Denis Lazarevic discusses his draw at the 2026 Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, where he faced forced variations after 1.e4 c6. He explains how classical chess demands different preparation than online rapid, and clarifies that his viral comment about Nakamura was a joke taken out of context.
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Grandmaster Denis Lazarevic has been one of the most talked-about young grandmasters in chess recently. After his incredible run at the Esports World Cup, where he had reached the finals, Denis has been in the spotlight like never before. And now, at the 2026 Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, he spoke about his game, his experience playing for Belarus at the Olympiad, and his journey over the past few months. His recent comments about Hikaru Nakamura have been making waves across the chess world. Here's what he had to say.
It's a pleasure to be joined by Denis Lazarevic. Denis, you're playing for Belarus top board today. How did your game go today at the Olympiad?
I made a draw. It was an interesting game. He played e4 c6 and I expected that, but we played a lot of forced variations. And I didn't remember exactly what I need to do, and I had lots of options, but I think at some moment I could wait for advantage, but I didn't find, and it was quite an easy draw for him.
And what do you think about the Belarus team this time? I think it's a mix of young players and experienced players. And what do you think of your chances in the Olympiad?
Chances are not high. The team isn't strong enough to fight for first places, but we can win some matches against And strong team. You'll see. But of course, like we are thirty-nine ranking position, and so in general team is not strong. But sometimes sometimes you can get some luck and win some important matches.
And Dennis, you know a couple months back I think like a great moment happened in your career that you reached the finals of Esports World Cup. And how has your life been since then? Has it changed anything, or is it just the same for you, like business as usual?
Nothing changed. I, when I came back to my home, I started to prepare to go to the Olympics. So, you know, I played tournaments and I performed and I Start to prepare to another tournament. So nothing really changed after that.
And how different is that? Because, you know, that was like just esports format, playing online, like albeit face-to-face, but you're playing online. And how— and now coming to classical chess, how, how is the switch for you?
The preparation is different. Openings, um, you need to remember lots of variation to, to pose some problem to your opponent, because online in blitz and rapid you can just get a playable position and then there's lots of place to outplay your opponent, because, you know, time troubles, people make lots of blunders. And now it's— here is much harder than classical chess, so you need to create something in the opening to win, and it's very hard. It just takes much more time to prepare to the game. So in rapid, I just need to play good, and it's usually enough. And here I need to, you know, to come up with new ideas because You know, every player knows theory quite well. Yeah, unfortunately it just takes so much time to prepare for the game. In that sense, when I played in Esports World Cup, I almost didn't prepare before the game. I knew the time we were here and we I just don't need to blunder. I need to have good tactical vision and that's it. And here I need to prepare a lot, unfortunately. But, you know, my rating is high, still I'm able to gain some rating also here.
And there is one final question for you. Recently there was this interview which came out of yours. I believe it was in Russian, like a podcast where you made certain comments about your match against Nakamura. Maybe you would like to say a few words about that.
Yeah, I just was a part of joke. Of course, you know, technically I said I said it's that he can't win, but there was Lots of jokes, and of course it's it's not true. Like you need to know Russian to understand the context because it was taken out of context. But of course, Hikari is great player with much more successful career than me. He he has been you know second player for for a long time after Magnus. And yeah, sometimes I didn't expect that, you know, people will find it because we have like 10 people watching us during the broadcast. And I made some jokes here and there and yeah, like nothing special. I think everyone already forgot about it.
Okay, thank you so much, Denis, for your time. Best wishes to you and Team Belarus for the Olympics.
