Hikaru Nakamura

American GM, streamer

“The reason that I’m not participating in this tournament is that last year I played in the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Team Championships for the WR Chess team when the event was held in London.

But this time around, the WR Chess team did not invite me back. They instead replaced me with none other than the five-time World Champion Magnus Carlsen. That probably won’t come as a big surprise. There’s also additional replacement where Alireza Firouzja was also replaced by Fabiano Caruana.

So, because I was unable to play for the WR Chess team and I did not receive any offers, emails, any sort of correspondence with any other team — I simply am not playing.”