If I robbed a bank once before, it is not evidence of having robbed a bank yesterday. That is not how evidence works.
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My chess coach from college is fairly convinced Niemann cheated and did it in cash tournaments… and that chesscom will settle because they don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of how their cheat detection software works.
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It’s evidence of a history of cheating, which, along with their other evidence (which is not conclusive but is certainly compelling) will likely help protect chess.com against the claims outlined in the lawsuit.
ffs, it’s Akiva COHEN, not Akiva Goldsman - one is a lawyer, the other is a filmmaker (bc I can only presume that’s who you confused him with)
We’re clearing speaking past each other so I’m bowing out now.
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This strikes me as the sort of thing that evaporates in court, not because it is incorrect, but because the law has its own perspective, its not really evidence, etc.
Also, anything like: “but he cheated then, so how can they get in trouble for saying he cheated now?”
No-one seems to think this is a well-formed lawsuit, though.
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The thing is that the burden of proof is on Niemann here.
According to Cornell Law: To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.
It is difficult to prove 1) one way or the other, and 3) is really tough given the analysis that chess.com put into it.
The issue really isn’t whether he cheated in the past or even whether he cheated in the games in question. It’s a question of whether Niemann can show that defamation occurred according to the legal definition. I think that Niemann clearly has been defamed by a common understanding of the term, but I do not think that he has what he needs to win a defamation suit as a plaintiff.
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Well, first off, that’s a pretty safe statement when dealing with a limited purpose public figure, which Niemann’s lawsuit doesn’t dispute and, if anything, reinforces. To win, Niemann has to show that the parties he’s suing defamed him with actual malice (meaning they knew what they were saying was false) and/or reckless disregard for the truth (meaning they strongly believed that what they were saying was false).
Second, there are three different parties here, and their claims aren’t all the same.
Chess.com never said that Neimann cheated in his game with Carlsen. They said he cheated in the past (not under dispute), that he cheated more than he admitted to (which is an opinion based on their published analysis, which is supposedly the same analysis that identified the games Niemann admitted to), and that they were suspicious about his game with Carlsen (which is an opinion anyone can have, and isn’t actionable unless Niemann can prove that they knew for a fact that he didn’t cheat, which is basically impossible barring an email or something admitting to it).
Carlsen said that Niemann cheated in their game, which falls short of the actual malice unless Carlsen knew for a fact that Niemann didn’t cheat, and avoids the reckless disregard standard because Niemann is known to have cheated in the past, so it’s not unreasonable for Carlsen to believe, even without evidence, and even if he’s wrong.
Nakamura also said that Niemann cheated in the Carlsen game, which is defensible for the same reasons that Carlsen’s statement is. He also said that unnamed other parties have also indicated that they believed Niemann cheated (in general terms), which is slightly more actionable, but only if Niemann can prove that Nakamura made it up.
Because Niemann is a limited purpose public figure in this context, the standard is much higher; he basically has to prove that they knew that what they were saying wasn’t true.
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As another engineer… Why you gotta do dentists like that?
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Maybe Niemann hasn’t filed the right type of lawsuit for this, but it certainly seems that Carlsen did much more than just accuse him of cheating. He has attempted to blackball Niemann by stating he wouldn’t participate in tournaments with Niemann. That’s restraint of trade (or whatever the equivalent when done by an individual against another) and far more serious, and potentially criminal, than just a cheating accusation.
What would flip the whole script that you laid out, though, is if Carlsen and chess.com were in communication about it as part of their business partnership. That’s the kind of thing that could come out in discovery, and might be the real reason Niemann has filed this suit.
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Technically, he has; cause for action 3 claims an antitrust violation; Cohen’s conclusion is that it probably doesn’t live for two reasons. First, Niemann isn’t a competitor of Chess.com’s, so that’s out. Second, it probably takes an antitrust specialist, but even if you find that Carlsen and Nakamura are trade competitors of Niemann’s, Carlsen and Nakamura saying they won’t play with someone who has cheated in the past probably is sufficient defense, barring evidence of conspiracy. And Niemann having cheated in the past isn’t in dispute, only specific details like the number, type, and date of the offenses.
The fourth is tortious interference. In principle this is likely his strongest claim, because the #1 player in the world refusing to play with him and otherwise attempting to influence tournaments to exclude him could probably fit that standard. The problem here is this lawsuit is poorly structured; it doesn’t allege any conduct beyond the defamation from causes 1 and 2, and it’s practically impossible for him to demonstrate defamation at the standard required. Cohen points out that this is even harder because he believes causes 1 and 2 are very poorly structured; they should be laying out specific false statements and why they are false, but they don’t. If the conduct wasn’t defamatory at the required standard, that claim falls away. The lawsuit should allege that Chess.com/Carlsen/Nakamura tried to get him banned by means other than defamation, but it doesn’t.
Cause 5 is civil conspiracy, and again is poorly written; it doesn’t put forth any specific claims of an agreement to act in concert, and again rests heavily on the defamation house of cards.
As Cohen says, there is potentially a plausible case here: Chess.com’s allegation that Niemann admitted to cheating on a phone call would meet the defamation standard if, as Niemann says, it didn’t happen, and if Chess.com can’t convince a jury that this isn’t a case of remembering a conversation wrongly. That could provide a foot in the door; if you can prove they lied there, it’s easier to sell that they’re lying about other things. But on the other hand, if Chess.com’s screenshots aren’t misrepresenting their conversations with Niemann, it’s reasonable that they made a mistake. Perhaps Niemann didn’t admit to cheating in that phone call but did in a later one or over slack; in that case, it’s pretty simple to claim that they made a false statement that they believed to be true at the time due to faulty memory.
There’s also Niemann’s allegation that Carlsen and Chess.com are treating him differently than other past cheaters. That could potentially lead to something of substance in discovery, especially during deposition.
And yeah, a whole lot of this changes if it turns out that Carlsen and Chess.com were communicating about this in any context beyond the cheating allegations. But if this lawsuit is intended to dig that kind of information up, it’s not structured to do so very effectively. It should really be hammering on the discrepancy between how Niemann has been treated and how other past cheaters have been treated and Niemann’s allegation that he didn’t confess to cheating on the 2020 phone call. Chess.com is the strongest target right now, and this suit really should focus on them and Carlsen coordinating for reasons other than the alleged defamation (e.g. the strength of the Play Magnus brand, for example).
But really, almost all of this is going to get thrown out on jurisdiction anyway. That doesn’t mean Niemann can’t re-file in a more suitable jurisdiction, but the only real opportunity there is in CT, and their anti-SLAPP laws make this lawsuit a whole lot harder for him.
Honestly, the more I re-read this suit, the more it reads like a suit that’s been written around what the client wants to say (I’m not a cheater anymore, when I did it wasn’t a big deal, and they’re lying when they say it was and I still am) as opposed to what has the greatest chance of success (tortious interference and civil conspiracy). By hanging the vast majority of the suit around defamation while implicitly conceding to public figure status, whatever parts of the suit don’t get dismissed outright for improper jurisdiction are likely to crumble absent a huge bombshell in discovery, and discovery is going to be a lot harder once the motions to dismiss take big bites out of the suit.
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Not if they are business partners with Carlsen. That makes them de facto competitors of Niemann’s (in business, if not in chess) unless they have a similar relationship with him, too.
This is where my understanding of high levels of chess is weak at best, but my understanding is that what Niemann admits he did early in his career that was cheating represents a gray area between outright cheating and learning. So continuously harping on it at “cheating” kinda introduces bias right into the discussion. But I could be wrong here.
I also find it unlikely that they will never play in a tournament, ever, with anyone who has, ever, maybe cheated. They picked out Niemann in particular. I don’t think a court would find that assertion valid. They didn’t use him as a random example; they were quite specific and exclusively speaking about Niemann.
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This guy is just 19. The cheating he refers to “early in his career” was when he was 12-16. That’s 3 years ago. In the high profile / high level chess cycle, it can take a year or longer to get one of the norms required for a title. So… it wasn’t “early in his career” it’s right before COVID.
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That also represents almost 20% of his life ago. You know, when he was an actual child.
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How do you imagine that works, exactly? Niemann doesn’t host a subscription chess playing service. He doesn’t sponsor and host tournaments. There’s no business he’s in that Chess.com is in.
Your understanding is simply wrong. Using an engine to give you moves in a game is cheating, full stop. He claims that when he was 16 he was doing it to get a higher rating and play better players, but that doesn’t change that he was cheating to boost his ELO faster than he could playing legitimately. Niemann himself used the word cheating. There is absolutely no dispute about whether Niemann has cheated in the past.
Well, their standard can easily be “confessed cheaters” and still hit Niemann. The “why me and nobody else” part is probably the strongest argument Niemann has. However, Niemann’s public conduct prior to the lawsuit could be used as reasons to ban him but not other players. I believe a few GMs have said that Niemann’s post game interview was really odd and he couldn’t explain his moves well. I don’t know how accurate that is, but Carlsen could argue that playing someone who confessed to cheating online is different from playing someone who confessed to cheating online, and who played a game that Carlsen thought wasn’t legit, and who subsequently couldn’t explain his thought process in that game. But it’s strange to me that this isn’t the focus of the lawsuit, because it completely sidesteps the defamation issue and is based on facts that Niemann knows to be true.
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It’s more that chess.com is in business with Carlsen, and stands to benefit or be harmed with his reputation.
Look at it this way: let’s say Nike sponsored Michael Jordan and used his likeness in their ads. Then some rookie came out and beat Jordan in basketball; and Jordan accused him of cheating. If Jordan is right, it helps Nike stock. If Jordan is wrong, it hurts Nike stock. So if Nike chimes in and says the rookie was cheating, and did so in a very specific way, they are acting in competition with the rookie even though they aren’t playing basketball themselves.
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He’s admitted to cheating in an actual online tournament. Yes, it was when he was “a kid”, but as someone who was playing competitive chess at the age he was, I don’t believe for a second that he didn’t know that was wrong. I have no sympathy for him. None. He’s not a victim.
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I have no sympathy for anyone in this whole drama. I can’t find a single likeable person in it anywhere. That, combined with stakes that couldn’t possibly be lower (to me at least) is part of why I’m enjoying following this. 
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another chess recent chess drama involving cheating at a young age.
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