Hans Niemann v. Magnus Carlsen et al. Chess Cheating Libel Lawsuit

Filed today, Niemann v. Carlsen (E.D. Mo.). I can't opine on the facts, but I was particularly interested in one of the many claims in the lawsuit:

By insisting that the Sinquefield Cup impose enhanced anti-cheating measures after his loss to Niemann, resigning from the tournament immediately thereafter, and then referencing a famous video of a soccer coach refraining from publicly accusing referees of misconduct, Carlsen conveyed a clear and unmistakable message to the public: that  Niemann only beat Carlsen because Niemann cheated….

As Carlsen intended, the chess world and the public at large received Carlsen's defamatory message loud and clear. On September 6, 2022, worldchess.com posted an article titled "Did Hans Niemann Actually Cheat? All the Info So Far," which stated

Yesterday, Magnus Carlsen withdrew from the Sinquefield Cup 2022 after his loss to Hans Niemann in Round 3. Multiple tweets, streams, comments, and security checks later, the accusation of Niemann cheating is pretty obvious!

[Further examples omitted.]

Other claims involve more express statements as well. Thanks to Paul Alan Levy for the pointer.

Comments

[Currentsitguy]

I never realized the world of professional competitive chess was so cutthroat.

[darkknight9]

One night in Bangkok it aint. 🙂

[Roman Moroni]

I get my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.

[Sarcastr0]

You should see competitive fishing!

[Currentsitguy]

Have you been following the scandal out of Cleveland?
https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/cleveland/2-fishermen-indicted-criminal-charges-cleveland-fishing-tournament-scandal/95-88b8df03-4ab3-42d0-bd0d-fc0aeedf3a78#:~:text=Cleveland-,2%20fishermen%20indicted%20on%20criminal%20charges%20in%20Cleveland%20fishing%20tournament,Unlawful%20Ownership%20of%20Wild%20Animals.

[Sarcastr0]

Only close enough to be amazed and amused.

[bernard11]

Or online bridge, where a number of high-level players have been caught.

[SRG]

And where other high-level players known to have cheated were not caught.

[myself]

It's interesting that he's not only including chess.com in the suit, but he seems to be explicitly contesting their claim (which seems very strong) that he cheated online more than he admitted.

Also, I thought the US standard for defamation required actual malice. If Carlsen is sincere and his belief reasonable (even if it's wrong) I don't think he's liable.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Actual malice applies to public figures. Which probably applies to Niemann but there could be some litigation over that. Would be a negligence standard if he’s not in fact a public figure.

[Roman Moroni]

I didn't realize actual malice only applies to public figures. I learn my law from the movies, and in Absence of Malice I don't think that Paul Newman's character was supposed to be famous. Just a businessman. But the newspaper was protected from a defamation lawsuit because they could claim absence of malice.

But this also makes me think about George Floyd's estate suing Ye on behalf of his daughter. While Ye's statements about Floyd could be based on ignorance of the facts, it seem like a real opinion (shared by many) rather than an intentional lie.

Is George Floyd now a public figure in death? Does that even matter since he wouldn't be the beneficiary of the lawsuit? Is it easier for a non-famous relative to sue for defamation of a dead public figure?

Did the legal language about public figures help to sink Alex Jones? Would it have turned out differently if the dead kids or their living parents were public figures before all of this?

[LawTalkingGuy]

George Floyd can’t be defamed because he is deceased. His family is trying to do an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim, which is extremely unlikely to succeed because the elements are very difficult to meet.

I am really not familiar enough with the case law for people who are just regular folk that become prominent because of happenstance.

But what sank Jones was his refusal to participate in discovery and being subject to a default judgment where liability can no longer be contested.

[Roman Moroni]

Can you help me with the legal definition of "intentional infliction of emotional distress"? The term obviously implies intent, which seems to be extremely unlikely in Ye's case. He's not saying things to stress out the daughter. Why would he? And how do you prove he is?

But is it similar to actual malice where knowingly lying, or having complete disregard for the truth, is a crucial factor? I would think it would have be somewhat of a factor, because as far as I know it's perfectly legal to just insult someone in order to cause them emotional distress.

[not me]

One thing that I find interesting is his claim of collusion between Magnus and chess.com. If Magnus was provided with information about Hans' history by chess.com after the sale of playmagnus, then that may be why Magnus thought Hans was cheating in the first place.
Not sure that it gives Hans a case for antitrust, but discovery might damage Magnus' reputation enough that he finds it worthwhile to have the case settled.

[rloquitur]

Niemann, I think, would be better advised to let his play speak for itself.

[Michael P]

Of course you would say that! (/ducks and runs)

[rloquitur]

Niemann is a fantastic chess player. This suit may not be in his best interest. Why does that elicit a snarky response?

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s in your username.

[rloquitur]

I took my stupid pills today. LOL

[Eugene Volokh]

OK, I laughed out loud at that, too (literally).

[AmosArch]

Hans is hovering around superGM level but thats still not much money. Magnus who is perhaps the best player of all time unless he's playing against Hans has an income that would be considered a pittance next to an average NBA ball dribbler. This suit might be the best chance he has to strike gold since he's been blockaded from the game and his skill level while high doesn't appear to be at the tippity top needed to earn the relatively meager top salary.

[arch1]

Neimann admitted cheating twice in online play, at ages 13(?) and 16. Neimann and Chess.com disagree as to whether he cheated in additional online games.

AFAIK Neimann hasn't been blocked from over-the-board (OTB) play in any venue. In fact, he just completed play at the two-week U.S. Chess Championship, where security was pretty stringent and at which it seems fairly safe to assume that he was not cheating given all of the attention that was on him. During that tourney his FIDE rating went up slightly, suggesting that if he *had* earlier been cheating OTB, he was doing so rarely enough so as not to artificially inflate his rating.

Also FWIW, FIDE's cheating consultant (Ken Regan, an Int'l Master and a mathematician so stats and chess literate) said he didn't find any cheating in Neimann's OTB games analyzed through (I think) a few weeks ago. (I say "FWIW") because Regan might be putting a hi priority on no-false-accusations, so this is not necessarily a bill of clean health)

[Reginald]

Regan clarified that there was nothing whatsoever anomalous in Niemann's play over the board or online in the last two years (since ChessCom last reinstated his account). It was not simply a matter of the evidence not rising to the necessary level of proof.
See this interview with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsEIBzm5msU

[bernard11]

Indeed. The play's the thing.

[Michael P]

Good reference!

[phoqueue]

Here comes the discovery!

[Kleppe]

Admitted cheater takes issue with people calling him a cheater. Simply stunning.

[Sarcastr0]

I’m unconvinced he cheated in any in person games.

Headline for me is grand masters cheat online more than amateurs. In retrospect, should have predicted that.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

You're just haggling over the price.

[Bored Lawyer]

Forgive my ignorance, but how does one cheat at chess? (I mean in an unnoticeable way. Obviously you can sneak back a piece that was captured when your opponent goes to the bathroom, but I would think that would be very obvious.)

[SRG]

Using computer chess programs - which are now much stronger than the best players.

[Currentsitguy]

The same way as you do at Blackjack, with a computer.

[Variant]

In an online game, obviously by using a computer. But you may be asking how one would cheat in an over the board game – in other words, in person.

That’s trickier, but a grandmaster could potentially gain an advantage simply by understanding whether the position they’re in is a good one or not. A remote buzzer of some sort could let them know.

Give Lex Friedman’s recent interview w/ Hikaru a listen for some theories.

[TTT]

This article has a couple of ways people have cheated in over the board chess games.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/in-depth/chess-cheating-drama-what-are-the-different-ways-to-cheat-in-chess/ar-AA11BXU2

[Davedave]

As others have already said, chess computers are better at chess than humans. But to elaborate a little more, very, very good human chess players - which Niemann undoubtedly is, cheating notwithstanding - are able to make use of very, very small amounts of guiding data to gain a significant advantage.

There may be, for example, two positions which appear roughly equal to the player, but one of which the computer assesses to have hidden benefits some way down the line; merely being guided into that line of play can be enough to give a big advantage.

It can of course go beyond that, and there is some suggestion that Niemann was receiving* coded messages with entire moves in, rather than broad strategic guidance.

*You might say he had a 'gut feeling'...

[CJColucci]

Former world champion contender Peter Leko was doing commentary on a chess game. As is common nowadays, a computer evaluation bar scrolled as the game progressed. Suddenly, after a move that seemed innocuous in a balanced position, the evaluation bar showed a won game (with best play, of course) for the side that had just moved.
Once he saw the evaluation, he found the win after about 10 seconds thought, which isn't much for a grandmaster. But, he said, without the computer evaluation he wouldn't have found it because he wouldn't have been looking for a win in a position that, to human eyes, didn't offer one.
For mere mortal players like the rest of us, it's a lot easier to find the solution when presented with a mate in three problem than to find a mate in three when you don't already know it's there.

[Publius_2020]

In addition to the interesting defamation by implication issues, the discovery and motion practice should elicit more details about the statistical models used to assess likely cheating. I'm looking forward to seeing some of that evidence come out.

I've always had an academic interest in the application of mathematical statistics in the burden of proof analysis. Usually that arises in the criminal context. But here, we'll likely see a discussion of the meaning and implications of statistical evidence that something is 3 or 4 (or 5) standard deviations from the mean, and how that plays into whether something is "more likely than not."

[SRG]

Supposedly one piece of evidence is that in a number of games, Niemann played a very lengthy series of moves that was entirely consistent with what the chess engines would have played, but not what humans would have been expected to play.

I suspect that Niemann found a way to communicate with a collaborator who was running an engine, and Carlsen recognised that Niemann's style of play was closer to machine than man.

Interesting question, whether you'd want a more-informed jury or a less-informed jury if you're Carlsen.

[CJColucci]

I forget the details, but in one game a former world champion played a game with a ridiculously high correlation between his human moves and the computer moves. On further analysis, however, it turned out that at key points the moves were forced -- even a human would know the move was the only plausible choice -- and "ordinary" grandmasters would be able to figure them out and play out the forced sequence without computer help.

[lucia_l]

Publius,
Can you expand a little on defamation by implication? I'm not a lawyer, so I'm genuinely curious.

Also on this:

By insisting that the Sinquefield Cup impose enhanced anti-cheating measures after his loss to Niemann, resigning from the tournament immediately thereafter, and then referencing a famous video of a soccer coach refraining from publicly accusing referees of misconduct, Carlsen conveyed a clear and unmistakable message to the public: that Niemann only beat Carlsen because Niemann cheated

I don't view someone insisting on imposition of anti-cheating measures to be a clear and unmistakable message that the other person is cheating. I only see it as a message that someone thinks they might be. And a championship with a money purse is important enough to need certainty about no cheating.
I don't know enough about the allusion to the famous soccer coach incident. Maybe that would convince me that Carlsen is saying Niemann only beat him because Niemann cheated.
I'm also wondering how Niemann can win if he is known to have cheated in the past. I mean.... he already has a reputation of cheating. To some extent the reason people are likely to believe it is that he has supposedly done it in the past. Or at least that's what this article reports.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chess-cheating-hans-niemann-report-magnus-carlsen-11664911524

[Reginald]

As far as Carlen's implication that Niemann was cheating, everyone immediately took his comments that way, and he later confirmed them.

As far as Niemann being a known cheater, his online cheating was not known widely known to the public until after Carlsen's actions.

Probably more importantly, Carlsen was accusing him of cheating over the board, while the cheating that became known was online cheating. As far as reputational and career impacts, the former is vastly more significant than the former.
Several top players are known to have cheated online and that has not hampered their career progressions. Parham Maghsoodloo, for example, is higher-rated than Niemann and previously had account suspended on Lichess for cheating. It has not hampered his career. Carlsen even played him in an over the board game, in spite of his supposed aversion to playing cheaters.

Cheating over the board would be very different, and Carlsen's accusation was effectively an attempt to end this (Nie)man's whole career.

[SRG]

I doubt that this is a Légal trap. Carlsen may resort to the Scandinavian defence.

[questioner7]

Thanks for the clever quip, and for making me aware of the elegant Légal trap.

[BadLib]

It seems that top level over the board matches should

* be closed to spectators,

* be held in barren rooms with an attached bathroom,

* have both the competition room and the bathroom turned into Faraday cages,

* be limited to competitors in the room (judges can communicate by voice and review video from the many high def cameras scattered about the room), all broadcasts delayed by a substantial time (20 minutes),

* have the camera system airgapped and chunks of video for delayed broadcast are transferred by sneakernet,

* have the room searched by multiple parties concurrently and randomly before the match,

* have the competitors searched and scanned before entering the room,

* have detectors for a wide range of radio transmissions,

* have broad range radio frequency jammers within the Farady cages (if the Farady cages are properly constructed, I suspect this is legal with, perhaps some sort of permit).

[Roman Moroni]

* be played in the nude.

This would also probably eliminate any would be complaints about the rule: "no spectators."

[Kleppe]

"be played in the nude"

Considering there have already been allegations of competitors receiving signals via vibrating remote-controlled anal beads, this probably ain't it

[David Nieporent]

There weren't any such allegations. That was a joke on Reddit that for some reason a few amused or confused people took, or pretended to take, as real.

[not me]

It was more than a joke, but it was mere speculation on how one would cheat at OTB chess.

[Roman Moroni]

That would be a very specific "one" who chooses that method rather than just strapping something to your leg (like in casino).

Not that I'm passing judgment on the anal bead method, it just seems potentially more confusing and distracting than putting the receiver pretty much anywhere else on your body. Do the individual beads vibrating mean different things? I wonder if that would be an easy distinction to make under the circumstances.

I have questions. But I'm probably not curious enough to track down the Reddit thread.

[Peter Gerdes]

If you really conduct them inside faraday cages you shouldn't need the rest of the RF precautions. But, if you are really paranoid, you need to worry about things like ultrasonic or low frequency sound.

Still, it's only chess so you probably don't actually need a SCIF. Simple lack of spectators, basic RF scan and a search/pat down should suffice. People aren't going to spend more to cheat than they expect to win.

[Izzy1948]

Hans will have a number of problems succeeding against Carlson.

1) Carlson never named Hans as a cheater. True, that is not dispositive in defamation, since a group can be small enough and someone can be defamed since a member of the group, but it’s not a gimme.

2) To the extent that Hans can establish that he is the one intended, this is sort of like someone defaming a small group of liars, and someone trying hard to establish that he has been defamed because he is also a liar. Hans *has* cheated before, online. Hans admitted he cheated online. I don’t think this approach would go over very well with a jury, and I’m pretty sure Hans’ lawyers are not too stupid to realize this.

3) Finally, to the extent that any of Carlson’s actions can be deemed calling him a cheater, Hans *is* a cheater. He cheated online. He admitted cheating online. Carlson’s actions in withdrawing from a tournament in which he lost to Hans, and then resigning in a later tournament at the first move can hardly be dispositively deemed an assertion that Hans cheated in over the board play as opposed to the cheating that Hans acknowledged he had done online.

It becomes sheer speculation that Carlson is defaming Hans by saying, through non-verbal acts, and wholly ambiguous statements, that Hans cheated over the board.

This is a BS lawsuit. I’d wager 50/50 it gets tossed out on 12(b)(6) or the equivalent in state court.

[David Nieporent]

There is not a single person on the planet who did not understand Carlson to be accusing Hans of cheating in that match. Carlson can use the "My accusation is true" defense. He can use the "Opinion based on disclosed facts" defense. But if he uses the "Actually, I wasn't talking about Carlson," he will be laughed out of court.

[Izzy1948]

All I said was that it wasn't a "gimme."

In any case, one has to prove damages. And seriously, once he admitted to cheating online, and is known as a cheater (and so what if others are?) how much damaged is he by what Magnus said?

What additional increment is there? Seriously.

[not me]

The damages are that he has been disinvited to tournaments and matches, as well as being banned from chess.com.
That the accusations have impacted his ability to make a living as a chess player is the easiest part of his case. Unless Magnus or chess.com can point to another billionaire out there willing to pony up stupid money for a match between him and Magnus, like Bobby Fischer in Yugoslavia.

[David Nieporent]

What additional increment is there? Seriously.

That would be a question for the jury, but I think there's probably a meaningful difference between "I cheated a couple of times in online games as a teenager" and "He cheated in professional tournaments as an adult."

[Peter Gerdes]

I think the issue of opinion is the bigger question. Carlson seems to have be never suggested he had any additional information but was merely drawing inferences based on his stronger play and past history of cheating.

That might be complicated by Carlson's expert status.

[Hugo S. Cunningham]

It has been suggested that experts might determine cheating in a high level game by asking the winner *immediately* after the game to explain the reasoning behind some of his more complex and fruitful moves. IIRC, Neiman was asked some such questions after his win against Carlson, and Carlson thought his answers were suspiciously vague.

[Davedave]

It was rather more than that. There are certain moves that _only_ computers spot - they're too off the wall to be considered by human players, because they only make sense if you can 'see' more moves ahead than even the best players. Niemann has played a few of those, and then tried to brazen it out when asked about them.

There really seems to be very little doubt about whether he was actually cheating or not. Just some questions about what the mechanism was.

[Izzy1948]

Actually, the chess world is split, and there is much doubt. Ken Reagan, who is an International Master (one level below Grandmaster, and a couple of levels below Super Grandmaster [not an official title, but one way of referencing the absolute best Grandmasters in the world]}, and a statistician, subjected the games of Neiman to statistical review, and he determined that one could not, at the appropriate confidence level, say that he had been cheating, although did not exonerate him (this is roughly the statistical equivalent of saying that a “not guilty” verdict is not a finding of innocence).

But Neiman clearly seeks to be the “bad boy” of chess, and so has engendered much antipathy, and chess.com’s analysis said that he had cheated more frequently online there than he had admitted.

[Izzy1948]

These days, Grandmasters are “booked up” (knowing all past opening moves played in major opening lines) and so part of the process is that when they play each other, they prepare improvements on what went before, so as to surprise their opponents who will encounter this first right there at the board, while they will have had a chance to analyze before in the lluxury at home, with a board and with computer analysis. This way they hope to gain an advantage in the opening from which the opponent will have difficulty recovering.

More specifically, in the game vs. Carlson that Carlson lost as White, Carlson played a very rare move early on (“fianchettoing” his king bishop in a Nimzo-Indian opening), and therefore most certainly did not expect Neiman as Black to find clear responses, as if Neiman was fully conversant with the line.

Yet that’s what happened, and Carlson was himself surprised and then was ground down, playing much weaker moves.

When asked after the game to explain how this happened, Neiman was felt by many to give unsatisfactory answers.

Also, Carlson, being the World Chess champion, certainly can sense many things about an opponent he is playing, and clearly he felt that there was something off about the way and mannerisms of Neiman during the game.

[Peter Gerdes]

That's a very bad and dangerous approach. Different people think I'm very different ways and chess players aren't known for being the best communicators.

As a mathematician I know that usually mathematicians can justify their intuitions to each other...but not always. Sometimes someone just comes along who sees the problems differently and not always in a way that can be explained. Given the increasing ability of ppl to practice alone in their rooms with chess computers that's probably only going to happen more.

[SRG]

This seems pretty definitive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfPzUgzrOcQ

[SRG]

Though there's this counterargument:
https://zwischenzug.substack.com/p/did-hans-niemann-cheat

[Reginald]

Yosha's analysis was shown to be nonsense and even he subsequently retracted it.

[MonitorsMost]

If he can figure out who made the claim that he was using a vibrating sex toy hooked to a chess AI to feed him the moves, he might have a decent case against them. But to my knowledge, there’s nothing tying that to Carlsen.

[SRG]

They probably sell them on Amazon...

[Peter Gerdes]

Nah, that will be pure opinion based on public information so they'll be safe. Carlson and chess.com are the only really plausible defendants excepting maybe some internet claims that were done using fishy unpublished analysis.