Daniil Dubov

Russian GM

“Hans plays at his level, he plays around 2725, 2730. He is a very strong grandmaster, a strong 2700+ player. I already thought he plays at his rating. This, however, did not affect my suspicions that he might have done something before.

This is a hugely popular misconception for some reason: people think that if a person plays poorly after allegations — they cheated, but if they play well afterwards — they didn’t cheat. In reality, a person can be very strong by themselves and still cheat — there’s no logic there.

In Hans’s case now, if you ask everyone, it’s clear people still suspect him. It’s clear it looks shady. Nevertheless, I am absolutely sure, and not just me but many others have no doubt, that lately he has clearly been playing by himself and playing strongly. There’s no doubt about that. There is no contradiction between these things either.

People suspected Topalov in his time. Yes, Topalov became very strong initially when there were no proper engines yet. In the nineties, he was already playing very strongly. And all this discussion started later, but it is absolutely obvious that Topalov is a brilliant chess player by himself. But that doesn’t affect whether he cheated or not. Just don’t think that if a person plays well somewhere and definitely played by themselves there, it means they never cheated. No, it doesn’t work that way.”