How the "Fastest Hands in the West" came to be!
Hikaru Nakamura, now known as a super chess grand master, had been through quite a journey before reaching his title of GM.
Hikaru learned chess from his Stepfather, Fide Master Sunil Weeramantry. Hikaru was unsure if chess was right for him. Even thought he and his son had a cloud of doubt in their mind Sunil still encouraged Hikaru and helped him gain confidence by filling Hikaru in as the 4th team member in a Elementary Nationals even though he was only rated 700 at the time. Hikaru ended up helping the team by scoring 2 points.
Hikaru's older brother Asuka Nakamura was very engaged in chess, and when Asuka went to a tournament Hikaru would be dragged in along too which really helped Hikaru with his chess skills.
According to Nakamura: "My real turning point was that tournament in Stamford, Connecticut, where I defeated a national master when was eight. That woke up my competitive spirit."
After that Tournament Hikaru started to break records!
Even thought all of the records he broke have been broken again it is still a great achievement.
Hikaru used the Nobag Computer to help him improve, he rapidly started to learn new things after losing, and studied what he could have done better etc.
Hikaru then won his first U.S. Championship title at the age of 16 and many others over the years.
Now Hikaru is one of the best players in the world. He loves streaming chess on Twitch and you can now find him streaming Tilted Tuesday (Titled Tuesday is a Tournament help every Tuesday for people with titles such as GM, NM, FM, CM). Hikaru is also commonly known as the Fastest hands in the West in the chess community. He is probably the best chess player when it comes to playing bullet games, Hikaru has been compared to a bullet train!
Febuary 2024 FIDE standings:
Hikaru is now top 3 in the world!
If you'd like to explore some of Hikaru's games click this link:
https://www.chess.com/games/hikaru-nakamura
And that is how the "Fastest Hands in the West" came to be.
Credits:
The information in this article has come from the February 2023 Chess Life Kids Magazine article "That Nakamura Life"
