Eric Hansen says chessbae drove him apart from Alexandra Botez

William Davis Published 13/04/2021

In a recent stream, chess Grandmaster Eric Hansen has accused controversial personality chessbae of forcing an end to a relationship involving him and Alexandra Botez after chessbae allegedly abused her moderation powers on Chess.com.

Eric Hansen has shed light on the extent of chessbae’s abuse of her moderation privileges on Chess.com. According to Hansen, chessbae threatened to exclude Botez from having her Twitch channel hosted on the Chess.com website if she continued collaborating with Eric Hansen’s channel, chessbrah. The accusations come only a day after chessbae was removed as a moderator from Chess.com after her recent actions were deemed problematic by Chess.com owner Danny Rench.

“Alexandra was here in April (2020), and we did some streams and YouTube content together. Things were pretty good between us,” Hansen said. “In May 2020, Hikaru [Nakamura] started getting quite popular. Alexandra went home for a couple of days, but we wanted to see each other again. chessbae contacted Alexandra directly and told her she couldn’t visit me again. If Alexandra visited me again, she would be cut off from all raids and hosts on Chess.com”

Being hosted on Chess.com is a huge boost for a streamer, as their channel gets broadcasted on the site. chessbae was one of the moderators of the website and could influence which channels received these hosting opportunities. According to Hansen, chessbae abused this power for personal reasons.

“The situation right now, is that I cannot coexist with chessbae. The personal life manipulation and the business side of things. There is nothing that would work,” Hansen said.

What happened between Eric Hansen and Hikaru Nakamura?

The recent drama started with Eric Hansen accusing Hikaru Nakamura of copyright striking videos on Hansen’s chessbrah YouTube channel. Other content creators came forward alleging that their channels had received strikes from Nakamura as well. It soon became clear that a chess community figure known as chessbae was involved in managing Nakamura’s social media, and that she was at least partially responsible for the copyright strikes.

In an announcement made on April 11, Chess.com’s owner Danny Rench announced that he would be stripping chessbae of her moderator privileges on the Chess.com website. Following the announcement, Hikaru Nakamura distanced himself from chessbae and offered a public apology. Nakamura said he would be more involved in managing his own social platforms moving forward.

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