Vladimir Kramnik Lambasts Hikaru Nakamura's 'Vulgar' Act Of Tossing D Gukesh's King Into Crowd: 'Degradation Of Modern Chess'

Vladimir Kramnik, a former world champion, didn't mince his words while accusing Hikaru Nakamura of "vulgarity" after the American grandmaster tossed Gukesh Dommaraju's king into the crowd following his victory in an exhibition event, Checkmate: USA vs India.

Nakamura pulled off a stunning upset, defeating world champion D Gukesh as the USA overpowered India with a thorough 5-0 whitewash.

“This is not just vulgarity, but already a diagnosis of the degradation of modern chess,” Kramnik wrote on X.

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"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 a scathing remark, Kramnik stated that Nakamura's gesture had dealt a damaging blow to the game itself.

“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 on his post on X.

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While the match had many tense moments and players from both teams created winning chances, USA rose up to the occasion and scored several clutch wins.

While Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi lost to Fabiano Caruana, Grandmaster Divya Deshmukh suffered a shock drubbing at the hands of International Master Carissa Yip.

International master Levy Rozman then beat Sagar Shah before chess prodigy Ethan Vaz lost to International master Tani Adewumi.