Chess grandmaster Hans Niemann sues champion Magnus Carlsen, others for $100 million over cheating claim

[CornfedForever]

Hans has spent some two years overseas playing OTB in an effort to get better and better his rating and get the invites that this brings. Online chess is something else truly and rife with cheating (as the chess.com data admits).

He is playing the same game against the same people against. There is no difference.

But if I had cheated somehow at the former (online) and later took the best player in the world down at a casino...and that person started broadcasting to the world (and therefore to those who hold poker tournaments) that he thinks I must have somehow cheated against them at the casino...essentially saying - If YOU want ME to play in YOUR casino, YOU had better not let HIM play at the same time. Well...I think the world would laugh.

Carlsen only stated that he is not going to play Niemann in the future.
You will say it is the same, but the tone is quite different.
And you may have noticed that the world does not laugh.

"The destruction that defamatory falsehood can bring is, to be sure, often beyond the capacity of the law to redeem. Yet, imperfect though it is, an action for damages is the only hope for vindication or redress the law gives to a man whose reputation has been falsely dishonored." Id., at 92-93, 86 S.Ct., at 679-680 (concurring opinion).

"falsely" is the keyword he
Hans' reputation was destroyed by his online cheating.

Your entire argument hangs on a sentence/word or two in isolation and I would argue misses the forest for those little trees. An individual tree or two doused with kerosene can be responsible for a wildfire which takes on a much larger and more devastating life of its own. It's like a defendant saying "I'm not responsible for all those other trees catching on fire and the damage they might have caused".

If I admit to having cheated at poker online and some 'in demand' World Poker Champion, publicly says/insinuates that because I beat him in a live match-up, that he "feels" I must be doing this live as well and so he will not play me in person (he actually DID play Hans...so THIS live game is important to his argument)... and these statements 'do harm' to me to the point that I do to not (or will not) get invites, have them rescinded or be unable to play live in a casino (or other such place) especially if they want the accuser to play...it is because of HIS ACTIONS and WORDS (call them public insinuations if you like) - without any evidence I have ever cheated in a live professional poker game and therefore you are materially harming my ability to do what other players WHO HAVE ALSO ADMITTED TO ONLINE (different platform) CHEATING are able to do ...and whom you WILL and ARE playing against, then you are clearly scapegoating me for the sins of all who have cheated online. That, I think, is why we see the lawsuit...and why a check from Carlsen will be forthcoming.

I'll not use the poker analogy anymore...but you can substitute the word chess for poker and have the same thing.

[Peter Berger]

The comparison to Poker is flawed IMHO - at least when it is about online cheating.
Only recently has cheating in Poker become a major topic (partly due to computers), and I agree that it is a major topic these days.
But if we go back in time just a little, good poker players were doing all kinds of things that would be considered cheating when applied to chess, and this was considered perfectly acceptable behaviour by the community.
I’ll limit myself to NLH and MTTs here, as this is the format most people have an idea about because of the WSOP.
Everyone was using all kind of notes, be it starting hand sheets ( which would be the opening book in chess), or nash tables (that would be sth like endgame tablebases, simplified). Not to start talking about HUDs (would be a cool thing to have in chess actually as a spectator).
The usage of all of this was deemed acceptable by a vast majority of serious players. I have made this post simple, so poker players read with a little tolerance, but I actually do know what I am writing about.
The poker community is becoming stricter in general these days.
When it is about chess, everyone has always known that you are not allowed to use anything. This is the tradition of the game. Yes, why should you learn this opening by heart when you could just as well play the move from the book next to your notebook? As this is considered cheating is the answer, and eyerone knows.

[syzygy]

Hans has spent some two years overseas playing OTB in an effort to get better and better his rating and get the invites that this brings. Online chess is something else truly and rife with cheating (as the chess.com data admits).

He is playing the same game against the same people against. There is no difference.

But if I had cheated somehow at the former (online) and later took the best player in the world down at a casino...and that person started broadcasting to the world (and therefore to those who hold poker tournaments) that he thinks I must have somehow cheated against them at the casino...essentially saying - If YOU want ME to play in YOUR casino, YOU had better not let HIM play at the same time. Well...I think the world would laugh.

Carlsen only stated that he is not going to play Niemann in the future.
You will say it is the same, but the tone is quite different.
And you may have noticed that the world does not laugh.

"The destruction that defamatory falsehood can bring is, to be sure, often beyond the capacity of the law to redeem. Yet, imperfect though it is, an action for damages is the only hope for vindication or redress the law gives to a man whose reputation has been falsely dishonored." Id., at 92-93, 86 S.Ct., at 679-680 (concurring opinion).

"falsely" is the keyword he
Hans' reputation was destroyed by his online cheating.

Your entire argument hangs on a sentence/word or two in isolation and I would argue misses the forest for those little trees. An individual tree or two doused with kerosene can be responsible for a wildfire which takes on a much larger and more devastating life of its own. It's like a defendant saying "I'm not responsible for all those other trees catching on fire and the damage they might have caused".

My entire argument? I doubt that you are aware of it.

In my reaction to your post I did not give my argument.
I reacted to two points:
1. Your misrepresentation of what Carlsen said (different tone, different content).
2. Your quote from the SCOTUS decision. This quote is not a complete legal argument. It merely stresses why defamation is a serious issue. I thought it was useful to remind you of the word "falsely".

As for Magnus and your poker analogy argument, Magnus has decided for himself that he does not trust Niemann enough that he wants to play him in the future. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

A completely different question is if Carlsen's refusal to play Niemann by itself means that tournament organisers should refuse to invite Niemann. My answer to that is "no". The mere fact that Carlsen does not want to play Niemann is not good enough. That would be like not inviting Israeli players just because an Iranian player (let's say a higher-ranked Iranian player) refuses to play Israeli players.

However, there is not merely the fact that Carlsen refuses to play Niemann. There is also a record of cheating by Niemann, and cheating in a tournament obviously would be bad both for the tournament and for the participating players. Perhaps security measures can make the risk of cheating negligible, which would arguably take away the argument against inviting Niemann. But I will happily leave this to the tournament organisers.

[dkappe]

Chess.com lawyers respond: https://www.chessdom.com/hans-niemann-l ... s-respond/

[dkappe]

Some more second hand legal opinion.

Edit: sorry, it was first hand. Two important concepts: “limited use public figure” and “defamation by implication.” The first means that Nakamura could be out of the woods. The second means that Magnus not accusing Hans directly isn’t enough to get him off the hook.

[supersharp77]

Well We Have A Full Blown "Chess Crisis" And I myself Tend To Blame FIDE & Many Of The Top Chess Tournaments & Chess Federation "Power Players" For Creating A "Unequal System" As They Are Openly Discriminating Against Certain Chess Players.. & Are Well Aware Of It But Don't Seem To Care...Currently You Have at Least 200+ Top (2600 & up) Chess Players Around The World Trying To Compete for 10-20 Slots At Most Of these Elite Tournaments..Many Are Willing To 'BEG...BORROW...STEAL OR CHEAT' to get enough Rating Points Or Top Finishes in Order to Somehow Crack Into Their Exclusive 'ELITE CLIQUE'...You have Players From Various Countries Living In Europe Or Turkey Or In Asia Chasing These "Rating Points" or "Top Finishes"...Of The Hundreds Of Top 2600 Players Out There The Candidates Tournament Has Only 8 SLOTS!! Top GM's are now Multimillionaires (I myself had No Idea Magnus was worth 50 Million Dollars Plus...That's alot of Money!!)....I'm Sure quite a Few Young Players (Ambitious Players) Like Hans..Kukesh...Kerch....Pragg...Robson...Etc are Extremely Frustrated with The current Chess System & many Of The Top Rate Older Players Like Anand..Gelfand... Shirov.. Topalov Grishuk etc are also frustrated because they got pushed out by the "Young Phenoms". Many Young Players May not want to Wait Indefinitely with No assurances of getting where they want to go...So Expect "MORE CHEATING & CORNER CUTTING" in the Future

Unless Niemann is proven without a doubt to have cheated "recently" in OTB then some heads are going to roll because Niemann's reputation has been smeared extensively forever. If this is the case, then he deserves to be compensated. He will NEVER get $100 million dollars, but it'll be in the millions if he wins.

[CornfedForever]

The comparison to Poker is flawed IMHO - at least when it is about online cheating.

I stopped over a decade ago when Senators Kyle and Frist....messed things up for online poker.

I used Poker Tracker on sit-and go's and while my game play was profitable, I have to admit that 'bonus whoring' made it much more so. Poker Tracker was useful in giving tendencies but mostly and monitoring my own play as playing 4 or more tables at once can lead to slack play. I would not even know what 'cheating' would look like in online play....beyond, I guess having a 'confederate' sit in at the virtual table with you.

The use and validity of analogy will always diverge with the specific. But, the point is that these are two different platforms - online and OTB with the latter clearly being much harder to cheat at.

For Magnus to use what Hans did online against him as concerns what Magnus thinks about his OTB play without any proof at all is sticky territory. Further, to single out that person (and the subsequent fall out from doing so) as someone you will NOT play against OTB while at the same time you ARE continuing to play OTB against other admitted online cheaters is....well, I think that is what the lawsuit is all about.

If Magnus lived on an island all to himself, fine...he could think/say whatever he wants to about Hans. But they exist in the same OTB ecosystem so 'defamation by implication' is a real thing I would have to believe.

[syzygy]

Some more second hand legal opinion.

Edit: sorry, it was first hand. Two important concepts: “limited use public figure” and “defamation by implication.” The first means that Nakamura could be out of the woods. The second means that Magnus not accusing Hans directly isn’t enough to get him off the hook.

I have not seen the full Nakamura streams, but my impression is that he was mostly just reporting on what was happening plus giving an interpretation of it. 99% of the people talking about the affair give an opinion which is either negative towards Niemann ("he cheated!") or negative towards Carlsen ("sore loser!"). 99% of the people are not going to be guilty of defamation.

I think the only point on which Nakamura could get into problems is where he stated that rumours about Niemann cheating have been going around for over 2 years, and that several top players had shared their suspicions with Nakamura. If Nakamura was lying about this, then that could probably qualify as defamation. (But I'm sure Nakamure was not making it up.)

[dkappe]

I have not seen the full Nakamura streams…

Who has that much time? I’ve seen some of the highlights. There was a fair amount of behind the scenes gossiping, basically to make it seem as if Nakamura was in the know. But given the sheer amount of shit talking he did, who knows how he might have exposed himself? Law firms have people in the Philippines and India to help them go through large volumes of evidence. If there’s something there, they’ll find it.

[Graham Banks]

Doesn't really matter what any of us think about the likely outcome, as it's not going to have any effect on it.
Could take quite a long time too.