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The quality of players post-game interview varies widely. Some clearly don’t put much thoughts into them because they would rather go home. Niemann is in good company here. That was nothing particularly exceptional.
And if you don't want to and just would like to go home, fair enough, but then you really shouldn't give an explanation which is wrong!
It's a pattern with Niemann too, he's infamous for saying only "The chess speaks for itself" after beating Carlsen with black once before.
I think the parallel with academic cheating is accurate.
You clearly have never been through a four hours math exam with open questions.
There is no obviously correct answer. There is the way you tackled the problem and the myriad of other ways you could have done which might be more or less obvious, easy or correct.
It’s the same with chess. There is the line you played, the line your opponent played, the other lines you could have played which you did or didn’t consider, same with your opponent. Some of them you considered seriously, other you didn’t. Plus all the things you missed but didn’t matter because your opponent didn’t go there.
Also, you seem to believe chess players are doing post-game interviews because they want to. It’s not the case. It’s a mandatory part of participating in the tournament. Most of them would decline them if they could.
And yes Niemann is infamous for hating post-game interviews and always giving poor answers which is why I’m surprised people actually base their argument on this.
It's an exaggeration to say everyone hates post game discussion. Magnus used to dislike it somewhat, possibly - it was hilarious how Norwegian newspapers tried to turn him into a celebrity in those days because hey! Chess superstar! And it all fell flat because he was so unbelievably boring at the time, lol. He got more social confidence as he got older (and the media got better too, getting people who actually had a clue about chess to talk to him).
But these days, the young GMs are on twitch for heaven's sake. From a social and media standpoint, Niemann is perfectly competent, a lot more so than Magnus was at his age. It's explaining his play he avoids. So yes, it's suspicious. I'm equally surprised at why you would think people would just overlook this.
