Howard Goldowsky: Did your parents expose you to a lot of different
activities and you picked chess, or did you always know you wanted to be a
chessplayer right from the beginning?
Hikaru Nakamura: I did some other things before chess. Of course, both my
stepfather and my brother, they both played. So when I was seven, maybe
younger, we went to the ’94 US Open in Concord, CA. This was the first
tournament I was around. When I was there, I went to the Skittles room and I
played. That’s basically how I picked it up.
Sunil Weeramantry: He’d hang around the Skittles room, and people would
come in and play. You know, he really wasn’t playing seriously at all. His first
tournament was in February ’95, after that. He played in the ’95 National
Elementary in Little Rock, AK. Hikaru had a pretty low initial rating, somewhere
in the 700’s. [According to the USCF MSA site, Nakamura’s first published
rating came in at 788, on the April 1995 list.] They needed a fourth player for his
school team, and they couldn’t find a fourth player. Hikaru offered to play (in the
Championship section). That’s how it got started. I think he managed two out of
seven or something like that.
HG: What’s your relationship like with your brother, from a chessplayers
perspective?
HN: Before I was a “real” chessplayer, he was the best chessplayer for his age
and younger. When I started out he was better, and once I got to the age of
around eight or nine, I started playing seriously. Then, of course, when I was ten
I broke the record for the youngest master. That’s been well documented.
Nowadays, he doesn’t really play chess that much. He’s off at college right now.
[He’s studying at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business.]
If he wants my help with chess I’ll help him, but usually he doesn’t.
HG: During those years between the ages of seven and ten, when you
developed to the strength of your stepfather, was there any sort of specific
guidance from him? Was it more life skills or was it specific things, like
getting help on rook and pawn endgames?
HN: It was more general advice. Mostly on openings. When I went from 1800 to
2200 or so, he was helping me. I actually wasn’t doing stuff on my own back
then. Once I broke 2300, from there to where I am right now, I’ve basically
studied on my own.
SW: Hikaru, you can correct me if I’m wrong – I think one of the things I tried to
do was to let him play whatever it was he wanted to play. Now, if you look at
Hikaru’s games, he’s a pretty versatile player in terms of what he can play, either
as white or as black. And I’ve tried to encourage him to explore on his own, and
to play what he wants to play when he feels like playing it. I mean, I used to say,
“Don’t worry if you play a bad game and you look stupid.” You know, this is the
only way you can really progress. It’s bad if you get set into a particular mode or
format early on, and you don’t want to break out of it.
HG: You have progressed very quickly. How much of an importance do you
put on rating, and if you don’t put a lot of importance on rating, how do you