he's not a dumb guy so I believe that he believes in this. The root of his claims may end up seeming fantastical, as advanced technical government weaponry is not being kept under wraps as well as it used to.
shareI hope it's not fantastical - I hope he has some shaky video footage of Hans unstrapping a mobile phone from around his leg or something!
Otherwise you've got the world champion throwing out some circumstantial evidence re Hans' ratings rise as why he should be thrown to the lions...
Funny thing is I'm sure I read he'd played him a few weeks before the controversy broke, so maybe he really will have something substantive to back his claims.
I think he's clearly burned out, in tournament chess, at least. He's alluded to not defending his world championship - i dont know if that's official.
shareYeah, that's official now. He won't be the next World Champion, so he'd already created a bad situation where the next World Champion won't be the top ranked / best player in the game.
And unless he has some fairly hard evidence against Niemann, he's now trying to destroy a young nineteen year old player based upon speculation over his performance. Not good...
I’m not trying to get inside magnus’s head, I’ve done that in the past and I’m just an idiot fan with 1000 online chess.
Having said that, I think he wants to go out on top or at least lose to a good younger player like firouzja or something.
Didn’t know Hans was younger. I’m learning about the controversy now.
Takes me back to the Bobby Fischer days.
shareIKR! I've heard people say that the controversy could be bad for chess. But since when is controversy bad for being people's attention. Fisher did all kinds of crazy things while claiming cheating by the society's, even forfeiting a game in the championship and chess only became more popular than ever! It got me playing as a kid.
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My first thought also
shareNeuralink is expecting to be the next breakthrough in human-computer interaction. Elon Musk must have realized now that people would rather put a wire in their ass than put it in their brains.
shareHe's now made his statement!
Really poor, it is indeed just insinulation without any substance:-
https://mobile.twitter.com/MagnusCarlsen/status/1574482694406565888
Basically - I don't think that guy should be able to have beaten me because I'm the best, therefore he must be cheating...
FIDE really should sanction Carlsen now.
I'm not familiar with this player- is this performance of his inconsistent with his normal skill level?
shareI'd never heard of him before this either tbh and that's as someone who got into Chess over the covid period and could probably name 15/20 current players off the top of my head...
The thing is, he's only a nineteen year old kid. He admitted that he'd cheated in some online games when he was 13 & 16 I think. Not great but basically a temptation any kid would have a think.
And even cheating admissions aside, any young player will develop and can rapidly improve ratings wise at certain points.
Problem is that Magnus now seems to be trying to "cancel" him permanently because he doesn't like that he lost to him in an OTB game. And he's now just basically admitted he doesn't have any actual evidence.
Cheating has always been a big deal in chess. I believe Magnus.
shareFor me, it's not a case of not "believing" Magnus, it's that he's provided no evidence.
I suspect he probably heard - perhaps even from Niemann himself (they were photographed playing together on the beach just last month!) that he'd been in trouble in the past with chess.com and it's got inside Magnus' head.
I'm pretty sure he recently signed up to some partnership with chess.com and has probably be given some inside information on Niemann's performance that they found "uncertain".
His frame of mind was therefore shot when they played, i.e. "No way this guy can be playing this well against me, he MUST be cheating!".
Strange. In my view, sans evidence, all we have is belief.
shareExactly.
shareBut that disagrees with your first sentence.
shareNo it doesn't - as you pointed out without evidence all Magnus has is belief.
But that's not enough to basically attempt to destroy a guy's career on...
"it's not a case 'believing' Magnus, it's that he provided no evidence"
So this statement says it's not about belief
My words that you agreed with: "In my view, sans evidence, all we have is belief"
First statement discounts belief, second supports it.
Not at all - they are completely distinct statements. You are just erroneously conflating them.
The first statement does not equate having belief in Magnus to him not having to provide any evidence. That's a completely different, unrelated matter.
If it wasn't we could just get rid of our legal systems. You could just have a judge sit listening to some guy's story - "Yup, that sounds right to me, I believe you. The other chap is therefore guilty!"
The second statement simply agrees that without evidence all you have is belief. That's an absolute truth. But that says nothing supportive about attacking someone's career in the absence of any actual evidence.
Neither statement suggest that belief is all that is necessary here. Belief is not knowledge, it's an idea held until further evidence is supplied.
Now you're suggesting that personal belief has something to do with the justice system and no one has made that claim.
First statement establishes the Magnus had no evidence, and somehow suggests that belief is not even on the table.
Second statement admits that belief is a thing and in this case the only thing.
First statement establishes the Magnus had no evidence, and somehow suggests that belief is not even on the table.
If he provided no evidence then BELIEF IS ALL WE HAVE. What are you even saying?!
shareIf belief is ALL WE HAVE then he shouldn't have accused the other player in the first place...
You need to go back to the very first post I replied to here. The guy said he believed in Magnus. I questioned whether that was enough in this case, given my OP was about whether he'd psychologically lost it making such a claim without any evidence.
Sorry but I don't even understand what you're trying to argue here anymore? I even said I agreed with your comment! 😂
That's not what our discussion is about though. I'm not taking a position on whether or not that is enough evidence for Magnus to come forward with. I don't intend to take a position on that because it is too easily shot down, and it's a personal decision for Magnus alone. I don't need to go back because I came in at a certain point and began my argument there, about a specific point, and did not shoulder the responsibility for what came before. Don't visit the sins of my predecessors on me please: I am not responsible for the conversation that came before.
I believe that you don't know what we're discussing here anymore because your text tells the story.
Sorry Sparky, I genuinely just don't know what your argument here is...
It's hard to tell online , so I don't know if you're just trolling / trying to act like an arsehole towards me or whether you really thought we were debating something. I just don't know...
Again though, in short - I agreed with what you said in its context.
We've been at this for a while and only now you don't know what we're talking about? lol OK lets call it done. Cheers
shareMagnus is getting much nicer treatment, on this forum, after quitting than Simone Biles did after she backed away from an event at the last Olympics.
shareTrue. I was thinking though that a more analogous sporting case would be Emma Raducanu winning the US Open in tennis last year.
Previously unheralded young kid comes from nowhere, beats everyone, takes the title. Impossible, she must be doping!
they aren't really comparable situations.
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