Olexandr Bortnyk shared his opinion on Hikaru Nakamura in an interview with Chess with Mustreader. Bortnyk believes that Nakamura is not the best online Blitz player. Olexandr notes that Magnus is the best by a large margin.

Olexandr Bortnyk

Olexandr Bortnyk

Ukrainian GM

“Everyone thinks Hikaru is the best online Blitz player in the world. I would say that I disagree with that.

He is in the top, but he is definitely not the best. Magnus is still just far away best. Hikaru is still in the top, but I don’t think he is top-1. Maybe not even top-3. Top-2, let’s say…

Obviously, Magnus is number one still. Someone would say: “Magnus is different already. It’s not the same Magnus as he was.” Good luck with that.”

Hikaru Nakamura holds first place on the Chess.com Blitz leaderboard. The gap between Nakamura and the second-highest rated player, Magnus Carlsen, is 75 points. Hikaru reached the record Blitz rating on Chess.com of 3500 points in early October.

Credit: Yoav Nisenbaum / FIDE