Picture Credit: Twitter
After World No.1 chess player Magnus Carlsen pulled out of the $500,000 Sinquefield Cup post a defeat to American GM Hans Niemann, many accused the latter of cheating in order to win the game. Now, Niemann has said that is ready to strip to prove his innocence. The American said in his latest interview that he is ready to play naked to prove that he does not cheat.
Niemann, however, admitted that he has cheated twice in his career so far. The 19-year-old admitted that he had cheated while playing chess online, doing so when he was 12 and 16 years old. But he denied all claims of him cheating in any “rated game” (apart from the time he cheated as a 12-year-old) or in an over-the-board chess game.
“I can completely strip, you want to do any fair play check to me you want I don’t care because I know that I’m clean. If they want me to strip fully naked, I’ll do it, I don’t care, because I know that I’m clean and I’m willing to subject myself.
“You want me to play in a closed box with zero electronic transmission, I don’t care, name whatever you guys want. I’m here to win, and that’s going to be my goal regardless,” Niemann said in the interview.
“I cheated on random games on chess.com. I was confronted. I confessed. And this is the single biggest mistake of my life. And I am completely ashamed. I am telling the world because I don’t want misrepresentations and I don’t want rumours. I have never cheated in an over-the-board game. And other than when I was 12 years old, I have never cheated in a tournament with prize money.”
Notably, Magnus Carlsen shared a cryptic tweet late on Monday (5 September) while announcing his withdrawal from the tournament. The Norwegian attached a tweet of a video of Portuguese football manager Jose Mourinho saying, “If I speak, I am in big trouble. Big, big trouble” to his tweet. This sparked rumours that Niemann might have cheated against Carlsen.