Chess Club Live Blog

 "Did I get 31 in 1 minute? I got 31 in 1 minute, I wasn't even paying attention..." - Hans Niemann I was on the fourth live stream that week with Hans Niemann. He was trying to beat the Puzzle Rush world record. "I got 62, I'm not going to break the world record tonight folks!" And with that, Hans hastily ended the stream. He pinged me on DM afterwards, wanting to know how I found his show. I told him it was awesome as usual and that I'd be following the next day. Hans Niemann is a precocious talent and is bursting with energy. When I got to know him he was a chess streamer and a very hardworking one at that. He would do a 6 hour stream, sign off to study chess then catch some sleep, all interspersed with school work. He was an IM and had ambitions to become a grandmaster but this was not his central focus. On Facebook I had a community of 250,000 which he seemed mildly impressed with and he was interested in engaging with them.. I connected with his da...

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 Hika...