After a suprise defeat, weeks of insinuation and an ostentatious second-move resignation, chess world champion Magnus Carlsen has put his cheating accusation against teen rival Hans Niemann in writing. In short, he claims Niemann cheated in "over the board" tournament play, not merely online, and says that he will not participate in any future event to which Niemann is invited. While formalizing the widely-held suspicion that professional chess has a cheating problem, the letter effectively ends Niemann's career at the sport's apex until Carlsen himself is no longer near it— without offering any real evidence he did anything wrong.
The chess world is, once again, aflutter.
