Hikaru Nakamura

“I've won the U.S. Championship. I've won a lot of tournaments.”

“I'm not a mad genius.”

“I've found for playing that it's generally not a good thing to be drinking.”

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

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

“When I was younger, I would look at a game with computers and still be fascinated by the possibilities.”

“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.'”

“There is a perspective out there that I'm very much all about myself... I just live with it.”

“Everyone is using the same programs, everyone is looking at the same opening ideas. I wouldn't say everyone is necessarily the same in terms of talent or ability, but when you're able to prepare games that go so deep that you don't have to think, really, it balances out the field.”

“I don't consider myself a nerd.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The way I play is not like most people. The moves are more computeresque. They're not the moves that most humans are going to play.”

“As you get stronger, you learn to maintain the position against higher rated players. This comes with experience.”

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

“There are so many strong players that everything has to go right for you to win.”

“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.”

“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.”

“If you talk to some of the older players, they definitely say they see beauty in certain games. In my case, there are certain times when I think, 'Wow, that's so amazing, chess is so full of ideas.' But most of the time I tend to be much more pragmatic about it, as opposed to thinking about it as art or something exquisite.”

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