Hans Moke Niemann, the 19-year-old American grandmaster at the center of an alleged cheating scandal that has pulsed drama through the chess world, has made his next move: He sued world champion Magnus Carlsen and others seeking $100 million in damages.
The federal lawsuit, filed in the Eastern Missouri District Court, says that Carlsen, Chess.com and others, including grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, are “colluding to blacklist” Niemann from the chess world and have made defamatory statements accusing Niemann of cheating. Niemann is seeking damages of no less than $100 million in the suit, which said that tournament organizers have shunned him since the allegations emerged.
“This is not a game,” Niemann’s lawyers, Terrence Oved and Darren Oved, said in a statement. “Defendants have destroyed Niemann’s life simply because he had the talent, dedication and audacity to defeat the so-called ‘King of Chess.’ We will hold defendants fully accountable and expose the truth.”
Chess.com chief chess officer Danny Rensch didn’t have an immediate comment. Chess.com has previously said that it did not communicate with Carlsen about its decisions relating to Niemann. A spokesman for Carlsen didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Nakamura, while streaming on Twitch, said he didn’t have a comment.
At the heart of Niemann’s suit are the financial relationships between Chess.com, Carlsen and other power players in the industry. The complaint alleged that Chess.com colluded with Carlsen because the company is buying Carlsen’s “Play Magnus” app for nearly $83 million in a merger that will “monopolize the chess world.” The planned acquisition was first announced in August.
Niemann accused the defendants, which also include Play Magnus and Rensch, of slander, libel, an unlawful boycott and tortious interference with Niemann’s business.
‘This is not a game,’ Niemann’s lawyers, Terrence Oved and Darren Oved, said in a statement.
Photo:
Oved & Oved LLP
Niemann’s legal action is his most aggressive maneuver since the controversy first erupted in early September at a prestigious tournament in St. Louis when Niemann stunningly upset Carlsen. After the game, Carlsen abruptly withdrew from the tournament—an action that was widely interpreted as a sign of protest. In another event a few weeks later, Carlsen resigned a game against Niemann after making just one move.
Shortly thereafter, the five-time world champion from Norway confirmed everyone’s suspicions. In a statement, Carlsen said that he believes “Niemann has cheated more—and more recently—than he has publicly admitted.”
As the scandal engulfed the Sinquefield Cup, the tournament in St. Louis, Niemann offered a defense. He admitted to cheating in limited circumstances online when he was 12 and 16 years old, and said they were the biggest mistakes of his life. He said the only instance he cheated when there was money on the line was when he was 12, and that he never cheated during in-person games.
However, an investigation by Chess.com, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, contradicted Niemann and indicated the breadth of his fairplay violations was greater then he had let on. The report said Niemann had likely cheated in more than 100 games, including as a 17-year-old and in other events with money on the line, and that Niemann had privately admitted to violating the rules when he was banned from the site in 2020.
The report didn’t make any conclusions about whether Niemann has cheated in person, as the platform doesn’t police over-the-board events, but it flagged certain events where it said his play merited further investigation.
Niemann’s lawsuit takes aim at that report, which it said Chess.com “maliciously leaked to The Wall Street Journal to fuel the spectacle of Carlsen’s cheating allegations” before Niemann’s participation in the U.S. Chess Championship. The lawsuit denied that Niemann ever confessed to the cheating allegations and said that its findings about the extent of Niemann’s cheating is false.
After Carlsen withdrew from the Sinquefield Cup, Chess.com removed Niemann from its Chess.com Global Championship, a tournament with $1 million in prize money.
Chess.com said in the report that while Carlsen’s actions at the Sinquefield Cup prompted it to reassess Niemann’s behavior, Carlsen “didn’t talk with, ask for, or directly influence Chess.com’s decisions at all.”
The lawsuit further alleged that the parties worked with powerful influencers to amplify the allegations against Niemann. In particular, it names Hikaru Nakamura, a top American grandmaster who has gained extraordinary popularity by streaming chess content. The suit calls Nakamura “Chess.com’s most influential streaming partner” and accused him of “acting in collusion with Carlsen and Chess.com, published hours of video content amplifying and attempting to bolster Carlsen’s false cheating allegations against Niemann.”
Because of the cheating allegations, the complaint said, one tournament that Niemann was making arrangements to play in ceased communications with him. It also said that another grandmaster canceled an upcoming match against him and that Niemann can’t obtain employment as a chess teacher at a reputable school.
Write to Andrew Beaton at andrew.beaton@wsj.com and Joshua Robinson at Joshua.Robinson@wsj.com
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