Hikaru Nakamura

World No.2, streamer

“I’m actually really happy to be where I am in my career right now, because the mental anguish of having to play a kid who’s 14 years old, who’s not even half your age, and they’re putting up these massive fights, and they’re becoming incredibly good and eventually they’ll become better — is just like…

I don’t want to have anything to do with that. I’m very glad that I almost certainly won’t be playing, at least, at Classical chess when Erdogmus will be like 2750 or something. Because he’s very-very good. He’s the best junior player in the World, bar none.

There are kids who are younger, who might get there, but the main difference between where Erdogmus is at, and say, Faustino or Shogdzhiev or any of these other players are at, is that he’s already competing against the best of the best.

Is he the new Magnus? I mean, I would caution before saying that, but he is going to be a 2750 plus player. He’s going to be a Top-10 player. Where he goes from there — who knows? But he’s so young that the sky is still the limit.”