Probe says Hans Niemann didn’t cheat against Magnus Carlsen in over-the-board match, but did cheat in up to 55 online games

A cheating scandal involving five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen and US grandmaster Hans Niemann that has gripped the sport looks to have finally reached a conclusion following the release of a report by FIDE, the sport’s world governing body.

A cheating scandal involving five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen and US grandmaster Hans Niemann that has gripped the sport looks to have finally reached a conclusion following the release of a report by FIDE, the sport’s world governing body. US chess prodigy Niemann was accused of cheating by Carlsen after the American beat the Norwegian at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis. In an interview with the St. Louis Chess Club shortly after his game against Carlsen in 2022, Niemann said that he had never cheated in over-the-board games, CNN previously reported. However, he did admit to cheating in “random games on Chess.com” as a younger player, which he called “the single biggest mistake of my life.” After a probe by an investigatory panel of the Fair Play Commission (FPL) into the cheating allegations, FIDE’s statement on Wednesday said that “Carlsen’s suspicions of cheating were based on reasonable grounds despite the ultimate conclusion that GM Niemann had not made himself guilty of over-the-board cheating.” “The reasonableness of GM Carlsen’s belief rested upon GM Niemann’s own confession of online cheating, and a report released by Chess.com,” the FIDE statement said. In a 72-page report put together by Chess.com in 2022, it was alleged that Niemann “likely cheated” in more than 100 online matches between July 2015 and August 2020, “including several with prize money events.”