 A child prodigy who lived up to all the expectations. His playing style is not for the faint hearted and he's got a personality to match. No matter what your opinion of him, a tournament just doesn't feel complete without the thrills his games deliver. I'm very happy to have with me four times US champion, world number seven, Hikaru Nakamura. It's good to be here again. Again, yes indeed Hikaru, now you won the trade watch abroad chess festival in 2015 and 2016. You seem to really like it here. Yeah, I mean I think in general it's just a very nice atmosphere. There are a lot of different players across all different levels. The conditions are quite nice and it's January after all, so in most places it is winter and while times can get cold and windy, I mean for the most part the weather is pretty mild here. So it's always a pleasure being here. It's very important because it is the first tournament of the year so it's good to try and get off on to the right start so for me things seem to work out here but of course things can always change in a heartbeat so we'll see if it continues. Absolutely and you seem to enjoy open tournaments a lot in fact and a lot of your colleagues and players out of the top 10 seem to struggle with it. So what do you think works for you? I think in general I'm perhaps a bit more creative than some of the other top players and I think when you're playing against people who are not all in the top 10, you get a lot more games where you have different openings, a lot of people who have different styles. So it just tends to help and fit the way that I play so overall I think it's definitely nice. I enjoy playing people who play various openings not all you know the same Berlin's or things like that so yeah it just seems to work for me. And it also seems like the whole US chess education seems to help where you've got this attitude that you've got to win at all costs and draws are not going to get you anywhere. Yeah I mean I think that helps somewhat but I think in the past it helped me more than it does now. I mean because when you play at the top level quite a bit you also have to be a little bit more pragmatic and practical and not take as many chances so it's a mix of both worlds but yeah certainly I think growing up in the US it did help because there are moments when kind of you are a little bit less objective and I think in open tournaments that's definitely strength. Right in fact just looking at your style of play you do seem very influenced by Kasperov. There's a certain sense of ability to take risks and fearlessness. Yeah I mean I think at least growing up the openings I played I played the Selene Idol for example which he was one of the big pioneers of it and the Kings Indian as well which of course he played quite a bit back in the old days so yeah I mean the style wise I think I'm probably quite similar to him but you know there are other players too that I'm a big fan of and you know I do like Kramniksians for example and I do tend to play some positional chess as well at times so it's just a big mix and I think in this day and age you have to be pretty versatile and play all different styles. One can feel that there have been certain changes and you seem to be a lot more stable from the aggressive explosive nature of play that you had before it seems to be a lot more stable eyes so is that something is that a journey that you've been working on do you feel it? I mean I think it's I think that's naturally what happens is you become stronger and you play against the best players in the world I mean it's always a learning curve so when you start out it depends what you can get away with what you can't get away with and kind of learning you know figuring out how to how to understand what works and what doesn't and when you play against the best players in the world I mean you can try certain things but you have to be much more practical and I think that's that's it's a natural evolution it's how things evolve for all the top players I think. And it seems to be working well? Yeah I mean I've been in the top 10 for quite a while now obviously you know I hope to get back to the Candid's tournament maybe compete for the world championship so there are a lot of things still that I would like to accomplish but again you take one term at a time and right now you know I'm here in Gibraltar so hopefully I can do well and maybe win this tournament for a third time in a row. You've been in the top 10 for a really long time you're one of the world's best players and everybody who's at that level it almost seems like their ultimate goal is to play the world championship. How important is that as a personal goal for you is that is that your ultimate motivation in chess as well? I think at this point yeah I would say it has to be simply because I've accomplished so many other things I mean I was number two at one point in the world for a couple of months I've won the US championship I've won pretty much all the other titles that you can for the most part so certainly I think it's it's it would be the crowning achievement to get to get there to play a match obviously winning you know who knows but but just to get there would be something so it is the ultimate goal but again even if I don't make it it doesn't really affect me that much there are you know after all their things in life. Right and what are these other things that are very important to you? Well we'll see but I'm just saying that you know going forward beyond chess I think there are other things as well that I've interest in things that I would perhaps like to pursue so so yeah I'll worry about those things in due time but for the moment my focus is still on chess. Right and you you're also in a really good place in your personal life so being happy also helps just maintaining your level I mean that's an important part as well. Yeah I mean I think you obviously have to be positive I think positivity is always a good thing no matter what no matter what no matter what it comes to whether it's a job whether it's personal things or you know or chess I think in general you have to be positive and happy so certainly certainly it's helped me and I think that's probably why I've been so stable the last couple years but again I do want to achieve more so perhaps it's not a good thing at the same time. No I'm sure it's very encouraging but tell us what is the good and the not so good of dating a chess player. Okay I mean I think in general the difficult part is that people travel so much and when you're traveling all the time it's very hard to have a have a good personal life because most people in the world are not traveling all the time that's just not the nature of you know people's work or their lives so certainly traveling a lot makes it difficult and I think that's the number one thing secondly I think financial stability you know a lot of players who are not at the very top tend to they do okay but it's not it's not a comfortable life you do struggle along the way so I think that certainly makes it quite difficult so those are the two main things that make it difficult I mean the good things obviously are that you do get to travel I mean for a lot of people you don't have the opportunity to see the world you don't have the opportunity to see different cultures see see people who are different from yourself so I think traveling and getting to see the world is definitely the the top top benefit to being with a chess player when someone studies your game you almost get a feeling that you want to play more of a practical choice like your moves are based on something that would pose the maximum trouble to your opponent rather than just being preoccupied by fine with finding the truth in the position I do think the goal at the other days to win it it is a game you do have to win so I don't I don't really believe in the truth or any of that sort of stuff because I think I mean in any position for the most part they're they're multiple moves that are just as good and I think if you're talking about the truth the best was always going to lead to a draw so yeah I just try to be practical and the goal is to win so even if it's not you know correct or something along those lines it doesn't really matter that much mix there always are other ways of looking at the situation other solutions you know it's not it's not a math formula where you have one solution right so would you say it's not really about the correct move but more about the circumstances that sort of guide you to a good move you know the opponent you're playing his style of play maybe the time situation on the board yeah absolutely I mean I think time for sure plays a big role when when opponents are low on time you're a player whether it's me whether it's another top player we're much more likely to do something that perhaps is not the most correct move because your opponent has less time and perhaps if you play something different they will they're more likely to go wrong so I think it's also about the percentages and the probabilities of playing something where your opponent has more opportunity to make a mistake and talking about less time now you're one of the world's best players when it comes to speed chess whether it's bullet blitz or rapid what skills would you would you attribute to that I think it's just playing a lot playing a lot of quick chess when I was younger and also you know if you look at the chess in Europe or the US and the US a lot more of it is centered around close to rapid game 30 for example which is what I grew up playing a lot of it in New York City and that that's very quick that's quicker than you know in Europe where a lot of people grow up playing a more classical slow chess so I think that played a big role I mean I think it's just the whole thing of growing up in the US where the worst thing things are quicker okay come on tell me one thing you've got this really big plus score against a Vishy Anand who is an absolute legend one of the greatest players but then at the same time you have a bad score against a Magnus so what's the psychology of it I mean why is it that chess players seem to do really well against somebody and then something goes wrong when you're playing someone else I mean I think it's all psychological I don't think there's any other explanation really because there isn't really you can't say that for example I mean obviously Magnus is a better player than Vishy but you can't say you know you can't say that he's better by that that degree to the point that I should you know be scoring plus eight against Vishy and be like minus eight or something against Magnus so I think I think it's all psychological and really there are a lot of cases where it's like that that makes no sense I mean I think you know if you look at Vishy but before all this young young players started growing up I think he had pretty much a plus score against every single player except for Kasparov and against Kasparov he had some terrible score as well so it's all relative but I think I think it is psychological at the end of the day and there's there's really no other explanation and is that a psychological barrier that one can break yeah I think so I mean I beat Magnus last year in Bilbao for the first time after losing something like 10 games so and some of them were completely winning yeah I mean again like I said I think it is psychological so obviously it's possible to break it I think all it takes really is like one good game and then anything can change last year you also had a great team performance in Baku how does that work when because it was the first time that you were playing with Vesely and Fabiano and the team you guys have always played against each other so how well how does the dynamic work when you're kind of rooting for each other well I don't know if we were rooting for each other I mean we're still still obviously rivals but but I think for them for the most part there wasn't any drama and I think that that actually is a lot more important because with a lot of teams where you've taught players you tend to have certain dynamics where certain people want to win others are rooting against the other players and that that's why certain certain countries I mean like Azerbaijan as an example seem not to do not not to perform as well as you would think that they could so I mean I think in general it's just that we had a pretty reasonable dynamic there was no drama and I think where we just all having to be that good that really nothing's gonna I mean we're just that that talented that nothing really is gonna stop unless there are you know there's drama or stuff like that now you've got like we said you've got Fabiano and you've got Vesely and Fabiano playing here as well is that like an extra motivation that now they're part of the same Federation and you had this domination but now suddenly you have to kind of fight for it I mean one of the one of the best things I think about Chess on like so many other sports or games that for the most part you you control your own destiny you can control what happens and so I mean obviously they're both fantastic players but if I play while I have no doubt that I can get up there too so so we'll see what happens but obviously for right now I just have to focus on playing well and if I play well good things will happen they will and my last question ago now everybody obviously associates you with a very aggressive style of play and full of tactics in combination do you what for you do you personally believe is your strength and is is that the kind of chess that you love as well I mean I do love playing aggressive chess I don't think that's completely my style anymore unlike in the past but but still I do like playing playing games where they're going to be decides results because for me I do tend to view chess as being closer to the sport and I think one of the big big issues with chess is that you have a lot of draws and I mean if I could win win or lose every game I would much prefer that to draw us but of course the rules are what they are right in our spectators we absolutely love that so all the best for this tournament and the whole of the year thank you