A little over three years ago, the greatest chess player of all time lost to a swaggering young American grandmaster, self-ejected from an important tournament, and kicked off the biggest and strangest cheating scandal chess has ever seen. The story of Magnus Carlsen's quixotic war against Hans Niemann gripped the chess world for years. Back in 2022, Carlsen was on top of the world, lording over every format of chess and winning most major tournaments even after announcing his plans to abdicate his world championship. Niemann, meanwhile, was the hungry upstart, eager to make a name for himself.
Their divergent personalities animated the story, but so did the unsolvable mystery at its heart. We now know so much about Niemann's destructive personality and alienation from the very chess world he sought to ascend within, as we do about his history of cheating online and the way Carlsen had slowly been annoyed by chess to the point that he finally snapped. But did Niemann cheat when he beat Carlsen with the black pieces at the Sinquefield Cup in 2022? That's the question at the center of this week's episode of Only If You Get Caught, and it might be the hardest one to answer. There was also the totally sensationalized and misleading theory that Niemann was using anal beads to cheat, which is for many the point of entry into this story.
To make sense of it all, I was thrilled to be joined by Joshua Robinson of the Wall Street Journal. As the Journal's European sports correspondent, Josh has the best job in the media world, regularly crisscrossing the continent to report on the Champions League, Formula 1, and the Tour de France, which we covered together this past summer. He also broke a crucial part of the Magnus vs. Hans story, and in addition to all that, he's a decent chess player. (If you send me proof of a five-star review, I will reveal his rating.)
Listen to Only If You Get Caught wherever you enjoy podcasts. The show is produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin and hosted by me. You can find the show's transcript here.
