American GM Hikaru Nakamura reacted to a video where Magnus Carlsen responds to chess hot takes. Nakamura shared his opinion on the hot take that he is the second-best player in the world. Hikaru says he is second-best by overall performance, criticizes the chess community for bias, and notes his tournament performances.

Hikaru Nakamura

Hikaru Nakamura

America's No. 1, streamer

“Am I currently the second-best player in the world? It depends on what your metric is. By overall performance, I would say yes.

And the reason I would say yes on this one — is simply because of people’s recency bias. They look at one event and they’re saying: ‘Oh, someone’s terrible, they can’t play anymore!’

But for the last 3 years, I’ve played well literally in every tournament, except for this Candidates Tournament. So, I don’t think the ratings actually lie. I would say that in general, I had one bad tournament. Now, if I have another bad tournament — then it’s a different story, of course.

The chess world has completely lost its ability to remember anything beyond the past month. If Sindarov has one or two bad tournaments now after the Candidates, people will say: ‘Oh, Sindarov is terrible. Gukesh is the favorite again!’.

The world of chess is so messed up with how they look at players and the ratings and everything else.”

American GM Hikaru Nakamura has played 16 classical tournaments since April 2023, gaining +23.0 rating points. Hikaru finished 2nd at the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2024, and gained +5.4 points. Nakamura finished 5th at the 2026 Candidates, lost 18.4 points, and dropped from 2810 to 2792 in rating. Hikaru Nakamura is second in the FIDE ratings, 4 points ahead of third-place Fabiano Caruana.

Credit: Michal Walusza / FIDE