The Playing Style of Hikaru Nakamura

Nakamura is particularly skilled at rapid and blitz chess, a variety of time controls in which players have less than an hour to complete all or most of their moves. As of December 2020, Nakamura is ranked #4 on the FIDE rapid list and #1 on the blitz list. He is also strong at bullet chess, a time control giving the players less than three minutes each. In 2009, Nakamura authored the book Bullet Chess: One Minute to Mate. Nakamura said in September 2020, "At least at blitz chess, I'm probably the best or second-best player ever, in the entire history, at least online." Nakamura has been nicknamed "The H Bomb" because of his explosive style of playing.

Nakamura's long-time second is Kris Littlejohn, a master-level player who works with chess engines to prepare lines for Nakamura to play.