Back in September 2022, Hans Niemann executed one of the most shocking upsets in chess history by defeating the No. 1-ranked player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, at the prestigious Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, Missouri. When Carlsen seemed to accuse him of cheating without evidence and withdrew from the tournament the very next day, chess fans and casual observers alike attempted to figure out how Niemann could've done it. The popular -– if half-serious -– theory online was that Niemann had snuck vibrating anal beads in... their appropriate location... and made moves fed to him by an outside accomplice consulting via artificial intelligence. The AI would then feed him optimal moves via... internal communication. This is a family site, guys.
This "theory" is more than far-fetched, and it bears repeating that there is no evidence Niemann cheated at all, much less by using sex toys. That said, Niemann had been caught cheating twice in the past, and both prominent chess website Chess.com (which hosts a number of high-level tournaments) and "chess detective" Kenneth Regan believe that Niemann potentially cheated in over 100 previous matches. The Guardian even noted that after the implementation of new anti-cheating security measures devised in the wake of the widely publicized scandal, Niemann's once-rapidly improving performance began to decline dramatically.
Nevertheless, Niemann maintains his innocence and has filed a defamation lawsuit against Carlsen, Chess.com, and a number of figures whom he believes purported the cheating allegations. Whether or not he came by his historic victory honestly, the sex toy theory has been largely dismissed. After all, as we saw in Frank's chess match this evening, playing under such circumstances would probably be a little too noticeable.
