The new/old chess drama is on the horizon as the Saint Louis Chess Club announced that Hans Niemann will no longer be invited to their tournaments due to alleged inappropriate behavior (including private property damage, rude comments, and an uncooperative attitude). Niemann immediately responded, calling Saint Louis Chess Club’s claims ridiculous and that the statement is just ‘an excuse to blacklist one of America’s brightest talents’.
In the meantime, the Reddit ‘insider’ who claims to live in Saint Louis confirmed the Club’s allegations and said that Niemann completely destroyed his room in Saint Louis during the US Championship. Publishing a video where he fully addressed the case, Hans confirmed that he damaged some of the stuff in his room but that he paid the fine and apologized. He claims that damage in the hotel is not a real reason why Saint Louis Chess Club blacklisted him from their events.
Social media is overwhelmed with reactions to the issue, and IM Levy Rozman aka Gotham Chess published a video and shared his thoughts about it. Rozman first chronologically explained what happened yesterday and reminded that the whole Magnus – Niemann drama and the cheating scandal started in Saint Louis Chess Club during the Sinquefield Cup. Levy shared his concerns about Hans Niemann’s invitations to closed tournaments: “Now when I first saw this, this was always a concern about the cheating scandal. The concern about the cheating scandal is that when the Fallout settles down, sure Hans will be popular and he will get followers, and he can make content and all that… but will chess organizers invite him to their events?
Because unfortunately, most of the chess world is based on invitations, and that’s how it’s always been and very few chess tournaments on the Elite chess level are open. And Hans plays these events since 2022/2023, Hans goes to these opens, plays lots of underrated players, loses rating points, where he could just be getting these invitations. But concern after the cheating scandal is that he [Hans Niemann] wouldn’t get them, because people are going to assume that he is suspicious. That’s the concern and that’s a problem itself, that Hans can’t get invited to Elite tournaments at the Saint Louis Chess Club despite being higher rated and younger because of everything that happened.
Whether or not that is justified, whether or not Hans is guilty, and I have always said in all of these things is that the only person who knows the extent of the wrongdoing of Hans Niemann is Hans Niemann himself.” See the complete video of Levy Rozman below.
Hikaru Nakamura also addressed the new issue during his live stream and his reaction can be found here.
