Denis Lazavik shared his opinion on Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen. Lazavik believes that Nakamura and Carlsen were never close in terms of playing strength. Denis notes that Magnus is better than Hikaru in everything except tactical vision. Lazavik spoke about it in an interview with Chess with Mustreader.

Denis Lazavik

Denis Lazavik

Belarus' No. 1

“Magnus is simply better than Hikaru in terms of intuition. It seems to me that there were a couple of moments when Hikaru beat him, for example, at the Speed Chess Championship in 2022. There was a moment when they were close.

I watched this match for preparation just recently. And it seems to me that it was simply a bad day for Magnus and a super lucky one for Hikaru. That is, it seems to me that they were never close strength-wise.

If Hikaru is slightly stronger in something, well, just minimally, it is in tactical vision. That is, Magnus maybe blunders a little more, but in everything else Magnus surpasses Hikaru so much… In openings, in positional play, in intuition.

Magnus almost never makes outright bad moves. That is, it can be a bad move because he blunders something, but positionally he always puts the pieces on the right squares.

With Nakamura this happens much more rarely.”

Magnus Carlsen overtook Hikaru Nakamura in the Classical rating in 2006. Hikaru was 23 points behind Magnus in October 2025. Carlsen is 31 points ahead of Nakamura at the time of publication.

Credit: Michal Walusza / FIDE