Carlsen's 'gaslit' comment against Chess.com under scanner after four-year-old comment resurfaces: 'NOT given or told...'

In the Untold: Chess Mates documentary released on Netflix last week, world No 1 Magnus Carlsen had revealed that he felt gaslit by Chess.com when it came to the 2022 cheating scandal involving Hans Niemann.

The Netflix documentary, which focuses on the cheating scandal that took place at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup and its aftermath, had interviewed multiple individuals besides central characters Carlsen and Niemann. Among those interviewed were Chess.com co-founders Danny Rensch and Erik Allebest, who currently serve as the 'Chief Chess Officer' and Chief Executive Officer respectively.

In the documentary, Rensch and Allebest were said to have assured Carlsen they would find evidence to support the five-time world champion's cheating accusations leveled against American GM Niemann, who was 19 at the time of the scandal.

However, Niemann had admitted to cheating in online games during his childhood and teenage years, Chess.com could not find any evidence of the American GM cheating in over-the-board games, including the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, USA, which left Carlsen upset.

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"I felt that I’d sort of been gaslit a bit by Chess.com," Carlsen said in the documentary.

"In retrospect, maybe Chess.com was so concerned about (their) relationship to Magnus that they might have promised a little more than they can deliver," Carlsen's father Henrik added.

Danny Rensch's four-year-old Reddit comment goes viral

A four-year-old comment by Rensch on social media platform Reddit, however, casts doubt over Carlsen's "gaslit" claim.

In a thread that appeared to discuss Carlsen's controversial resignation against Niemann in an online tournament shortly after the cheating scandal, Rensch had claimed that Calrsen had not seen Chess.com's cheat detection algorithms nor was given or told a list of cheaters.

“MAGNUS has NOT seen chesscom cheat detection algorithms," Rensch wrote in the comment. “MAGNUS was NOT given or told a list of ‘cheaters’”.

"He is and has completely acted 100% on his own knowledge (not sure where he got it!) and desires to this time," he added.

Chess.com had acquired the Play Magnus Group, which owned properties such as chess website Chess24, in 2022 around the time the Sinquefield Cup scandal broke out, and Carlsen has had close relations with the leading website since then.