About

Hikaru Nakamura is an American chess grandmaster and Twitch streamer. Nakamura became the youngest American to earn the title of Grandmaster aged 15 years and 79 days. In October 2015, Nakamura reached his peak ranking, being ranked the second best player in the world.

Nakamura is known as a popularizer of chess and a prolific streamer. After beginning to stream his daily practice games in 2018, Nakamura rose to internet fame in late 2010s and has collaborated with various popular Twitch streamer, most notably xQc.

Online History

Hikaru Nakamura began playing chess at the age of seven and was coached by his stepfather, FIDE Master Sunil Weeramantry.^[1] A chess prodigy, Nakamura became the youngest Amercican to beat an International Master and achieve the title of chess master from the US Chess Federation. In 2003, at age 15 years and 79 days, Nakamura became the youngest American to earn the grandmaster title.

Nakamura achieved his peak FIDE rating of 2816 in October 2015, being ranked the second best player in the world at that time. As of February 2021, Nakamura is ranked 19th best with 2736 rating.^[2]

Nakamura is particularly skilled in rapid and blitz chess. As of February 2021, Nakamura was ranked^[3][4] number four on the FIDE rapid list and number one on the blitz list.

On July 28th, 2017, Nakamura launched his YouTube^[5] channel GMHikaru.

In October 2018, Nakamura started actively streaming on Twitch under the nickname GMHikaru,^[6] accumulating nearly 100,000 followers by April 2020.^[7]

On April 3rd, 2020, Nakamura started streaming teaching prominent Twitch streamer Felix "xQc" Lengyel to play chess. On the same day, both Nakamura^[8] and xQc^[9] uploaded the VOD of their streams to YouTube, with the videos receiving over 632,000 views and 329,500 views in two months (shown below, left and right).

In the following month, xQc continued to take chess lessons from Nakamura and play chess during his streams.^[10][11] Starting on May 5th, Nakamura also started playing with another popular Twitch streamer boxbox.^[12]

Following the start of the co-streams, Nakamura's Twitch viewership increased in a drastic manner, from an average of 1,900 viewers in March 2020 to over 13,000 viewers in May.^[7] A May 17th co-stream with xQc had over 30,000 viewers.^[13]

On May 25th, Chess.com^[14] announced PogChamps, a chess tournament for some of Twitch's most popular streamers, cast by Hikaru Nakamura and Woman FIDE Master Alexandra Botez, with Nakamura returning to cast PogChamps 2 and 3 in July 2020 and February 2021.

On August 27th, 2020, Nakamura was signed by eSports organization Team SoloMid for a six-figure sum.^[15]

Reputation

Following the collaborations with xQc and other streamers, Hikaru Nakamura quickly rose to widespread recognition online. On Twitch, Nakamura's follower count grew from 100,000 followers on April 1st, 2020 to nearly 950,000 followers on February 5th, 2021. On YouTube, Nakamura had over 754,000 subscribers as of February 5th, 2021. On Twitter,^[16] Nakamura had over 271,000 followers.

In many of his videos and on his social media, Nakamura features memes and fan art created by his fanbase.^[17][18]

Criticisms

On May 16th, 2020, after Hikaru Nakamura streamed teaching xQc and boxbox chess, American chess Grandmaster Benjamin Finegold criticized Nakamura for playing with the streamers, referring to Nakamura as a "dickrider" and to xQc and boxbox as having "negative talent in life." On the same day, the clip was posted in /r/LivestreamFail,^[19] gaining over 2,900 upvotes. On May 24th, YouTuber^[20] Cr1tikal posted a video in which he criticized Finegold and provided his opinion on the drama, gaining over 1.7 million views in two weeks (shown below).

Personal Life

Hikaru Nakamura was born in Hirakata, Japan to an American mother and a Japanese father. He has an older brother, Asuka. When he was two years old, his family moved the United States.

Search Interest

External References