The Biggest Scandal in Chess History: The Full Story 

The craziest chess story is actually you avoiding a chessboxing match against me

“No one has got away with (cheating) at a high level”. BUT if they had got away with it, you wouldn’t know, would you….? 🤔

I just started hearing about this whole thing (I'm not really a chess player, but just someone who likes the game and watches educational videos now and then). I'm so glad to have come across this video, I was only getting bits and pieces of the story here and there beforehand. Thank you, very well done! With some nice comedic touches :)

Did Hans cheat? - yes Do we have a proof - no

Bobby Fischer’s peak rating is 2895 - he never got a 100% accurate game. Garry Kasparov’s peak rating is 2856 - he never got a 100% accurate game. Hans Niemann’s peak rating is 2688 - and he has had 10 games with 100% accuracy. One of those games was 42 consecutive perfect moves, and it was not a blowout type of game either. Doing that is pretty much impossible. Hans is 19 years old with 10 perfect games already, Magnus (peak rating 2882) is 31 and has had only 2 perfect games in his whole career. People that don’t think this is at least credible evidence are incredibly naive.

This was so funny. “This was not the only thing Hikaru said”. Had me laughing quite hard, this whole satirical telling haha. Two thumbs up

Start doing mini expose type pieces like this outside of chess, grow your brand...you tell a story very well, I would tune in for other stories but do it just like this

This was incredibly well shot, edited, and delivered. Please give us more content like this! The end was hilarious 🤣

Good job Andrea for showcasing this story in such a way that won't get you sued!

Andrea sarcastically sipping the tea is comedy gold 😂

This was very professionally created and presented, better than most newscasters! I hope we see more of these short 'reporting the important news from chess' in the future!

You often like to be silly in videos, but I think this presentation indicates that you have on-screen talents that can lead where you seek success, whether as a chess commentator or broadcast news. Cool stuff, I've followed this since the beginning since I followed the tournaments - but I was looking for a video I could share with my non-chess-playing friends, and you are the one, Thank you so much!! kev

This is a fantastic breakdown of exactly what happened step-by-step. A lot of news outlets don’t quite understand all the nuance of the story like you do because you’re in the chess community, you personally know these guys, and you understand the details. Really well done, Andrea!

This is truly one of the chess stories in the history of chess.

it makes sense he would take this to court seeing that apparently there is no concrete evidence to justify the decision to ban him and he's taking advantage of that, though i suspect foul play. i hope the truth comes out, whatever it is.

Needed this summary... Great job!

Andrea should host a chess news show.

Andrea rejected Hans Hans - enters into villan arc

4:34 the fake accent cracks me up everytime.

I need to watch the next stream immedialy. Andrea being this calm for a whole 12 minutes is.... Please stream soon lmao XD

This was great. You should do more breakdowns like this. Current chess drama, historical chess drama...it would be great.

Andrea is so much better like this than her hyper crazy antics. This is a fantastic format for her.

Andrea, you did a great job covering this. You are a natural broadcaster, that was professional quality that people twice your age can't pull off sometimes, well done! great job!

hm a good wrap up about the situation in a pretty short time. Well done!

She's half right. Cheating is difficult to prove. But the security measures are so behind that we don't even know how easy it may be to cheat on most tournaments.

Nicely done Andrea! Informing, funny and good pace!

Andrea should do an in depth investigative video showing if and how those beads could work

Someone did an experiment with a chip being in a shoe. It was actually confirmed that a chip in a shoe can be undetected by metal detectors. Makes sense why airports require you to take off your shoes.

His rapid rise in ranking makes me question his abilities and how it came to be. I'm not a chess player but it piqued my interest in playing.

I just started learning chess a week ago from seeing your Lex interview. I'm getting annhilated every single go. But i'm addicted and i love it.

I'm a full-time professional magician/Illusionist, mind reader. I am also chess player. Cheating in a high-security tournament would be easy for me and my friends at the top of the magic business. Just sayin... the chess groups should hire us to watch over live tournaments. They are definitely missing potential technologies for passing data. In fact, wow there are numerous methods to use technology there are also brick-and-mortar methods combined with technology that are almost invisible to just about everybody other than absolute experts in the magic industry. ( I'm totally serious. So if somebody to reach out to discuss this further would be glad to)

His comments on looking at an opening before a game then it coming up happens often..

Andrea is the chess journalist that we don’t deserve but the one we need. :) The ending of the video was excellent!

I am very impressed by how objective, concise and informative this video is. Great job!!!

I appreciate your keeping this PG. Great video.

Thanks for presenting the story end-2-end so clearly!

Hans going out on a date with Andrea speaks for itself.

i feel like i've read and seen *way* too much about this story already but i still watched this, great storytelling andrea

how it can be marked as "cheating scandal" if we are not even able to prove it 🤨

It is not how perfect your move is but your tactics or strategy. War in the board could be liken to a war in a battlefield where there may be wrong places for the right unit or wrong unit for the right places but does not affect the total out come of the battle because most of the tactical or strategic moves are in right places hence some blunders may be compensated by a strong move or tactics. In Chess a Tal-like sacrifice could be imprecise but it does the work or purpose still.

Andrea is always funny but she's well spoken as well.

When people say Hans says he hasn't cheated since he was 16, they should provide the context that he's still only 19. It's not like it was ages ago.

Unsurprisingly, you have a cunning way of mixing in some humor to this very serious story. Thanks for the summary and I hope you do updates.

2:01 dude thinks he's a main character in an anime 🤣

Well spoken, well structured.. you are getting serious, Andrea. Thanks

I like How Andrea stayed unbiased here even tho she know Hans for ages & his friend! And She know Magnus too but still stayed unbiased

11:24 "My lawsuit speaks for itself". 😂 what a legend

How can people put lawsuits with money set before hand, like isn't the judges & regulators decision on the value of the it

Do more things like this, Andrea, I would never in a million years have thought you would be good at something like this as you for some reason like to have your inside voice set to 100. But a calm and collected Andrea, Absolutely Fantastic

The most professionalism I've seen from Andrea. Jokes aside, this was a great summary.

How would you know if no one has gotten away with cheating at the top level? If they got away with it, you wouldn't know they cheated.

this video is gold! editing is on point!

Always wanted to know what the full story is about this issue, and this is exactly what i needed :P

This story is the best. I knew all that stuff but Andrea did such a good, concise, compelling job that I had to listen again.

Thanks for the sum up, you are the best!

6:03 The Special one does end up appearing everywhere doesn't he? 🤣🤣

Andrea you need to make more videos like this hahaha so good!

Looks like that date with Hans went quite serious. Anyways brilliantly uncovered the story with least amount of bias, someone needed to make this kind of video.

This was a clear, concise story and unbiased from what I can tell, I am very impressed, you earned my subscribe today with this article

bro i dont understand, how do you use a cheat engine in a boardgame(irl), like how does it works? vibrating when sees a good move? i dont understand pls tell me

$100 million dollar lawsuit...A Million for Each Time he was caught Cheating LOL

No new information for me. I really loved that you didn’t “ forgot” any detail, because, details really matters. You we’re honest and not bias to any side. Good job Andrea! Loved every second! ( the one thing I don’t understand on this all storyline is, if Magnus thought that Hans was a cheater in Saint Luis how didn’t he had the same point of view 10 days earlier in Miami and played him like nothing is wrong!??? Can someone please have a theory!????? I’m dying here!!!!)

I love how Andrea just pauses after a sentence and takes a sip of tea.

1:00 OMG "The chess world is LITERALLY on fire!" That is far worse than any cheating scandal. These people are on fire, or their boards are at least. Is no one going to put them out???

OMG i love the way you present things, i think you would be a great presenter!!!

As someone on the very outer fringes of chess, I would like to say that that was very informative and very well done.

haha, you're good at this. great editing. do more of these types of videos!

What's up with the faux camera-shake in the punch-ins?

I wonder how it is we know that no one has cheated in over the board games and got away with it. Head hurts.

Another great video! I love these non Chess playing videos , I hope you keep doing more!

The interviewer does what every interviewer does, remind the person of their known flaws but also mentions the positive.

The craziest chess story is him beating you and you ghosting him for the date

7:04-7:30 I knew Andrea's response was coming, but it was still hilarious 😂

Andrea's voice sounds very nice when she is not yelling :D

we need more videos in this format. had to laugh quite often

To be clear, the amount of money that Hans is suing for does not really matter, it would change dramatically even if he had the most rock solid case and is just a big number to draw attention.

Excellent video. Much more valuable than the usual trash talk blitz recordings.

I think you meant "5 championship matches in a row", not "5 years in a row".

The defamation lawsuit is a pretty wild turn of events

How does one sue a foreign citizen? Is it like you can't claim assets in the county anymore if you lose?

Wow this was actually a brilliant video. full of relevant information, presented well, some lighthearted jokes that were fitting, to be completely honest, i did not expect this. most recent videos on your channel (i'm just telling my personal view and dont want to offend) lean heavily into the clickbait/look at this girl niche, but this was great. thank you.

In the Fischer random WC, the Norwegian broadcasting team were continuously able to smuggle all kinds of devices that can be used for cheating.

Very good recap Andrea, damn.

Wow, the best summary we got from all chess creators

Your 30sec videos are great and entertaining. Your LONGER videos are truly AWESOME, though, so keep them coming. :)

1:25 maybe they have how would you know💀

Thanks for the info my dear

I've followed the whole scandal but the commentary here is just great. Very witty and entertaining!

This is a good summary from Andrea, you can tell that the script is super careful to not say anything that they could get surf for, but to me, while the mathematical tools that show how insanely improbable so many of these events were and how not only has a boy with little sign of prodigy, after being coached by a known cheat, and cheating online regularly (believed to be around 100+ times) leaps to performing better than any person in history. Many games are at a level exceeding any player in history. Also, strangely, apart from an insane leap in performance during the few years since, unlike any other player at this level, he fails to continue to improve at all. Eg if you stack all players in history that are at that level we're prodigies at a very young age, showed genius and beating masters while under 10, then dedicated decades to gradually improving and even improving after hitting international level. Vs a known cheater, of mdoerate ability, skipping all prize games for 6 months and comes back as the best in the world and never improves since. Also, the post match interview showed an extreme lack of memory for the game just played and numerous statements of plays he considered, and most of those were losing options and he seemed to have zero awareness of this. Also, His gameplay over the board is highly erratic, dropping to his pre "miracle" level and then far exceeding the best players in the world. Also, he stated that he had prepped that particular extremely rare opening the day before in a miracle of luck. This open is so utterly rare, and Magnus has only ever played that open 1 time, when he was 7 years old. Many of his interviews also seem to contain very strange and mismatched / guilty sounding replies. The new accent. The cheating, then lying about it being only 2 games... I have been open to both options and if its a miracle - amazing. But just looking at this from a mathematical probability perspective, on balance I feel comfy that he is cheating. And I base that on the maths of the games. The chess speaks for itself.

I wasn't sure - but the way that he talked through the game, not being specific and being very abstracted and vague - just shouts 'CHEAT"

Woah, this is so interesting! I know pretty much nothing about chess, pure interest is fueling me asking this so divulge as much as possible. This information would be grounds for some sort of investigation in any sport, that bit I can understand. What I can’t understand is how you can even cheat in a sport like chess, where you are right infront of multiple people under the eye scrutiny. Someone mentioned ear pieces and whatnot but they would’ve clearly checked for this and I imagine atleast one person is looking at the guy at any given time. What methods of cheating can produce these effects and which is most likely in Hans’ situation??? Anyone who could give me even a little information would be highly appreciated.

That was professional level reporting Andrea. Bravo!

The defaymation case speaks for itself

Great video. Just getting into chess and loving it.

Jose Mourinho in between made it more funnier

There's an inaccuracy in the beginning of the video. In the FTX crypto cup it's true that Hans didn't score a single point but he also beat every single player in that tournament except Alireza. So, he didn't exactly get thrashed and he's perfectly capable of beating super grandmasters in a game.

Wooow..This video was so well put together 🔥

Your editing was superb.

Andrea, nicely done! I followed this story in the media early as it unfolded, then watched a couple of other RU-vidrs analysis. You went back in his history and summarized how it unfolded.

Hans clearly put a mirror behind Magnus so he could see his pieces...smh