Can You Beat Carlsen In Nakamura Trivia? Take The Quiz And Find Out
We celebrated GM Magnus Carlsen's birthday a few days ago by inviting you (and GM Hikaru Nakamura) to take a Carlsen quiz. We now turn our attention to today's birthday boy: Nakamura himself!
Along with Carlsen, Nakamura is one of the most well-known chess figures in the world. We challenge you once more, this time to test your knowledge about the world's biggest chess streamer. Carlsen scored seven points out of 11, with some half-points awarded to him along the way for getting some answers almost right. Can you beat Carlsen in Nakamura trivia?
Take the quiz below to see if you can do better than Carlsen, or scroll down to the bottom of the article for the answers.
Click here to see the answers.
What's Hikaru Nakamura's birthday?
Nakamura was born on December 9, 1987.
What country and city was Hikaru Nakamura born in?
The five-time U.S. Chess Champion Nakamura was born in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Nakamura and his family moved to the United States when he was two years old.
How many siblings does Nakamura have?
Nakamura has one brother, Asuka, who also played chess when they were children and is a national master.
What happened first: Carlsen winning the Norwegian Chess Championship or Nakamura winning the U.S. Championship?
Nakamura won the 2005 U.S. Championship, an event that was played in 2004, before Carlsen won the Norwegian Chess Championship in 2005. Nakamura scored 7/9, tying for first place before defeating his opponent in rapid Playoffs to win the title.
On Chess.com specifically, under his GMHikaru account, what is Nakamura's best-scoring first move?
Nakamura is famous for not shying away from the most outrageous opening experiments. However, his best-scoring opening on Chess.com is the trusty 1.e4, with an 80% win rate, 9% draw rate, and 11% loss rate (at the time of writing).
Before Chess.com, Nakamura was the highest-rated blitz player on the Internet Chess Club with two usernames. What were those two usernames?
Way before Chess.com was even a thing, Nakamura was already an online chess legend on the Internet Chess Club (ICC). On that website, Nakamura played under the usernames Smallville and CapilanoBridge. On his CapilanoBridge account, Nakamura achieved a peak 3528 blitz rating on April 25, 2011. On Smallville, Nakamura climbed to an astonishing 3750 blitz rating on October 14, 2009.
What was his username on Playchess?
Nakamura ascended to the number-one bullet spot in the old Playchess server under the username Star Wars.
Nakamura has authored one chess book. What is the title of that book?
Nakamura authored the book Bullet Chess: One Minute to Mate, published in 2009. In his book, Nakamura talks about many of the things that helped make him the most dangerous bullet player on the planet.
What is Nakamura's peak FIDE rating?
Nakamura reached his peak FIDE classical rating of 2816 in October 2015. This feat ranks him among the top 10 highest ratings in chess history, tied with GMs Veselin Topalov and Ding Liren.
Which of these events has Nakamura won five times: Speed Chess Championship, Gibraltar Chess Festival, or the U.S. Chess Championship?
Nakamura won both the Speed Chess Championship (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022) and the U.S. Chess Championship (2005, 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2019) five times. Despite his huge success in the Gibraltar Chess Festival, Nakamura "only" won the event four times (2008, 2015, 2016, and 2017).
Who did Nakamura beat to win his first U.S. Chess Championship?
Nakamura won his first U.S. Chess Championship after defeating GM Alexander Stripunsky in a rapid Playoff. Nakamura finished that tournament undefeated after winning five classical games (and two rapid during the Playoffs) and drawing four.
Which TV show did Nakamura make an appearance on in 2020?
Nakamura appeared as himself in the second episode of season five of the TV show Billions in 2020. In the show, Nakamura hosts a speed chess simultaneous exhibition and delivers a checkmate to one of the characters before saying, "Checkmate, good game."
According to Carlsen, the show's producers asked him to be on that show, but he refused the invitation.
About the xQc-MoistCr1TiKaL match, in how many moves was that famous game over?
The famous game between xQc and Cr1TiKaL ended in a six-move trap of the Scotch Game. The memorable miniature happened in 2020 during the first edition of PogChamps and quickly became the most-viewed chess clip of that year.
Who was Nakamura's co-commentator for that match?
Commentating with Nakamura was WFM Alexandra Botez. After xQc played the losing move, Alexandra uttered the famous quote: "It's too soon, Hikaru. We didn't even reach a climax."
What was the last thing Nakamura said right before the checkmate?
Among the many memorable things that were said that day, Nakamura's last words were, "I'm not sure I like the variational approach..." Nakamura was pointing out that Cr1TiKaL's opening choice could backfire but stopped in his tracks when xQc blundered checkmate in one.
Pedro Pinhata is the Writing Lead for Chess.com. He writes articles, feature announcements, event pages, and more. He has been playing chess since 2019 and lives in Brazil.
