That is an absolutely reasonable assessment, but it's not unreasonable to say that someone who admittedly cheated ~3 years ago, was not honest about the extent of their cheating, and was taking a spot that could have been filled by someone who hasn't admitted to cheating, should not be getting invited to or playing in premier tournaments against the top players in the game. I also don't think it's unreasonable for said top players to do things like withdraw and resign in protest.

This talk of him being a 'kid' cuts both ways. Should we just be absolving known cheaters of all their sins at the moment they turn 18 if their cheating was done as a minor? What kind of time period is appropriate? Hans only turned nineteen 3 months ago. Would you be okay with him sitting down at the board with the WC in a premier tournament if you found out he cheated a month before his 18th birthday? And if not, what is the difference, really?

I'm not a chess grandmaster. However I am a person who has reached the upper echelon (top 100 out of millions of players) in a ELO rated online strategy game. I don't actually care that much about my rank and there's no money involved or anything, but if I did care and there was some sort of career in it, I would absolutely be doing the same thing Magnus is doing right now. As far as I'm concerned, a person who admits to having cheated is always suspect. Mitigating factors would be amount of time since, a full accounting of the cheating, the cheater having come forward on their own accord instead of being forced to by being outed, and a d20 charisma stat check statement that really convinced me that the person has grown. And even after all of that I might still tell them and anyone who wanted me to play them to get fucked, which I would be fully entitled to do, since I earned my rank the legit way and don't have to justify my unwillingness to play cheaters.