Kingslayer: Sam Sevian snatches Hans Niemann’s king in the middle of a match

It seems there’s never a dull game when Hans Niemann is at the board, and that was the case with a sharp end game against Sam Sevian in the U.S. Chess Championship. In the middle of the pair’s match yesterday, Sevian grabbed Niemann’s king and appeared to break the cross from atop the king’s head.

It all made for a bizarre and rather dramatic moment as Niemann gestured at Sevian, clearly annoyed, while Sevian himself almost looked a little confused at his own actions.

For the non-chess-initiated, touching pieces in chess is serious business, and touching someone else’s piece that’s still in play is a major no-no. While players sometimes adjust pieces so that they’re fully on squares, particularly in games with little time left on the clock when play can get a little sloppy, generally you must move a piece that you touch. Technically, you’re also supposed to let an opponent know if you’re simply adjusting a piece, but that rule is a bit fast and loose these days. But in a game where rules and regulations have been set in stone for so long, if you touch a piece, you have to move it, and you do not touch another player’s piece.

What makes the scene between Sevian and Niemann even more bizarre is that it occurred during Niemann’s turn. Niemann’s clock was running down, but Sevian removed a piece from the board and disrupted whatever ideas Niemann was coming up with next. It’s also most likely the major source of Niemann’s annoyance.

Eventually, both players’ clocks were paused as an arbiter came and sorted the issue out. After the match, Niemann said that a bit of his king had come off and that Sevian grabbed it off the board because he wanted to repair the piece, which came apart in his hands. That’s not quite as dramatic a story as GM and tournament leader Fabiano Caruana put it one Twitter.

The sight of Sevian staring down at the broken king is one of the funnier moments to occur in chess lately, and ultimately it didn’t seem to alter the game too much. Niemann, already out of contention in the tournament, won the game by trading a rook for a pawn and bishop in the end game, freeing his own pawn to make a queen and besting Sevian’s last remaining rook.

Ever since the Sinquefield Cup and subsequent cheating allegations lobbed his way, all eyes have been on Niemann and his matches over the board. And it’s difficult to say that the player hasn’t delivered on some memorable chess moments in the process.