Airthings Masters

[Hans Jung]

Eric Hansen finished at + 2 and 5th place ahead of a whole list of who's who. Fantastic performance! (especially since he was 2nd lowest rated)

[Hans Jung]

Eric had wins against the top two finishers, Nepo and Magnus, and the Shak and Duda amongst others.

[Neil Frarey]

Eric vs Nepo featured over on agadmator's Chess Channel ... lots of love for Eric!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2YaOtGfyHk

[Pargat Perrer]

Eric Hansen finished at + 2 and 5th place ahead of a whole list of who's who. Fantastic performance! (especially since he was 2nd lowest rated)

Hans, could this trigger an investigation for cheating? I know this is Rapid Chess, not slow chess, but even Rapid Chess must have a threshold for investigation for cheating.

[Hans Jung]

Well you asked for my opinion Pargat, so ... I can tell you it was vintage Eric - yes his play was sharp but also full of human decisions and clearly in his style. I went through every game. I'll tell you this: Im pretty sure the thought occurred to others and therefore has probably already been checked out. No, Eric is incredibly on form and has finally realized his great potential and he is probably waiting to celebrate and kudos to him.

[Marc Andre Beaudry]

Difficult to cheat when you're followed by camera, I think. Eric is a streamer and he constantly watches chess and he is a good friend of Yasser Seirawan and was a friend of Naka, the guy has simply improved a lot and got the tournament of his life. Don't think he cheats.

[Fred McKim]

I would imagine these events have two cameras on each player. Clearly, Eric has some advantage over many of the field considering online is probably his only chess interface these days.

[Neil Frarey]

Esipenko vs Hansen ... Quarter Final !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDKDkUW2dkU

[Bob Armstrong]

Esipenko won, and is through to the semi-finals.

[Hans Jung]

Well fought match Esipenko - Hansen. Games were tough positional battles. Maybe the difference was Esipenko's interesting queen sacrifice in game 3.
Anyways, fantastic performance Eric! Exciting to see you shine!

[Marc Andre Beaudry]

Eric made a great tournament, this is an extraordinary performance and in top of that he beat Nepo and Magnus. Wow !! And made a great showing against a young star. Congrats to Eric.
He also rehabilitated the Tchigorin.

[Pargat Perrer]

Difficult to cheat when you're followed by camera, I think. Eric is a streamer and he constantly watches chess and he is a good friend of Yasser Seirawan and was a friend of Naka, the guy has simply improved a lot and got the tournament of his life. Don't think he cheats.

I personally don't think Eric cheats, but that isn't my point.

So I looked up the final crosstable, and Eric has a Rapid rating of 2606 and achieved a performance rating of 2764. That is a jump of 158 rating points against the world's elite GMs, the super GMs.

My question is: what exactly triggers an investigation for cheating? Is there something actually written down, some criteria? Because if Eric isn't investigated for this, then someone who achieves a 158 point rating jump in a lower category can argue that he or she cannot be investigated for cheating because Eric wasn't in this specific case.

I would expect the criteria to be different for slow chess versus Rapid chess, but nevertheless there SHOULD BE specific criteria to trigger an investigation. That is my only point.

And congrats to Eric, certainly he wasn't cheating.

[Bob Armstrong]

It is Magnus in Game 7!!

Bob A