Background and career
Christopher Hikaru Nakamura (Japanese: 中村光; born December 9, 1987) is an American chess grandmaster, internet personality, five-time U.S. Chess Champion, and the 2022 World Fischer Random Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he earned his grandmaster title at the age of 15, the youngest American at the time to do so. With a peak rating of 2816, Nakamura is tied as the tenth-highest-rated player in history and is officially ranked the No. 2 chess player worldwide by FIDE. Nakamura has represented the United States at seven Chess Olympiads (2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018), securing a team gold medal and two team bronze medals, and participated in four Candidates Tournaments, finishing seventh in the 2016 edition, fourth in the 2022 edition, second in the 2024 edition, and fifth in the 2026 edition. In May 2014, when FIDE began publishing official rapid and blitz chess ratings, Nakamura ranked No. 1 in the world on both lists. Since 2018, Nakamura has pursued a career as a content creator and subsequently signed with an esports organization TSM, later joining Misfits Gaming and then Team Falcons. Having popular channels on Twitch, Kick, and YouTube, Nakamura is one of the most popular chess streamers in the world, and is widely credited with contributing to the growth in popularity of online chess.
Nakamura was born in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, to an American mother, Carolyn Merrow Nakamura, a classically trained musician and former public school teacher, and a Japanese father, Shuichi Nakamura. Nakamura has an older brother, Asuka. When he was two years old, his family moved to the United States, and, a year later in 1990, his parents divorced. He was raised in White Plains, New York. He began playing chess at the age of seven and was coached by his Sri Lankan-American stepfather, FIDE Master and chess author Sunil Weeramantry. Weeramantry began coaching the Nakamura brothers after Asuka Nakamura won the National Kindergarten Championship in 1992, which led him to develop a relationship with their mother.
At age 10, he became the youngest American to beat an International Master when he defeated Jay Bonin at the Marshall Chess Club. Also at age 10, Nakamura became the youngest player to achieve the title of chess master from the United States Chess Federation, breaking the record previously set by Vinay Bhat. (Nakamura's record stood until 2008 when Nicholas Nip achieved the master title at the age of 9 years and 11 months.) In 1999, Nakamura won the Laura Aspis Prize, given annually to the top USCF-rated player under age 13. In 2003, at age 15 years and 79 days, Nakamura solidified his reputation as a chess prodigy, becoming the youngest American to earn the grandmaster title at the time, breaking the record of Bobby Fischer by three months.
In April 2004, Nakamura played in the B group of the Corus Chess Tournament 2004 at Wijk aan Zee. He scored 7½/13 (+5–3=5) to tie for 4th place. Nakamura qualified for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004, played in Tripoli, Libya, and reached the fourth round, defeating grandmasters Sergey Volkov, Aleksej Aleksandrov, and Alexander Lastin before falling to eventual runner-up Michael Adams. In June 2005, Nakamura was selected as the 19th Frank Samford Chess Fellow, receiving a grant of $32,000 to further his chess education and competition. Nakamura won the 2005 U.S. Championship (held in November and December 2004), scoring an undefeated seven points out of nine rounds to tie grandmaster Alexander Stripunsky for first place. Nakamura defeated Stripunsky in the rapid playoff to claim the title and become the youngest U.S. champion since Bobby Fischer. Following that victory, Nakamura played a challenge match dubbed the "Duelo de Jóvenes Prodigios" in Mexico against Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin and defeated his fellow prodigy by 4½–1½. In November and December 2005, Nakamura competed in the 2005 FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, seeded 28th (of 128 players) but failed to advance beyond the first round. He lost each of his two games to Indian grandmaster Surya Ganguly. In 2006, Nakamura was offered a full scholarship to the University of Texas at Dallas but instead attended Dickinson College, with a partial scholarship, in order to take a break from chess. Later in the year, he announced that he would leave college and resume playing chess. The same year, he helped the U.S. team win the bronze medal in the Chess Olympiad at Turin, Italy, playing on the third board behind Gata Kamsky and 2006 U.S. Champion Alexander Onischuk. In the same year, he won the 16th North American Open in Las Vegas. In January 2007, Nakamura shared second place at the GibTelecom Masters in Gibraltar. He placed joint first in the tournament the following year, finishing with five straight wins to tie with Chinese GM Bu Xiangzhi, whom he then proceeded to beat in the rapidplay playoff. In October 2007, Nakamura won the Magistral D'Escacs tournament in Barcelona and the Corsican circuit rapid chess tournament. Nakamura won the 2008 Finet Chess960 Open in Mainz, Germany. In November 2008, he won the Cap d'Agde Rapid Tournament in Cap d'Agde, defeating Anatoly Karpov in the semifinals and Vassily Ivanchuk in the finals. In February 2009, he came joint third at the 7th Gibtelecom Masters in Gibraltar, again finishing strongly with 4½/5 to end the event on 7½/10.
Nakamura won the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship (St Louis, Missouri, May 2009), scoring 7/9 to take clear first place. In July 2009, Nakamura won the Donostia-San Sebastian Chess Festival, tying with former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov with 6½/9 before defeating Ponomariov in a blitz playoff to win the title over a field including former undisputed world champion Anatoly Karpov, former FIDE world champions Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Ponomariov, 2009 World Junior champion Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Peter Svidler among others. In November 2009, Nakamura participated in the BNbank blitz tournament in Oslo, Norway. He reached the final by winning all 12 of his games. In the championship, he faced the world No. 2 and reigning World Blitz Champion Magnus Carlsen. Nakamura won the match 3–1, further cementing his reputation as one of the best blitz players in the world, despite having not been invited to the 2009 World Blitz championship. Nakamura skipped the 2009 FIDE World Cup in favor of the London Chess Classic in December 2009. Although he drew with the black pieces against eventual winner Magnus Carlsen and with White against former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, Nakamura failed to win a game during the tournament and ended in seventh place.
Nakamura began 2010 playing first board for the U.S. at the World Team Championship held in Bursa, Turkey. His performance, including a win over world No. 6 Boris Gelfand on the Black side of a King's Indian Defense, won him the gold medal for board one and led the U.S. to a silver medal finish behind Russia. Nakamura participated in the Corus Chess Tournament 2010. He finished with a score of 7½/13, tying for fourth place with Viswanathan Anand. In May, Nakamura participated in the 2010 U.S. Championship in Saint Louis, Missouri. Seeded first, he scored 5/7 points to qualify for the round-robin stage against the former champions Gata Kamsky, Alexander Onischuk, and Yuri Shulman. In the round-robin stage, he drew with Kamsky before losing to Shulman, with the white pieces in both games. The loss to Shulman eliminated him from the competition. From November 5–14, Nakamura competed in the 2010 Mikhail Tal Memorial in Moscow; the field consisted of Levon Aronian, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Sergey Karjakin, Pavel Eljanov, Boris Gelfand, Alexei Shirov, and Wang Hao. The average Elo of the field was 2757, making it the third-strongest tournament in chess history at the time. Nakamura finished with +1, defeating Eljanov and drawing every other player to finish in a tie for fourth place. Nakamura's round two win over Eljanov placed him in the world top-ten in the live ratings for the first time in his career. Nakamura's performance at this tournament, his first involving an entirely super-elite field allowed him to "force (the chess elite) to respect him", according to noted Russian commentator grandmaster Sergey Shipov. From November 16–18, Nakamura made his debut at the 2010 World Blitz Championship in Moscow. Despite losing four of his first five games to Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Sergey Karjakin, he recovered to score 5/7 in the second half of the day and finished with a score of 7½/14, 2½ points behind co-leaders Carlsen and Levon Aronian, whom he defeated in their individual games. On the second day, Nakamura avenged his earlier losses against both Carlsen and Kramnik and scored 8/14, for a total of 15½/28, three points behind Aronian and a point and a half behind Carlsen. Nakamura finished with 21½/38 for fifth place. In December 2010, Nakamura finished fourth in the London Chess Classic, among a field including Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik, Michael Adams, Nigel Short, David Howell, and Luke McShane. Nakamura's performance ensured that he would officially join the world top ten in January 2011.
