Cheating allegations cited as the reason for Magnus Carlsen’s Sinquefield Cup walkout

Current World Champion Magnus Carlsen left the Sinquefield Cup midway after Round three – a first for the Norwegian who has never voluntarily walked away from a tournament like this. Rumours have surfaced since that the reason Carlsen decided to quit was because one of his opponents cheated to win against him, forcing the champion to walk away from the tournament that was being held at the Saint Louis Chess Club.
Carlsen put out a statement on his Twitter account where he said, “I’ve withdrawn from the tournament. I’ve always enjoyed playing in the @STLChessClub, and hope to be back in the future.” Along with the tweet was a video of former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho’s post-match conference video where he uttered one of his more famous quotes: ‘If I speak, I am in big trouble’.
The incident
On Monday, Carlsen, one of the greatest chess players to ever live, lost with white, against America’s Hans Niemann. This was the second time he lost to the 19-year-old this month and the first time while playing classical chess. It also cost Carlsen 9 rating points – a dent in his bid to reach 2900 points.
Meanwhile, Hans gained enough points from the victory to break into the 2700 ELO rating club. He tweeted later about this period in his career and said, “This is truly a humbling day for me. I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to play chess at the highest level and live out my dreams. A few years ago, my chess dreams were quickly dwindling but thankfully they rose from the dead. This is only the beginning…”
In an interview later, Hans spoke about the mannerisms of Carlsen and said that he had noticed that when the Norwegian wants to ‘assert his dominance’, he cracks a little smile and that in their match, the smile was missing. He then also said that in an interview Carlsen had said that if he spent 10 minutes on a move, then it was a bad sign and that in their game, he did it quite a bit.
“I think even if it was a draw, he was so demoralized because he was losing to such an idiot like me. It must be embarrassing for the World Champion to lose to me,” said Hans.

This is truly a humbling day for me. I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to play chess at the highest level and live out my dreams. A few years ago, my chess dreams were quickly dwindling but thankfully they rose from the dead. This is only the beginning…
— Hans Niemann (@HansMokeNiemann) September 4, 2022
Suspicions rise
After the loss, Carlsen decided to withdraw from the tournament. While his tweet or any subsequent actions don’t point to any particular reason, there is a growing cluster of voices that are insinuating that cheating occurred against the World Champion, and was the reason for his withdrawal. Chief among these voices was Twitch streamer and GM Hikaru Nakamura.
“Magnus would never do this in a million years… if he really didn’t strongly believe it. I think he thinks that Hans is cheating. Straight out I’ll just say that he has done some things that are not allowed in tournaments. Let’s leave it at that.” There are unsubstantiated reports in the past that Niemann has been caught cheating, which was what Nakamura was alluding to.
Prior to the clamours of cheating, Niemann had said that on the very morning of his match against Carlsen, he had gone back to ‘miraculously’ rewatch an instance where Carlsen used a similar opening against Wesley So at the London Chess Classic in 2018. On his live stream on Twitch, Nakamura went on Chess.com to check whether Carlsen had ever attempted such a move and it turned out that he never had. On that stream, So wrote on Nakamura’s live chat that he never even took part in the London event in 2018.

I’ve withdrawn from the tournament. I’ve always enjoyed playing in the @STLChessClub, and hope to be back in the future https://t.co/YFSpl8er3u
— Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) September 5, 2022
Later Nigel Short went on his Twitter and wrote that Niemann could possibly have been talking about the match that was played between Carlsen and So in 2019 in Kolkata. That match also saw Carlsen use a G3 Nimzo-Indian, the same opening formation used Niemann on Monday.
Also giving credence to the cheating rumours was that Carlsen in his tweet said that he would enjoy playing at the club and that he would look forward to coming back in the future – a clear indicator that it wasn’t the tournament or its organisers that caused an issue.