Hikaru Nakamura
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Hikaru Nakamura, (中村光 Nakamura Hikaru, born December 9 1987) is an American chess Grandmaster (GM).
He was born in Osaka, Japan, to Japanese father and an American mother and moved with his parents to the United States when he was two years old. Nakamura began playing chess at age seven and, within three years, aged 10 years and 79 days, Nakamura achieved the title of chess master from the United States Chess Federation (USCF), becoming the youngest American ever to earn the title. In 2003, solidifying his reputation as a chess prodigy, Nakamura, aged 15 years and 79 days, earned the grandmaster title, breaking by three months the record of Bobby Fischer for youngest American to have claimed the GM title.
Nakamura is generally regarded as an aggressive player who is reluctant to draw games early, preferring instead to exploit all prospective winning chances; the USCF describes Nakamura's style as marked by "astonishing creativity...relentless determination...[the making] of unexpected moves and a will to win". [link]
On June 20, 2005, Nakamura was selected as the 19th Frank Samford Chess Fellow, receiving a grant of $32,000 U.S. dollars to further his chess education and competition.
On the January 2006 FIDE ratings list, Nakamura had an Elo rating of 2644, ranking him 65th in the world and third in the United States, behind only Gata Kamsky and Alexander Onischuk. Nakamura's rating also placed him sixth in the world among junior players and behind only Teimour Radjabov and Sergey Karjakin among players born in 1987 or later. On the December 2005 USCF ratings supplement, Nakamura, with a rating of 2762, held the top spot for the tenth consecutive month, bettering Kamsky by 31 points.
Though primarily a chess player, Nakamura has also served as a commentator and game annotator, most prominently on the [ChessNinja] website, operated by chess author Mig Greengard.
Internet chess
Nakamura, who plays chess using the Internet Chess Club server under the screen name Smallville, is an adept speed chess player, holding, as of January 2006, the ICC record for highest marks achieved in "blitz" and "bullet" chess.Between November 5 and December 31, 2005, the ICC service conducted five blitz tournaments open to all registered players; Nakamura won four of the five tournaments, taking purses of $500 each.
Over-the-board chess
A resident of White Plains, New York, Nakamura often plays in the weekly New York Masters chess tournament, which he has won several times.
Nakamura qualified for the 2004 world chess championship, contested in Tripoli, Libya, and reached the fourth round, defeating grandmasters Sergey Volkov, Aleksei Aleksandrov, and Alexander Lastin before falling to England's Michael Adams, the tournament's third-seeded participant and eventual runner-up.
He won the 2005 U.S. Chess Championship sponsored by Chessmaster (held in November and December 2004), scoring seven points over nine rounds to tie grandmaster Alex Stripunsky, with whom he had drawn in the tournament's third round, for first place; Nakamura defeated Stripunsky in two straight rapid chess playoff games to claim the title and become the youngest national champion since Fischer. Nakamura finished the tournament without a loss and, in the seventh round, defeated grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov, then the nation's top-ranked player.
Off his victory, Nakamura played a challenge match dubbed the "Duelo de Jóvenes Prodigios" in Mexico against Ukrainian grandmaster Karjakin, the world's top-rated player born during or after 1990, and defeated his fellow prodigy, 4.5-1.5.
In November and December 2005, Nakamura entered the FIDE World Chess Cup seeded 28th (of 128 players) but failed to advance beyond the first round, losing each of his two games to Indian grandmaster Surya Ganguly and becoming the second-highest-ranked player to leave Khanty, Russia, without having won a game.
Other important tournament performances include Nakamura's fourth-place finish in the "B" group at the April 2004 Corus tournament at Wijk aan Zee and his win at the 2001 World Youth Chess Championship for boys 14 years old and younger.
External links
- FIDE rating card for [Hikaru Nakamura]
- [20 crucial positions from his games]
- [Play through Nakamura's 2005 US Championship Games]
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