Hikaru Nakamura’s gesture after his win over D Gukesh in the Checkmate tournament dominated the headlines as he threw the world champion’s king into the crowd as the game came to an end. The USA dominated India in the opening leg of Checkmate as they beat them 5-0 in Arlington to lay down the marker, but it was Nakamura who stole the spotlight.

The World No.2 produced a clinical performance to outplay Gukesh and secure the win, much to the delight of the fans in attendance. As the match came to an end, Nakamura took Gukesh’s king of the board and threw into the crowd. The World Champion did look a bit flustered by Nakamura’s antics. You can see the full video below:

Nakamura slammed for his antics

The World No.2’s reaction drew widespread criticism from fans. While the act appeared to be spontaneous, many of the fans said it was disrespectful and unnecessary.

Some of the fans praised Gukesh for showing composure during the moment and not reacting to it.

Nakamura talked about the gesture and said, as quoted by Chess India, that he was always thinking about going it.

“If I won, I was always going to throw the king. The fact that it was a dramatic bullet game made it even better. I hope the fans enjoyed it!” said Nakamura.

As fans started to bash the World No.2, Levy Rozman, who was also part of the competition, said that it was all part of the plan and both teams were briefed and encouraged to pull off such antics to hype up the crowd.

“Both teams were briefed that theatrics were encouraged and throwing kings, knocking them over etc to hype the crowd up was ok. it just so happened that hikaru won, and pretty sure he even spoke to/apologized to Gukesh backstage, saying it was all for show,” said Rozman.

There will be a return leg of this in India down the line.

– Ends