Hikaru Nakamura commented on Abhimanyu Mishra’s statement about difficulties with financial support. Nakamura says that the idea that there is a lot of money and sponsors in American chess is a myth.

Hikaru notes that he did not receive support until he became an elite Grandmaster. World’s No. 2 cites the sponsorship of elite Indian GMs as an example.

Hikaru Nakamura

Hikaru Nakamura

World's No. 2

“There’s this myth that there’s a ton of money and there’s sponsorships and everything else in chess in America. There’s this very weird perception.

And I mentioned this because I saw this thing involving Mishra recently. I don’t really understand where people are getting this idea from.

Yes, the top handful of players are making money. But all of us started getting sponsorships from Rex and St. Louis literally when we were in the top 10 in the world. So that’s the first thing.

The second thing is, as far as history goes for the US, I never had any sponsors. In fact, I actually didn’t even really get coaching from the time I was 2300 until I got to 2700.

It was literally me on my own using my computer, studying for games and just playing and studying on my own. I did not have a coach. I did not have these huge expenses that apparently Mishra has.

As far as sponsorship goes, I never got any sponsors until I literally was top 10 in the world. I think when I was 27, I got a sponsor from Chess.com — which was pretty small at the time — in 2012 or 2013, when I was already 2730 or something.

I got a Red Bull sponsorship when I was around 2750. St. Louis came around when I was also around a little over 2700. So, I don’t really know where this notion of big support and sponsors for chess comes from.

Also, as far as India goes — because I think that’s a metric that Mishra is using — my understanding is that Arjun, Gukesh, and Pragg are getting big support, but they’re literally top 10 players.

These guys are getting huge support, but they’re getting it when they’ve already broken through, when they’re already top 10 in the world. Not being like top 50 in the world.

I don’t want to get too into the weeds, but I just find this notion — because I feel like I see it a lot with these American kids for some reason — there’s this weird notion that there’s a ton of support for chess and great sponsors and everything else.

I feel like they’re conflating my success and Levy’s success in the whole online boom with general chess success. It doesn’t matter how successful I am, how successful Levy is, or anybody else in the online space. That does not translate to over-the-board sponsorships or over-the-board serious chess competitions.

It just doesn’t.”

American GM Abhimanyu Mishra spoke about difficulties with financial support on September 9. Mishra said that he is considering changing his chess federation. Abhimanyu compared his situation to Faustino Oro’s level of support. Fabiano Caruana and Denis Lazavik shared their opinions on Mishra’s statements in September.

Credit: Lennart Ootes