Daniel Levkov News Today

An American teenager, Hans Niemann, defeated Magnus Carlsen, the world’s best chess player. Then Mr. Carlsen accused his opponent of cheating. It’s either overdue justice or paranoia.

The day before he beat the greatest chess player in the world, Hans Niemann was a curly-haired 19-year-old American known only to serious fans of the game and mostly as an abrasive jerk. Everyone, it seems, has a story. Like that time in June, when he’d lost in the finals of a tournament in Prague, then stood in the ballroom of the hotel where the event was held and ranted against the city and the accommodations.