Chess.com on Niemann ban

Could be. The facts are too sparse. I'm not indulging anything, if you read my posts I've been trying to restore some rationality here. I expect we'll learn the truth in the fullness of time and it's unlikely to be very interesting.

I think the reality is that no matter what any entity publicly states, it will not satisfy everyone. 

Most of us probably didn't even know Neimanns name before any of this happened. Heck, most people can only name a handful of professional chess players. "Bobby Fischer, Magnus Carlsen, and then I think there were some pros from Russia right?" If you haven't risen to pop culture status then you aren't well known. 

In this very narrow timeline and limited scope that I've seen from Neimann I've seen a few red flags that in my mind, will essentially destroy his career. 

1. He cheated. This isn't open to discussion. He admitted it. As such, this will be forever a part of his reputation. In my experience, most people who cheat don't get caught every single time they cheat. So, how many times did he get away with it? Chess.com stating that his cheating was more prolific and more serious than he admitted to is quite serious as well.

2. Reason for cheating in the past, vs complaints now. This is absolutely the worst thing against him in my eyes. In his own statements he said he was cheating to get a higher rating so he could play higher level competition. Even now, during his meteoric rise, he's complaining that he doesn't get invited to enough tournaments because his rating isn't high enough. It's a bad look to cheat for that in the past and then still complain about it in the present when you have the fastest rising rating in the history of chess. When he was informed that he wouldn't get the points for his win in this tournament since Magnus withdrew he responded with something along the line of "but I get the rating points right?" Cringe. 

3. Arrogance. I'm not a fan of anyone who talks trash. Doesn't matter the sport or activity. I like people that handle victory and defeat with grace. Plenty of issues with this in the chess world. Heck, I can't even get a "gg" out of 99% of the people I play online. His public statements haven't been graceful at all, they've made him look worse in my eyes.

He reminds me a little of another American who cheated really successfully for over a decade. He won countless titles and submitted to every "cheat" test that was requested of him. He never got caught and completed dominated. When people accused him of cheating he was so aggressive in his response that it resulted in a huge divide in the community. He destroyed his accusers careers, even taking it as far as suing them for their accusations and winning. I believe it took 20 years before he was finally caught and admitted to the cheating. Even at that point, people still supported him. That was Lance Armstrong. 

I'm not saying that Neimann is on the same level as Armstrong (probably the most prolific and successful known cheater of all time). I'm not even saying that Neimann cheated against Carlsen. What I'm saying is that it can take decades for enough concrete evidence to be put together for a conclusive answer. Even then, people will still be divided on the position. Whether Neimann cheated against Carlsen or not will likely never be known. Moving forward with his career, Neimann will need to rely on his character and professionalism. At the moment, he has a lot to work on and overcome.

Lastly, while we do live in a culture that demands instant gratification, we have to remember that these are matters that require more than thinking one move ahead. You could argue that this is a match without a time limit and we'll need infinite patience to get to the conclusion.

Here is a link offering a perspective as to why youngsters may be treating over the board fair play rules differently to chess hosting sites.

https://youtu.be/1eavQ34zC2M

The clips are of Hikaru Nakamura, Daniel Naroditsky (being alleged by Firouja) and Magnus Carlsen (including one based on pure speculation from the chess community).

I can't stand cheating, but I don't think how to achieve fair play is currently well understood. Scapegoating is definitely the wrong way. These players also have to have fun, just like at the club. I think it fair play implementation needs to be  rather be handled forthrightly and with tact.

I also cancelled my paid membership. 

But in this case, isn't a witch hunt warranted? A witch hunt is the campaign against someone for holding unpopular views. Well, that seems pretty warranted in this case. And what about people who criticized chess.com for what they are doing? Isn't that a witch hunt? 

Isn't it a little hypocritical to be witch hunting witch hunters? I know it's not Halloween yet, so it must be a full moon or something. 

One really big central issue here when it comes to chess.com's actions: Why ban Hans just after Magnus withdrew? Why then? Why that precise moment? We have, so far, no answer whatsoever to this. The chess community deserves an answer to this, because we want to trust the integrity of chess institutions,  and because we want to see that the people who play chess at the highest level for our entertainment and are vulnerable because of that spotlight, are treated fairly. At the moment, without an answer to this question of the timing of the ban on Hans, many of us obviously have serious concerns about the fairness and appropriateness of chess.com's process.

They actually addressed that directly in their statement. They didn't ban him just after Magnus withdrew. They banned him after he lied publicly about the amount and seriousness of his cheating. 

Did you listen to what Hans said? (his long STL interview)

chess.com had to tell publicly why they banned him after the ban, because people started to criticize their action.

Sounds more like an excuse to me.

That's a long interview, did something specific stand out to you?

Let's not forget that chess.com contacted him privately about the matter. He has a history of cheating, has an unprecedented rise in rating, and then gets into a strange situation at an OTB tournament. It would make sense for them to respond in some way, especially if they have knowledge on how much cheating he has done. Instead of trying to ruin him publicly, they were private about the matter. 

Hans then chose to bring chess.com into the public eye. Where he both admits to cheating, and apparently, lies publicly about how much cheating he has done as well as how serious the cheating scenarios were. Chess.com kept quiet for several days while he raged and people went crazy about it. Sooner or later they had to respond because he made it public. 

In my eyes they did the right thing, they tried to handle the situation privately, like they did previously when he cheated. Instead, he blew it up into a public thing and it sounds like he has actually made it a lot worse and finds himself caught in a lie. A lie which just so happens to be about cheating. He's digging his own grave.

Chess.com seems to have made a very calculated response, the kind of response you should expect from a large company that isn't interested in being caught up in the drama. I seriously doubt they posted some slanderous comment that they can't back up. They'd be sued for an obscene amount of money for that. I see it more as a "Hey, stop running your mouth and be a professional" kind of warning as opposed to being a "witch hunt" as so many people call it. 

I still don't know if he cheated or not. Magnus could legitimately just have been cocky and lost because of it. I somehow doubt that since he is aiming for 2900. However, Hans has done a great job of repeatedly damaging his reputation every few years since he was 12. That's not really up for debate in my mind, that's just a fact. 

Yes they banned him right after Magnus withdrew apparently. This after he was caught cheating years back, banned, then he apologised, and was allowed back. Only after this rebanning after the earlier unbanning that Hans spoke about it on the interview to Ramirez, and Danny's response was only after THAT.

It seems like chess dot com may have actually been sitting on further evidence of cheating all these months, taking no action, even allowing Hans to play on their site in prize money events and think all was fine, and the moment Magnus withdrew, chess dot com dug up these old stats to brandish on Hans' face as a pretext to ban him again, this time possibly for good because Magnus is expected to participate increasingly on chess dot com and lord forbid if he gets matched up against Hans.

Whatever happened to the "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"? 

Of course chess.com has it's faults. But lets not forget it's a PRIVATE company. Imagine you were running a small business, or even a large one. And you had a customer/vendor/client/associate that was running afoul of the rules. There may be incentive to keep them on, but if the balance shifts and the evidence starts to warrant it, wouldn't it make sense to distance yourself from this liability?

Even if Hans did nothing, do they still not retain the right to limit or even eliminate his participation here?

The room is filled with righteous indignation. Refusing to renew a membership or cancelling a current one takes such courage. “I for one refuse to pay $0.25 a day as a protest!” So happy there are such brave souls amongst us. 

This is what you get in the age of Twitter activism, self-entitlement and citizens of wealthy countries without any real problems. The amount of people who think they're "owed" an explanation here is astounding. I will be keeping my membership going as long as I enjoy the features here. They can ban Magnus too for all I care.

I hear your point about the timing, but if your basing your whole statement on "keeping the integrity of the game" etc, then why even allow him back at all? He openly admitted to cheating twice. Clearly states in the fairplay rules if your caught cheating and your accounts closed, you can apply ONE time explaining how u cheated and promising to never do it again, he did that, got a new account, cheated again, and was banned again. According to chess.coms fairplay rules, thats it, thats all the chances you get, supposedky for what you just mentioned the integrity of the game, but he was theb let back again. And then liie u said chess.com released that statement alluding that hes kying about the timing and seriousness of his cheating (the unverified story foing around is he was caught cheating MUCH more recently in a prize fund competetion, again, unverified but that seems to be what chess.com is alluding to, however they cannot publicly state this person cheated at such and such a date in such a such game, thats a violation of your privacy promised in your rights section of the user agreement, so everyone wanting chess.com to do that is asking for something they cant legally do according to their site. My biggest issues on the whole thing is idc who its is, hans, magnus, or leanardo dicaprio, EVERYONE shoukd be treated equally meaning he had his two chances, violated them both, you think if a 100 elo nobody gets banned twice they would allow them back? No way, and they even said in that statement they were open to communicating with hans to bring him back, that would be his 4th chance. Thats absurd no matter who it is, so if your taking issue with all of this over solely the "integrity" of the game, that shios long sailed, this site is all about monetary gain. If they couldnt makr money off of him ,or anyone for that matter, no1 else would be alloted 3 or even potentially 4 chances. You certianley wouldnt be, and neither the 25k people whose accounts were closed last month. However since hes a higher level player who ESPECIALLY now, is in the news alot, they stand to make money off having him on their platform, so shocker, an olive branch was offered(in the same statement they alluded that he was lying in his statements on his cheating and stated that they were removing him from the platform, yet they were open to discussing the issue with hans sonhe could be invited back, for a 4th time....

Well said.

"People with no clue doing an act of no consequence"

I refuse to renew my subscription on this site also after being a member for a few years now. I simply cannot condone chess.com breaking their own policies (in regards to more chances than one after cheating was proven and admitted to), and then re-enforcing them at this time, right after Hans beats a guy who's company they recently purchased. Btw, in a game that has nothing to do with online activity. It's simply not a consistent policy so that's a deal breaker. The Chessbae affair was also distasteful.

Ordinary users aren't given a second chance if the algorithm flags you for cheating & you're banned, but it seems titled players are on a special "list" where they (and their online cheating, which some GMs say is actually far larger than commonly known) are subject to more arbitrary "rules" and every effort made to retain them on the site by giving them multiple chances & perhaps even overlooking some red flags, who knows. Nepotism and oligarchic tendencies.

This would be less of a concern going forward if chess dot com had not established an effective monopoly on online chess in the entire world by their recent acquisitions. Since they're now virtually the only motel in town, their exact rules and judgements matter a lot for the integrity of online chess.

Fair points @SantoshWildlifeArt

Suspend Magnus over an incident in a tournament that has nothing to do with Chess.com? Seems logical and not an emotionally driven comment.