Hikaru Nakamura
- November 6, 2025
Three-time Candidate Tournament participant (2016, 2022, 2024)
Ranking: world number two for one month in 2015 and 14+ months between 2023-2025+
Highest FIDE Elo Rating: 2816
Tournament career: winner of 18 super-tournaments:
5-time US Champion
4-time Gibraltar Chess Festival winner
winner of Tata Steel Masters 2011, London Chess Classic 2018, Norway Chess 2023
and several others…
Chess Olympiads: one gold and two bronze individual medals
Why he deserves it:
Many of you probably expected this player to be ranked higher than I placed him. But remember, this ranking is solely about classical chess. If you set aside Nakamura’s (of course) amazing blitz career and his streaming career, I think this placement is appropriate.
While Nakamura was fully dedicated to classical chess, he was world number two for one month. Ironically, after becoming primarily a streamer and putting his playing career on the back burner, he has managed to hold the world number two spot with much greater certainty. Similar to Magnus Carlsen nowadays, Nakamura rarely plays classical chess anymore, and thus doesn’t have as many opportunities to lose his rating. Currently, he is on the best path to qualify for his fourth Candidate Tournament in 2026.
Twice he was very close to participating in a World Championship match. In 2022, a draw in the last round of the Candidate Tournament would have been enough for him to finish second. However, he lost to Ding, the Chinese grandmaster finished second, and after Magnus Carlsen’s withdrawal, he got into the title fight. The rest is history. Two years later, Nakamura held chances for tournament victory until the last round, finishing in a tie for second place.
Nakamura has won some of the biggest titles a chess player can win today: Tata Steel Masters, Norway Chess, London Chess Classic… He is also a five-time US Champion.
Why he isn’t higher:
Nakamura could have won more major tournaments if classical chess had remained a priority for him. Nevertheless, he has had an excellent career, but several of his contemporaries have achieved more in classical chess. We’ll see how long Nakamura can hold the world’s second place and how he will perform in the 2026 Candidate Tournament.
Best games:
Hikaru Nakamura vs Vladimir Kramnik
Chess Olympiad 2012, Istanbul
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Miroslav Janeček graduated in English Philology at Palacký University Olomouc. Currently he works in Prague as a content editor for a large marketing company. His roots are in Opava - the historic and cultural centre of the Czech part of Silesia. That city is also the home of Slezan Opava, the chess club where Miroslav started to play chess, later went on to work as a youth coach and which he to this day proudly represents. As an aspiring chess publicist, he is the main author of articles on ChessDB.cz. In his free time, in addition to chess and writing, he also devotes himself to racket sports, history, and literature.