Vibrating crotches, anal beads and suspicious minds: the long, strange history of chess cheats

Magnus Carlsen (left) ponders his next move against Hans Niemann at the Sinquefield Cup in 2022. Photograph: Crystal Fuller/Saint Louis Chess Club

There really is, it turns out, a true story involving cheating in chess and a vibrating crotch. Only this one is a whodunnit that dates back more than 30 years and was only solved last week.

Imagine the scene at the World Open in Philadelphia in 1993 when a mysterious unrated player with fake dreadlocks and headphones, and with a bulge that vibrates in his trousers, shows up. Now multiply it 100-fold when this unknown amateur, who calls himself John von Neumann after the founder of game theory, draws with a grandmaster, Helgi Ólafsson, in round two.