Hello and welcome to More or Less with me David Edmunds. We're the program that looks

at numbers in the world all around us. This week, how data is at the heart of a dramatic

scandal rocking the world of chess. He's arguably the greatest chess player who's ever

lived. But on September the 4th in the 2022 Sankfield Cup, the Norwegian World Champion

Magnus Carlson did something he rarely does. He lost. His opponent was a 19 year old

American hence Neiman. Quite a big surprise, especially because it's

classical chess, which means slower, more time to think Carlson of course the best player

in the world plays very, very accurately, very rarely loses, you know, maybe at most

a few times a year. So a big surprise. Nate Solan, data analyst and chessmaster. But

the story that would transfix the chess world was only just getting started. The following

day, Carlson did something shocking. He abruptly withdrew from the tournament. Alex Terrien

is a BBC journalist and himself a chessmaster. Soon after he made veiled accusations of cheating

against Neiman, but didn't directly accuse him. The cheating insinuation outraged Neiman.

He admitted to having cheated online on two occasions as a junior, but insisted he would

never cheat face to face over the board. I have never cheated in an over the board game.

Other when I was 12 years old, I have never, ever, ever and I would never do that. It is

the worst thing I could ever do, cheat in a tournament with prize money. Two weeks later,

the players were paired against each other once more, this time online. It took less than

a minute for the feud to escalate dramatically. Carlson played one move and then... Well,

the game was being watched by the commentators of the website, chess24.

This is his main move, the four night of 64, yeah, definitely. And what? What? No.

Magnus Carlson just resigned, got up and left. This is on precedent, I just, I can't believe

...