Carlsen dodges playing with Niemann again as old chess grudge flares up at World Rapid Team Championship

The long-simmering Carlsen-Niemann feud has flared up again in the chess world at the FIDE World Team Rapid Championship, where the decider round would have pitted the two grandmasters against each other, but Carlsen opted to sit out the round instead, leaving Ian Nepomniachtchi in the hot seat.

Magnus Carlsen set off a firestorm of controversy back in 2022 after his loss to Niemann in the Sinquefield Cup, a prestigious invitational event. He retired from the event the very next day and later claimed that his opponent “has cheated more—and more recently—than he has publicly admitted,” referring to a handful of online games the young American has admitted to, adding that “his over-the-board progress has been unusual, and throughout our game in the Sinquefield Cup I had the impression that he wasn’t tense or even fully concentrating on the game in critical positions while outplaying me as black in a way I think only a handful of players can do.”