Hikaru Nakamura
Hikaru Nakamura was born December 9, 1987 in Hirakata, Japan. His family moved to the United States when he was just two years old, and the Stars and Stripes are the only national banner he has known as a chess player.
Nakamura has been one of the world’s top players for well over a decade. He was clearly the top American player for much of that time and is now a key contributor to one of the strongest chess scenes in the world.
He is a five-time U.S. champion, claiming the title in 2005, 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2019. Nakamura was also a participant in FIDE’s 2004 World Championship tournament and a candidate for the world championship in both 2016 and 2022, qualifying for a third in 2024. He was also the 2022 Fischer Random World Champion.
Nakamura became a national master (USCF) in 1998, an international master in 2001, and grandmaster in 2003. At the time, he was the youngest American grandmaster since Fischer.
In 2003 he participated in his first U.S. Championship tournament, scoring +3 -1 =5 in the event, which was won by GM Alexander Shabalov. In January 2004, Nakamura played in Group B at the Corus tournament and finished fourth with a plus score on his way to crack the 2600 rating threshold in June. By October, he was in the world’s top 100 for the first time.
He achieved the 2600 mark during FIDE’s 2004 knockout tournament to determine its champion. As the 83rd seed, Nakamura defeated higher-rated opponents GMs Sergei Volkov, Aleksej Aleksandrov, and Alexander Lastin to become one of the last 16 players. In that round, he fell to third seed and eventual finalist Michael Adams, who entered the tournament with a 150-point rating advantage.
In 2005, along with GM Alexander Stripunsky, Nakamura topped a 64-player field for his first U.S. championship with a +5 -0 =4 score. American chess was not at its best in 2005, but this was nonetheless a competitive field that included several strong players, most notably GM Gata Kamsky. And at just 17 years old, Nakamura was not yet near a finished product.
Nakamura won his second U.S. Championship in 2009 against a similar field, one which also included Kamsky. He had joined the 2700 rating club the year before, in October 2008.
Nakamura’s performance at Wijk aan Zee in 2011 was the crowning achievement of his career to that point. He won with a +6 -1 =6 score, clearing a field that included world champions past, present, and future (Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen). Nakamura only scored two draws and a loss against them (and fair enough: they were the first-, second-, and fourth-highest rated players in the world entering the tournament!), but dominated the remainder of the field, including a 33-move win against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Nakamura’s rating climbed 23 points in the tournament, from 2751 to 2774.
Also a contender for Nakamura’s best-ever event, considering the circumstances, is his joint first-place finish at Khanty-Mansiysk in May 2015 (achieved with a +2 -0 =9 score). It was the final event of the 2014-15 FIDE Grand Prix, and Nakamura needed the result to earn second place in the overall event and thus qualify for the 2016 Candidates Tournament.
After his performance at Khanty-Mansiysk, Nakamura achieved the coveted 2800 rating on the June 2015 FIDE rating list with 2802 after years of flirting with the mark. His rating would reach its peak, 2816, on the October 2015 list. At that point, only Carlsen had a higher standard rating in the world.
