Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura has explained what happened during his chaotic third-place match against Alireza Firouzja at the Esports World Cup 2026, after a series of technical problems eventually brought the contest to an unexpected end.Nakamura was competing against his Falcons Esports teammate Firouzja for third place. The match was already close and complicated when multiple players experienced disconnections.Another game was affected by the technical problems, and Firouzja eventually left the match.
Multiple disconnections cause chaos and controversy
Nakamura said he was left waiting for around 20 minutes before officials told him that the match would be recorded as a forfeit in his favour. At the time, however, he did not know what had caused the problem.“Today’s match with Alireza certainly didn’t go well for anyone. It was chaos with multiple disconnections and then Alireza’s untimely departure from the event,” Nakamura explained in an official statement.The American grandmaster said he had no access to his phone or outside information while waiting. Because the first thing he saw on his screen was a disconnection, he assumed the problem was with chess.com.After the forfeit was confirmed, Nakamura was taken to do interviews. Still frustrated and without the full context, he publicly said that he believed chess.com was responsible.
Nakamura retracts his comments
He has since admitted that assumption was incorrect.“I now know I was wrong. It was an EWC issue that took out a few events, not just chess,” Nakamura said. He added that he wished he had been given that information before doing the interviews, saying that he had “jumped to conclusions” and wrongly blamed chess.com.Nakamura apologised to chess.com and asked for his retraction to be shared wherever his original comments had appeared. He also jokingly dismissed suggestions that he had been pressured into changing his story, saying he was “not under duress by the ‘chess mafia’” and that Danny was not “holding my hand on the stove.”Despite the dramatic ending, Nakamura officially finished third at the Esports World Cup, defeating Firouzja after leading 3-1 with two games remaining before the forfeit. The result earned him $145,000 and valuable Club Championship points for Falcons Esports.
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