Nearly a year after cheating allegations nearly derailed his career and rocked the world of competitive chess, American grandmaster Hans Niemann thinks it’s high time to finally let his game “speak for itself.” In a video posted to Twitter on Tuesday, Niemann opened with a simple, stonily-delivered question to the chess world: “Did you miss me?” The filmed statement is Niemann’s first since his $100 million lawsuit against rival Magnus Carlsen and the online platform Chess.com was dismissed by a judge in June. On Monday, Chess.com announced that it had reached “an agreement” with Niemann, and that his account had been fully reinstated. The grandmaster said in his video that his dispute with the platform and Carlsen had been “resolved in a mutually acceptable manner,” and that he was looking forward to squaring off against Carlsen “in chess rather than in court.” He added, “No matter the obstacles that I will face, no matter how much you try to blacklist me, no matter what you do to try to ruin my career or slander my reputation—these difficult times... have only invigorated me even more to reach the top of chess. There will be a day when I will be the best chess player in the world.”
