Of Chess, Cheating, and Rationalizations

Ben Mezrich’s new book, Checkmate: Genius, Lies, Ambition, and the Biggest Scandal in Chess (2026), is about exactly what its title indicates. On September 4, 2022, 19-year-old upstart Hans Niemann defeated arguably the greatest chess player of all time, Magnus Carlsen, at a prestigious tournament in St. Louis. It was, perhaps, the greatest upset in the history of competitive chess and soon became the greatest scandal ever when Carlsen accused Niemann of cheating. Many top chess masters took Carlsen’s side and Niemann became a pariah. The next time the two met in a match, Carlsen resigned after one move, indicating that he refused to play against a cheater. The scandal was given a booster shot of notoriety from a meme, spread by Elon Musk, asserting that computer-generated moves had been signaled to Niemann via vibrating anal beads.

Niemann was blacklisted by many tournaments and shunned by many fellow chess players. He hotly denied cheating against Carlsen, though he did admit that he had twice cheated in online games, once when he was 12 years old and again when he was 16. Later, he admitted to cheating in “random [online] games.” A comprehensive investigation was completed by the principals of Chess.com, the leading website and community for chess players and chess fans. Chess.com has a sophisticated algorithm that appears to be able to very accurately determine when players have cheated. It indicated that Niemann had cheated more than one hundred times in online games before he played Carlsen. However, Chess.com reported that it had no evidence of Niemann cheating in over-the-board games generally or in his upset win over Carlsen specifically. To settle a lawsuit by Niemann, Carlsen admitted that there was no definitive evidence that Niemann had cheated in their match and he agreed to play Niemann again in the future (which he has done….as late as just a few days before this blogpost was written in August 2026…and has never lost to him again, though Niemann has continued to climb the rankings and peaked at #12 in the world in May 2026).

There are ethical lessons to be drawn from this ethical kerfuffle. We note two of them. First, it is difficult to rebuild a reputation when you’ve cheated. It may be that you have reformed and never cheated again; however, everyone but your mother will usually and not unreasonably continue to suspect that you are a cheater and believe that cheaters are not to be trusted. Niemann admitted to cheating when he was 12 years old, and certainly a wide swathe of chess fanatics might well forgive that misstep. But the evidence that he had cheated more than one hundred times in his late teens is much less forgivable. Although Niemann seems to have almost redeemed himself and been largely readmitted to the world of the chess elite, he has paid a stiff price for the alleged cheating and will live with skeptics the rest of his life. And with people who are inexplicably fascinated by anal beads.

Second, like everyone else, most cheaters have a moral code that includes a prohibition against cheating. They know that they shouldn’t do it, and therefore often rely on rationalizations to absolve themselves of the guilt that most non-psychopaths feel when they violate moral norms.

A useful categorization of rationalizations was provided by scholars Vikas Anand, Blake Ashforth, and Mahendra Joshi. One of the most common rationalizations in their estimation is “Denial of Injury,” where wrongdoers admit that they violated ethical and/or legal standards, but maintain that no harm was really done, so there’s nothing to feel bad about. Accepting Mezrich’s characterizations of Niemann’s communications (Mezrich rarely quotes his subjects verbatim), we see several variations on this theme in Niemann’s often heated defenses of his actions:

The tournament he cheated in at age 12 (“Titled Tuesday”) was a “piece of s**t tournament” in that:

It was online, not an “over-the-board” game where it mattered
No one was watching
His opponent was just some fool somewhere across the country, not Fischer or Spassky or Carlsen
He probably would have won anyway

The cheating on Chess.Com as an older teenager was also inconsequential:

They were stupid unrated games that didn’t gain him ranking points
They were “random” games, not “real” games
They also were online, not over the board
Usually there was no money involved
Nobody got hurt; nobody got killed

In other words: “Move along. Nothing to see here.” In all these arguments, Niemann claims that the consequences of his cheating were minor to nonexistent and therefore not worthy of moral condemnation.

A second common rationalization is “Social Weighting,” particularly its “selective social comparison” form, where people deflect guilt by comparing in a favorable manner their wrongdoing to that of others. If your cheating is ‘not as bad as others’, or at least no worse, then, hey, what’s the big deal? The Chess.com algorithm indicates that fewer than 0.14% of players on Chess.com cheat. Of course, there are roughly a million users playing each day, which can lead to a fair amount of total cheating. In various defenses made over the years, Niemann said (in substance):

Everyone was doing it
com has closed the accounts of hundreds of players (including four of the top 100 Grandmasters) for cheating
Cheating was f***ing rampant

As Lance Armstrong found out, “everyone is doing it” is not typically a successful defense for cheating, especially where it is so obviously untrue. Niemann has no reasonable excuses for his cheating.

At the same time, Carlsen has no clear evidence that Niemann cheated to beat him on September 4, 2022. No matter how many times Carlsen beats Niemann, that will continue to be the case, although sympathy for Niemann over his ostracism will likely diminish if Carlsen continues to dominate him in head-to-head matches.

Sources:

Vikas Anand et al., “Business as Usual: The Acceptance and Perpetuation of Corruption in Organizations,” Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 39-53 (2004).

Leonard Barden, “Niemann Puts Controversy Aside and Wins $50,000 First Prize in Warsaw,” The Guardian, May 15, 2026.

Cara Biasucci & Robert Prentice, Behavioral Ethics in Practice: Why We Sometimes Make the Wrong Decisions (2021).

Bob Harkins, Magnus Carlsen Biography: The Inspirational Story Behind His Rise to World Champion, His Mental Battles, and His Unexpected Exit from the Throne (2025).

“Is Niemann’s Redemption Complete? Team USA Calls Up Bad Boy of Chess, Finally,” World Chess, June 6, 2026, at https://worldchess.com/news/is-niemanns-redemption-complete-bad-boy-of-chess-to-represent-america-finally.

Aishwarya Kumar, “Hans Niemann Plots a Path from Chess Villain to Vindication,” ESPN, April 6, 2026, at https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/48387161/hans-niemann-magnus-carlsen-netflix-chess-scandal-vindication.

David Luban, “Making Sense of Moral Meltdowns,” in Moral Leadership: The Theory and Practice of Power, Judgment, and Policy (Deborah Rhode, ed. 2006).

Dylan Loeb McClain, “Pawns and Rooks,” New York Times, Aug. 9, 2026 (book review).

Rhik Samadder, “Chess Mates: The Fantastic True Story of the Sex Toy Rumour that Buzzed around the World,” The Guardian, April 4, 2026.