Hikaru Nakamura accused of striking Eric Hansen's YouTube channel

William Davis Published 10/04/2021

Chess grandmaster and Twitch streamer Hikaru Nakamura has been accused of trying to take down the YouTube channel of one of his streaming rivals, Eric Hansen.

The accusations have added yet another chapter in the long rivalry between Hansen and Nakamura. The two have a history of dramatic clashes, both on and off the chessboard. This feud recently reached new heights, with Nakamura accusing Hansen of unsportsmanlike conduct.

In a recent game between Hansen and Nakamura, Hansen offered a draw to Nakamura. Nakamura did not accept, and Hansen assumed Nakamura was trying to win by running down Hansen’s time. He did not notice Nakamura himself later offering a draw.

While waiting for Hansen to accept his offer, Nakamura ran out of time, making him lose the game. Nakamura immediately accused Hansen of bad sportsmanship. 

Hansen has now accused Nakamura of further escalating the incident by copyright striking videos on Hansen’s chessbrah YouTube channel. In a recent stream, Hansen explained what’s been going on.

“Hikaru’s channel is striking our videos, one more (strike) and our channel gets deleted,” Hansen said. “I just have to deal with that right now. I already got an email from YouTube.”

Hansen is a popular chess streamer and content creator. He’s one of the two main hosts of the chessbrah channel, where he streams his high elo games for thousands of viewers. Following Hansen’s accusations, an associate of Nakamura’s who’s known in the chess community by the name chessbae94 stated that the strike was carried out by Nakamura’s MCN and that they “will try to resolve it.”

Who is Hikaru Nakamura?

Hikaru Nakamura is an American chess Grandmaster. He earned the title of Grandmaster, given to only the best chess players in the world, at the age of 15. He was the youngest American to earn that title. He was one of the first Grandmasters that began honing their skills in online competitions. He currently holds all of the major world records on the Internet Chess Club between his two accounts, Smallville and CapilanoBridge.

In August 2020, Nakamura became the first-ever chess player to sign a contract with an esports organization. After streaming his chess games to a growing audience and introducing other streamers such as Félix “xQc” Lengyel and Charles “Cr1tikal” White Jr. to the game, he joined Team SoloMid at the end of August 2020. Nakamura is currently the most popular chess player on Twitch, regularly streaming to audiences of many thousands of viewers.

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