Perpetual Chess Linkfest #4, September 9 2022
What a week!
Wow, what a time to launch a chess news round up! As you probably have heard, the chess world has been engulfed in controversy following GM Magnus Carlsen’s unexpected withdrawal from the Sinquefield Cup following his loss to GM Hans Niemann on Sunday. Magnus provided little explanation for his action, but it has been widely interpreted as an implicit accusation that GM Hans Niemann was using engine assistance (which it turns out he has done multiple times in online games in the past) , or cheating in another manner. This story has impacted nearly every prominent chess entity, and at this point basically every chess personality in the world has weighed in on the controversy EXCEPT for Magnus Carlsen, the implicit accuser. I will attempt to make this post slightly more condensed than this Chess Reddit Megathread, but if you would like to trace the chronology of events, and keep up going forward the reddit thread is among the best places to do so. There is tons to cover, so lets get to the links, along with some wholesome, drama-free chess book reviews and improvement posts. Onward.
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Sinquefield Drama
IM Kostya Kavutskiy covered the initial shock of Magnus’ withdrawal in this piece written Monday night. ( Grand Chess Tour Blog)
On Monday’s Twitch stream Hikaru Nakamura discussed the allegations at length … “I think Magnus thinks Hans is cheating.” … "If you think Magnus is the only player who has suspicion against Niemann, you are sorely mistaken" -(GM Hikaru Nakamura YouTube Clips from Monday, September 6)
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, GM Maxime Vachier Lagrave showed empathy…
Sean Ingle and Albert Silver of Chessbase both provided good summaries of events up to Hans’ emphatic denial of OTB cheating (which happened on Tuesday). (The Guardian article) (Chessbase Article)
More articles covering the news, both from within and outside the chess world… (NY Post) (Chess24) (Vice.com) (The Chess Drum)
“Tournament organizers, meanwhile, instituted additional fair play protocols. But their security checks, including game screening of Niemann’s play by one of the world’s leading chess detectives, the University at Buffalo’s Kenneth Regan, haven’t found anything untoward.” (Andrew Beaton and Joshua Robinson for the Wall Street Journal)
On Tuesday, GM Jacob Aagaard, renowned trainer and author, worked with Hans briefly and wrote a blog post summarizing his firm conviction that Hans did not cheat at OTB Chess. (Killer Chess Training Blog Post)
If you somehow haven’t seen Hans Niemann’s impassioned interview on YouTube, I strongly encourage you to watch it , GM Maurice Ashley summed it up well …
Legendary British chess columnist Leonard Barden provides his own rundown- “Meanwhile Niemann is the lone outsider, the new kid on the block challenging the big battalions. Older US chess fans, who have longed since the 1970s for a second coming of Bobby Fischer, will empathise with him. Then, the establishment was Mikhail Botvinnik, Tigran Petrosian and the Soviet chess empire. Now it is Carlsen, Nakamura, and Chess.com.”
Thursday morning, the day following the interview, GM Garry Kasparov weighed in…
GM Ben Finegold minced no words in his take on the situation. “Magnus is being a d**k” (GM Ben Finegold YouTube clip)
Thursday evening, Chess.com issued a statement contradicting some of Hans’ recent statements, but expressing hope to find a resolution to his having been banned (again) from the platform … (Chess.com statement)
Award winning American sports writer and chess enthusiast, Joe Posnanski wrote a nice summary of the controversy. “For me, (the story) is a symbol of how technology is altering every sport.” (Joe Posnanski blog)
Meanwhile GM Fabiano Caruana probably speaks for a lot of us when it comes to the ongoing Sinquefield Cup…
But we have chess bloggers like Dennis Monokroussos fighting the good fight and covering the actual chess. GM Wesley So leads after round 6! (The Chess Mind Blog)
And IM John Watson performs the delicate balancing act of covering the drama and annotating the games at the same time. (US Chess Online)
Other Chess News (Yes, there is some!)
Esipenko won the First Challenger’s Chess Tour Event, by Leon Watson (CCT Article)
Netflix settles Queen’s Gambit related defamation Suit with GM Nona Gaprindashvili (Forbes Article)
“Overlooked Obituary” for Legendary Woman’s Champion Vera Menchik (NYTimes Article)
Chess Returns to Kyiv, Where the War is Never Far Away. “Ever since the war broke out, IM Viktor Skliarov has been dedicating all the profits of his streams to charities related to the war. For instance, he has supported the battalion of GM Igor Kovalenko, who is one of the few grandmasters who decided to join the army.” (Peter Doggers for Chess.com)
Chess Improvement Stuff
In the innocent days before he withdrew, I really enjoyed IM Andras Toth’s breakdown of Magnus Carlsen’s positional Round 1 Sinquefield Cup win over Nepo (IM Andras Toth’s YouTube)
Interview with Renowned Trainer R.B. Ramesh “(Unlike with children) it's very difficult to inculcate discipline into someone older as they tend to be more prone to resist change. Young children are very acceptable to change and new ways of looking at things. It's easier to convince a child than an adult. We underestimate young children” (Dhananjay Khadilkar Chessbase Article)
Early Polgars, some Games I remember (SimaginFan’s Chess.com Blog)
Chess Book Reviews
Jostein Langstrand on the Fischer-Spassky retrospective The Match of All Time (Patzer’s Review Blog)
NM Andre Harding is a big fan of the book Understanding Pawn Endings (Chess Essentials Blog)
Whew, that’s all the links I can fit this week! Have a good weekend everyone and thanks for reading!- Ben
Great rundown of a crazy chess week, Ben! Thanks for all you do for the world of chess!