Hans Niemann Everywhere, All the Time

If you can't join 'em, beat 'em.

Hans Niemann often complains, with what seems to me from the outside as some justification, that he is not receiving the tournament invitations he merits as a young 2700 player. (Granted, there are plenty of 2700s, but one would expect him to get more invites than he does, at least in the U.S.) He has hit on a decent solution, I think; perhaps not the ideal one but a pretty smart approach until he can get closer to the 2800 club. He is playing individual matches with anyone and everyone he can.

He just finished a (fast) classical match with Anish Giri that he won, 3.5-2.5, and from Wednesday through Friday he’ll play a similar match with Nikita Vitiugov (formerly of Russia, now representing England) followed by matches with Etienne Bacrot (August 20-24) and Nihal Sarin (August 29-31).

We’ll see how well he manages to publicize himself by means of these matches, but it’s also a great chance to build experience and gain rating points if one finds the right opponents. Best of all, for him, he doesn’t have to worry about Magnus Carlsen and others having an explicit or implicit veto on his participation; if the other player is game, the match is on. So good for him.

One needn’t be a fan of Niemann or his trash-talking persona (I find the latter disasteful in the extreme) to think that Carlsen’s accusations from the Sinquefield Cup a couple of years ago were unfair and unduly harmed Niemann’s career. As long as he’s not cheating - and there’s no evidence that he has cheated in any FIDE events - he should be given the chance to let his abilities go as far as they merit. (At the same time he really should stop acting like he’s God’s gift to chess. Niemann is a very talented player, but Carlsen was already fighting for the top spot on the rating list when he was 17. Maybe Niemann will become a 2800 player someday, maybe he won’t, but in the meantime his antics and braggadocio will give organizers and others every possible excuse not to help him. It shouldn’t need to be said that being a donkey on the one hand and a bootlicker on the other are not the only behavioral options on the table.)

Anyway, I do wish Niemann the best in these matches, and hope that if they go well for him they will open up more invitations for him in normal events.

Additional Note 1: I don’t see a normal site for his matches, but for now you can find the classical Niemann-Giri games here. They can also be found, along with the blitz and rapid games they contested, in this week’s TWIC download (#1553).

Additional Note 2: Speaking of their rapid & blitz games: Niemann won their blitz match 7.5-4.5 while they split their rapid match 3-3.