Why is Nakamura not playing the US Championship?

An interesting rule I just found out about in this years u.s. championship is that there are no draw offers. Period. Not the normal rule of no draw offers before move 30 but no draw offers at all. Ever. I kind of like that new rule.  If I were Rex & I was paying for all of it I'd want the players to work as much as possible too. Good job Rex. 

Because he is playing online chess events like Titled Tuesday, the Speed Chess Championship, and the Pro Chess Championship.

Naka is a fast calculator and has great tactical intuition.  He doesn’t know much about chess history, culture, theory and has won only a single elite classical tournament in his entire life.  Carlsen, who is younger, has won 53 elite classical tournaments.  Naka’s a player, not a student.  You have to be both to compete at the top level against players like Carlsen and Caruana.   This is hard for Naka fans to understand and accept.  Naka is the Meadowlark Lemon of chess.  Talented as hell, entertaining as hell, but not on the same stage as the world elite.   This is not new information.   

- Hikaru won Tata Steel in 2011, dominating an elite field that included Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik, Aronian, MVL, and Giri.

- Hikaru won the 2018 Grand Chess Tour, dominating an elite field that included Carlsen, Aronian, MVL, Caruana, So, Anand, Giri.

- In the 2020 MC Chess Tour, Hikaru beat out all the other Super GMs to face Carlsen in the final match. He and Carlsen went to tie-breaks, with both players being evenly matched. The final armageddon game ended in a draw, with Carlsen having the black pieces.

- Over the past 17 years, Hikaru has won the US Championship more than any other player. He has mentioned his intentions to play in it less, expressing a desire to allow other "up-and-coming" players more of a chance.

- There have only been 14 players in history to reach the 2800+ FIDE Classical level. Hikaru is one of them (2816 peak). Firouzja is the most recent addition (currently 2804).

I know that Hikaru gets a lot of flak, for various reasons, but I always find it surprising when players suggest that he doesn't belong in the competitive field with other top players. He's clearly an accomplished tournament player at any level, and has proven to be quite a deadly match player, as well.

Eh, I don't like Naka, and it's fun to speculate whether he'd stay above 2700 if he started playing again... but I'll grudgingly agree with your post.

I think it's reasonable to believe that he might dip a bit lower, yes.

But I'd honestly be shocked if he dropped below 2700. That would be a ... monumental plummet.

A 2600-strength Nakamura just ... doesn't seem right, to me.

... but I've been wrong before.

Yeah, I think it's unlikely, but it's fun to imagine because I don't like him

Anatoly Karpov is rated 2617 today.  I claim that more is a measure of motivation (lack of...) than playing strength.  If he is motivated, I'll bet on him in a match against any 2650.

It's not just him - Ivanchuk is 2670 and Gelfand is 2663.  2600 is probably in Naka's future, but not for 10-20 years IMO.

Naka is probably one of the five highest paid chess players in the world.  That's probably 4 streamers and Carlsen. He gets paid very well to stream.  Credit to him - he does it very well, and takes it as seriously as he took being a chess professional in earlier times.

Complicating his choices is the fact that while he is low-top-20 in classical, he is #3 in rapid and #2 in blitz.

Think of Naka as an amateur chess player (whose day job is as a chess entertainer).  Top players retiring has happened before - Reuben Fine was a top 5 player in the 30s who switched to psychiatry, Luke McShane and Matthew Sadler and Michael Stean were very strong British players who stopped being chess pros (and I'm only really familiar with the British players - there are probably a huge number of other examples - Joel Lautier also springs to mind).  Hikaru appears to be doing the same thing.  

The Covid chess boom is making this choice tougher on him.  The rewards for top streamers from streaming have increased.

The fact that he made the Chess Tour finals is a testament to his talent in spite of the fact that he is an amateur at that level.

A lot of hot takes died in this thread...

yeah a lot of these comments aged like milk

So Naka retired?

I mean from OTB chess... It would be more fun seeing Naka in the US championship...

He played three classical OTB FIDE events this year and one Rapid/Blitz event. The classical events were all related to the Candidates cycle, but he's not retired yet.

They should fight. I'd bet on Hans.

There's a simple reason he's not playing the US championship: he's playing in another event that overlaps.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/oct/04/magnus-carlsen-hikaru-nakamura-and-the-chess-elite-now-playing-in-london

He decided he prefers the chess league over the US championship, maybe because he can play against Magnus there. Also he won the USCC 5 times and probably wants to give the Moke a chance to win it

Haha! The original question was three years ago

That's ridiculous. Nakamura has been skipping the US championship for many years,

People in the US think that the US championship is worth more than it is. It's a mid-tier FIDE tournament. Once you have already won it several times, it's just not worth it to play if you are a top 10 player. Like the US Dream Team in basketball. You don't get much out of it but bragging rights. Some players consider it good PR to play in it every year anyway.

Besides the WCC and the Candidates, here's a handful of the higher tier tournaments that most US players would prefer winning over the US championship:

- Tata Steel Chess Tournament (Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands)

- Sinquefield Cup (St. Louis, USA)

- Any Grand Chess Tour event

- Any FIDE Grand Prix Series event

- GRENKE Chess Classic (Germany)

- Norway Chess (Norway)

If you tell a 2700 player that you won the US championship, you will get a "cool"....if you tell them you won Tata Steel, you will get a "wow". At least the US championship is a good, reasonably strong tournament now, in Fischer's day it was pretty weak, thus his 11-0 run and only 3 losses in 8 full tournaments. Fischer also stopped playing in the US championship, in 1966, 6 years before he beat Spassky.

Doesn't matter when other people used necromancy on the thread because he doesn't play USCC this year either.

Simpler explanation: He doesn't want to.

Yeah he preferred playing Magnus and what a game that was.