What It's Like Playing Against Hans Now 

Levon a week ago: "My comrades are always paranoid about this kind of thing." Levon now: "I am also now paranoid about this kind of thing."

All I know is that if I was Hans and genuinely was not cheating, I absolutely would play in a wild confusing manor to take advantage of all the accusers.

Before this he said : " it's normal to see youngsters playing so good " Now: He's playing strange moves

hans can just play weird lines now and everyone crumbles immediately 😂😂

How can you say that Hans is getting a boost from all of this, it’s literally destroying his career and reputation, and the man could be innocent

Levon during Sinquefield tournament: Hans didn't cheat Levon 2 weeks later: We all have temptations!

Every otb opponent he's had since, has thought during a chess game: "does this guy have something in his ass rn?"

Running the position through stockfish with max lines shows that G4 is not a good move the engine shows that it actually gives advantage to black. Idk why hikaru didn’t just show it in the engine and prove that it’s not some top level move that only a computer would know.

Still haven’t seen a LIVE analysis of a Hans game where anyone convincingly said - “there, that move is inhuman.”

My theory is Hans implanted Elon Musk's experimental neurochip in his brain

People need to understand that we are not skilled enough like GMs to draw any conclusions about the game, because we don't know how it was supposed to be played with GM-level skills and when most of the GMs are leaning towards one side of the story I believe in them rather than going with my "feel".

Anish didn't seem to be affected. He crushed Hans.

"100% boost for Hans." What a load of shit. The most powerful person in chess is attacking you, every aspect of your life is being scrutinized, and you're 19 years old. No. Amazing that Niemann has held up to the pressure.

I opened up my Chessbase after this video and put the position in and hit analyze, g4 was no where on any of my engines analysis. I ran Stockfish 15, fritz, deep fritz. g4 was a bad move according to engines, it went from +.35 to -.50. That wasn’t a engine move. Update: I put the position into Fritz Neuronal, it immediately asked for g4, then went to a new line, then back to g4, Fritz Neuronal doesn’t see it as a bad move, it’s the best move according to it. jeez 😮

Hans playing crazy moves and lose: yeah he's weak. Hans playing crazy moves and win: yeah, he's cheating. Hikaru there is a thing call intuition .

*Next video...* Hikaru: "I never said, implied or insinuated that Hans has been cheating."

Interestingly g4 matches the GNU Chess solution for that position. If he wanted to create, or have someone create integration for online blitz matches this would be the engine he'd use.

So a player is only supposed to play the expected moves? That's crazy. This content is starting to feel toxic. If moves like that are so impactful in affecting someone's concentration, I think all these young guys should intentionally play a. lot of such moves.

love how levon said magnus was a sore loser now here he is after losing to hans...

Terrible if Hans is actually coming up with innovative and creative new moves, and the chess world just reduces it to cheating. Not good

It's like a shoplifter. They only ever did it the times they got caught.

Just because someone is cheating doesn't mean they play the best moves, if Hans was cheating, playing a strange move that isn't great, but can only be refuted with another strange move is perfect

I havent seen much of him but this Levon seems really chill

I think g4 is only crazy when you're at the very top level and conditioned to play the most critical moves in known structures. There is some precedent in dragondorf structures for this sort of move, but usually not at the very top level, and I think this threw Levon off as he said. I didn't run it forever, but at least at depth 46, multiPV 5, it's not a top move of SF Dev, or even Blue Marlin (tuned SF for kingside attacks). As for the responses, h6 isn't really human, but castling and Ne5 or Nc5 don't give white advantage either. Though castling there and trusting that the pawn is overextended/the knight will be okay on h5, is a bit speculative from a human perspective. Levon made the right choice.These younger players can get pretty creative. In my opinion, this move would be called interesting, off-beat, or creative if Pragg or Alireza played it, but when Hans does it, the drama brain turns on , and it becomes things like crazy or suspicious.

hans does the most random looking move that does absolutely nothing good or bad, and everyone freaks out

G4 according to the computer is a bad move. He clearly knew this line and just knew that h6 would be hard to find without prep and he was correct.

g4 was an objectively subpar move according to the engine. I take this as evidence that hans found this over the board instead of cheating.

G4 is not a human move, but it's not an engine move either. Hans kind of looks like an alien...

Hikaru is just mad Hans has gotten under Magnus’ skin the way Magnus has done to Hikaru his entire professional career 😂

Enigmatic bishop maneuvering. Short castling with pawns e4-f3-g4. Impressive miniature! Hans seems like a genuine innovator, or...? My favorites with f4, not f3 : - Alexei Shirov vs Judit Polgar, Tilburg, 1996 - Grigory Sanakoev vs Yuri Shaposhnikov, 6th USSR Correspondence Chess Championship, 1963-1964

The strangest move was ..e6. That was just a terrible move even for an IM. Not noticing the subsequent weakness of the d pawn was just flat out terrible.

Is this the same Levon who a few weeks ago stated that his peers are paranoid and that you can learn from the younger generation?

This is a huge boost for chess everyone will benefit and it brings light to an important topic

Even if playing against a suspected cheater impacts your game, the quality of play is still up to the individual player. I’m sure playing against a world champion, like Carlsen, can impact a performance too-even rattle you. Obviously I don’t condone cheating, but players are responsible for their own blunders and inaccuracies. That’s the beauty of chess.

"G4 is just a crazy move".. Well, he used it and won the game shortly after so maybe you should try it.

that draw joke from levon is gold 😂

G4 may be a weird move, but it's not a good move so there shouldn't be any concern there. Maybe he literally played it to throw his opponent off and it worked.

You guys realize Hikaru no doubt made his video recap AFTER reviewing the Levon interview, right? That's why it sounds so prophetic. As for Hans cheating, it's almost impossible. Not just IM Prof. Ken Regan of Buffalo NY, FIDE anti-cheat expert, saying so, not just StL CC Arbiter Bird saying so, not just the scanning from head to toe with two different detectors at the St. L chess club, not just Fabi saying in this 9/21 podcast that it's unlikely anybody is cheating OTB, but also consider this: if Hans Nieman had "wearable PC tech" or "embedded PC tech", which even Google could not perfect with their obvious Google Glasses (which sounds a lot easier to implement than something deep inside your body), if Hans has an "all plastic earpiece" that cannot be detected by a metal detector, if Hans has such sophisticated means, he could do an IPO and/or sell his invention to DARPA or the CIA and make a lot more money than trying to swindle prizes from chess, which hardly anybody follows even post-2020.

Maximus Vachier-Lagrave, father to a hung Knight, husband to a sacrificed Queen...

Watching hikaru's video with subtitles [laughter] is funny because everytume somebody says something [laughter] there is laughter [laughter] and then sometimes there are parts that get rewound [laughter] and there is even more laughter [laughter] in the same place as the original laughter [laughter]

Could totally be prep. If the left side is weaker, and the right side is stronger, why not advance on the right. Especially if you know your opponent isn't going to castle long (or won't be able to)

These days... Hans: makes a dubious move World: He was assisted by engine to make that move 😂

Why would h6 be such a strange/hard move after g4? It seems like he's pushing the pawn to threaten the knight. There's tons of times you have the bishop on g7 and play h6 to prevent pawns from pushing.

love to see hans bringing new ideas to chess at this level, everyone online plays the same things and hans is exploring random sideliness and being agressive, props to him

"I don't have timestamps" my man, the time is left of the game you're showing

One Hikaru's point which I think is valid is that while Niemann is playing at a 2800 rating level, his post-mortem analysis is that of a much weaker, 2500-level player. So things don't add up.

My wife telling me she had too much to drink so she’s going to sleep it off at her ex-boyfriends house is less suspicious than pawn to g4.

I stand with Magnus. You cannot just analyse a game to check if someone is cheating because if someone is strong enough like master level they would not need to cheat for every single move, even using the best move twice in a game is enough to dig you out of a hole or gain a +1 or +2 advantage which any grandmaster can convert. Hans has 100% reason to cheat especially if he did it before in money tournaments and has rent to pay.

"You're drawing, and they are drawing back." ;-)

He's about to be making wild moves everywhere now😊

Levon must have been watching hikarus chess board on the ceiling too

Other gm's moves are more strange than that! For example, mamedyarov sometimes plays a highly unexpected move too early in the game

Genuinely curious, is Hans really cheating over the board? And how?

The longer these cheating accusations have been going on for, the less solid they seem tbh. If there’s more solid evidence it needs to come out, otherwise this is starting to feel like a smear campaign

Hans should just mock them back and e.g. appear in t-shirt and sport shorts for the next matches. This would demonstrate he has nothing to hide.

My take is that Hans was a promising junior who is kind of wacky and did some dumb stuff online, went hardcore on chess during the pandemic and got good and these old people can't handle it. I hope he becomes world champ some day.

I think there's a saying that you're opponent can't know what you're thinking if you also don't know what you're thinking

Only Hikaru could say this could be an advantage to Hans....He was broken by the second half of the Sinquefield Cup

I often experiment with moves that a computer says are bad because a computer does not understand that a bad move if they fall in the category of demanding absolute accuracy for several moves humans make a lot of mistakes and are not always capable of understanding bizarre moves and responding accurately. I play this opening a lot and since watching the game have been experimenting with Bishop E2 as it changes the move order and opens lines for the queen. I have had good success with it!

I agree that others will play worse against a suspected cheater. But you will also play worse if you are suspected of cheating when you're not.

At this point I don't even know if Magnus thinks Hans cheated in their game, I think that Magnus is upset that he lost to someone that IS a cheater and he doesn't want cheaters in the sport. And I'm right there with him. This idea that online is less than, and "otb is sacred" is straight up copium. Hans is a cheater, he lies, and Magnus doesn't want people like that in the sport. It's his right to stand up against it.

How can you Call it a boost for Hans when so many people think hes cheating? Must feel Very unsettling its actually the Same as the other was around too much Stress over the Board Will Always Make you worse

Don't trash talk this rising legend. If not found guilty of cheating he shall continue playing and continue beating ur asses. Until proven guilty, you shouldn't talk s***t about him just because he plays a different way doesn't make him a cheater.

So now that Levon lost to maybe 1 or 2 weird moves (where he blundered multiple times), now Hans is definitely cheating?

This really is becoming a witch hunt on the part of the Magnus side. Magnus gets to say nothing, make no accusations or present any thoughts and the established community gets to suspect every little thing. Magnus is being too afraid to come out with his thoughts and what felt like taking a moral high ground now feels like being passive aggressive without putting his own reputation on the line

Hans played g4 a move that the engine doesn’t like, VERY SUSPICIOUS

If I was Hans I'd lean into it tbh. Wear a terminator shirt, with the half man half machine, press my ear and nod before making a move, do all these crazy moves knowing people HAVE to give me credit and take it serious. I dunno if he cheated, but he should totally milk it.

It would be interesting to see how suspicious or not suspicious some of the other player's games would seem if you just put Hans's name instead of one of the players

Hikaru “I don’t want to say it for sure so i’ll just imply it with shaky coincidences at best” Nakamura

Surely it’s a disadvantage to Hans knowing that if he wins games, people will think he won by cheating and not by merit

Maybe that's his trick... Such a slavish devotion to accepted patterns and norms among his rivals that he is using novel contra strategies to unsettle them.... Might explain why he gets big W at some points and gets ripped to smithereens at others. It doesn't always work.

Hans is also at a disadvantage. His game can potentially suffer because of the situation (he is under a microscope and things can be (are being) taken away from him. It's also a fact (in the same vein as Hikaru comment) that some humans' games will suffer if they are being accused of cheating when they are not.. Fact just proven by Hikaru : Hans didn't cheat against Levon. Cpu doesn't like g4

The whole chess Community implying Hans is a cheater is a huge boost for him? what the f*** is cheating speed running Hikaru talking about?

Hans: *playing creative, aggressive, and risky moves* People: *yes cheating*

Chess community accuses someone of cheating without any evidence other than people like Hikaru ~having a feeling~ and then Hilaru says that Hans has a leg up. Imagine baselessly accusing someone of something heinous, then saying that they get an advantage from it, THEN basically say they should be banned for it. Just a bunch of anti-empiricists angry at the top players fee fees being hurt.

Just use a Faraday cage

I do not have the inisght into what moves would be considered crazy to Super GMs but as a 2100 person who plays all the time online g4 is definitely a move I can see my opponents playing in this position. Its risky with the king 0-0 but White gets an attack too. Not saying its good but seems human like.

I would pay good money to watch a post game analysis featuring GM Grischuck and Hans.

Maybe he's trolling you all now, with those random moves, just to throw you off, and most importantly, his opponent.

Still need proof

Lots of comments about how Hans can play wild moves and get an advantage, but anyone who’s played professional competitive chess knows weird moves with no tangible compensation get punished on the board.

Could it be as simple as Hans rushing to get past the theory in as few moves as possible so that more of the game is non-theory (or new) moves? And he just happens to be more creative in earlier moves which are usually played as theory by the other GMs? His weird moves usually come around mid-late stage of the opening theory.

Engine prefers Hikaru's move, A4. But it even more prefers Rd1

Ah come on!!!!! He also said he play badly! And he did! Naka keeps insinuating Hans is cheating with his crazy laugh.

everyone accusing you of being a cheater is 100% a boost to your game according to GM Hikaru doubling down on his lunacy

Hikaru hell bent on proving Hans has an advantage but if he is innocent and everyone throwing all kinds of speculations on him it must be having a terrible affect in his confidence as well.

People will not play well if they even think their opponent might cheat. Even at my level, an NM, an opponent of my got up after every one of my moves, came back and played well above his rating. I lost that game and for YEARS I have not been able to get it out of the back of my mind. Regardless of the outcome of this current controversy, computers have ruined the game of chess.

I’m relatively new to chess streamers, been watching for about a year. I knew Hikaru got a lot of heat from others but I generally ignored it. But now amongst all this drama I’m starting to really understand why so many people dislike him.

Ppl keep defending the two time cheater saying he didn't cheat LUL

I still need an explanation on how this is the biggest cheating scandal ever in chess. There’s literally no actual evidence. Not saying it Hans isn’t cheating I have no idea. But there isn’t any evidence

Hans is beating everyone in an unorthodox style and they're crying lmao

I wonder how often weird moves are played just to throw off an opponent. Hans did mention he plays psychological moves, and his reflection from Singfeild was that a lot of the top GMs play really safe and take no risks, and he said he is going to try to be less risky. Does he just play risky moves that he knows arn't completely horrible to play with?

Soon theyll accuse Pragg and Gukesh. The younglings are cominggg

Stop with the cheating insinuation nonsense. Whichever way you see it - no one has the right to bully someone over plain insinuations.

I wish I understood this game better. I know what moves pieces can do but that is about it. :(

g4 is a feint to throw the opponent off, force a time sunk or a blunder... a deceit strategy of sorts much like any gambit

when ever hans plays a crazy move he says its for a phycology move to make the opponent make mistakes

The whole video is nonsense, and Hikaru should regret doing this. The move g4 is a bad move, as he already sees from the engine. It might be a crazy move, but it has nothing to do with cheating. There's no way Hans actually turned on his engine and the engine actually suggested that move. Hikaru did point out that the engine's top reply to the move is inhuman as well, but he didn't go on to check whether most of the natural human replies would give significant advantage to White: if that were the case, then there would be reason to be suspicious. But there is nothing like that here. He doesn't really analyze the game and try to make an objective assessment. Instead, he just looks for anything that he could spice up in the narrative that Hans is cheating. This is not educational. 👎 As to the move itself, there's a much better explanation for why Hans did it: It fits his playing style. Hans likes to push pawns. He did something very similar against Wesley in the Sinquefield, and it becomes the key move leading to himself losing the game. And if you think Hans is taking advantage of the situation by playing strange moves to scare people, he has every right to do so: that's just the nature of the game of chess. Bluffing is an integral part of the game, unless you're playing against a machine (which is by design incapable of getting bluffed, because it never 'believes the opponent').

I think we'd all prefer if Hans didn't get insinuations thrown his way as often as he does at this point. Even statements saying he 100% has an advantage because his opponents are now unsettled is ridiculous. Put yourself in the shoes of an awkward, introverted 19 year old kid getting the amount of hate and attention he is getting. I seriously doubt the slight unsettling feeling these Super GMs get is as much of a drawback as that.

It's strange to me.. I know video games that once you catch a single ban, you are not allowed to play on many mainstream servers. Why are casual video games more strict than proffessional chess?