I've played tens of thousands of chess games online.

I never cheated in any of them.

Except one.

I'll confess it now: I might be the first person in history to ever cheat at online chess.

In the 1990s, I helped build the first internet chess server. I also worked on Deep Blue—the IBM supercomputer that became the first to beat a world chess champion.

One night, I was losing to a guy I couldn't stand. So I connected Deep Blue to the server and let it crush him for me.

I never did it again. 

Because here's the truth about cheating: there's no point. You win, and you feel nothing.

Here's why I'm telling you this…

I've commentated on elite tournaments on TV. I've had dinner with Magnus Carlsen twice—the man at the center of the biggest cheating scandal in chess history. I know the people who run online chess.

So when Ben Mezrich—the author behind the books that became The Social Network and 21—came on my podcast to talk about Checkmate, his book on the scandal, I figured I knew the whole story.

I was wrong. 

Even if you don’t care about chess, this story is important for investors to understand. 

Here’s why: 

The only reason cheating in professional chess is even thinkable now is because the technology is getting scary good.

That's the real pattern everyone should be focused on.

AI keeps getting smaller, cheaper, and more powerful. And right now, it's about to turn up somewhere most people aren't looking: inside your smartphone.

On Monday, June 8, Apple will make what I believe is its biggest announcement since the iPhone itself. And one tiny $900 million company—the secret supplier behind their push into AI—holds the key to all of it.

I lay out the entire thesis right here: Click here for my latest (and biggest) 10X Apple prediction.

The Real Story

The two people in this story could not be more different.

Magnus Carlsen is the Mozart of chess. World champion for a decade, the most dominant player who ever lived. People watched him the way they watched Tiger Woods in his prime.

Hans Niemann is the opposite. A 19-year-old American. Talented and climbing fast, but nowhere near Magnus.

In September 2022, they met at the Sinquefield Cup, one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world. Magnus was supposed to win without breaking a sweat.

Hans beat him.

And he did it with the black pieces — the side that moves second, the harder side to win from. Against the best player alive, it's not supposed to be possible.

The next day, Magnus did something he'd never done in his career. He withdrew. And he posted a cryptic video — a soccer coach saying, "If I speak, I am in big trouble."

Translation: I think he cheated. I just can't prove it.

A reigning world champion accusing an opponent of cheating, with no evidence — it had basically never happened. It was an earthquake.

Computers Always Win

Here's the part outsiders don't get. 

A $20 app on your phone can now crush any human who has ever lived.

You don't need the whole game fed to you. One whispered move at the right moment, and you'd never lose again.

Online, cheating is everywhere — but the sites have algorithms that catch it. In person, across a real board, it's supposed to be impossible. You're watched. You're scanned for devices.

Which brings me to the anal beads.

Because no one could explain HOW Hans might have cheated in person, the internet invented an answer: a remote-controlled vibrating sex toy, buzzing him secret moves.

It became the joke heard around the world.

Ben tracked down where it actually came from: A ticket-taker on a train in Liverpool, England, whose hobby is trolling the internet at night.

He and his friends spammed a popular chess streamer's chat until the streamer said "anal beads" out loud on camera. They clipped it. They tweeted it.

And then Elon Musk retweeted it.

That tweet—not the chess—is why a billion people know this story. 

Did Hans Cheat That Day? 

After the game, Magnus wanted to walk straight to Hans's hotel room and just... ask him. 

Did you cheat? 

I love that. 

It's so pure. It's also insane. Nobody admits it.

Chess.com, the biggest chess site on earth, ran its own investigation. 

It concluded Hans had likely cheated online roughly a hundred times. But it found no evidence he cheated in that game against Magnus.

And yet.

When you're the best in the world, you can feel when something is off. That probably counts for something. But Magnus also walked in already hating Hans. Already primed to see a ghost.

The thing that both worries and excites me… 

Twenty years ago, this story couldn't have happened. The technology didn't exist.

Today it fits in your ear. Tomorrow it's everywhere.

That's the part investors should be watching.

Especially before Apple’s largest event of the year, on June 8. Click here to see exactly why.