The American Chess Brat

“It is an unfortunate loss, but the chess spoke for itself.” The soundtrack music from the film Inception was now growing behind Hans. “I assure you, victory is inevitable. I could’ve forced a draw and I could’ve won the tournament, but I believe in fighting until the death. I might have lost this game, I might have lost the battle, but I have not lost the war.”

Hans Moke Niemann is the single most polarizing figure in chess today. A lightning rod in the gaming community. An American driven by rage and resentment and purpose (and humor). A troll of immense, literally trollish proportions. A villain. A great villain. Chess hasn’t had this great a villain since “the Day the Computer Won,” when IBM’s Deep Blue beat Kasparov in ‘97.

The 21-year old Bay Area native, who once drew comparisons to the star character in the Netflix hit series The Queen’s Gambit, had recently achieved the highest rating of his career—2711—when he was accused, again, of cheating, this time on July 21 after dominating the Chinese grandmaster (GM) Yu Yangyi in Turkish Super League play.

Niemann hadn’t blundered a single step as he gracefully hopped his king across the board before comfortably settling in behind Yangyi’s own king. The third best player in all of China saw the writing on the wall and resigned. The flamboyant young American had struck again.

It was the sort of aggressive brilliance that has come to mark Niemann’s games and the kind of arrogant showmanship that has prompted questions from his disbelievers. Had Niemann been aided in his stunning offensive?

Though this time there were no accusations of a vibrating cheating device, organizers quickly decided they would forgo broadcasting Niemann’s remaining games during the two-week competition. And though organizers refused to publicly accuse Niemann of angling the match, the timing of their decision laid bare what they thought of Niemann’s brilliant king march against Yangyi—that he had been assisted.

It was hard to fault league officials for their concerns. Niemann had admitted to cheating in the past, twice formally when he was a teenager. The gaming hub Chess.com, prompted by Niemann’s stunning victories over the world’s best, had shared more than 100 instances with the Wall Street Journal in which they alleged Niemann cheated over a 5-year period.

The mudslinging began after Niemann’s two shocking defeats of Norwegian GM Magnus Carlsen, the top ranked player in the world—with the black pieces no less—electrified the chess community in the 2022 summer season. 

Niemann first conquered Carlsen with the black pieces in the first of four games played at the FTX Crypto Cup in Miami, Florida. Though Carlsen would go on to win the next three, it was the first that caught everyone’s eye. Carlsen could be seen quickly motoring away from the event as Niemann was asked how he would summarize his “masterpiece” performance.

“The chess speaks for itself,” Niemann said flatly before turning his back and walking away. The reporter asked a second, hopeless question but Niemann was gone. The studio panel broke out into laughter. “He’s such a character!” roared one commentator. “I wasn’t expecting that,” noted another. 

The brief clip spoke earnestly to newly-minted fans, many of whom were young and had fallen in love with the game via YouTube. The newfound energy in the space resulted in a pandemic-era chess boom, reinvigorating an interest in the game not expressed by the public in half a century. As people sought interior distractions from their exterior realities, the chess universe expanded like never before and players suddenly became internet personalities. 

Armed with the linguistics (and memes) of the internet age, this junior generation of online chess fans were a different breed from the stereotypically bookish types who routinely dominated the space. Niemann’s play style and his ”brat” energy speak sincerely to many of them. His short, blunt assessment of the “chess speaking for itself” that day in Miami was as much a cynical dig toward the chess establishment as it was an open appeal to the anti-hero, the sort of rebellious character that has resurfaced repeatedly in American chess lore.

And then came the $350,000 Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis two months later.

Niemann won again with the black pieces. He smoked Carlsen. Top players and fans alike couldn’t believe what they had seen. In his post-match interview, Niemann was predictably catty, suggesting Carlsen “must be embarrassed to lose to me.” Niemann’s provocative claim that he had recently studied a rare opening that Carlsen uncharacteristically played that day did nothing to squash suspicions of players and commentators who thought Niemann somehow rigged the game.

The rival American GM Hikaru Nakamura was incensed as he watched Niemann struggle to analyze his move choices. The charges against Niemann grew so loud at one point that the trash-talking American said he would “strip naked” to prove he wasn’t using a cheating device to aid his games. 

A lawsuit followed. Niemann filed a $100 million defamation suit against Carlsen, Nakamura, the Play Magnus Group, and online chess hub Chess.com in October of 2022. The suit was eventually dismissed by a U.S. judge in June of 2023. With a nod to the future, Carlsen agreed to play Niemann should the pair meet in the future and Chess.com announced it settled with Niemann and would reinstate him to its platform immediately. 

Everything calmed down—for a bit. 

Niemann went to work, declaring he’d document his journey to become the #1 chess player in the world. “Laugh at me now and keep laughing,” Niemann proclaimed. “Eventually, you’ll not be laughing and my chess will silence you.”

Niemann has stayed true to his promise, uploading a daily vlog as he steadily climbs the chess rankings. In May, Niemann crested 2700, considered the super-elite threshold in the chess world. The score propelled him into the top 30 players in the world for the first time in his career.

Nieman’s ascent has not been without its pitfalls. In February, he was banned for a year by the prestigious Saint Louis Chess Club as punishment for destroying a hotel room and making disparaging comments about other players.

“How much does it cost to replace two glass frames?” Niemann queried. “This 100-year-old couch — no offense to this hotel, but it’s not exactly high-class furniture.”

Niemann was billed a $5,000 fee by the hotel and banned for life. The St. Louis Chess Club felt its hand had been forced. Niemann wouldn’t be permitted in another sanctioned event by the club for the rest of 2024, a ruling Niemann calculated would cost him nearly $100,000 in potential prize money. 

In typical braggadocious fashion, the Californian derided the decision as “absolutely ridiculous” in a 20-minute video response accusing the St. Louis Chess Club of holding a years-long grudge against him.

Yet none of the myriad of controversies that have graced Niemnan’s door have slowed his charge up the rankings. After a string of sterling July performances in the Turkish Super League, Niemann bowled over the French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the Speed Chess Championship, setting himself on a collision course with Carlsen should both men advance to the next round of play. 

It would be the sort of bright light, big aura rivalry match not seen in the world of chess in decades. A classic battle between the stoic and the ostentatious, a blood feud the likes of which has not been seen since the heyday of another American enfant terrible and Niemann’s idol, Bobby Fischer.

“I accept and I encourage any further attacks on my career and life,” Niemann told New York Magazine in May. “By trying to destroy me, you know, someone who is so innocent, it only destroys themselves from within. So I hope that they continue. Because they’re just feeding the monster.”

It was the first day of August and Niemann’s mind was anywhere but chess. Boasting the highest ranking of his career and a win away from a rematch with his greatest rival, Niemann shared a moonlight video from the basketball court. Not a day off, not a moment’s rest. 

“Asserting dominance in every realm,” read the caption. 

Niemann coasted into the lane and scored a contested layup. The summit had never seemed closer.

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