Biggest SCANDAL In Chess History

Biggest SCANDAL In Chess History

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0:00 Intro
0:30 Magnus/Hans Story
5:00 Game 1
5:55 Game 2
8:49 Game 3
16:25 Hans

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42 Responses

  1. George Foreman says:

    Your persona feels fake. Pretty sure you’re just another arrogant Brooklyn jew in real life

  2. GukGukNinja says:

    Clearly the engine is inside the pieces, because chess speaks for itself.

  3. Robbie Bay says:

    I believe that Magnus’ prep may have gotten leaked or somehow bugged. Magnus probably left because he could not completely trust the team.

    • Eragon7 says:

      @Sevets I think you are slightly missunderstanding how prep works.

      The reason you prep multiple lines is because you DONT know what your opponent will play. You need to be prepared for multiple possible variations of whatever opening you go for.

      For example, if you prep a 25 move line, and then your opponent plays a different move than you expected on move 4, then what do you do? You have to have prep for that variation as well. Or any possible variation that may come out of that opening, you have to have at least some plan for it.

      But the thing is you still have your MAIN prep lines. The ideal lines to play if your opponent gives you the ideal moves. If your opponent knows your prep, they can PURPOSELY play into those lines, so you will play what you prepped against them, which they already know youre going to do. The advantage of this is that by the time you get to the end of your preparation, theyre just getting to the START of theirs, beause they already knew the handful of variations that would result in playing into your own prep. So they can go MUCH deeper into variations on specifically that one prep line you wanted rather than having to try and figure out what you might play in any given situation. They already know what lines youre going to play if they were to do a certain move because thats the whole point of prep.

      Also, Hans is only 2700 as of VERY recently. He has been banned twice for cheating in the past, and he has gained nearly 100 Elo in a pretty short time period. This is VERY VERY fast growth for someone of this level. Now, its definitely not unheard of, its just a rare thing to happen. But when you add all these weird coincidences together, its just very suspicious.

      I think a lot of people might be less suspicious if this guy didnt have a history of cheating, but unfortunately, when you have a history of breaking the rules, you cant be surprised when people seem to question your miraculous rapid improvement.

      What he did is definitely not impossible. Stuff like this has happened legitimately in the past. Its just a lot of small things that seem very weird and add a lot of suspicion to this result, and it doesnt look good on a known past cheater.

      But maybe he is legit. Maybe he did cheat. We dont know. Thats why no pros are actually claiming for sure that he did cheat. They dont know. Thats also why nothing official has been done either, we dont know. Nobody is saying to punish him for cheating without better evidence. All people are saying is that the evidence we do have seems quite suspicious and he definitely COULD be a potential cheater. Its something to keep a close eye on.

      But part of determining if he is a cheater or not would also be to determine HOW he cheated. Knowing that can provide more insight on where to look for evidence of foul play if we want to try and figure out if he cheated or not. So having ideas is helpful.

    • Andresi says:

      @Allan Marks Its just an inside man on magnus team who leaks it… in tournaments he has a group of 4-6 other chess players to help prepare. I think if you go to his youtube channel, he recently added another member to the team, and these corruption conspiracies comes right after he joins? I think the new guy is the mole.

    • Just Adult says:

      this isnt Hans’ problem tho. Also anything that happens before the game isnt scandal worthy

    • Sevets says:

      ​@Eragon7 man, I’m no grandmaster myself, but with some knowledge from hikaru’s and levi’s recaps and simple logic it’s clear that super grandmaster prep includes at least a dosen of different openings and hundreds of variations. Also it’s not uncommon that a player switches the opening right before the game or going for a different sideline, so you cant just memorize one variation and call it a day, you must learn at least the whole opening you anticipate to be played with all possible sidelines and your overprep on top of that.

      Secondly, lets dont forget that Hanz is actually a 2700 level player rapidly gaining rating, so he’s not far behind the top 10-20 players, and no one is shocked when Caruana, Nepo, Maxim or other top players unleash 20-25+ moves of prep of a very obscure and almost never played line and their opponent actually knows the whole line.

      And last but not least, I dont think that the leaked prep is that devastating because of counter prep but rather because it’s very hard nowadays to find a line which is both challenging and not well known

    • ashtonal says:

      A mole in Magnus’s team. Dubov will become – ab nauseam – the primary suspect

  4. David Robertson says:

    Here’s my take – I’m betting Magnus and his inner circle have had suspicions since the FTX Crypto Cup (possibly before), specifically his game against Hans. The cheating would’ve involved the leak of prep, not computer assistance, which would be nearly impossible to get away with. He decided to test this theory this time by preparing an obscure line he had never played before, and his suspicions were confirmed.

    He subsequently withdrew from the tournament, not out of saltiness from losing to Hans, but because he now knew with near certainty that there was a leak within this camp (and who’s to say that the leaker hadn’t leaked to others as well?).

    Everyone is focusing on Hans in all of this, but to me, the drastic reaction by Magnus is more indicative of an ongoing betrayal by someone he trusted rather than just being enraged at having been cheated by Hans. As others have pointed out, if Magnus suspected that Hans had computer assistance then there is no upside to withdrawing as he’d never be able to prove it. The only reason to do so is because he believes there is a continuing possibility of losing to others that have received his prep.

    Then there is the issue of the post-game interviews. There are a lot of people that I think are dismissing them as having no evidentiary value, but I think there are just too many red flags (of course, none of them rising to the level of “proof”). The attention that has been given to him miscalculating lines when challenged by Alejandro Ramirez I think is misplaced – I think that is much more likely due to him being rattled by feeling the heat of suspicion rather than him being a ~2400 player playing at a 2800 level because of computer assistance.

    Ironically, the scenario that I think is most likely is that Hans has actually made huge strides in his chess game lately, but was overcome by the temptation of the opportunity to look at Magnus’s prep. The truly damning thing that I think he said (again, not proof, but as close to a smoking gun as you’ll get) was his comment that “by some miracle” he had looked at that exact line before the game by chance. This is something you often see in guilty people – they know that they’re guilty, and because they know that, they think they need to address every possible avenue of questioning as soon as possible to establish their alibi/narrative, when in reality they never needed to even broach the topic as it only looks more suspicious.

    All the other weird behaviors are probably due to him crumbling under the heat – the accent, the rambling, oversupplying information/providing unprompted justifications, miscalculating lines, etc.

    But, I think the big takeaway is that from Magnus’s perspective this is not a Hans issue but an issue with his team. Only scenario that I think fits the facts. Hans’ nervous behavior, in combination with the actions that Magnus has taken certainly amounts to a preponderance of evidence for me. The idea that Magnus is just salty about losing to Hans doesn’t have any credibility with me, sure he has an ego, but it doesn’t fit the larger established pattern of his behavior.

    • Kyle Specter says:

      He wasn’t nervous during the interview. He humble bragged until he had to analyse. And he analysed very poorly. No GM would make those mistakes he made,let alone a 2700 player.

      THAT’S the convincing event.

    • Kristian Basile says:

      @Adarsh Shankar Rai Yeah that’s just being smart, not cheating. If you got the answers to tomorrow’s test and didn’t use it then you just wasted an advantage. The entire point of prep is to prepare the lines your opponent will play. You still got to memorise it all. That’s different from using the engine whilst playing the game.

    • Barry Weaver says:

      Nah Magnus is a spoiled brat. A chess genius sure, but a brat LOL.

    • Vinicius R Silva says:

      The only problem is that team magnus are together almost 10 years, I dont think anyone would leak his prep. Seems to me that some kind of hack happen, and Magnus withdrawn after notice that.

  5. Abraham says:

    this is a good, levelheaded response from Levy. nearly every twitch streamer i saw today was crucifying Hans and dissecting every little thing he’s ever done — it’s an unfortunate situation and it may very well turn out be true, but it’s refreshing to see someone just give the facts of the matter and not jump to any attacks or further drama-baiting.

  6. xeno says:

    I think that Magnus may have withdrawn due to a prep leak. As said in the video, I don’t think that Magnus would simply withdraw because he lost the game. In the post game interview, Hans said, “I was so lucky to have prepped this line today.” Not saying this is definitive proof, just a theory.

    • Schrödinger says:

      HunterXHunter is a great show besides that your name is funny cause I use that name and other than that chess is awesome

    • JustSomeoneRandom says:

      @David Sh. Yeah man, if Usain Bolt sprained his ankle due to his support staff fucking up, other sprinters shouldn’t run either.

      I’m sorry, but it is far more dependent on how much leaked and how wide it spread.
      Sure if there was some sort of private offer, that would be bad sportsmanship or potentially cheating to accept.
      But if once it becomes publicly available or say half the others have it, it’s shooting yourself in the foot and not using the tools at your disposal.

      Just wait for more details, because any judgement you make now Will be flawed

    • Johnny Irish says:

      Best theory so far, but why is Hans so good in this tournament? Let’s say someone in Magnus Team leaked info to him (why? for money?), what about the other players teams, he cannot have a leaker in each team.

    • David Sh. says:

      ​@Ayu$h what a stupid take. if he’s choosing to use the leaked prep that’s definitely his fault. he ruins the integrity of the competition. if the prep is leaked to someone’s grandma that doens’t compete no one would care. The issue is that a competitor knows another competitors prep.

    • Aluminium Knight says:

      @Bop that’s still cheating tho

  7. Patrick Corrigan says:

    Levy is a fantastic presence in the community. Levy if you read this I hope your anxiety isn’t keeping you locked up, you’re a huge inspiration to me and the main man when it comes to who I think of that pushes through it. Thanks for all you do!

  8. JD says:

    Magnus reaches an opening position that he’s never played before yet Hans apparently prepped it 20 moves deep…

  9. Pagne Daman says:

    I need some evidence, until then, Hans is innocent imo. As far as cheating, the only thing that sounds plausible to me is if Magnus’ prep was leaked. Curious to hear more about this because it seems pretty out of character for Magnus to act this way after a loss.

    • UZI says:

      @Codi B you’re just speculating

    • Codi B says:

      @Version1 Because he can’t jeopardize being wrong and then being sued for defamation of character. Even though there is a defense Magnus could say Hans is a public figure and defamation doesn’t apply it would still be a tough legal battle for both sides.

    • Manuel Bonelli says:

      @Version1 yeah exactly. At the end it’s just speculation that can be what Magnus is referring to, but as long as something is said we don’t know

    • Version1 says:

      @Manuel Bonelli yeah, but he is not accusing hans of anything anywhere tho. Its all the community thats creating the drama.

  10. James says:

    Hey Levy. I usually lurk here, but I was absolutely stunned by the antisemitism in your pin of shame today and so wanted to speak up. You do an amazing job, and you’ve made a positive difference to loads of people. Sorry you have to deal with such cretins. Keep doing what you’re doing. Thanks for everything.

    • Joshua Gourlay says:

      @ashtonal What do you mean 80% is jew? 80% of all players? 80% of all top players? Are you trying to imply that there’s just a gigantic hidden league of jewish chess masters? I mean good for them but there’s no reason for them to be secret chess masters. I’m pretty sure there’s at least 1.33x more chess players than there are jewish people so your point is very strange.

    • Perry Miller says:

      I agree with James. How sad anti semitism slithers into this fine channel.

    • ashtonal says:

      @Yassine Garry Kimovich Weinstein, 13 April 1963 but you could not assess it, bless you. As stated elsewhere in this thread, this is not the issue. What matters is cheating in chess. Got (ham) it?!

    • Yassine says:

      @ashtonal what are u talking about lol

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