Here's some more fuel for the fire, but the tl;dr is that Niemann is overwhelmingly likely to be a chronic and habitual OTB cheater. Moreover, he was likely fiddling with a device behind his right ear in one of his Sinquefield interviews.
Without further ado:
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https://twitter.com/atl_kings/status/1568656197812891653
Note that the above table references Niemann's USCF rating, not his FIDE rating. You can verify the data from Niemann's tournament history on the USCF website:
http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtHst.php?15041466.2. Take care to look in the correct month, as some venues have multiple tournaments listed, and not all of them are classical.
The data is a contiguous block of classical tournaments in which Niemann played >0 games against opposition rated >2000 USCF on average.
- Note, for example, that Magnus League, May 2019, isn't included because Niemann played no games, despite being listed in the event.
- Note that in the USCF, "quick" (rapid) games also adjust one's "regular" (classical) rating with a smaller K-factor. Just because a tournament changed Niemann's classical rating doesn't mean it was a classical tournament.
For some of the listed tournaments I was unable to definitively confirm whether or not games were broadcast live in 2019/2020, but in zero instances did I find a tournament website that contradicted the claims of the above table. For the rest of my analysis I assume that the broadcast status claimed in the tweet is correct. I was unable to find any mentions of broadcast delay, and for the rest of my analysis I assume there was none.
More details, with direct links to the relevant cross tables:
- Marshall Premier, March 2019 — NO broadcast; -13 rating; 1.0/2.0; 2074 avg; withdrew after losing to 1997 rated player.
- Foxwoods Open, April 2019 — NO broadcast; -7 rating; 4.5/8.0; 2433 avg.
- US Cadet Championship, June 2019 — YES broadcast; +12 rating; 5.5/7.0; 2405 avg.
- Philadelphia International, July 2019 — NO broadcast; -11 rating; 5.5/8.0; 2405 avg.
- World Open, July 2019 — NO broadcast; -34 rating; 4.0/8.0; 2275 avg.
- US Junior Championship, July 2019 — YES broadcast; +2 rating; 4.0/9.0; 2548 avg.
- US Masters, August 2019 — YES broadcast; +23 rating; 5.5/9.0; 2569 avg.
- New Jersey Open, September 2019 — NO broadcast; =0 rating; 4.5/6.0; 2269 avg.
- Marshall CC Championship, November 2019 — YES broadcast; +29 rating; 6.0/9.0; 2580 avg.
- National Chess Congress, November 2019 — NO broadcast; -12 rating; 3.0/5.0; 2326 avg.
- USCF K-12 Grade Nationals, December 2019 — YES broadcast; +12 rating; 7.0/7.0; 2093 avg.
- North American Open, December 2019 — NO broadcast; -10 rating; 6.5/9.0; 2278 avg.
- Greater New York Scholastics, February 2020 — YES broadcast; +3 rating; 5.0/6.0; 2222 avg.
- US Amateur Team East, February 2020 — NO broadcast; -5 rating; 5.0/6.0; 2078 avg.
- Marshall Spring GM, March 2020 — YES broadcast; +13 rating; 5.5/9.0; 2536 avg.
- Marshall FIDE Premier, March 2020 — NO broadcast; -3 rating; 4.0/5.0; 2232 avg.
- Charlotte Fall GM, October 2020 — YES broadcast; +27 rating; 7.0/9.0; 2512 avg.
- SPICE Cup, October 2020 — NO broadcast; -17 rating; 5.0/9.0; 2397 avg. (One opponent was unrated, their post-tournament provisional rating was used.)
- US Class Championship, November 2020 — YES broadcast; +10 rating; 4.0/5.0; 2429 avg.
If you run a regression on the above dataset, you will find that whether or not a tournament was broadcast live explains 67% (!!!!!) of the variation in Niemann's performance over that time period. (The rest of the variation is likely random, or at least isn't explained by age, number of rounds, or strength of opponents.)
Here are the regression coefficients, their p-values, and confidence intervals:
As you can see, the coefficients for time (measured in months), number of rounds, and average opponent all have very high p-values, and are statistically indistinguishable from 0.
The way to interpret the coefficients is as follows:
- Time — for each month that has passed since March 2019, Niemann is expected to gain 0.21 more Elo at a given tournament, though 0 is in the 95% confidence interval. (i.e. Niemann doesn't appear to be improving over time.)
- LiveCast — if there's a live broadcast at a given tournament, Niemann is expected to gain 23.11 more Elo at that tournament, with a p-value of 0.0009, and a 95% CI of [11, 35]. (Holy shit!)
- NumRounds — for each game played at a given tournament, Niemann is expected to lose 0.78 more Elo at that tournament, though 0 is in the 95% confidence interval. (i.e. Niemann doesn't appear to be affected by fatigue.)
- AvgOpp — if you increase the strength of his average opponent at a given tournament by 100 Elo, Niemann is expected to gain 2 more Elo at that tournament, though 0 is in the 95% confidence interval. (i.e. Niemann doesn't appear to be "playing up" or "playing down" to his competition, nor to be affected by mathematical caps on his performance rating against low rated opponents.)
This is incredibly damning, and in my mind confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that Niemann was cheating OVER THE BOARD at every available opportunity in 2019 and 2020. There's no reason to believe that he didn't and doesn't simply continue to cheat over the board at every available opportunity, period.
Obviously I haven't done an exhaustive search, but I was unable to find any other player that exhibited a similar pattern in their performances. Even if I had, I would take it to mean
that player was
also a cheater, not that Niemann was not.
(It goes without saying that all ratings agencies should probably be doing much more sophisticated analysis than this for all players and all tournaments at all times. The fact that they don't can only be interpreted as gross and willful negligence.)
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At Sinquefield Cup, Niemann has gone from 2.5/3.0 before the 15 minute delay, to 1.5/5.0 after the 15 minute delay. Obviously, this is a very small sample. But, if you will permit some editorializing, despite Niemann's claims that "it's impossible to play under these conditions," he gives every indication of quite enjoying the attention.
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During a quiet moment in Niemann's post round 3 interview, Niemann fiddles with something behind his ear, and his mic picks up a distinct mechanical clicking noise:
https://looptube.io/?videoId=DCeJrItfQqw&start=633.0000000000009&end=640.4690265486713&rate=1.
The camera isn't on Ramirez the entire time, but he appears motionless throughout, having the same posture and hand position at all times. As such, it's unlikely the noise came from Ramirez, and it's obviously quite suggestive that it seemed to coincide perfectly with Niemann fiddling with the back of his ear. I tediously sat through all of the interviews given through the end of round 8, and detected no remotely similar sound in any of them.
