Carlsen and Hikaru Take Lie Detector Shots at GothamChess at Esports World Cup

A Lie Detector, Two Grandmasters, and One Very Famous YouTuber

Levy ‘GothamChess’ Rozman has built one of the most watched chess channels on YouTube, introducing the game to millions of people who had never thought twice about a Sicilian Defense. That kind of crossover success tends to generate opinions. And at the Esports World Cup in Paris, two of chess’s biggest names finally put those opinions on record, strapped to a polygraph machine.

According to Dexerto, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura participated in a lie detector test at the event, where the questions turned, perhaps inevitably, toward GothamChess. What followed was a mix of honest admissions, barely suppressed laughter, and at least one deliberate attempt to beat the machine.

Hikaru Admits Jealousy, Magnus Nearly Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

When Nakamura was asked whether he was jealous of any other chess players, he said yes and named Rozman without much hesitation. ‘I’ll just say I’m a little bit jealous in some ways of Levy, GothamChess,’ he told the room, as reported by Dexerto.

Carlsen’s immediate reaction was telling. He started to object with ‘He’s not a…’ before stopping himself mid-sentence, apparently catching himself before finishing what sounded like it was heading toward ‘grandmaster.’ The room laughed. Carlsen’s own response to the laughter was straightforward: ‘That’s the content.’

It is a real tension inside competitive chess. Rozman has a massive platform and has genuinely grown the audience for the game. He is not, however, a Grandmaster, and the distinction matters deeply to the people who spent years grinding through tournaments to earn that title. Nakamura’s jealousy is less about animosity and more about the strange math of attention in the creator economy, where reach and rank do not always travel together.

To his credit, Carlsen made clear the moment was more comedy than contempt. ‘I actually like him a lot,’ he added, according to Dexerto.

The GM Question and a Deliberate Deception

The test took a sharper turn when Carlsen was asked whether it annoyed him that Rozman regularly used him as YouTube content. ‘Yeah. Yes, it does,’ Carlsen said. The lie detector reportedly confirmed he was telling the truth. That is a more pointed admission than the first exchange, and it speaks to something real about how top-level competitors feel when their matches, blunders, and public moments get packaged into thumbnail-driven content for a general audience.

Then Nakamura got a question about whether he believed GothamChess would ever achieve his long-stated goal of reaching Grandmaster status. Hikaru answered ‘yes.’ The examiner said the response produced ‘quite a big no.’

Rather than defend the answer, Nakamura owned the attempt. ‘I’m trying to trick you,’ he said, per Dexerto. ‘I can’t just answer honestly to everything.’ It was a funny moment, but the underlying implication was hard to miss. Whatever Hikaru actually believes about Rozman’s GM prospects, it was not yes.

The Bigger Picture for Chess Content

All of this played out while GothamChess was working as a commentator at the 2026 Esports World Cup, according to Dexerto’s report. That detail adds a layer of texture to the whole exchange. Rozman was not some outside observer being gossiped about in his absence. He was there, doing his job, while two of the sport’s most prominent players were answering questions about him under polygraph conditions.

The lie detector format is inherently theatrical, and everyone involved knew the cameras were rolling. But genuine feelings have a way of surfacing in those setups anyway. Hikaru’s jealousy sounds real. Carlsen’s mild annoyance about being content fodder sounds real. And the instinct to protect the Grandmaster designation, that half-finished sentence from Carlsen, says something about what the title still means to the people who hold it.

None of it sounds like actual dislike. It sounds like complicated respect, the kind that forms when someone outside your world figures out something about it that you maybe underestimated.