‘Cold War’ era USA-Russia chess battle returns, loser must take ‘polygraph' test

Cheating-accused American Grandmaster Hans Niemann has accepted a challenge match from Russian Grandmaster Daniil Dubov on the condition that the loser will undergo a polygraph test.

Niemann announced on Friday that the 18-game match will be held in Dubov's home turf, Moscow, on March 7 and 8. According to Niemann, the games will be in the blitz format (3 minutes per player with a 2-second increment per move). Niemann and Dubov are elite Grandmasters in the top 30 in world rankings.

Dubov and Niemann have exchanged online spats since the Russian's infamous no-show during their pairing in round 10 of the World Blitz Chess Championship held in New York last December.

It was widely speculated that Dubov avoided the game with Niemann, who has been accused of cheating by several prominent players, including World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen. Dubov played down his no-show incident by claiming he missed the game with Niemann because he had overslept. Niemann won the game by default and advanced to the quarterfinals, where he lost a thriller to Carlsen.

On New Year's Eve, Niemann accused Dubov of 'cowardice'. He also offered to play Dubov under any conditions, offering to meet his travel and accommodation expenses, besides a reward of '10k to the charity of his choice'.

Dubov responded on January 1, declaring his readiness to play under a set of conditions. "You agree to a lie detector test with a trained professional; I'm certain we can find a trusted independent authority (maybe Demis Hassabis could help?) to pick the company/person to run it.

"Test to feature only questions about cheating, with the results to be communicated to the community at large. If the test comes out clean, I will accept my decision was rash, and I'm ready to play a 24-game blitz match against you, 8 games a day, $2,000 per point," Dubov said then.

Niemann vs Carlsen
Norwegian superstar Carlsen is Niemann's most famous critic. Carlsen first accused Niemann of cheating in 2022 after the Norwegian lost to the American in the Sinquefield Cup.

Popular chess platform, chessdotcom, claimed Niemann cheated in online games, and the American also allegedly admitted to cheating in online chess when he was a teenager. He, however, denied cheating in over-the-board games.

Carlsen has repeatedly maintained that Niemann has cheated in chess. He reiterated his position during a recent appearance on the famous Joe Rogan Experience podcast. A Netflix documentary on the cheating scandal is also in production. Niemann famously challenged Carlsen to a $1 million challenge.

New cold war
Coincidentally, Niemann announced his readiness to play Dubov on the day the chess world mourned the death of former World Champion Boris Spassky at 88.

Russian Spassky famously played American challenger Bobby Fischer in the 1972 World Championship held at Reykjavik in Iceland. The clash held during the Cold War, a geopolitical rivalry between the United States of America and the erstwhile USSR (Soviet Union), was dubbed 'Match of the Century', and Fischer won it.