A Good Chess Cheater Might Never Be Caught

Ever since he beat the greatest chess player who ever lived, Hans Niemann has been called a cheat. The 19-year-old’s surprising victory over Magnus Carlsen in St. Louis on September 4 led to accusations that he’d been taking cues from a chess-playing AI, or chess “engine.” Niemann later admitted to having done just that on two occasions—both times when he was even younger, and while he was playing chess online. But he’d beaten Carlsen fairly, he insisted.

For weeks now, chess experts have been trying to assess that claim, posting what they’ve found on social media. Some pored over records of Niemann’s games and fed them into chess engines to see how often his moves matched up with those a computer would have made. One that Niemann had played long strings of AI-recommended moves in tournament games. Another analysis that Niemann’s tactics were suspiciously similar to those of that the world-champion Carlsen had managed only two such perfect games during the same stretch. Still others that Niemann’s play was far less computerlike than Carlsen’s. After every seemingly damning analysis, the and . Finally, on October 4, the online platform chess.com published a alleging that Niemann had cheated in more than 100 online games, and that his play in six in-person tournaments might warrant further investigation. But even this report did not draw conclusions about the game in which he’d beaten Carlsen.