Lifestyle

The Chess Brat, One Year After the Scandal

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AI-powered anal beads — I’m afraid that’s where we must begin. A year and a half ago, the sleepy game of chess was jolted by spectacular (and spectacularly crude) accusations against one of its rising stars, Hans Niemann. The 20-year-old American grandmaster played brilliantly but erratically, and he was so personally obnoxious that many of his haters came to suspect he was cheating — and they pushed outlandish ideas, never proved, of how he might have pulled it off. New York’s Jen Wieczner has spent months reporting on Niemann and his life since the scandal for this profile from our latest issue. It’s a sad story of a genius who is not in control of his instrument, or himself, and who has driven away most of the people who might have helped him at a moment of crisis. As one grandmaster put it: “No one wants to hurt him. No need to. Destroying himself is what he does best. Hans’s story is a tragedy.” Bleak. See why people prefer to focus on the anal beads?

—Nick Summers, features editor, New York

Chess Brat A year after an outrageous scandal, the grandmaster Hans Niemann has been kinda-sorta vindicated. So how is he more disliked than ever?

Photo: Beth Sacca
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