MARK RUBERY CHESS

American super GM Hikaru Nakamura is a prolific streamer on the internet, and along with his co-host IM Levy Rozman took up the very subjective challenge of ranking some of the greatest players the game has known.

The highest category was ‘God of chess’ which contained the players who had the greatest impact on the royal game. In order of importance they were: Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand, Mikhail Botwinnik, Vladimir Krammnik, Judit Polgar, Paul Morphy, Jose Capablanca and Mikhail

Tal.

Another category was labelled ‘Legends’: Viktor Korchnoi, Paul Keres, Vasily Ivanchuk, David Bronstein, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Rashid Nezhmetdinov and Sultan Khan.

You can see how they arrived at their decisions via YouTube.

Nakamura rates the following game as the best he has ever played

Gelfand,B (2761) - Nakamura,Hi (2708) [E97]

7th World Team Championship Bursa TUR (5) 2010

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 (The American had recently switched to the Kings Indian and this seems to fit well with his belligerent style) 5.Nf3 0–0 6.Be2 e5 7.0–0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Nd2 Ne8 10.b4 f5 11.c5 Nf6 12.f3 f4 13.Nc4 g5 14.a4 Ng6 15.Ba3 Rf7 16.b5 dxc5 17.Bxc5 h5 18.a5 g4 19.b6 g3 20.Kh1 Bf8 21.d6 (A new move in this heavily theoretical line)…axb6 22.Bg1 Nh4 23.Re1 Nxg2! 24.dxc7? (This appears to be a decisive mistake. Gelfand had to play 24 Kxg2 h4 25 hxg3 h3+ 26 Kh1 fxg3 with a wild position that is probably more to the taste of his opponent)…Nxe1 (With the threat of …g2#) 25.Qxe1 g2+ 26.Kxg2 Rg7+ 27.Kh1 Bh3 28.Bf1 Qd3! (Nakamura continues the mating theme on g2 with this spectacular move)

29.Nxe5 (29 Bxd3 Bg2#)…Bxf1 30.Qxf1 (30 Nxd3 Bg2#)…Qxc3 31.Rc1 Qxe5 32.c8Q Rxc8 33.Rxc8 Qe6 0–1

Besides than getting to a world championship match, there isn’t a whole lot that I haven’t done. I’ve already accomplished so much, there’s very little besides that to motivate me. I also have other interests, and while I will want to be remembered in the future as a great chess player, I hope it won’t be what defines who I am. It’s why I’d like to be competitive until I’m 40, but beyond that I’d like to do something else. So once I pass 40, there’s no way I’m going to continue on like Viktor Korchnoi or even Viswanathan Anand. What they do is phenomenal, but unless I’m winning events all the time, I don’t really see the purpose. (Hikaru Nakamura)