 "Hikaru Nakamura has been accused of disrespecting D Gukesh by throwing his king into the crowd. Images: Carissa Yip/X/ChessBase India")
American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura has defended himself after facing criticism for tossing reigning World Champion D Gukesh’s king into the crowd during an exhibition match at Checkmate: USA vs India in Arlington, Texas last week. The incident sparked a lot of criticism from some Indian fans and former players, who felt Nakamura had disrespected Gukesh and the game.
However, it later emerged that the event organisers had asked players to do entertaining stunts like throwing the king or even breaking it, to make the event more fun for spectators. Nakamura defended his action and explained that no serious chess player would ever do this in an official tournament.
“It was not an insult… If it were a serious event, like the Candidates, of course you would never do such a thing. Nobody would! It doesn’t matter if it was Magnus Carlsen, Hans Niemann, Anish Giri, or me. But this was a purely entertainment event,” Nakamura said in a video on his YouTube stream.
Nakamura suggests fun way for Gukesh to celebrate
He also suggested a fun way for Gukesh to celebrate if he wins in a reverse match in India later this year. Nakamura said that Gukesh should dance to a Bollywood song if he beats him in another Checkmate: USA vs India match, which is expected to be held in the World Champion’s home country later this year.
“Assuming we go to India and play a match in India. I would tell you what Gukesh should do if he wins. He should just stand up, they should queue up the Bollywood music, and he should start dancing or something. He should start dancing on the chessboard in front of me. Something like that. And that would not insult me. That would be no insult whatsoever,” he said.
Nakamura also explained why he threw the king underhand after winning the game against Gukesh. He said that he didn’t want to hurt anyone in the crowd by throwing the piece with full force.
“Because of the way the king is shaped, I could not really throw the king like a baseball. If the king were like a baseball, I would have probably thrown it halfway deep. But with the king, I could have actually hurt someone. And there was no other way to give it to the fans… unless I was going to walk and hand it over.”
Meanwhile, India suffered a 5-0 defeat to the USA in the exhibition match that also featured Women’s World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh, Indian GM Arjun Erigaisi, and popular chess commentator Sagar Shah. The Indian players played with black pieces because the USA was the host of this fixture. They will get the white pieces if a reverse match is held in India.