2022 Sinquefield Cup

[Roger de Coverly]

The story now spreads to mainstream press.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ayers.html

Not written by anyone experiencecd at chess

It's not a miracle, it’s actually me being extremely tedious and going through every single possible transposition or line that he could play in the Catalan [a move in chess],' explained Hans post-match in an interview with Chess24, when questioned on his technique.

[NickFaulks]

That is almost certainly be the case, as the Guardian article in question was not written by Leonard [Barden].

Oops, a fair point.

[NickFaulks]

What announcements would those be? I am not aware of any official statements since the one at https://grandchesstour.org/blog/reignin ... being-held.

There was a string of comments in the chat along the lines of "watch this space", "don't go away", "big interview coming". I don't know whether these things are ephemeral or can still be found. From my unreliable memory they came from "St Louis Chess Club", in gold and with an impressive avatar.

[David Sedgwick]

There was a string of comments in the chat along the lines of "watch this space", "don't go away", "big interview coming". I don't know whether these things are ephemeral or can still be found. From my unreliable memory they came from "St Louis Chess Club", in gold and with an impressive avatar.

Unfortunately I had gone away before then.

Why did those comments lead you to think that Ramirez had been censored?

[NickFaulks]

Why did those comments lead you to think that Ramirez had been censored?

I suppose it could have meant "there's going to be another round in the Ramirez inquisition of Niemann". However, I had seen nothing like this previously and took it to mean " everybody says they want to hear what Niemann has to say and he's going to get the chance to say it".

With hindsight, on this occasion I was right.

By the way, I have felt that Ramirez' simpering questions to other players of "you are playing Niemann in round x, this must be very unsettling for you and how are you handling it?" have been beyond disgusting. Assuming St Louis chess survives this, I hope never to see the little creep there again - in future years, obviously.

[David Sedgwick]

Why did those comments lead you to think that Ramirez had been censored?

I suppose it could have meant "there's going to be another round in the Ramirez inquisition of Niemann". However, I had seen nothing like this previously and took it to mean " everybody says they want to hear what Niemann has to say and he's going to get the chance to say it".

With hindsight, on this occasion I was right.

By the way, I have felt that Ramirez' simpering questions to other players of "you are playing Niemann in round x, this must be very unsettling for you and how are you handling it?" have been beyond disgusting. Assuming St Louis chess survives this, I hope never to see the little creep there again - in future years, obviously.

I won't comment on your insulting remarks about Ramirez.

Clearly it had been agreed beforehand that Niemann would make a statement without interruption. I see no reason to think that Ramirez was not amenable to this arrangement, nor that he was not at liberty to ask Niemann any questions which he wished after the statement.

I think it most unlikely that the GCT have threatened to sack Ramirez, much as you might like them to do so.

[David Sedgwick]

The official commentary for Day 6 can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogulq82wNe0

[Kevin Thurlow]

Having met (and played) Mr Ramirez, I got the impression he was a really nice guy.

[Paul Heaton]

Ben Finegold describing Magnus as huge vulgar term (much stronger than Nick’s description of Ramirez), and saying he needs to apologise on his stream.

[Geoff Chandler]

The story now spreads to mainstream press.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ayers.html

Not written by anyone experienced at chess

Hi Roger

A few of the readers comments are interesting.

One person thinks computers will never beat humans at chess (they were quickly corrected.)

Another reader is not at all happy with the article.

"Why does DMO hire such low paid, unintelligent, ignorant millenials?
Carlsen is not just a grandmaster adult top rated FIDE player. He's the reigning world champion since 2013.
Nearly a decade. Only the 16th since 1886. Your idiot correspondent read the first sentence of his Wikipedia
profile and then went to social media. Did you not have a single chess fan on staff?
This is a disgrace. DMO is now a cancer on journalism."

[J T Melsom]

"This is a disgrace. DMO is now a cancer on journalism."

Did it really take a chess story for the penny to drop for this reader about the standards of journalism at the Daily Mail?

[John Cox]

>By the way, I have felt that Ramirez' simpering questions to other players of "you are playing Niemann in round x, this must be very unsettling for you and how are you handling it?" have been beyond disgusting

Strange thing to say. Why? It obviously may be unsettling and it's interesting to know how players deal with it: he's a journalist and he's supposed to ask questions the public want an answer to. There's not much point in pretending that Magnus didn't think Niemann was cheating - if that wasn't what he meant; he'd surely have said so by now - and the other players' reactions are something the public is going to be interested in.

Like someone above, I've met Alejandro and he struck me as a responsible and pleasant guy. In my opinion the entire commentary team have dealt with this well.

On another theme, I'm finding all these references to Carlsen-So really odd. This line with ...d5 and dxc4 is different from the Nf3 c5 g3 stuff and AFAIK there aren't even any transpositions. Maybe I'm wrong about that; I'd be interested to hear from anyone better informed. In Carlsen-So White didn't play g3 until after Nf3 c5, so he wasn't offering the gambit implicit in g3 d5; Nf3. On the other hand, Carlsen has certainly played the g3 d5; Nf3 stuff before, by transposition, in the rather famous game Carlsen-Adams from 2006 (maybe the Olympiad?). Given that a punter like me knows this without consulting a database, I'm finding some of, for instance, Nakamura's online stuff a little, shall we say, under-researched. Niemann made a lot more sense talking about how he asked himself what ideas Magnus could come up with to throw him off base in the Catalan line he planed to play with ,,,Bb4+ and decided to check 5 Nc3, a rare Nimzo transposition.

[Roger de Coverly]

By the way, I have felt that Ramirez' simpering questions to other players of "you are playing Niemann in round x, this must be very unsettling for you and how are you handling it?" have been beyond disgusting.

There are players still active in British chess who have been "named", if you follow the clues, as detected as using engine assistance. It can be unsettling to play them.

Against that it's been an accusation against unexpected results that the lower rated player "must" have been cheating. Perhaps difficult to admit, but wasn't Carlsen just out-prepared (with pre game engine assistance)?

[Geoff Chandler]

Meanwhile...over at Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/AnarchyChess/
They have figured out how Hans cheated. A mirror on the ceiling so he could see Magnus's moves.

[NickFaulks]

Strange thing to say. Why? It obviously may be unsettling and it's interesting to know how players deal with it: he's a journalist and he's supposed to ask questions the public want an answer to.

Two answers. First, I felt he was asking leading questions, and making it clear that in his opinion they had something to be unsettled about. Most of them looked uncomfortable and tried with varying degrees of success to deflect him. Mamedyarov was good.

Second, the question this member of the public wanted an answer to was how Niemann himself was handling being the subject of cheating accusations for which not a shred of evidence had been offered. Ramirez saw no reason to ask this.

In response to others, I have not met Ramirez but have previously heard nothing bad about him. I remember him from the early days of ICC when, as a young teenager and not yet a GM, he provided very interesting commentary. Unfortunately, this issue, and perhaps the journalistic opportunity arising, has brought out the worst in him.