Hans Niemann’s king ‘decapitated’ in weird incident on the US Championship

Controversial American chess participant Hans Niemann is once more within the highlight after a weird incident throughout the US Championship.

Niemann was deep in thought throughout the endgame of his Twelfth-round match towards fellow grandmaster Sam Sevian, when his opponent out of the blue reached throughout the board and grabbed Niemann’s king, pulling the cross from the highest of the piece.

“The disrespect simply reached its peak,” tweeted the match chief and former world championship contender Fabiano Caruana.

“Sam decapitated Hans’s king.”

A visibly-confused Niemann gesticulated his annoyance, earlier than Sevian put the piece again on the fallacious sq..

The match was then paused as an arbiter was referred to as to resolve the matter.

Touching an opponent’s piece in chess with out capturing it’s extremely uncommon, however Niemann later stated the incident wasn’t as dramatic because it first appeared.

“It was only a misunderstanding, nothing too critical,” Niemann stated.

“We had a cordial dialog afterwards, so there are not any laborious emotions there.”

Niemann stated Sevian had observed the highest of the black king was turning into free and he wished to repair it.

“So he simply picked it up, however I used to be only a bit aggravated as a result of it was on my time,” he stated.

“He wished to attach the piece — I used to be simply very confused.”

Niemann went on to win the match, however is out of competition for the title.

The US Championship is being performed on the Saint Louis Chess Membership, the identical venue the place Niemann final month recorded a shock win over reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen on the Sinquefield Cup.

Carlsen withdrew from the match after that loss, later elevating suspicions that Niemann had cheated.