Hikaru Nakamura not worried about losing No 2 spot on Fide ratings, insists he's 'not a professional chess player'

American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura isn't too worried about losing the No 2 spot on the Fide Classical ratings in the near future, insisting he's "not a professional chess player" any longer and simply plays a "tournament here or there".

Five-time US champion Nakamura is among the top players of the current generation and certainly among the greatest Americans to play the sport. The 38-year-old is also among the best ever in the shorter formats of chess, currently occupying the third and second spots in the Fide Rapid and Blitz ratings respectively.

'I’m a content creator first'

The 2022 World Fischer Random champion's form, however, has been questioned in recent months, especially following Nakamura's decision to compete in lower-rated tournaments to qualify for the Fide Candidates in Cyprus through the rating spot. As for the Candidates, which was won by Uzbekistani GM Javokhir Sindarov, Nakamura finished fifth out of eight players, collecting just one win in 14 rounds and finishing with a final score of 6.5.

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"Well, am I worried about losing my second place in the FIDE ratings? Why would I worry?" Nakamura was quoted by Endgame AI as saying on a recent live stream. "If I was really worried about ratings or things like that, I would probably play quite a bit more."

"But, as I’ve said, and I always find it funny because every so often I see some stupid comment on Twitter, people still don’t seem to realise that I’ve literally said for the last four years, probably more than four years: ‘I’m a content creator first. I moonlight as a chess player here or there if there’s an opportunity to get into the Candidates or something else, of course I will try.’

"But I’m not a professional chess player, and I basically haven’t been since 2019. And yet people still continue to think that somehow I am a professional player. I’m not. I play a tournament here or there, I try to do well, and if I have a chance to get to the Candidates, I do.

"But I’m not suddenly going to start playing 20 tournaments a year like I did in 2018 or 2019. That’s never going to happen again," he added.

Also Read | Hikaru Nakamura expresses satisfaction over how his chess career panned out: 'Why would I not be satisfied?'

Besides being among the top-rated players in the world and the joint-10th-highest rated player of all time in chess history, Nakamura happens to be among the most popular chess streamers in the world with 3.16 million subscribers on YouTube and 1.3 million followers on Instagram.