Fabiano Caruana yesterday evening joined the C-squared podcast where he extensively spoke about his recent tournaments in Saint Louis, but also commented on the Carlsen – Niemann controversial case which every day gets new developments. Caruana shared his insights on the case, adding that he had a personal experience with a cheater who was exonerated based on Kenneth Regan’s analysis.
Caruana first spoke about Carlsen’s resignation against Niemann at Julius Baer Generation Cup saying that this resignation doesn’t change anything: “The fact that he (Carlsen) forfeited the game only demonstrated that he has some sort of issue with Hans. And that’s it. Didn’t change anything. It does make his (Carlsen’s) position interesting though, because of course, he does have to play Hans at times, he will have to play him, and it is not really a sustainable solution for him to just forfeit anytime he goes against him“. Speaking about what would happen if Niemann and Carlsen met again already at the quarterfinals of the Julius Baer Generation Cup, Fabi added: “I think Magnus would certainly have forfeited if he had played Hans in the Knockout (…) At this point, it’s just a matter of principle for him (Carlsen). Whatever that principle is, he is sticking to it and he doesn’t want to play the guy“.
Fabiano commented on Carlsen’s first interview after his withdrawal from the Sinquefield Cup 2022 followed by his resignation against Niemann: “He didn’t say much, but if you know who he was talking about, you kind of understand that he was confirming all the rumors. He mentioned Maxim Dlugy as Hans’s mentor, and this is not public information. I don’t think it’s ever been said that Dlugy is Hans’s mentor/coach/second, however you want to call it. This is the first time that the chess world hear about this“. Caruana confirmed that Dlugy was removed from chess.com: “We know Dlugy has a reputation. He was removed from chess.com. We can speculate why but usually there is only one reason why“.
Fabiano Caruana then mentioned it is interesting how the conflict between Carlsen and Niemann has started: “We have a very clear order of events. Hans plays in Miami (FTX Crypto Cup), he plays against Magnus, they do promotional events together for chess24, Hans loses his matches there, Magnus wins the event. Those are somewhat relevant it shows that Hans was not cheating in Miami, so his results in Miami didn’t give Magnus any cause for concern. Unless he was thinking this guy is not a good player, so his other results don’t add up“. He then added: “Things changed then (after Miami), which is very interesting. What happened between Miami and the Sinquefield Cup? In the Sinquefield Cup, Hans was the replacement for Richard Rapport who couldn’t make it to the United States and wasn’t able to play. Hans was a last-minute replacement. (…) We know that Magnus already had a problem as soon as he heard that Hans was invited to the Sinquefield Cup. People think that this was because he lost a game to Hans. But it predates that by a few days. He was already upset about Hans’s inclusion in the Sinquefield Cup. (…) What happened in those few days (between the Miami and Sinquefield Cup tournaments)? This is what I don’t know.”.
“I feel like Magnus’s decision to leave the tournament was somewhat emotional and probably wasn’t the right decision. But he felt uncomfortable, that’s very clear. He felt uncomfortable before the tournament, and maybe the first three games exacerbated that and that just gave him the impulse to leave the tournament“, added Caruana. Fabiano said that the allegations are not that important as that Hans already showed a willingness to cheat: “What is relevant is that Hans has shown a willingness to cheat. If he is willing to do it once, you can speculate that he is willing to do it again. That shows a facet of his personality“.
Fabiano then spoke about the problem of catching cheaters in chess: “We don’t have a clear Authority on this matter. We have chess.com and their algorithm which, from what we understand, is quite advanced and quite good in detecting cheating. We have FIDE who get their statistical analysis from Kenneth Regan who is a statistician, he is a professor. And you have different websites, lichess – they have their own thing, chess24 I assume they have their own thing. And then you have some individuals, there is a famous guy Punin who has done a lot of videos where he supposedly catches cheaters or analyzes their games or whatever. And that’s a bit of an issue – that you don’t have anything clear to look to“.
Caruana commented on Kenneth Regan’s analysis of Hans Niemann’s games from the last two years where he did not find anything suspicious about Hans’s play. He said that he would take Regan’s analysis with a large grain of salt, mentioning the case where he had no doubt about the player was cheating, but he was exonerated based on Kenneth Regan’s analysis: “I would take Regan’s analysis with the large grain of salt, and the reason why is not because I have any insight into his algorithm or his methods, but because I know of a case of, a very high profile case, where with absolute certainty I can say that someone was cheating in an important event. And the person was investigated and was also exonerated based on Regan’s analysis. And I am certain that there was cheating. There is no doubt in my mind that this person was cheating and they got away with it.“. See the complete video below
See the timetable of happenings related to Carlsen – Niemann case below the video
The timetable of happenings related to Carlsen – Niemann case: