Paris: World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen capped his masterful undefeated campaign by retaining his title after defeating Belarusian chess grandmaster Denis Lazavik in a lopsided final of the chess competition at the Esports World Cup on Saturday.

Representing Team Liquid, Carlsen arrived with a clear goal and pursued it with unrelenting determination, failing to lose a single match en route to successfully defending his crown.

The 35-year-old Norwegian secured a 2-0 (3-1, 3-1) victory over Lazavik, playing for AG.AL, in the grand final.

Carlsen earned USD 250,000 in prize money alongside 1,000 Club Championship points for Team Liquid, while Lazavik claimed USD 190,000 and 750 points for AG.AL.

"I followed Denis' games and talked to the coaches. I do feel, especially with Hikaru's approach, it was not right. Funny thing is, I said that he is not great at defending endgames, so I thought I should keep it together better than Hikaru," the five-time world champion remarked following his triumph.

"I have played Denis many times online, where I played riskily and got punished for it, so I didn't give him obvious positional advantages."

Asked if there was any moment when he felt he might lose, Carlsen said: "There were several moments, a couple against Alireza, against Nihal as well. There were certainly some moments, but I am thrilled to go undefeated.

"I was not trying to do anything out of the ordinary. I tried to take my chances, with a little bit of randomness, and I am happy."

Pressed on what it would take for an opponent to beat him, Carlsen noted: "I don't know. In this format, it is not easy at the moment, I think. I think Alireza had a very good chance. It is not easy..."

Nakamura Finishes Third Following Disputed Match

Meanwhile, Hikaru Nakamura of the United States secured third place after defeating Alireza Firouzja 4-1 in a controversial and chaotic fixture marred by technical disruptions and disconnections.

Following technical complications during Game 4 and his subsequent loss in that game to Nakamura, Firouzja abandoned the third-place match and departed the venue. Firouzja was trailing 1-3 at the time with two games remaining.

Nakamura explained he was kept waiting for roughly 20 minutes before officials informed him that the contest had been logged as a forfeit in his favour.

"Today's match with Alireza certainly didn't go well for anyone. It was chaos with multiple disconnections and then Alireza's untimely departure from the event. I was left hanging for 20 minutes until I was finally told that the match would be recorded as a forfeit by Alireza," Nakamura wrote on X.

He stated that he was unaware of the underlying cause of the issue at the time because he lacked access to his phone. He initially attributed the technical fault to a chess website serving as the primary operational partner for the official tournament before later issuing an apology for his remarks.

"During this time I wasn't given any additional information as to the technical issues, I had no access to my phone or anyone outside providing context," Nakamura wrote.

"After the forfeit decision I was then escorted to do interviews and I said that I thought it was a chess.com issue and that I was fully frustrated by this.

"...I now know I was wrong. It was an EWC issue that took out a few events, not just chess. I wish I had been informed of that before going through interviews but I did jump to conclusions and wrongly blamed chess.com for having a tech issue causing this whole problem. I apologise to them for these statements.

"I am not under duress by the 'chess mafia' and no, Danny's not holding my hand on the stove. I definitely misjudged the situation while upset."

The championship fixture was structured as a best-of-three sets format, with the initial two sets comprising four games each and a potential third set consisting of two games to decide the champion.

PTI