[ad_1]
A self-proclaimed chess player, streamer, and disruptor, Hikaru Nakamura is all of those things. He happens to have only one “real” job. The world’s No. 3 chess player, who boasts more than his 2 million subscribers on YouTube and nearly 2 million followers on Twitch, is a candidate for the tournament in Toronto from April 3rd until the 22nd. He is one of the top two favorites to win the tournament. At 36 years old, he is the oldest player on the field. He is also its most famous and unique character.
Born in Japan and raised in New York, Hikaru became America’s youngest grandmaster at age 15, breaking Bobby Fischer’s record (a record that has since been broken). As he rose through the ranks, he was considered the brightest chess prospect in the country. For someone who reached the peak of Classical ratings at 2816 Elo and has since declined, Hikaru is considered to have underestimated his potential. He is a monster in the blitz format and is currently ranked second in the world behind Magnus Carlsen.
His rise as a hugely popular chess streamer has coincided with the pandemic, and he continues to stream regularly from his home in Florida, playing blitzes, analyzing, commentating, and chatting with fans. ing.
After two years away from over-the-board chess, he returned to the Grand Prix in June 2022 as a wildcard for Fide and finished as champion. How did he react? “There’s no supplementary prize, so it’s meaningless!… It doesn’t matter!”
richest chess player
In 2022, El Pais newspaper reported that Hikaru is the richest chess player in the world with an estimated fortune of $50 million, but only a fraction of that is earned from chess. The rest was primarily from streaming.
Former world champion Garry Kasparov, who briefly coached Hikaru in 2011, summed up Hikaru’s recent resurgence in classical chess. He believed that the nature of the modern game, where the importance of the opening job was fading, was perfect for players like Hikaru, who were blessed with incredible intuition and practical strength. “Now you can skip the part that requires encyclopedic knowledge and a lot of effort in the opening. Hikaru was more than caught up in the match. It was a match that progressed towards him.”
Former world champions Viswanathan Anand and Carlsen recently named Hikaru as their favorite to win, along with compatriot Fabiano Caruana. Four months ago, when asked about candidates on a YouTube broadcast, Hikaru said he hadn’t thought about it. “I’ll probably start worrying in January or February. Right now I’m focused on streaming, which is my real job.”
In a podcast with Lex Fridman in October 2022, Hikaru talked about the little things from his childhood: following baseball on the radio because there was no cable, blitzing in an Internet chess club, He was also impressed by the speaking and dressing skills of professional baseball players. The professor saw his DVD during his home study and believed it led to a career in the streaming industry.
“In Internet Chess Club, you can write comments about your games. So it’s similar to streaming, but in the sense that you’re writing and chatting instead of talking during some of the games you’re playing. Without that, I don’t think I would have had as much success with streaming. Without this built-in advantage, it would have taken me a lot longer to get comfortable with it. I followed a lot of baseball games, especially New York Yankees games, and listened to a lot of the announcers. I learned from all of that.”
“Don’t Care” T-shirt
Although Hikaru is famous, he may not be the most well-liked man in the chess world. He can also be seen as arrogant and cocky, and his “literally I don’t care” (yes, it’s now emblazoned on his t-shirt) rant after losing to a fluke online is now So it’s immortal. He wore a “literally don’t care” T-shirt during an online game with Carlsen last year, fist-pumping in celebration after the five-time world champion suffered a dramatic mouth slip and lost. Recently, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, who has recently turned into a self-proclaimed vigilante against cheating, suggested a statistical anomaly in Hikaru’s online play. The latter dismissed the accusations as “garbage”.
But if he wins over the contenders and becomes world champion, there is something to be said for the possibility of a massive unification of the world, of chess and its large following on online platforms. Now that Carlsen has retired from classical chess, there is opportunity and room for new stars to step in. Whether Hikaru is the right man to advance chess is another matter.
In 2022, after securing his place as a candidate, Hikaru released a video titled “I don’t care about the path to becoming a candidate.” Here’s what he did in the tournament: We played 6-7 hours of classic grinders, gave official post-match interviews, did online Twitch interviews, and recorded match summaries on YouTube with analysis. For an elite player in a major tournament, that would be pretty daunting.
He was expected to take second place until Ding Liren won on demand in the final round. In hindsight, it was an unfortunate match loss for Hikaru, as Ding entered (and won) the World Championship after Carlsen decided not to defend the title. A few days from now, Hikaru will be involved in a battle with seven other people for the world championship. Does he “not care” about the path to the goal?
[ad_2]
Source link
