Hikaru Nakamura - Big Trouble in Smallville

Super Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura is one of the most gifted chess grandmasters there ever was. He grew up in the online chess slums playing blitz and bullet like a God. He is easily the best chess player at speed alive today. Having said all of that Hikaru is a very divisive character. The actions of his online team led to the Chess Drama earlier this year. Hikaru probably sees himself as a comic book hero like a chess superman but he has a chain of Kryptonite in the form of one Magnus Carlsen, the chess world champion.


Hikaru Nakamura believes he is the reincarnation of Bobby Fischer. Let's just pause, Fischer was pretty much the perfect player, a gentleman at the board, equally good in tactical melees as stodgy strategic binds. Fischer had the emotional intelligence to realize being petulant on the board only helped his opponents. Hikaru hasn't learned that lesson yet. Hikaru is nowhere close. I am being kind, Hikaru is as far away from being Fischer as I am from being Hikaru. 

Nakamura is the best customer for Magnus Carlsen. Hikaru has run up a ridiculous number of losses against the world champion and seems to be proud to lose to the great man. It seems self-respect and professional attainment are out of the window so Hikaru's minus score keeps racking up.

I have heard the stories from people saying how toxic Hikaru is and how everyone in chess hates him and other Super Grandmasters don't want to be around him. I don't believe he is that bad. I think he's still that socially awkward kid and finds it easier to be mad, bad, and sad than anything else.

I have a personal experience with Hikaru. He used to talk to chess fans who had nothing to offer him back in the day. He was pretty arrogant but not as petulant and self-important as he is today. He was okay with you along as you were fawning over him and flattering him to the high heavens but as soon as you wanted a real conversation he would disengage and block you. I was a pure chess fan and couldn't understand why Hikaru had blocked me on social media and yet was happy to take my money on his Twitch channel and applaud me as if we were old friends. He is a very complex person and seems to have different motivations at different times on different forums.

Fresh from Chess Drama, Hikaru now is mainly focused on streaming for Esports giant TSM and doing Pogchamps for Chess.com. Super Grandmaster chess is not his focus anymore. Some might say it never was.

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