Overview

• Team USA won all five mini-matches in Arlington in the first leg of Checkmate: USA vs India.
• Hikaru Nakamura defeated world champion D Gukesh in the bullet decider with a back-rank mate.
• Other results saw Fabiano Caruana beat Arjun Erigaisi, Carissa Yip top Divya Deshmukh, Levy Rozman defeat Sagar Shah, and Tanitoluwa Adewumi overcome Ethan Vaz.
• The exhibition used staged time controls with 10-minute games proceeding to 5-minute and then 1-minute tiebreaks, and the hosts held White on every board.
• Nakamura tossed Gukesh’s king into the crowd during his on-stage celebration, drawing social media criticism as organizers emphasized theatrics and crowd engagement for the show format.