Hikaru Nakamura tossed D Gukesh’s king in the air after beating world champion. (Screengrab)

Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik has made a scathing attack on world no. 2 Hikaru Nakamura after the American Grandmaster threw away 19-year-old world champion D Gukesh’s king in an exhibition event called Checkmate: USA vs India at Texas’ Esports Stadium Arlington. Hikaru Nakamura had stunned world champion D Gukesh as India were whitewashed 0-5 by USA in the first Checkmate. “This is not just vulgarity, but already a diagnosis of the degradation of modern chess,” Kramnik wrote on X.

“I don’t know who came up with this childish, tasteless act. Likely this “thinker” had no specific intention to humiliate Gukesh, but could have realized that this public gesture (using opponent’s KING) looks offensive and provocative ESPECIALLY against the World Champion.”

In another tweet, Kramnik said Nakamura’s gesture has damaged the game. “There are players who show respect and mature gentlemanly behaviour, many prominent players in fact (Wesley So, Gukesh himself, and many others). Promoting for years the player known for his awful behaviour instead—deliberate action, damaging our game in my opinion,” he wrote.

While the match had many tense moments and players from both teams created winning chances, USA rose to the occasion and scored several clutch wins. Playing with black pieces, the Indians suffered a rough loss and will look to bounce back with white pieces in the return match in the second leg in India.

While Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi lost to Fabiano Caruana, Grandmaster Divya Deshmukh suffered a shock defeat at the hands of International Master Carissa Yip. International Master Levy Rozman then defeated Sagar Shah before chess prodigy Ethan Vaz lost to International Master Tani Adewumi.