Editorial Content for Checkmate: Genius, Lies, Ambition, and the Biggest Scandal in Chess

In any competitive endeavor where the stakes are high, periodic episodes of cheating are inevitable. Those knowledgeable about American sports history will recall the 1919 Black Sox scandal and the point-shaving scandals of the 1950s in college basketball. More recently, the University of Michigan football program suffered severe NCAA sanctions when its illegal scouting of future opponents came to light.

The game of chess has been around for some 1,500 years, and in that time it has had its share of cheating scandals. The colorful, at times shocking, story Ben Mezrich tells with verve in CHECKMATE is an engaging one about a pair of starkly different personalities --- one of whom occupied the pinnacle of the chess world for years, and another so desperate to supplant him that he may have resorted to improper means to do so. It's a story that has captured the imagination of people far beyond the world of chess. There's a Netflix documentary about it that debuted in April 2026, and a feature film in development with A24, produced by Emma Stone and directed by Nathan Fiedler.  

When he appeared in September 2022, at St. Louis's Sinquefield Cup, one of the most prestigious tournament in American chess, 31-year-old Norwegian "Mozart of chess," Marcus Carlsen --- the youngest Grandmaster ever at age 13, winner of 53 consecutive classical matches, and five-time World Champion --- was the dominant figure in world chess.

"[T]he game of chess requires both intellectual acuity and a distinctive psychological makeup to succeed at its highest level. As well as anyone could ask, Mezrich illuminates those aspects of the human mind and heart and the drama of expert competition in this propulsive story."

Calrsen’s third-round opponent was American-born Hans Niemann, only 19 years old, who had spent much of the previous two years traveling the world alone, painstakingly raising his world ranking to No. 40. The two had met in a speed chess tournament in Miami several weeks earlier, sponsored by the soon-to-be notorious cryptocurrency firm FTX, where Niemann, surprisingly, had won a single game from his much more prominent opponent. 

After his stunning defeat in the first game in St. Louis, made more shocking by the fact that Niemann played the black pieces. Carlsen withdrew from the tournament and posted a tweet strongly insinuating that his opponent had cheated. An improbable actor --- a railroad conductor and professional internet troll in Liverpool, England --- fashioned a tweet that accused Niemann of using "anal beads" to be tipped on his moves and pull off his upset. The scandal exploded when Elon Musk, not yet the owner of the social media platform, but an omnipresent poster, retweeted it. 

Complicating all of this was the role of the website Chess.com and its principals Erik Allebest and Danny Rensch. At the time of the Sinquefield Cup, the site, grown to a valuation of $1 billion, was about to acquire Carlsen's app Play Magnus for $80 million and make the Norwegian star the face of its brand. But as Mezrich reveals, Niemann had a complicated history with Rensch and his company, dating all the way back to his online playing as a 12e-year-old and an episode of cheating that earned him a suspension from play. 

In the wake of Carlsen's withdrawal, the story of Niemann's alleged cheating spiraled out of control, eventually producing a report from Chess.com that raised substantial questions about his past conduct. That triggered a $100 million lawsuit from Niemann against Carlsen and the company for slander and antitrust violations. Even in the absence of a definitive resolution of the claims, it seemed, Niemann was destined to wear a scarlet "C" as he moved through the world of big-time chess. 

In his well-paced account, Mezrich --- the author of 13 works of nonfiction, including THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES, which was transformed by Aaron Sorkin into the film The Social Network --- understands that he's not writing for an audience of chess aficionados. As a result, he's far less interested in the intricacies of any game than he is in the emotional dynamics of his idiosyncratic characters. Carlsen comes across as a stolid, workmanlike practitioner, almost inseparable from his father Henrik, his trusted advisor. Niemann, an admirer of the controversial chess great Bobby Fischer, is a mercurial loner, whose explosive personality is well-suited to the demands of the online world, but far less so to the decorous world of chess. The contrast, as Mezrich portrays it, could not be more striking.

Near the end of CHECKMATE, Mezrich indulges in a brief, somewhat disconcerting meta-nonfictional detour in which he identifies himself as the most unreliable narrator in a story teeming with them. "Because as good as he was at endearing himself to his main characters, Ben was just as easily smitten by them," he writes of himself. "He was motivated to believe everything they told him, because it was his goal to tell the story through their eyes, as they saw it." 

And so, readers looking for a reporter to assume the mantle of prosecutor or defense attorney won't find one here. Mezrich does a capable job gathering and presenting the evidence on both sides of the argument over the claims of Niemann's cheating, but leaves it to us to render the final judgment. It's impossible to know whether, in the course of his reporting, he had more access to Niemann, but one senses that his sympathies tilt in the younger man's direction. 

CHECKMATE culminates with a match between Carlsen and Niemann in Paris in September  2024 at Chess.com's Speed Chess Championship. It was the first time the pair had faced each other for more than two years. Mezrich effectively captures the circus atmosphere surrounding that event, one that feels like a shootout on a dusty Western street between two experienced gunslingers. As he reveals here, the game of chess requires both intellectual acuity and a distinctive psychological makeup to succeed at its highest level. As well as anyone could ask, Mezrich illuminates those aspects of the human mind and heart and the drama of expert competition in this propulsive story.