And the king is headless! – Newspaper Kommersant No. 195 (7396) dated 10/20/2022
[ad_1]
At the US Chess Championship, held in St. Louis, there was a comical incident, in the center of which was the young grandmaster Hans Niemann. In the midst of another game, while he was thinking about his next move, Niman’s opponent Samuel Sevyan took his king from the board and broke off the top, and then put it on another square. The incident was regarded as another shot at Hans Niemann, who had previously been accused of cheating by the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen. In order to avoid a repeat of the high-profile scandal, the organizers of the current championship have tightened security and control measures, refused to invite spectators and decided to show the tournament with a 30-minute delay.
The most discussed event of the US Chess Championship taking place in St. Louis, in which the leaders of the national team Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Levon Aronian participate, was the incident that took place in the game of two other grandmasters – Hans Niemann and Samuel Sevyan.
In the midst of the meeting, when the right to move passed to Hans Niemann, Samuel Sevyan, playing for white, suddenly grabbed the black king, began to spin it in his hands, and then broke off his head. All this time, Nieman looked at the opponent in bewilderment and asked to return the piece to its place. A dialogue began between the players, as a result of which Samuel Sevyan obeyed and put the king back on the board, but on a different square. The discouraged Niemann managed to win this game nonetheless.
In an interview after the end of the game, he stated that the usual misunderstanding arose between the players.
The top of the king, in his words, fell off by itself, and Sevyan just wanted to fix the piece.
And Nieman got angry, allegedly because his compatriot, who refrained from any comments, did this, not on his own.
Hardly anyone believed in this version. Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana, competed in 2018 with Magnus Carlsen in the match for the chess crown, called this gesture by Samuel Sevyan on his Twitter a deliberate display of “disrespect that has reached its peak” towards Niemann.
Over the past couple of months, 19-year-old Hans Niemann has become one of the most talked about figures in the chess world. They started talking about him after the scandalous story that took place at the September Sinquefield Cup supertournament in St. Louis. It has Magnus Carlsen starred from prestigious competitions before the fourth round, immediately after the defeat in the third from the low-ranking Niman. Carlsen did not officially explain the reasons for refusing to speak, but made it quite clear that he suspected the American of cheating, that is, using hints. Then Carlsen, having met with Niemann in the Julius Baer Generation Cup online tournament, staged a second demarche: the Norwegian grandmaster defiantly surrenderedwaiting for the opponent’s second move, and disconnected from the broadcast.
Nieman’s reputation was further damaged by the investigation, published Chess.com, the most popular chess site in the world.
The platform’s experts concluded that it was “very likely” that Nieman used “illegal help” in “more than one hundred online games.”
The International Chess Federation (FIDE) also initiated its own investigation, but its results are still unknown.
Since then, the American grandmaster has been ridiculed by his colleagues, and the organizers of the current American tournament, in order to avoid a repeat of the scandal, have decided to significantly increase control measures. They spent several thousand dollars to install not only metal detectors, but also special frames that can recognize silicone devices. This decision was apparently made due to the fact that foreign media hypothesized that Nieman received clues from an accomplice using wirelessly controlled vibrating anal beads. In addition, the organizing committee of the World Cup abandoned the idea of inviting viewers and decided to broadcast the competition with a 30-minute delay.
At the national championship, the American shows very mediocre results: after 12 rounds, Hans Niemann, who shares the 5th-9th position with other participants, has 6.5 points. This means that in the near future he, most likely, will not be able to break into the top 20 (now the American occupies the 40th position in the FIDE rating) and, as The Guardian notes, he will not intersect with Magnus Carlsen, as well as other elite grandmasters .
[ad_2]
Source link
