Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura is one of today's most outstanding chess personalities.
The US star been an elite player for the last decade, ranking as high as world number two and over the 2800 rating mark.
But he is also one of the biggest chess streamers and Youtubers on the internet. As a result, Hikaru has played a significant role in the chess boom, attracting thousands — if not millions — of people to chess, thus helping to grow the game.
Hikaru was born in Japan, but his family moved to the US when he was two years old. He began playing chess at the age of seven, under the coaching of his step-father, FM Sunil Weeramantry.
At first, his older brother Asuka was getting all the praise, but Hikaru's competitive spirit told, and by the age of ten, he was the youngest US National Master ever. Five years later, he surpassed Bobby Fischer as the youngest Grandmaster in US history (then) by three months.
It was only the beginning of a brilliant career. Hikaru would go on to win five US Championship titles, Olympic Team Gold at the second board in 2016, the 2011 Tata Steel Masters, four Gibraltar Opens, and one Candidates Tournament appearance in 2016.
Hikaru's resume would be incomplete without mentioning his speed chess abilities. His aggressive style and fast play skills soon earned him the reputation of speed-demon, and he was the first player ever to lead the FIDE blitz and rapid world rankings, in 2014. In fact, Hikaru's influence was instrumental in popularizing bullet chess, a speed modality with only one minute for the whole game.
And although he is currently semi-retired from classical chess, he is still a fearsome rapid player. Just think of his second place at the epic Finals of the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour 2020 against the World Champion.
Mostly since 2019, GM Nakamura has been known as a chess educator to millions of viewers worldwide. So his coming to Chessable was only natural. In his course debut, he treats chess fans with a masterclass on one of the most popular chess openings and his favorite against 1.d4: the King's Indian Defense.
But don't take our word for it, go check Nakamura's Conquest: King's Indian Defense.
