Hans Niemann’s Return To The Big Stage Didn’t Go So Hot

Hans Niemann geared up and qualified for the Speed Chess Championships by playing a series of high-level show matches under the promotional title Hans Niemann Vs. The World. In Paris, under the bright lights of the SCC main stage, the world worked Niemann over: He finished a distant fourth, while his archrival Magnus Carlsen lifted the trophy. Though Niemann lost, he showed what he might look like if he ever settles into becoming a normal chess player.

The marquee matchup of the event was Niemann vs. Carlsen in the first round. Niemann and Carlsen hadn’t played each other since Carlsen resigned after one move in the 2022 Julius Baer Generations Cup, and the world champ was oddly respectful of his younger opponent before the match, Lance Stephenson gag aside (does Magnus know ball?). “Niemann has certainly become a lot better at chess the last couple of years, and I don’t know how good he is exactly, but it seems that he has become a lot stronger,” he said before the match. “Even though it’s a match-up I certainly didn’t want, it’s going to be interesting from a pure chess perspective to see what he can do.”

Did Niemann, for his part, show a humbler, more respectful side after infamously alienating himself from the chess world with years of grandiose asshole behavior? Yes, though only in relative terms, as nothing he said could be described as humble or respectful. Niemann spoke to widely beloved IM Levy Rozman before his match, making an odd joke about training Rozman in his grandmaster quest, calling him a puppet of chess.com, offering a tantalizing defense of the fateful move he made to beat Carlsen in 2022, and getting a bunch of stuff wrong about the tick-tock of the case.

He also continued to talk like a villain. “I think that [Carlsen]’s already broken. I saw his interview after the Erigaisi match. He already seemed broken and mentally destroyed,” he said, of the most unbreakable player ever to sit behind a chess board. “I think that as long as I can look him in the eyes and understand that there’s absolutely nothing he can do to even enter my mind space, then I believe that victory will be mine.”

That’s not how it ended up going. Carlsen put the Flo Rida on and dispatched Niemann with ease. He won three of the first four long blitz games, and would have won the fourth if he hadn’t blundered his way into a draw. It was classic Carlsen stuff, perfect middle-game tactics leading to crisp wins. Niemann’s first win, with black, was also characteristic, in that he was actively arguing with the arbiter while winning. No matter. Carlsen took the first segment 7-2, then built up a double-digit lead as Niemann kept playing the Italian and Carlsen kept deconstructing it. Niemann had winning positions in several 3+1 games, only to fail to convert them as Carlsen stormed back.

Niemann won a bunch of matches at the end to salvage a respectable winning margin, though Carlsen said he was “going through the motions for a long time. I just wanted the match to be over with.” It’s honestly impressive to win the few matches Niemann did, and I read Carlsen’s quotes as a coping mechanism, as he tends to roll his eyes at his losses.

Ahead of the third-place match, Niemann again talked shit. He called Hikaru Nakamura washed, saying, “The thing with Hikaru is that I don’t have to beat him today. He’s 36. There’s going to be a time when he’s sitting in his pineapple shirt and he’s not playing chess anymore, and he’s just going to have to watch me win tournament after tournament.” Nakamura won 21-9, demolishing Niemann in every format, and called Niemann unserious after the match. “The fact is three of four players here are at a certain level. Maybe yesterday didn’t go my way, but I think it showed that when Hans says all these things he’s just not at the same level.”

Perhaps encouragingly, Niemann took the loss on the chin, publicly congratulated the other players, and said he wanted to learn from the experience. Even so, he can’t help talking like a movie villain. “Although these defeats were humbling and I learned a lot from them, it still has reaffirmed my faith that being the best is possible,” he said. “The path and the specifics of what must be improved has become very clear.”

Niemann has shown over the past year that he’s a very strong player, and he’s shown a stunning capacity for improvement over his career. He has still not shown that he can get out of his own way, which might be the operative factor holding him back.