Hikaru Nakamura

World's No. 2, streamer

“As someone who’s American and grew up following baseball, there is a good saying which goes: ‘it’s getting late early.’ And that’s exactly the feeling I had before the game with Wei Yi.

Formally, it’s only the fourth round, but given my position in the standings, I already understood that I needed to take risks. Unfortunately, I didn’t handle it.

The problem is that in this tournament, the cost of such missed opportunities is very high. Because at the same time, the game between Sindarov and Caruana ended decisively — and in Javokhir’s favor.

So now I’m very far from the leader… After four rounds, the gap is already two points. Yes, there are still ten rounds left, and anything is possible. But this was a very serious missed chance.

Tomorrow will be a rest day, and after the rest day, I’m going to be playing with the white pieces against Javokhir Sindarov in the fifth round. This is probably a very big game for the tournament standings.

I would say that: if I don’t win the game against Sindarov, it’s going to be very difficult for me to have a chance to win the tournament. But I will, of course, give it my best shot. We’ll see what happens!”