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Hans Niemann is on the quest to save his reputation from the collective innuendo that resulted in Magnus Carlsen walking away from a major tournament following an embarrassing loss to Niemann. But the new chess star is actually doing more than defending. He is aggressively building up his chess reputation and going after the three names synonymous with chess: Carlsen, Nakamura, and chess.com.
In a Twitter post (in chess, everyone is on Twitter!), Niemann addresses Hikaru Nakamura, the most popular chess streamer in the world:
“Hikaru has thoroughly enjoyed watching all of my interviews and enjoyed criticizing every single detail and making frivolous implications. I’d like to see him watch my entire interview today and see what he has to say”.
In an interview given to the Grand Chess Tour after round 5, Niemann admitted to cheating in an online tournament once when he was a child and explained that that mistake actually motivated him to go all in into chess — a sport he considers his profession. For the last two years — says Niemann, — he travelled around the world playing chess both online and over-the-board.
Niemann says: “I’m not going to let Chesscom, I’m not going to let Magnus Carlsen, I’m not going to let Hikaru Nakamura, the three arguably biggest entities in chess, simply slander my reputation”.
Following Carlsen’s withdrawal from the GCT and a string of accusations, chess.com disinvited Niemann from its top events. The player is now facing a dilemma of how to build his professional career in a situation that is almost unheard of in chess: he became one of the most recognized names in the sport overnight, while organizers will probably avoid inviting him, because that means not having Carlsen take part in their events, increased and expensive fair play measures, and other players’ concerns.
Based on what we see so far, Niemann appears to know what he is doing.
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