State of play: Mercury rising on the board at World Chess Championship

VER the last week or so, journalists have come under fire because of the nature of some questions asked to the players during the post-game press conferences.

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN

It led to Hikaru Nakamura, one of the biggest chess streamers in terms of content creation as well as following, putting out separate reviews for press conferences (it has brought him a fair number of clicks).

To be fair, some of the questions have been random. One question was whether the players would be interested in visiting some of Sentosa Island's landmarks together. Ding Liren has predictably been asked about the Ding chillin' meme (to which he very cutely asked 'what's the meaning of chill?').

With journalists taking the hits on social media, the head of the Local Organising Committee (LOC), Kevin Goh, had to put out a statement defending the nature of the questions. "I can understand if some of the questions at the press conference might seem unusual but the reaction and abuse that the journalists are getting are way over the top," the GM posted on X (formerly Twitter).