It didn’t take long and we ended up in the Nimzowitsch Indian Defence. But that’s not the only deepening in the Magnus Carlsen and Hans Moke Niemann chess scandal, a story that began with the Norwegian superstar’s defeat by the US teenager at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis. On the third day of the tournament, Carlsen had chosen a variant of the Nimzowitsch-Indian Defence, which was also rare, but Niemann not only countered it with Black, he triumphed. World champion Carlsen withdrew from the tournament prematurely, tweeted a suggestive interview with football coach José Mourinho and thus accused his 19-year-old conqueror of cheating, more directly than indirectly.
