Hikaru Nakamura Defeats Eric Rosen in the Challengers Choker Cup Finals

Since May 7, eight of the world’s most renowned poker and chess players have been in competition to win the Challengers Choker Cup. Finally, after two months, on July 10, a champion was crowned in American chess player and Choker brand ambassador Hikaru Nakamura!

Choker was created by Andrew Finan’s gaming firm Queenside Games by combining two mind sports, poker, and chess. When it was launched back in November 2019, Queenside Games had roped in U.S. Chess Champion and WSOP player Nakamura as its brand ambassador to promote the new game.

A chess prodigy, Nakamura is the youngest American to earn Grandmaster’s title when he was just 15 years and 79 days old. He is a five-time United States champion and won the 2011 edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament Group A.

The list of participants in the Challengers Choker Cup included Eric Rosen, Simon Williams, Anna Rudolf, Raffael Chess, Bill Perkins, Matt Staples, Alexandra Botez, and Alessio Gallucci. Both Perkins and Staples are well-known poker players.

Rosen defeated Chess and Botez en-route to ultimately facing off Nakamura in the finals. The duo began slugging it out right from the get-go. Being a combination of two challenging minds sports to master, Choker requires an immense amount of concentration. And Rosen’s lack of it cost him dearly. He somehow ‘switched off’ in the piece placement phase. He placed an ‘en prise’ rook on a8, blundering the game and giving Nakamura a 3-0 lead.

Rosen did fight back and even had a few tricks up his sleeve.

Despite getting swiftly outplayed by @GMHikaru in Choker today, I did manage to pull one miracle… pic.twitter.com/0RdH2dQIdV

— Eric Rosen (@IM_Rosen) July 9, 2020

In the end, it was Nakamura who landed the decisive blow, ‘Chokemating’ Rosen, to retain his Choker endboss status. At the end of the match, the score-line stood at 4-1, giving Nakamura a decisive victory over Rosen.

And there it is – @GMHikaru wins the #ChokerCup. But a huge round of applause to for @IM_Rosen who battled through many others to get to the final. Well played all round pic.twitter.com/9v2MWFGXBi

— Chess+Poker=Choker (@ChokerGame) July 9, 2020

You can catch the live stream of the match with commentary from Jeff Gross and Malcolm Pein below.