Hikaru nakamura biography of christopher
Hikaru Nakamura
Hikaru Nakamura: First and foremost, it comes as a very pleasant surprise. It was not really an objective of mine when I chose to play in the (2022) FIDE Grand Prix. I was very fortunate to be granted a wild card by the FIDE president, Arkady Dvorkovich. I went into the event wanting to see if I could still cut it against the best players in the world. As most people know, I’ve been streaming a lot over the last couple of years. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I still feel I am quite competitive [with the top players]. I wanted to see how it would go, but there were really no illusions — or delusions, you could say — of qualifying for the Candidates for me.
Even after the first event, which I did win, it [qualifying] was not anything that I was thinking about in a serious way. Then in the second event, probably one of the worst possible results [from my perspective] occurred with [GM] Richard Rapport winning, and [GM] Maxime [Vachier-Lagrave] and [GM] Anish [Giri] having fairly... decent results.
Before the third event started, I knew the groups weren’t very favorable with [GM] Levon [Aronian] being in mine. I never really was thinking about [qualifying] until I won this game against Levon in the fourth round of the third FIDE Grand Prix. Prior to that, I knew there were chances. Everyone [was] talking about it when I’m streaming and so forth, but it really wasn’t something that I was thinking about.
Hikaru Nakamura was born December 9, 1987 in Hirakata, Japan. His family moved to the United States when he was just two years old, and the Stars and Stripes are the only national banner he has known as a chess player.
Nakamura has been one of the world’s top players for well over a decade. He was clearly the top American player for much of that time and is now a key contributor to one of the strongest chess scenes in the world.
He is a five-time U.S. champion, claiming the title in 2005, 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2019. Nakamura was also a participant in FIDE’s 2004 World Championship tournament and a candidate for the world championship in both 2016 and 2022, qualifying for a third in 2024. He was also the 2022 Fischer Random World Champion.
Career Through 2009
Nakamura became a national master (USCF) in 1998, an international master in 2001, and grandmaster in 2003. At the time, he was the youngest American grandmaster since Fischer.
In 2003 he participated in his first U.S. Championship tournament, scoring +3 -1 =5 in the event, which was won by GM Alexander Shabalov. In January 2004, Nakamura played in Group B at the Corus tournament and finished fourth with a plus score on his way to crack the 2600 rating threshold in June. By October, he was in the world’s top 100 for the first time.
He achieved the 2600 mark during FIDE’s 2004 knockout tournament to determine its champion. As the 83rd seed, Nakamura defeated higher-rated opponents GMs Sergei Volkov, Aleksej Aleksandrov, and Alexander Lastin to become one of the last 16 players. In that round, he fell to third seed and eventual finalist Michael Adams, who entered the tournament with a 150-point rating advantage.
In 2005, along with GM Alexander Stripunsky, Nakamura topped a 64-player field for his first U.S. championship with a +5 -0 =4 score. American chess was not at its best in 2005, but this was nonetheless a competitive field that included seve Christopher Hikaru Nakamura (born December 9, 1987) is an American chess grandmaster, Twitch streamer, five-time U.S. Chess Champion, and the reigning World Fischer Random Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he earned his grandmaster title at the age of 15, the youngest American at the time to do so. Nakamura won the 2011 edition of Tata Steel Chess Tournament Group A and has represented the United States at five Chess Olympiads, winning a team gold medal and two team bronze medals. With a peak rating of 2816, Nakamura is the tenth-highest rated player in history. In May 2014, when FIDE began publishing official rapid and blitz chess ratings, Nakamura ranked No. 1 in the world on both lists;[3] he has remained at or near the No. 1 rank on both lists ever since. As of December 2022, he has won all of the last five Chess.com Speed Chess Championships.GM HIKARU NAKAMURA
Hikaru Nakamura is an American Chess Grandmaster who was born December 9, 1987 in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, Japan to a Japanese father and an American mother. At the age of two, he moved with his mother and older brother to the United States. He began playing at the age of seven and was coached by his Sri Lankan stepfather, FIDE Master and renowned chess author and teacher Sunil Weeramantry.
Hikaru's January 2011 triumph in winning the prestigious Tata Steel Invitational in Wijk-aan-Zee, the Netherlands, ahead of the four highest ranked players in the world was hailed by none other than the legendary Garry Kasparov as “the best result by an American since 1895.” Hikaru is widely regarded as America’s best hope of regaining the title of World Champion once held by the great Bobby Fischer. Since earning his grandmaster title at a younger age than Fischer, GM Hikaru’s innovative and uncompromising style has delighted numerous fans around the world. A regular participant in the most elite chess tournaments around the world, Hikaru has posted victories against the reigning World Champion, GM Viswanathan Anand of India, and his predecessor, former World Champion, GM Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. Hikaru is universally recognized as one of the world's best “blitz” players and, arguably, the very best at "bullet" chess. He defeated the current world No. 1, GM Magnus Carlsen, in a four game match in the finals of the BNBank Blitz Challenge in Oslo in November 2009. Hikaru is also the unofficial world champion at Chess 960 having earned that honor by defeating the current world No. 2, GM Levon Aronian, in the finals of the Mainz Chess Classic in July 2009. Hikaru is a four-time United States Chess Champion, winning the title in 2005, 2009, 2012 and 2015.
Nakamura is currently rated No. 1 in the United States and No. 2 in the World according to the October 2015 FIDE ratings list, at 2816. He is also ranked No. 1 on the August 2015 US Chess Federation ratings list at 290