Quote:
Originally Posted by rickroll
whatever happened to niemann?
Basically high level chess is rogged. Most of the elite tournaments are by invitation only, and especially during the cheating allegations, when Magnus wouldn't even play with Hans, Hans couldn't get invited to anything. It was a one-man blackballing instigated by the champ. As a result, he kept having to play in open tournaments. The rating system is designed around playing at your level, and playing all these randos tanked Hans's rating. That and the lawsuit caused stress, and that didn't help either.
Magnus blackballing Hans was likely worse than it seemed, since there's a decent chance that an stock swap was involved in the Chess.com acquisition of Play Magnus, leaving Magnus with an ongoing interest in Chess.com, and Chess.com with an ongoing interest in keeping Magnus on side.
Hans was obviously helped by the settlement with Magnus and Chess.com. But now his biggest problem is that Rex Sinquefield or someone in his inner circle apparently hates his guts, and his St. Louis Chess Club empire is now blackballing Hans. The pretext is that he trashed a hotel room once, but that doesn't really seem to stand up to scrutiny. Hans is neither the first, nor the last, elite GM to trash a room or otherwise lash out stupidly.
So Hans is now shut out of the elite North American chess events, and is having to travel around the world more than a player like him would normally have to.