Two weeks from now, the youngest World Championship match in chess history is set for Geneva. Reigning champion Gukesh Dommaraju will defend his title against Uzbekistan's Javokhir Sindarov. At this stage, both players will be locked in with their seconds.

Some sharp-eyed fans noticed that Hikaru Nakamura was staying at the same hotel as Sindarov on the same dates. It spread quickly and fans started wondering if Nakamura was working on Sindarov's prep team.

He replied in a post:

So... what is 2.Ke2?

It's the Bongcloud! One of chess's most famous jokes. After 1.e4 e5, White's second move is to bring the king into the e2 square. It's a terrible move on purpose. It blocks the queen and bishop. It costs White the right to castle. It simply exposes the most important piece on move two! It breaks nearly every rule beginners learn.

In 2021, Magnus Carlsen played this exact move against Hikaru during the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. The move caught Nakamura off guard, and he burst out laughing. He then made it funnier by answering in kind with 2...Ke7, creating the "Double Bongcloud". They then shuffled their kings back to their original squares, repeated the position three times, and the game ended in a draw by threefold repetition.

Magnus Carlsen Plays Bongcloud Opening Against Hikaru Nakamura. | Video: chess24

Anish Giri joined the fun:

To get the full joke, you have to go back to the Candidates tournament in Cyprus. In Round 5, Hikaru faced Sindarov in a game he had called close to a must-win. He chose the Marshall Gambit, sacrificing two pawns early, but Sindarov calmly answered with a short castle that Hikaru's team hadn't analyzed. Hikaru then spent 67 minutes on his next move, chose badly, and lost.

So when Anish tells Sindarov's team to "check the lines with short castle as well," he seems to be needling Hikaru about the one line he failed to prepare.

Will anyone actually play 2. Ke2 in Geneva? Almost certainly not. But while the two youngsters grind through serious opening files, the rest of the chess world has found a way to enjoy the wait!