Hans Niemann calls Magnus Carlsen 'a bully', says he was attacked by entire network

American chess grandmaster Hans Niemann, despite having resolved his differences with Magnus Carlsen recently, called the Norwegian a ‘bully’ who had tasked his entire network to attack him.

During an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Niemann said that Carlsen was indeed a bully and had used his vast network, including his connections at chess.com, to target him. Niemann also said that all these actions were straight up bullying and that, he had to stand up against the individual and confront him.

Niemann, however, said that he was looking ahead and wanted to take on Magnus Carlsen in any tournament in the future.

“It is a simple thing and if people will bully I am going to stand up to them and I stood up to him and I look forward to competing him against the board and I am going to do my best and prove myself,” he said.

Niemann also added that he had been a consistent performer in chess and had also received an endorsement from the chess.com website. He revealed that the platform had previously imposed a ban on him, but then revoked it and acknowledged that he had not engaged in any form of cheating.

“So, on their website I have beaten some of the best players in the world. I have performed at the highest level on their websites, which they themselves say that I didn’t cheated,” he went on to add.

At a time when the credibility of chess was under the scanner, Vladimir Kramnik made the decision to discontinue playing the game on chess.com due to what he described as an excessive number of obvious cheaters on the popular platform. He did not name any specific player, but then, he was involved in a few matches against Niemann.

This decision came after Kramnik’s defeat in two games against Niemann in the AI Cup on the chess.com platform.