Do you think Hans Is cheating?

Absolutlely not.

It's fairly easy to see Hans wasn't cheating and his interview backs that up. Magnus was obviously disappointed for one of the few times where he was on the receiving end of being completely outplayed in an ending, when he is usually the one playing those high quality endings to beat his opponents.

No, it doesn't.  That's a myth.

I don't know but this didn't need a new thread.

When he does, then it will be newsworthy.  Right now it's just posturing.

That's not what he said. In any case, he's doing what a statement analyst would call "storytelling". He's constructed this narrative about being only 12 when he cheated in order to diminish responsibility.

Correct. It's reminiscent of when Lance Armstrong said he was going to arrange his own stringent drug testing and make the results public but it didn't happen. I don't know if Niemann is guilty but I don't like what I am seeing from him personality wise.

Understandable.  I fall the other way: I tend not to believe what people say until I can see it in their actions.  That is especially so with highly abnormal results.  I do not know if he cheated or not, but given how out of the norm his recent results have been, if I had to put money on it, I would put it on something funny is going on (what that is, I have no clue).

I do agree it will all resolve itself in time.

As an aside, I will say that I have been highly critical of chess.com's fair play practices (and LiChess's for that matter) as both are insanely silly.  I have seen kids cheat online for years and never have their accounts banned, and some people who get banned because they played too well, legitimately.  And if you ever look at the source code for LiChess's cheat detection, it is pathetically stupid.  So, while he has been banned on chess.com at least twice and at least once on LiChess, that alone would not be enough to raise suspicion, in my opinion.  However, combine that with an unusual set of performances over the last 18 months, and with the odd post-game analysis, and it starts to look very odd.

This isn't new. Paranoid genius chess player (in this case someone who many consider to be the G.O.A.T), suspects something dodgy is going on with his opponent's play. It wreaks of the days Bobby Fischer against all of the top Russian players. Bobby had a level of paranoia way beyond anything we have ever seen from Magnus.

If Magnus is as big of a competitor as I think he is, he will use this as motivation for payback. If Hans really didn't cheat and has gotten that much stronger, we will only know the truth of this over time. He'll need to sustain this level of play over the next few years, or just dip right back into the 2600s, never to be spoken of very much again. Right now there seems to be no actual evidence of cheating and at the same time, Han's sample size of games against top level players (since this incident), is too small -- all of his games from now on will be under the microscope I'm sure. On the other hand, if Han's really was cheating, I think it will eventually get exposed. Once someone cheats, the likelihood of whether or not they will cheat again is a MUCH higher probability than for a person who has never cheated... no matter how old they were at the time! Hans already got caught and now admitted to cheating in the past (only 3 years ago). So if he did cheat.

The only way he (Hans) is going to get out of this mess he's in (a mess of course created by Magnus' withdraw and tweet), will be his continued strong 2700 level play, over many more games against the top 50 players

The bad thing about this is that if Hans goes on to have a wonderful 20+ year career. Someone will say "back in 2022 he was accused of cheating." If Carlsen come out and says he overreacted. Carlsen will be accused of trying to ruin Hans career. Lose-Lose situation!

It's an unfair situation, there are people who will decide he's guilty either way (protesting or not).

Bottom line is we (the general public) don't have any good information, so we'll have to wait and see.

Alright, so here is what you guys don't understand:

It is not difficult to bypass the anti-cheating measures, both Daniel Naroditsky and Nikita Vitiugov stated. The big cheating scandal was not triggered by Magnus Carlsen, however, but mainly by Hikaru Nakamura's live streams. This does not necessarily mean that Nakamura is to blame; he only interpreted Magnus Carlsens tweet.

Either Hans Niemann is not cheating, or he is betting everything on not being discovered. What is strange, however, is that Hans Niemann has been completely lost at several points in all games since the streaming delay. You don't need an engine to cheat, but maybe just a team that dictates good or logical moves. The Eastern-European-like accent is also funny, considering which players are currently active and which are not. And I'm not saying that Sergey Karjakin or any other Russian player is dictating all the moves to Hans Niemann from somewhere in Moscow. He could simply have worked with or been coached by Russian players. Ian Nepomniatchi's interview would support that because he would probably have known about it. If that is the case, he would probably change federations as soon as possible. He is also a good player. You would only have to tell him if he looks at the correct piece to move, for example. This would also be possible with a non-verbal signal. He also played his "preparation" very slowly. 

Magnus Carlsen's tweet, however, might not have been intended offensively. Since the members of his team don't know anymore either, he likely had a personal problem with the organizers. He could also just have Corona or a family problem. There are also such things as confidentiality agreements. After all, Magnus Carlsen is still the face of the PlayMagnus cooperation which is being sold right now. Especially at this time, a company cannot afford to have a marketing problem. So if Magnus Carlsen had a terminal illness, for example, practically the value of the company would also drop. Besides, if anything else were the case, he would have spoken up or simply said nothing at all. If anything of the sort is the case, the victim is not Hans Niemann but Magnus Carlsen. Imagine you had a serious problem and everyone expected you to apologize over some petty internet drama.

We can pretty much assume that Magnus Carlsen is probably tied to a contract right now. Moreover, we know that he strictly separates his private life from his chess career, for example as far as his girlfriend is concerned. Moreover, he does not even have to be tied down by his companies, but also by the tournament. The players had to sign contracts – we know that to be a well-established fact. If it became clear that one could leave the tournament so easily, the tournament would of course have a problem. So no matter how big Magnus Carlsen's problem is, he shouldn't say anything.

If Magnus Carlsen thought Hans was cheating, he wouldn't have left the tournament. Both Laurent Fressinet and Jan Gustafsson knew nothing more about the affair than anyone else, even though they are on Magnus Carlsen's team. But who we haven't heard from yet are Daniil Dubov and Jorden van Foreest. It is possible that Daniil Dubov or other Russian players worked with Hans Niemann although this is merely a speculation. If Hans Niemann then prepared for a sideline that Magnus Carlsen's team may have prepared in the past, I would be at least suspicious if I were Magnus Carlsen. The story with the accent underlines such a theory.

Without any insights it's hard to evaluate the outcome – on and off the board.

I certainly hope he is cheating, since I have immense respect for both Magnus and chess.com, and if Hans turns out to be clean this will be a total disaster for both.

Yes I know he hasn't said anything, that's the bloody point; that he is travelling isn't a reason for that, he could grab his cellphone and take a minute to tweet something dispelling the acusations if he indeed didn't intend it to be the case.

As for how Magnus could have handled the situation, he could have privatly asked FIDE to look into the matter, making a tacit accusation online only incited a witch hunt. As for your last bullet point, because he's destroying the career of a peer. If Hans is clean, he would also come out in a good stance having distanced himself from any accusation in an explicit manner.

Niemann cannot "come out in a good stance".  That's just reality.  At best, he will get a lot increased scrutiny going forward.

Ummm...the Russian conspiracy theories are just silly.  Apply Occam's Razor.

A member of Carlsen's team could have tipped his hand in advance, but if so it's highly unlikely to be tied to some national federation's plans.  I will say this, though:  If the prep was leaked, that would still be cheating for Niemann to accept the information.

By 'he' I meant Magnus Carlsen. 

Ok , "Hans" was the closet proper name and in the same sentence, thus my confusion.