How Good Really is Hikaru?

Hikaru Nakamura is one of the best chess players in the world. He has achieved the grandmaster title at the age of 15! He is the best blitz chess player in the world in my humble opinion. After beating @micki-taryan 20 - 5, he has brought himself to a new level. Before we investigate this legendary player, let's look at his history. "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]" (wikipedia) I will use the following text from wikipedia. "

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 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."

As you can see, Hikaru is a very strong chess player as well as winning the U.S Chess championship 5 times!

He is also a top ten player with amazing quality. He is the #1 blitz player and peaked 2nd in the world. He now leads chess.com blitz and bullet. I can call him the online king.

He also has beat many top GMs in chess such as @Firouzja2003 @joppie2 @penguingm1 @AnishOnYoutube @VincentKeymar and so much more!

I hope you enjoyed reading and understand more about this legendary A-Class player.