After Magnus Carlsen’s deliberate defeat by the American Hans Niemann, the chess world is seething. But who is the 19-year-old actually? About the career of a self-confident boy from the Internet.
Magnus Carlsen is convinced: The future number one in chess is not yet twenty years old. It is quite possible that one day he will be replaced by an Indian – Dommaraju Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi or Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa. Maybe also from the Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorow or the German hopeful Vincent Keymer. Carlsen Alireza Firouzja has the best chances – the Iranian-born Frenchman was at times second in the world rankings. But Hans Niemann?
The 19-year-old American has risen suspiciously fast during the pandemic. As of October 2020, his Elo rating (a rating that includes all long-time tournament games played) was 2465, putting him on the cusp of the top 1000 in the world. Today he stands at 2699 and is in the top fifty.
Niemann himself explains his leap in performance by the fact that he recently played in more tournaments than anyone else and works on his game twelve hours a day. He doesn’t tolerate distractions. There is no room in his life for parties or a girlfriend. He wants to be world champion. If he doesn’t make it at least into the top ten, his life has failed, he told the podcast Perpetual Chess.
Niemann could earn more as a streamer
When he left home at 16 and accepted a chess scholarship to a New York private school, Niemann dreamed of studying at Harvard. With chess lessons and a stream on Twitch, he soon earned more than he needed to live on. In the end, Harvard declined, wrongly in his opinion, especially since he would have liked to have rejected Harvard himself.
Because by then, according to his own description, he had already decided to try it as a professional. He wouldn’t earn nearly as much as he did as a streamer and chess teacher, but competitive chess was his passion and he was paid $35,000 as a US Chess Trust grantee.
During the last months before graduation he only had online classes and was already on a chess tour. Since then, Niemann has lived out of his suitcase and only for chess. Only hard, focused work leads to the goal.
As role models he names the basketball player Kobe Bryant, the rapper Kanye West – and Bobby Fischer. America’s only world chess champion drifted later, Niemann concedes, but if Fischer hadn’t played chess he would have gone mad much sooner.
Confident but only ordinary gifted?
The son of a Danish mother and a Hawaiian father, both IT managers, brought irrepressible self-confidence with him from his first chess lesson. The family, which also includes three sisters, lived in Houten near Utrecht for a year.
Eight-year-old Hans claimed to know the rules, but could only move with the king and castled with his little horses. His chess teacher Pieter Jan Mellegers found him motivated but not exceptionally talented. It was not enough for the school selection. Niemann later writes that he was just racing a bike and was one of the fastest of his year in the Netherlands.
From follower to high-flyer
Back in San Francisco, he and his mother attended a Magnus Carlsen simultaneous performance. A place to play costs $2,000. Keep the money, he told his mother, one day he will compete against Carlsen without having to pay for it. On September 4th, 2022 the time had come.
Because the Hungarian Richárd Rapport was not yet allowed to travel to the USA due to a recent Covid infection, Niemann came to his first world-class tournament at short notice as a substitute: the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis.
At the start a solid draw against the new American Lewon Aronjan. In round two, the Azerbaijani Shakhriyar Mamedscharov killed himself against Niemann. In round three against Carlsen things didn’t go much differently. Niemann only had to find some very good moves and he had beaten two world-class players.
Carlsen raises suspicions in the world
The nominally weakest participant led the table. The next day, world champion Carlsen withdrew from the tournament and, quoting Mourinho, spread the allegations of cheating.
Because Carlsen retired before half the rounds, Niemann’s win over the Norwegian only counted for the world rankings, not the Sinquefield Cup. Niemann was therefore no longer alone at the top. In the end it was enough for sixth place.
At the Julius Baer Generations Cup online tournament, Carlsen continued his boycott of Niemann with a deliberate one-move loss. The quarter-finals of the tournament were drawn on Wednesday evening (September 21, 2022). Carlsen and Niemann will not meet again, at least in this round.