Added on 9/9/2022
Let's face it: the chess world can be tedious. In the last ten years, there has been a dominator, one Norwegian man who plays at a different level. Magnus Carlsen is almost unbeatable in classic chess, and he has the numbers to show that: in 10 years, he's lost very few games, probably countable on the tips of your fingers. Recently, Magnus decided to renounce his World Champion Title, announcing that he won't defend it against Ian Nepomniachtchi, the winner of the 2022 Candidates Tournament. But, in a way, it was not a piece of real news: Carlsen had been hinting at this possibility for months, and the chess people didn't take it so badly. Many criticize the World Chess Championship cycle and are ready to support Magnus in his pursuit of a different way to determine the World Champion. In his typical social style, Carlsen even tried to troll the fans, affirming that he would like a match played with Rapid control times. Nobody took that seriously, but it was an admirable attempt to move the comments on the socials a bit. So, Magnus said his next goal to keep him motivated was to reach the 2900 rating barrier, something he has always wanted. It's not an easy feat, considering his rating is much higher than the other elite players. So, Magnus kept winning game after game and tournament after tournament until something unexpected happened in the third round of the Sinquefield Cup: he lost to Hans Niemann, a young American player whose rating is about 150 points lower than Magnus'. OK, one loss in years can happen, but Magnus decided to withdraw from the tournament the day after, not showing up at the board for round four and tweeting a sybilline message: Now, if Magnus hadn't attached to his tweet a short video with the soccer coach Mourino saying, "If I speak, I'm in big trouble," probably all the speculations that followed that tweet wouldn't have happened. But, Magnus did, and most of the chess followers took that as an explicit accusation of cheating. The chess world woke up suddenly, and since then, tons of virtual ink has been spent commenting on such a rare fact: a world champion withdrawing from an important tournament without actually giving a good motivation, hinting that there has been cheating somewhere. The Internet - at least that part of the Internet where chess lovers dwell - is still a Colosseum in which two opposite factions face each other with not-always-gentle comments. Hikaru Nakamura, the most followed chess streamer, went down heavily on Niemann in one of his shows, just when he learned that Magnus had withdrawn the Sinquefield Cup: Hikaru's video, available on YouTube, brought a storm on the socials, and many influential chess people felt the urge to take one part. The most unbelievable theories came up. Some are frankly ridiculous, some almost believable. Hans Niemann, feeling slandered and with his chess career at risk, went all out in a post-game interview at the St. Louis Chess Club: adding fuel to the fire. At the moment, Magnus Carlsen has not spoken about the incident, and people are waiting for him to clarify what happened and why he did leave one of the most prestigious tournaments of the year. UPDATE: Today, September 10th, the Chief Arbiter of the Sinquefield cup published a public statement: