Hans Neimann, a young player rocketing up the ratings, recently handed chess champion Magnus Carlsen a surprise defeat. Carlsen quit the tournament, posting a video of soccer manager José Mourinho saying that if he spoke, he would be in trouble. In context, this was interpreted as a suggestion that Neimann had cheated his way to victory— a claim soon repeated and made more explicitly by other elite players. A week into the imbroglio, Neimann is now denying using a digital sex toy connected to a chess computer to win after that nasty speculation caught the eye, and the retweet button, of billionaire troll Elon Musk.
Hans Niemann, 19, an up and-coming star in the game, was sensationally accused online of using anal beads connected to a computer programme that would vibrate and give him the perfect AI moves to defeat world No. 1 grandmaster Magnus Carlsen.
Hitting back at internet rumours accusing him of using anal beads to cheat, Niemann said: "If they want me to strip fully naked, I will do it.
There's a fascinating dynamic here. On one hand, it's a bit shocking that these players would so openly accuse another of cheating on such circumstantial and statistically dubious grounds. At first they were cagey about it, but it soon got explicit and at this point registers to outsiders as plainly libelous. But on the other hand, the whole situation makes the highest echelons of chess look, well, like a gossipy club of nerds. The whole point is being there, not wrecking it. Neimann seems to have plenty of supporters who think he's innocent, after all.
But what's happening now is wilder still: Neimann (intentionally or otherwise) began collapsing the context of this elite society by talking up its catty politics and insinuations for the broader audience turning up to see what the fuss was about. And then Musk blew it up entirely. As a result, the professional game of chess now looks like pro wresting, where everyone is a raging narcissist and everything is governed by kayfabe, replete with headlines about sex toys and naked tournaments and that other grandmaster who never shuts the fuck up. All we need now is Raul Capablanca to rise from the dead and flounce in like Vince McMahon to claim his rightful title.