By Rahul Sadhu

Copyright timesnownews

The world of chess found itself in a fresh controversy when USA’s Hikaru Nakamura tossed India and World Champion D Gukesh’s King after leading his team to a 5-0 win over India in the first checkmate event, which took place in Arlington. Later, Oone of the world’s most popular YouTubers, Levy Rozman (who goes by the name Gotham Chess), revealed that the idea was not Nakamura’s but had come from the organisers. “Without context, it will look like an unprovoked gesture. But we were encouraged by the organisers to do that stuff. I forgot that if I won my game against ChessBase India’s Sagar Shah, or he won, we were supposed to break the king. It was for the entertainment angle. The winner of Gukesh and Hikaru’s game was supposed to toss the king into the fans. I don’t know if Gukesh would have done that. Hikaru spoke to Gukesh later and explained that it was all for show and no disrespect was meant,” said Rozman. But on Sunday, FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky criticised Nakamura. “The event was a show. Fans were ecstatic. Players were encouraged to behave accordingly. All true. Now, for better or worse, name me one top player who would do what Hikaru did,” Sutovsky posted on X. To this, the organisers replied with sarcasm: “On behalf of the organisers, we admit having forced the players to have fun, to please the crowd and to forego the FIDE Etiquette. We sincerely apologise if the players, the live audience and the vast majority of online viewers had a good time.”