Hans Niemann against the World

For the irrepressible Hans Niemann, August is no time to chill. The 21-year-old American grandmaster began the month by defeating his compatriot Wesley So by 13-10 in the quarter-final of the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship. He gave a vitriolic interview after the match, railing against the ‘chess establishment’ and those he perceives as trying to ruin his career. Evidently, his relations with Chess.com, Magnus Carlsen and others have hardly thawed since last year’s conclusion of their legal dispute which arose in response to unsubstantiated cheating allegations after Niemann’s win against Carlsen at the Sinquefield Cup in 2022.

‘America’s brightest talent’ (by his own description), has complained of a lack of invitations to top-tier events. But he has blotted his own copybook: an incident involving damage to a hotel room prompted the St Louis Chess Club, which organises many elite events in the US, to state in February that Niemann would receive no further invitations in 2024.