 "Hikaru Nakamura tosses a piece to fans to celebrate beating D Gukesh and India in chess. Image: Chess.com")
India suffered a 5-0 defeat to Team USA in the exhibition Checkmate: USA vs India chess match, as world champion D Gukesh was beaten by world no 2 Hikaru Nakamura in a bullet game on Saturday (Sunday morning in India).
The Checkmate: USA vs India exhibition chess match took place at Arlington Esports Stadium, Texas, and allowed live audiences to cheer and jeer during the matches, in complete contrast to how traditional chess matches are played in silence.
Nakamura turns showman after dismantling Gukesh
The match ended in a checkmate as Nakamura picked up a chess piece and threw it to fans celebrating the USA’s 5-0 win over India, as Gukesh watched on helplessly after posing a tough challenge to the American Grandmaster.
The Nakamura vs Gukesh match was the last one to be played; however, by then India were already 4-0 down. The exhibition contest started with Arjun Erigaisi, only the second Indian to cross 2800 Elo points after Viswanathan Anand, losing the first game to Fabiano Caruana.
International Master Ethan Vaz lost to fellow 14-year-old Tanitoluwa Adewumi as the USA took a 2-0 lead, and Carissa Yip’s victory over Women’s World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh sealed the deal for the hosts.
An interesting game between Chessbase India’s Sagar Shah and popular chess streamer Levy Rozman (Gotham Chess) was also played, with the latter winning and making it 4-0.
Gukesh suffers narrow loss to Nakamura
Despite having nothing to fight for, Gukesh gave Nakamura a tough fight, playing out draws in the 10-minute and five-minute games with the weaker black pieces. However, Nakamura finally emerged triumphant with a victory in the one-minute bullet game that had a one-second increment per move.
Nakamura checkmated Gukesh on the last rank with Nakamura playing Qd8 on the 56th move. A while bishop on b2 ensured that Gukesh’s king on f8 had no escape.
With the USA being the hosts, all American players played with the white pieces. Indian players will have the white pieces in the reverse fixture, which will be played in India.