The professional chess world rarely makes an appearance in mainstream media. In 2020, chess had some time in the sun after the release of The Queen’s Gambit starring Anya Taylor-Joy, sparking a whole new stream of people with an interest in the game. But in 2022, one bizarre cheating scandal between world champion Magnus Carlsen and rising grandmaster Hans Niemann went so viral it spilled far beyond the chess community and smack-bang into the headlines of mainstream media.
Now, this very cheating scandal is being explored in an upcoming documentary on Netflix called Untold: Chess Mates.
But what actually happened during this scandal? Let’s explore.
What actually happened?
In September 2022, five-time World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen — who is known as the greatest chess player of all time — came up against a self-taught rising teenage chess grandmaster named Hans Niemann in a big event called the Sinquefield cup.
Despite being on a 53-game winning streak, Carlsen was defeated by Niemann in the third round of the tournament.
Shortly after the loss, Carlsen announced in a cryptic tweet that he was withdrawing from the $500,000 tournament — an extremely rare move for the world champion.
“I think he was just so demoralised because he’s losing to an idiot like me, you know?” Niemann said after the game, per the ABC. “It must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me. I feel bad for him.”
A week later when paired with Niemann during the online Champions Chess Tour, he withdrew again after playing one move.
However, on September 27, Carlsen released a statement directly accusing Niemann of cheating. He claimed that he made the decision to withdraw from the tournament because he suspected that Niemann had been cheating.
Despite this Niemann vehemently denies cheating. However, he did admit that in the past when he was 12 and 16, he had cheated in two chess games and it was one of his biggest regrets.
Naturally, this scandal blew up in the chess world, prompting significant discourse within the sport. During a Twitch stream discussing the controversy, fellow grandmaster Eric Hansen floated a tongue-in-cheek theory involving a vibrating adult device and AI assistance.
While clearly speculative, the idea quickly spread across Reddit and social media — and the rumour soon went viral far beyond the chess community.
So viral that even Elon Musk tweeted about it.
Despite it being a throwaway theory, the allegations that Niemann used vibrating anal beads to cheat gained momentum. He continued to deny this, eventually filing a lawsuit against Carlsen in October 2022 on defamation claims.
The case was eventually dismissed by a judge in June 2023. However, in a 2023 interview with Piers Morgan on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Niemann denied ever using anal beads to cheat.
“I can tell you, no. Categorically, no. There’s absolutely no evidence that I’ve ever cheated,” he explained.
“It’s very disheartening to be accused of cheating after that victory. These things happen and I managed to learn a lot during that time and it really taught me a lot of very important lessons about life and chess.”
After all this went down, there is still so much to the story and plenty of updates on what has gone down in 2023.
While the controversy remains one of the strangest chapters in modern chess, Untold: Chess Mates promises to revisit the scandal, and the viral rumours, that turned a quiet tournament into a global talking point.
When does Untold: Chess Mates come out?
Untold: Chess Mates will hit Netflix on April 7.
Where can I watch Untold: Chess Mates
You can watch Chess Mates and the rest of the Untold documentary series on Netflix.
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