Hikaru Nakamura

Hikaru Nakamura was born in Osaka (on December 9, 1987), in the city of Hirakata. When he was two years old, he moved with his parents to the United States. He started playing chess at the age of five and was trained by his stepfather, FIDE master Sunil Weeramantry. At age 10 he achieved the title of chess master from the United States Chess Federation, the youngest American to achieve the title. In 2003, at the age of 15, he obtained the title of Grandmaster, 3 months before Bobby Fischer's record.

He won his first U.S. Chess Championship in 2005, among the outstanding players of the tournament were Gata Kamsky and Alexander Stripunsky. He won this tournament four more times: 2009, 2012, 2015, and the last in 2019. He brilliantly won the Tata Steel tournament in 2011, with 9 of 13 points against top players like Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand. The same year he was trained by former world champion Garry Kasparov who had already trained Magnus Carlsen. He was the winner of the London Chess Classic in 2013 and the Zurich Chess Challenge in 2015 beating Viswanathan Anand. As the second board, he participated in the 42nd Olympiad in 2016, winning the gold medal for his country. He won the Gibraltar Chess Festival in 2016 beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in tie-breaks, and in 2017 by beating David Antón Guijarro in tie-breaks. In 2018, he won the London Chess Classic super tournament beating Fabiano Caruana with a score of 18-10, and in the final beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with a score of 15-13. This win contributed to obtain the Grand Chess Tour 2018.

Games played by Hikaru Nakamura