Hikaru Nakamura is back big time by winning the 2006 National Chess Congress by the score of 5.5 – 0.5 ahead of MANY IMs and GMs:
Here are the top finishers:
1 GM Hikaru Nakamura 2709 5½
2 GM Alexander Shabalov 2650 5
3 GM Jaan Ehlvest 2666 5
4 IM Justin Sarkar 2397 5
Here is the complete crosstable. 
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
2006 National Chess Congress
A US tourney?
Hope he can get into Candidates/road to WC/tourney like Mexico in future…
Nakamura is ELO 2709?
Since when??
Really happy to hear this. My daughter and her buddies (2nd and 3rd graders) are huge fans of “Smallville” on the ICC and people were wondering whether he had retired from across the board chess. Glad to hear that he has not retired.
Naka is 2709 USCF, but 2640 FIDE
Nakamura!
Its good that Nakamura has won the National Chess Congress, and I give him full credit for that, but whats the big deal??? We should be comparing him to Magnus Carlson and other young prodigies, who are playing on the world stage and are already in the candidates tournament. I think Nakamura is a huge disappointment for US Chess
well i think the problem is with U.S. chess- we don’t promote our talented players like other countries do – nakamura is every bit as good as carlsen if not better
It’s not up to US Chess to make Nakamura into a World Champion. It is up to Nakamura to decide he wants to be a World Champion and frankly he hasn’t made any real attempt to move beyond winning tournaments in the US. It’s up to him to decide what his real goals are: becoming a world-class chess player or chasing skirts around the campus.
It is really annoying to see people ramble on when they have no idea what they are talking about. For one, in order to play in these famous tournaments you must be invited to play and Nakamura has not been invited. It is not his fault, he has played in every international event he has been invited to play in with pretty good results. He had a slow start in the olympiad but came back with some huge victories at the end including a very nice and memorable win vs Grischuk that gave the US a boost against the Russian team. If there was anything to the US they would have gave him the Sanford fellowship again or something similiar to it so he wouldnt be forced to try to manage for his self financially. Without support no matter how talented a chessplayer is in our country he’ll never succeed with any doubts about his future financially. These are problems that i guarantee you Karjakin, Negi, Carlsen, have never had to worry about.
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To anonymous above. To say Nakamura is a huge disappointment for US chess is ridiculous. He’s the number 2 rated US player in the world to Kamsky, and is only 18. You say this ridiculous crap just because he isn’t Magnus Carlsen, or Radjabov? Guess what. There are 6 billion other people on this planet that aren’t as good as those two also.
Actually, JimMD, what is more annoying are people who blame everyone else for why someone doesn’t succeed. Neither US Chess nor anyone else gave Susan Polgar any handouts or forced them to let her into tournaments, and she had to overcome gender bias that Mr. Nakamura does not have to contend with. Bobby Fisher didn’t have his invitation gift wrapped for the World Championship either. You are not given greatness in this world, you earn it. If Nakamura is that good, don’t worry Jim, he will prove it on his own. Otherwise, he will fade from memory. But blaming some organization for his inability to get a World Championship match with Kramnik shows just how little you know about anything. Grow up.
I really wish people would stop criticizing Nakamura. He is very talented and we should be helping him to succeed instead of putting him down. He just won a tournament and some people here are criticizing him. Terrible.
Nice to see Nakamura catching his breath and winning a nice one again.
I would have liked to see him in a couple of the blitz tournaments recently played. One was a world championship and the other was the Tal Memorial. I hope he is invited next time.
Watching him play at playchess under name Star Wars (Samuel L Jackson) is realy enjoyable.
When he plays 1 or 3 min games he crushes his opponents like hydra does. His small tactic strikes are superb.
US federation should help him by recommending or providing good coach to work with him on chess -decision making and strategy.
He lost to Adams, so what. Adams is a good player too.
I wont even retaliate to your rebuttle anonymous. Because you certainly do not understand many facts. I suggest you do your research. 🙂
Of course you won’t retaliate, JimMD. You are out of ammunition. You still haven’t shown anyone how Fisher and Polgar succeeded without US Chess’s help? Hummm? Luck? Or just maybe hard work and determination. You should try it some time.
I actually played and beat Nakamura when he was much younger at the Marshall Chess club…. I hope he realizes his potential.
Nakamura is likely equal to Radjabov and more talented than Carlsen, or Karjakin. He won a tournament of young stars a few years ago ahead of Karjakin. Is he still motivated by Chess is the real question? It could be a simple case of too much talent.
Is he still in full support of his Kamikaze variations, 2 Qh5?! and 2 Qf3?!, followed by 3 Bc4. Only an Oriental or child could think up such a ludicrous strategy. I hope he goes back to playing Chinese Chess.
Is he still in full support of his Kamikaze variations, 2 Qh5?! and 2 Qf3?!,
Qh5 is much different than Qf3 and is a good move forcing the black opening. It is a kinky move for sure.
“Is he still in full support of his Kamikaze variations, 2 Qh5?! and 2 Qf3?!, followed by 3 Bc4. Only an Oriental or child could think up such a ludicrous strategy. I hope he goes back to playing Chinese Chess.”
Can somebody please get the loser, racist troll off of Susan’s blog. This is why I wish Susan wouldn’t allow anonymous posters on her blog. Now I have to respond as anonymous or else I’ll have this troll frequenting my blog. Go away racist troll, go away!
Whose fist is that punching him?
The United States is such a hugely rich country, surely this country could find sponsors for a talent like Nakamura. It will be nice when we have a USCF that will make sure that all the talented youngsters like Nakamura receive full support to fully develop their talent.
Most chess talented Americans have found other professions offer a full life. Chess unfortunately is a high risk, low profit profession. It makes chess a difficult choice when we add on the fact that the chess fans rag on the players.
The only way chess will become big in America and bring in lots of money for its players is if they can design a camera to peer into the players mind (like those whole cams in poker) so the public can see where they made their mistakes so they can laugh at them. Who wouldn’t like to see what cobwebs were working when Kramnik blundered that last game away?
Way to bounce back Hikaru!
As I mentioned many years ago: steady, steady, steady and evolve your chess game (mature) as you mature…in the meantime enjoy your youth while you can, it is fleeting, and hopefully you will have fond memories of it as you age.