Hikaru Nakamura (born December 9, 1987) is an American chess player, Twitch livestreamer, and content creator. A chess prodigy, he became the youngest

Hikaru Nakamura (born December 9, 1987) is an American chess player, Twitch livestreamer, and content creator. A chess prodigy, he became the youngest American to earn the title of Grandmaster, aged 15 years and 79 days, which has since been broken by Samuel Sevian aged 13 years and 10 months. Nakamura is a five-time United States champion.[1] He won the 2011 edition of Tata Steel Chess Tournament Group A and represented the United States at five Chess Olympiads, winning a team gold medal and two team bronze medals. His peak USCF rating was 2900, achieved in August 2015.[2] In October 2015, he reached his peak FIDE rating of 2816, which ranked him second in the world. In May 2014, when FIDE began publishing official rapid and blitz chess ratings, Nakamura ranked number one in the world on both lists. He was surpassed by Magnus Carlsen in the second publication of the rankings.[3] Contents 1    Early life 2    Chess prodigy 3    Chess career 3.1    2009: Second U.S. Championship and other tournament successes 3.2    2010: Gold medalist and top-ten player 3.3    2011: Tata Steel Group A victory 3.4    2012: Third U.S. Championship 3.5    2013: Top FIDE blitz rating 3.6    2014: No. 3 ranking and Zurich Chess Challenge 3.7    2015: 2800 rating, Fourth U.S. Championship, and Grand Prix 2nd place 3.8    2016 3.9    2017 3.10    2018 3.11    2019: Fifth U.S. Championship 3.12    2020: Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour 3.13    2021: Champions Chess Tour 4    Playing style 5    Chess records 6    Internet activity 7    Other activities 8    Notable games 9    References 10    External links Early life Hikaru Nakamura was born in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, to an American mother, Carolyn Merrow Nakamura, a classically trained musician and former public school teacher and a Japanese father, Shuichi Nakamura.[4][5] Nakamura has an older brother, Asuka.[6] When he was two years old, his family moved to the United States, and, a year later in 1990, his parents divorced.[7] He began playing chess at the age of seven and was coached by his Sri Lankan stepfather, FIDE Master and chess author Sunil Weeramantry.[8] Weeramantry began coaching the Nakamura brothers after noticing Asuka Nakamura winning the National Kindergarten Championship in 1992, which led to him developing a relationship with their mother.[6] Chess prodigy At age 10, he became the youngest American to beat an International Master when he defeated Jay Bonin at the Marshall Chess Club.[6][9] Also at age 10, Nakamura became the youngest player to achieve the title of chess master from the United States Chess Federation, breaking the record previously set by Vinay Bhat (Nakamura's record stood until 2008 when Nicholas Nip achieved the master title at the age of 9 years and 11 months). In 1999, Nakamura won the Laura Aspis Prize, given annually to the top USCF-rated player under age 13. In 2003, at age 15 years and 79 days, Nakamura solidified his reputation as a chess prodigy, becoming the youngest American to earn the grandmaster title, breaking the record of Bobby Fischer by three months.[10][11] (Nakamura's record was subsequently broken by Fabiano Caruana in 2007, followed by Ray Robson in 2009, and further lowered by Samuel Sevian in 2014.) Chess career In April 2004, Nakamura achieved a fourth-place finish in the "B" group at the Corus tournament at Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands.[12] Nakamura qualified for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004, played in Tripoli, Libya, and reached the fourth round, defeating grandmasters Sergey Volkov, Aleksej Aleksandrov, and Alexander Lastin before falling to England's Michael Adams, the tournament's third-seeded participant and eventual runner-up. On June 20, 2005, Nakamura was selected as the 19th Frank Samford Chess Fellow, receiving a grant of $32,000 to further his chess education and competition.[13] Nakamura won the 2005 U.S. Chess Championship (held in November and December 2004), scoring seven points over nine rounds to tie grandmaster Alex Stripunsky for first place. Nakamura defeated Stripunsky in two straight rapidplay playoff games to claim the title and become the youngest national champion since Fischer. Nakamura finished the tournament without a loss and, in the seventh round, defeated grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov, then the nation's top-ranked player. Following that victory, Nakamura played a challenge match dubbed the "Duelo de Jóvenes Prodigios" in Mexico against Ukrainian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin and defeated his fellow prodigy by 4½–1½.[14] In November and December 2005, Nakamura competed in the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, seeded 28th (of 128 players) but failed to advance beyond the first round. He lost each of his two games to Indian grandmaster Surya Ganguly.[15] In 2006, Nakamura was offered a full scholarship to the University of Texas, Dallas but instead began attending Dickinson College, with a partial scholarship, in order to take a break from chess. Later in the year, he announced that he would resume playing.[16] The same year, he helped the U.S. team win the bronze medal in the Chess Olympiad at Turin, Italy, playing on the third board behind Gata Kamsky and 2006 U.S. Champion Alexander Onischuk. In the same year, he won the 16th North American Open in Las Vegas.[17] In January 2007, Nakamura shared second place at the GibTelecom Masters in Gibraltar.[18] He placed joint first in the tournament the following year, finishing with five straight wins to tie with Chinese GM Bu Xiangzhi, whom he then proceeded to beat in the rapidplay playoff.[19] In October 2007, Nakamura won the Magistral D'Escacs tournament in Barcelona[20] and the Corsican circuit rapid chess tournament.[21] Nakamura won the 2008 Finet Chess960 Open in Mainz, Germany.[22] In November 2008, he won the Cap d'Agde Rapid Tournament in Cap d'Agde, defeating Anatoly Karpov in the semifinals and Vassily Ivanchuk in the finals.[23] In February 2009 he came joint third at the 7th Gibtelecom Masters in Gibraltar, again finishing strongly with 4½/5 to end the event on 7½/10.[24] 2009: Second U.S. Championship and other tournament successes Nakamura won the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship (St Louis, Missouri, May 2009), scoring 7/9 to take clear first ahead of 17-year-old GM-elect Robert Hess, who shared second with 6½.[25] In July 2009, Nakamura won the Donostia-San Sebastian Chess Festival, tying with former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov with 6½/9 before defeating Ponomariov in a blitz playoff to win the title over a field including former undisputed world champion Anatoly Karpov, former FIDE world champions Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Ponomariov, 2009 World Junior champion Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Peter Svidler among others.[26] In August 2009, Nakamura became the 960 World Chess Champion, beating GM Levon Aronian 3½–½ in Mainz, Germany. In November 2009, Nakamura participated in the BNbank blitz tournament in Oslo, Norway. He reached the final by winning all 12 of his games. In the championship, he faced the world No. 2 and reigning World Blitz Champion Magnus Carlsen. Nakamura won the match 3–1, further cementing his reputation as one of the best blitz players in the world, despite having not been invited to the 2009 World Blitz championship.[27][28] Nakamura skipped the Chess World Cup 2009 in favour of the London Chess Classic in December 2009. Although he drew with the black pieces against eventual winner Magnus Carlsen and with white against former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, Nakamura failed to win a game during the tournament and ended in seventh place out of eight.[29] 2010: Gold medalist and top-ten player Nakamura began 2010 playing first board for the United States at the World Team Chess Championship held in Bursa, Turkey. His performance, including a win over world No. 6 and recent FIDE World Cup winner Boris Gelfand on the black side of a King's Indian Defense won him the individual gold medal for board one, and led the U.S. to a second-place finish behind Russia.[30][31] Nakamura participated in the 2010 Corus tournament in Wijk aan Zee. He finished with +2, tying for fourth with Viswanathan Anand, behind Carlsen, Shirov, and Kramnik. In May, Nakamura participated in the 2010 United States Chess Championship in Saint Louis, Missouri attempting to defend his 2009 title. Seeded first, he scored 5/7 points to qualify for the round-robin stage against 1991 champion Gata Kamsky, 2006 champion Alexander Onischuk, and 2008 champion Yuri Shulman. In the round-robin stage, he drew Kamsky before losing to Shulman, with the white pieces in both games.[32] The loss to Shulman eliminated him from defending his 2009 title. Nakamura competed in the 39th Chess Olympiad. Although he defeated Lê Quang Liêm and drew Kramnik with the black pieces during the tournament, the U.S. team failed to medal. From November 5 through 14, Nakamura competed in the 2010 Mikhail Tal Memorial in Moscow; the field consisted of world No. 3 Levon Aronian, world No. 4 Vladimir Kramnik, world No. 6 Alexander Grischuk, world No. 8 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, world No. 9 Sergey Karjakin, Pavel Eljanov, Boris Gelfand, Alexei Shirov, and Wang Hao. The average Elo of the field was 2757, making it the third strongest tournament in chess history at the time. Nakamura finished at +1, defeating Eljanov and drawing every other player to finish in a tie for fourth place and missing out on a tie for first place by blundering into a draw in a winning position in the final round against Grischuk.[33] Nakamura's round two win over Eljanov placed him in the world top-ten in the live ratings for the first time in his career.[34] Nakamura's performance at this tournament, his first involving an entirely super-elite field allowed him to "force (the chess elite) to respect him", according to noted Russian commentator grandmaster Sergey Shipov.[35] From November 16 through 18, Nakamura made his debut at the 2010 World Blitz Championship in Moscow. Despite a disastrous start and losing four of his first five games to Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Sergey Karjakin, he recovered to score 5/7 in the second half of the day and finished with a score of 7½/14, 2½ points behind coleaders Carlsen and Levon Aronian, whom he defeated in their individual games. On the second day, Nakamura avenged his earlier losses against both Carlsen and Kramnik and scored 8/14, for a total of 15½/28, three points behind Aronian and a point and a half behind Carlsen. Nakamura finished with 21½/38 for fifth place behind Gelfand, Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov and champion Aronian.[36] In December 2010, Nakamura finished fourth in the London Chess Classic, among a field including Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik, Michael Adams, Nigel Short, David Howell, and Luke McShane. This included a win with Black against Kramnik, evening their career head-to-head record at 2½/2½. The tournament was won by Magnus Carlsen.[37] Nakamura's performance ensured that he would officially join the world top ten as of January 1, 2011. 2011: Tata Steel Group A victory In the January 2011 FIDE rating list, Nakamura was ranked number 10 in the world with a rating of 2751. Nakamura began training with former world champion Garry Kasparov. The first of several training sessions was held in New York at the beginning of January,[38] but the training ended in December 2011.[39] From January 14 through 30, Nakamura competed in the Tata Steel Grandmaster A tournament in Wijk aan Zee among a field of world No. 1 and defending champion Magnus Carlsen, world champion and world No. 2 Viswanathan Anand, world No. 3 and reigning World Blitz champion Levon Aronian, world No. 4 and former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, world No. 7 Alexander Grischuk, former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov, reigning Russian champion Ian Nepomniachtchi, reigning Chinese champion Wang Hao, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexei