Hans Niemann latest performance

A lot.

I was talking to my cousin once about a small claims court case...she's a lawyer that sometimes made $1 million commissions on her individual cases (before becoming partner and getting a direct share). I was telling her about a turn in the case, and she said "well, if that does happen, the judge can issue an injunction...", and I told her "it's small claims, I thought the judge could not issue injunctions?", to which she said "you're right, sorry, been a long time since law school".

Point being...people can have knowledge/expertise and apply it without having a rubber stamped certificate. Having said that...it has to be actual knowledge/expertise, not someone who watched Law and Order.

Oh yeah? I just called my best friend from high school. His friend's brother's uncle is a lawyer who makes $89,000,000 a year. He said that your cousin is completely wrong. Sorry bro.

It seems I just received a text message...

- First, you weren't able to follow the example correctly, since my cousin was already wrong in the events that took place.

- Second, it's not a fallacious call to authority if I am the one who had the knowledge. In other words, since I wasn't "escalating", your further escalation doesn't actually mean anything.

Example:

"I showed my sister how to make her cherry pie crust flakier, and she is a good cook."

"Well, my mom made 69,000 cherry pies!!!!1!!"

See how that doesn't work/actually address the point?

"Bro" seems about right for your argument, though.

he's back.

Update: Niemann has lost a remarkable 48 points on his standard rating between May and August. I believe this is unusual, to say the least.

At that rate he'll be a solid class A in 4 years. Just doing the math.

Can you quantify how unusual it is?

Good question. I said "I believe" because it was just an impression - I did not recall having seen a decline like this and am familiar with how slowly FIDE ratings tend to move - the calculation is way less responsive to results than chess.com's rating system.

I have not done proper data analysis, but I have just looked at the 10 players directly above and the 10 player directly below Niemann on the FIDE rating list and can't see a decline of this much in 3 months anywhere on any of their graphs for standard time control chess. I did spot one that was close - a 3 month decline of 42 in 2009.

But this is still just an informal comparison done by reading data off the graphs manually - perhaps someone else can find an example?

If Hans is in bad form his rating will swing much more quickly than other players because of how many games he plays. He is by far the most active player in elite level chess. I looked at the top 100 players in the world: over the last 3 months Hans played 89 classical games while the next closest played 40.

Here is a graph I made of world ranking vs number of classical games played over the last 3 months:

It is true that high frequency of play means a change in standard of play is reflected in rating more rapidly. With Niemann's K of 10 (same as all players who have reached 2400) he loses 5 rating points for a game against someone of equal rating. That means he has lost the equivalent of 9.6 more games against players of equal rating in the last 3 months than someone of his average rating over that period (~2684) would be expected to, regardless of the number of games played. 9.6 is a smaller fraction of 89 than it is of a smaller number, but it is still a strikingly large number, given that most games at this level are draws. Any Elo calculator suggests his rating performance over the period must be around 2645, 63 points lower than his peak. So a significant change but not gargantuan.

I acknowledge there are multiple reasons for a drop in standard of play, even a substantial one (for the class of player).

A few months ago, he was playing really poorly and actually dropped to around 2648 on the live rating list, but has turned it around and played better for the past month or so.

For what it's worth, lots of top players say it's difficult to maintain your rating at open events, which is all Hans has been playing for the past year. Hans said on his stream that he has only played one player higher rated than him this year, which is a remarkable statistic, if true.

Good comeback, and only 4 months later...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chess-prodigy-accused-cheating-vibrating-022055756.html

Hans is the GOAT

Sorry, I genuinely don't see what point you are trying to make. That probably means some others don't either, so it would be useful to be explicit.

[On reflection, although you failed to mention him, since this is a forum about Niemann could it be that you are asserting that Niemann has lost rating points because he has been playing "very low rated people"?]

My games were all in big national matches where I had no choice about who to play when my rating spiked (sadly very much helped by the transgressions of my opponents). Their ratings can be read from the record.

Your point that playing in open events could make it difficult to maintain a very high rating may be true - while the Elo system is designed to work well for any rating difference, it is likely that it's a matter of needing to play top competition to stay at peak sharpness.

This is an interesting loss in a 2023 open against a 13 or 14 year old Uzbek. Niemann had a good advantage in the early middlegame but collapsed thereafter.