Top 35 Hikaru Nakamura Quotes

Critical thinking is the most important factor with chess. As it is in life, you need to think before you make decisions.

You can’t follow or understand the game unless you play chess yourself, unlike poker which you can pick up in five minutes.

I want to be ranked in the top 100 players. If I can achieve that, I’ll think about the world championship.

It’s very encouraging that the game of chess is growing in the U.S. and is becoming more popular.

I’ve had to grow up pretty fast, which is not a good thing.

Well, I think, in large part, when I first began playing chess at seven years old, I was quite bad at it. I lost a lot of games when I first started.

No, I’ve never had a job other than being a chess player.

I think for me the main goal that I have, or at least what I really aspire to, is to raise the level of chess.

When you’re 17 and 18 is when you get really good, and in college, you have to put the chess aside.

If you’re not at the elite levels there are a lot more opportunities to play tournaments.

There is a perspective out there that I’m very much all about myself… I just live with it.

Chess.com is my home turf.

In poker, you want to play the weaker guys. In chess, it’s the opposite.

I’d rather play for the Yankees. You get more money.

The image that everyone has of a chess player is not necessarily positive. I think it’s partly due to Bobby Fischer – his rise to fame and then his descent into madness. That left a lot of people with negative stereotypes, of nerds who aren’t interesting.

I would say out of all the things I studied growing up, math was probably one of the things that I liked the least.

In chess, everyone’s accepted. That’s what’s great about it. You can be a little bit different. You can be an oddball.

I had been playing a lot of chess and I wasn’t really enjoying it, so I decided to go to college to see what else is out there for me. But after about six or seven months away from the game, I just decided that the whole college life wasn’t for me and that’s why I decided to come back.

There aren’t really any ‘American’ grandmasters that are higher rated than me.

It’s easy to become angry, but when you get better, you channel your energy into the game.

I don’t consider myself a nerd.

I will say there have been occasional times – not when I’m playing, but when I’m studying – that I have found a little bit of alcohol has been good for the creative process.

What was great about Fischer is that when he became world champion is that chess was being covered everywhere. It was in all the major newspapers, it was on TV.

Definitely, some of the artistry and poetry has been lost in modern chess. It’s very rare that I play a game where I’m like, ‘Wow, this is really interesting. There were so many possibilities! It was such a rich game.’

The first championship in 2005 will always be the most special but winning this fifth one was by far my best performance because of the strength of the field.

A lot of people see a future where you could make a living as a chess player.

Because of the Internet, chess is not about your nationality or your background. Anyone can get good now.

Chess is a great game. It’s a lot of fun, but sometimes you wonder what else is out there.

It’s good to win. Losses aren’t good, and draws are O.K.

I love the game. I love everything that it can do for people. It’s not all about me.

I’ve won the U.S. Championship. I’ve won a lot of tournaments.

No matter how badly you play, unless you make a flat-out blunder, there’s always going to be some narrow path to being able to save the game and draw instead of losing.

I like the feeling when you don’t have much time and you have to think fast.

In chess you try to do your best, but there are instances where you make mistakes or you try and take risks that you shouldn’t. And I think losing games is a good thing, because you learn more from when you lose than when you win.

I’m into hiking and mountains and I follow hockey and basketball pretty avidly.