Hikaru Nakamura (LEFT) and Daniil Dubov. (PHOTOS: Screengrabs via YouTube)
At the recently-concluded FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship, there was plenty of drama to go by, most of it centred around world no 1 Magnus Carlsen. But there was one incident — which did not directly involve Carlsen — that raised eyebrows: Daniil Dubov missed the game against American GM Hans Niemann.
That miss meant that Daniil Dubov very narrowly missed out on qualifying for the knockouts of the FIDE World Blitz Championship, where the top 8 players, including Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann, made the cut.
Daniil Dubov, who has been a second to Magnus Carlsen in the world chess championship, later said in an interview with Levy Rozman (Gotham Chess) for the Take Take Take app that he had missed the game because he had fallen asleep.
“Well, what happened, happened, yeah? I mean I went to the hotel and I mean I came back and I said I was sleeping, yeah? What do you want me to say?,” Daniil Dubov said when asked about the incident. He then added: “Unless you’re an idiot you know what happened. It’s my first time in the US. It’s very hard to control the jet lag here. That’s life.”
Nakamura chuckled aloud at that defence and poked holes in it in a YouTube video.
The American GM pointed out that Daniil Dubov’s hotel room was about four or five minutes walking distance away from 55, Wall Street, where the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz was happening. He said that blitz games are spaced every half hour and that a game takes about 15 minutes.
“So that means you walk out and take five minutes to go back to your room. And then decide to fall asleep when your next game is in 10 minutes. I don’t know. I don’t know, you guys! You go back to your hotel and say I’m going to take a nap? It seems legit,” Nakamura said with a grin.
After the dust had settled, both Daniil Dubov and Hans Niemann had feuded on the internet with challenges and counter challenges.
Hans Niemann first tweeted: “Cowardice is the absence of character.”
Niemann then followed that up with: “Happy to play Dubov in a blitz match under ANY conditions. I will pay for his travel/accomodation and offer a 10k reward to a charity of his choice if he wins.”
Later, he upped the offer, posting: “I have no intention of entertaining immature shenanigans and accusations. It’s been 2 years of insanity and my continued success makes the chess mafia look more corrupt than ever. Happy to play Dubov a 24 game Blitz at 20,000 USD per point. BTW I will extend the same offer to EVERY single chess player on planet EARTH. DMs are open, awaiting any and all challenges…”
Dubov, who is not on X, responded on Instagram: “Now that you’re out we can talk. I’m ready to play, under the following conditions: You agree to a lie detector test with a trained professional, I’m certain we can find a trusted independent authority (maybe Demis Hassabis could help?) to pick the company/person to run it. Test to feature only questions about cheating, with the results to be communicated to the community at large. If the test comes out clean, I will accept my decision was rash, and I’m ready to play a 24-game blitz match against you, 8 games a day, 2000$ per point.”
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