The Chess Grandmaster’s Anal Beads Conspiracy, Explained

The modern world of championship chess is not all about long games and obscure openings. There are Jerk dramarobots that break children’s fingers, and now: anal beads. Last week, Magnus Carlsen World Champion lost to grandmaster Hans Niemann in a stunning knockdown. Accusations of cheating began to fill the air. But how was the alleged cheating accomplished? That’s when the hero we all needed on Reddit swooped in to fill the void and suggest that Niemann may have used a sex toy to receive a coded message that would lead him to victory.

Never mind that the Reddit post is clearly a joke from someone extremely committed. The theory is too compelling to ignore. It’s crazy, but just at the limit of feasibility. Maybe that’s why, a week after Niemann’s unlikely win, people can’t help but fixate on the fact that he’s vowed to play naked matches if that’s what people need. to see to convince himself that he was not cheating. But if you haven’t been following the latest drama in the chess world, let me go back and break it all down.

How did Niemann beat Carlsen?

That was the question everyone was asking when the 19-year-old managed to knock out the five-time world champion in the $500,000 Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, Missouri last week. Both had never played before, and Niemann was clearly the weaker and less experienced player. Moreover, he played in black.

The two faced off three days into the tournament on September 5, with Carlsen making an early mistake and Niemann managing to force him into a tough final. Grandchesstour Reports that a counter with his bishop on turn 13 proved to be a particularly devastating response. Things kept going down until Carlsen ends up wasting time.

It could have left it at that – an ingenious streak of creative play from Niemann and a few unfortunate mistakes from Carlsen, both continuing in the tournament as normal – but the world champion instead caught on Twitter to cast the shadow of potential foul play over the whole affair. “I withdrew from the tournament,” he wrote to everyone’s shock. A notorious YouTube clip of European football manager and professional messy boy, José Mourinho, saying “If I speak, I have big problems”, was attached. For his part, Niemann said he was ready for the champion’s line of play because he had fortuitously previewed a version of it used in a 2018 game earlier that day in preparation for the game.

Grandmaster Twitch Star Fans the Flames

Cheating allegations started making their way around the Chess subreddit and social media, but streamer Hikaru “GMHikaru” Nakamura was one of the biggest names to start discussing the possibility on his platform. He mainly focused on a past example of Niemann cheating on Chess.com, which the 19-year-old admitted.

But he refrained from saying that anything nefarious had ever happened “on the board,” that is, while Niemann was face-to-face with an opponent. He certainly didn’t play down the accusations, and the drama caused quite a stir on Twitch and YouTube. At one point, even Félix “xQc” Lengyel tried to briefly get in on the action.

Niemann then fired back during his tournament exit interview on September 6, criticizing Nakamura and denying that anything nefarious happened. “I’ve never cheated in an overboard game,” he said. “If they want me to take all my clothes off, I will,” he added later in the interview.

He reserved his harshest words for Nakamura on Twitter. “Hikaru plays the victim but seems to forget to devote hours of his stream to criticizing all my interviews with frivolous innuendos,” he wrote the next day. “Maybe he deserves the blame and should take responsibility for what he said. At least he has 42 per cent more subs now.

Ok, but what about anal beads?

While there’s no evidence that Niemann cheated, that hasn’t stopped tons of people from speculating what he might have done. The tournaments are rigorous in their securityand it’s not like you can start consulting a chess program (which Niemann has done in the past) while everyone is watching and your opponent is only a few feet away.

During Chessbrah Twitch Stream after Niemann’s match, the chat offered anal beads as a solution. Canadian grandmasters Eric Hansen and Aman Hambleton started riffing on it, and a German release wrote it all down. But one Reddit user went much further and speculated that anal beads may be in play. In what way precisely? “The real answer is actually elementary,” the post has started. In fact, it’s quite complicated. The shitpost actually accuses Carlsen of using anal beads to cheat for his entire chess career (except for the few times he was too drunk to smell them properly).

The anal bead supercomputer design was eventually stolen and used against Carlsen by Niemann. In fact, Niemann didn’t even know how to use them properly, but the signals from his anal beads were interfering with the signals from Carlsen’s anal beads, which is why the latter played so poorly. Ultimately, however, Carlsen could not reveal how Niemann cheated without getting involved. Not quite the perfect chess crime, but all the makings of a high-level r/Chess commentary. The user was flooded with Reddit gold. The mods deleted the post. But it was too late.

“Currently obsessed with the idea that Hans Niemann cheated at the Sinquefield Cup Chess Tournament using wireless anal beads that vibrate him to the right moves,” a Twitter user called Babble wrote in a tweet from September 7 link to Niemann’s post-tournament interview which immediately blew up.

To reiterate, there is still no evidence that Niemann cheated, although an announcement on September 8 that he would removed from Chess.com did nothing to allay suspicion. And there’s certainly no evidence that anal beads were used in Carlsen’s stunning defeat. But what if the theory behind anal beads could actually work? The truth is out there for those brave enough to find out. One thing is true: all eyes will be on Niemann’s next game if he decides to play it naked. Do you hear that? It’s the sound of a new Twitch meta brew. God forgive us.