3,336: Highest Chess Elo In History

ladies and gentlemen we have a new highest chess ELO of all time and it was achieved by none other than Grandmaster hikara Nakamura now those of you who watch my videos a lot May realize I'm not currently at home and if you don't watch my videos a lot I'm not currently at home I'm currently in the UK I'm actually in London uh and I'm doing a couple of fan book events I just came back from Cardiff I did a BBC interview just doing like a 56 day you know little media fan tour here in the United Kingdom uh you are my second biggest audience us is first so uh in this video in particular I'm recording out of my hotel room and I'm going to take you through hikaru's ridiculous journey to getting to the ELO of 3,336 the highest ever Blitz ELO achieved on chess.com higher than Magnus higher than Nial sarin higher than Daniel nitki higher than any other Blitz Speed Demon on the planet absolutely absolutely Sensational stuff now I'm going to show you five key games that hikaro played on this run as part of a run where he won 36 out of 38 games and those two games he did not win were draws so Hikaru went undefeated for 38 games to get to this peak which is stupid in one word uh also if you happen to catch this video in the first like two hours it comes out which would be pretty fun uh there's still tickets left for the event tonight on November 18th so if you want to come and you live in London stop by um unless you smell then stay home um but you could put on deodorant anyway uh first game that I have for you is against Camille dragon and the next game that I have for you is against Grandmaster kovalev then another Grandmaster from China then another grandmas from usbekistan so I mean Hikaru played a murderer row of grand Masters and he made it look unbelievable so Dragon polish grandmas I think now living in the United States opened with D4 hikaro played A6 and then hikaro played B5 which is just dumb um I'm not calling the opening dumb I'm calling the fact that guys like Hikaru get to be so good at chess that they could do whatever they want against you it's like when a boxer puts his hands behind his back and it's just like so disrespectful but there's nothing you can do because by the time you threw the punch too fast now the reason this is bad of course and this isn't played at you know top level it's because white is just better you know white white just gets an advantage but uh he does that by playing this move E4 and and now he has three Pawns in the center he's going to take back here when Hikaru takes with his bishop and he will be very happy but what Hikaru does is he plays Bishop to B7 first and now dragon has a very interesting problem because if he plays Bishop D3 his Bishop is now supporting too many pawns and hikaro will play takes and takes uh and if he plays Knight to C3 then hikaro will play B4 so it's actually not really clear how to defend his Pawn so he goes here which defends both Center pawns and now Hikaru takes takes and just plays completely normally like plays E6 plays Knight F6 and then develops his Bishop uh pinning the Knight to the king with good pressure on Dragon center now at some point dragon is either going to have to play solidly or be aggressive with a move like E5 um and uh you know he does go back he takes the solid approach Hikaru tries to make something happen in the center tries to force Dragon to do something like play the move E5 after all and now he gives a check instead Knight C6 wait what well it seems like Dragon was expecting Knight C6 here at which point he might push Hikaru back but no instead of Knight C6 Hikaru finds completely hanging the bishop on B4 because he has a fork so not giving up on that pawn pressure in the center takes takes and now just this position where okay yeah white has an advantage but I feel like in hikaru's Blitz Games he frequently gives away a computer level advantage in order to take the game into deeper unexplored territory so he puts his Bishop very powerfully in the center of the board now white does have an edge he has the edge because he has two Bishops he has the edge because he has good pressure on Black's pretty bad Queen side uh but that doesn't really matter cuz it's Hikaru so Hikaru plays the move F6 kicking out the Knight then he puts a knight on C6 very powerfully now the Queen's got to move it does Hikaru takes on C4 and initiates a massive exchange he wins the pawn in the center he trades the bishop he loses the pawn on C7 so now hikaru's weak Queens side is kind of gone like he doesn't have any more weaknesses does a weakness exist if it's been accounted for and captured so now Karo trades the Rooks and we just have a relatively straightforward and equal end game so he gives a check on E2 and then plays this very interesting Queen trade offer which would improve Black's pawn it would control those two pawns black would try to put a rook on C2 E5 and do something with his pawns right both players under a minute and now Hikaru plays E5 plays Rook C2 first I talked about this E5 F5 F4 G5 brings his King on the L squares and the position is still equal is but hikaro has a lot more time so you'll notice that over the last few moves we've gone from it being a balanced game in terms of time like right here 50/50 we go 10 moves and hearu is just like a locomotive you know and now he's better he's forcing his opponent into desperate situations because his opponent sees this coming and these pieces are just way too annoying and Powerful so Hikaru plays H5 and brings the king back and plays G4 and he's just so good at creating these practical difficulties for his opponent as he walks his King to D3 all his pawns are on light squares all his pawns are on light squares his opponent's time now dips below 10 seconds Hikaru maneuvering maneuvering maneuvering look at this barrier he locks the white king in the corner he's just completely locked the king away from the rest of the board he takes on A3 he marches his King all the way to the opposite side Knight C1 he's going to play Knight D3 and white just can't defend his pawns and that is exactly what happens King E2 he waits and now the pawn goes and white resigns and I mean it's just incredible the way he does the does this from positions that are you know just Rook Knight versus Rook bishop and black just has a little bit more to play for just a little bit just a little bit more to play for and that is one of hikaru's biggest strengths right now the next game right and that game he crossed 3330 now Hikaru actually held the previous record on ch.com for highest rating of all time which is which was 3334 um his next game he hikaro played against kovalev G3 move one and he put his Bishop on G2 and then he play D3 so he's playing the king's Indian attack right he's playing his openings but backwards hikaro really likes this setup uh when he plays Black he also plays A6 but with white you know black takes the center so hikaro plays Knight D2 and plays this move E4 this is the way that he wants to play uh and this Knight will really go to any of those three squares it can go to White could consider F4 in the future as well big decision by black do you close the position do you keep the tension do you take Co of Ops to take and now Karu just develops the rest of his pieces and castles right plays B oh never mind never mind Bishop G4 he attacked and instead of getting locked away here potentially his opponent trades and now Hikaru finishes his develop he finish what now let me get this straight couple of moves ago white went B3 now I'm assuming that was to go Bishop B2 so why is your knight there well hearu reposition he repositions the Knight he repositions the Knight and kovalev is is doing his best I mean he he he's using what he has he kind of lock the center he's advancing on the queen side and Yaro just plays Bishop G5 and says okay kovalev you want my Pawn on B3 you want to infiltrate come on do your worst Pawn takes Pawn takes uh Knight bd7 hikaro goes back to D2 he induced the move out of his opponent so uh rather this move and now he's looking to go here he's looking to play C3 B4 as well maybe he's going to put the Rook back on A1 but most importantly he's going to have a 20 second time Advantage Hikaru is going to play well and he's going to play solidly and he's going to play at a better Pace than you that is the most important thing so he's going to keep a balance he's not going to make do any anything rash or or or or problematic kovalev plays Rook A2 right plays Rook A2 Karo plays this Knight B4 instantly Rook back to A7 Karo just advancing just just a very casual move that keeps the game going all right black plays Knight C5 reroutes the Knight to E6 hikaro kicks out the bishop plays Knight D3 and pins the bishop to the Knight while building that time Advantage black plays Knight D7 Knight B2 looking to route to C2 black pins him he unpins himself and he's trying to play Pawn to B4 this move now wins because it attacks the Knight and a discovered attack on The Rook so black defense is Rook Bishop to H3 takes the open diagonal Knight to E6 Hikaru says no I'm going to undevelop but look what just happened in the last few moves black went from 59 seconds on the clock to 46 what why did he spend that much time well it was a tense position hikaro was threatening B4 so for example let's say black just plays H6 hikaru's got ideas like Rook D1 followed by B4 and it's actually really difficult suddenly to defend yourself you just have too much pressure right so Hikaru overloads your nervous system and suddenly black is 18 seconds on the clock Bishop C1 heo played that move in like 4 seconds 5 Seconds B4 just keeping as many pieces on the board as possible this is one of his biggest strengths he's great in the end game but it's also that time management he's a great defender but sometimes just making you make difficult practical decisions the position is equal it's been equal but it doesn't mean it's dead just means it's equal Rook A7 Now The Rook takes the open file the queen undeveloped black down to 8.6 he plays Knight A4 when you're low on time you're going to try to do stuff when you are low on time you're going to try to do stuff when you and what I mean by do stuff is you're going to try you're going to try to simplify your brain just wants to trade because the more pieces that you trade you know you feel like you're accomplishing something and you're you can't lose but now suddenly this is hi Caro's biggest advantage of the game why why was that Knight trade so good for white because now he takes the diagonal because now white seizes the control of the diagonal the dark scor Bishop for black is bad but so what how is white going to win Rook A2 Hikaru centralizes and now what black should do is relax black should realize he's worse and white is going to try to play B5 or Rook D3 Rook D1 but it's not over but instead of that unfortunately I just said when you get low on time you get you you try to do stuff kovalev sacrifices his Knight it's a bluff and he played it with two seconds on the clock he felt the pressure hikaro was mounting the pressure on him it was in equal position for like 30 moves straight but when you play hikaro the game hangs on a knife Ed and his opponent self-destructs because after this bishop takes F4 he doesn't even have to take with the pawn he could have taken with the pawn but instead of opening up his King hikaro just finds this it's just a fork and black can go here but then there is Queen takes F7 and this is not quite Checkmate but you just lose a full Bishop F takes you know don't go here and blunder Checkmate that's not what I recommend uh you actually have Queen A2 which is pretty brutal and you cannot get taken because it's back ranked mate over here so a very very very very smooth game from hikaro against kovalev who just he just kept the tension he kept pouring the pressure on and he wins and he's 3331 in the next round he was given xxy Soul six that is not his name on his passport that is shuang Yu from China very strong grandmas 3,000 rated and and the ratings keep going up 3330 uh I might have skipped the game by the way uh I think I think hear actually gained two points for that win vers versus kovalev um D4 now what's he Caro going to do he plays A6 again every I mean it's ridiculous now he plays a French defense so Hikaru is basically playing E6 D5 which is a French but then playing the move A6 and he's going to try to advance on the queen side because he has to justify his play somehow right but it's just so bogus like how this dude is playing 3,000 rated Blitz players and like both him and Magnus just sabotage themselves in the opening and he's just he just pins the Knight now now xuang Yu is a solid player so instead of taking the center you know pushing he takes he's trying to clarify the situation in the center of the board and get a simpler position what does he do develop his light squired Bishop he castles and develops his dark squired Bishop now apparently this is like a really bad position for black like the computer here is trying to say it's like plus. five but just by developing a piece one lazy move Hikaru goes here and suddenly this Pawn is really hard to protect now here shangu must have thought I'm going to play H3 and Hikaru is going to take right and he probably thought Hikaru was going to take and then he's going to take here and then I'm going to go here and I don't really know what came after that but instead of that hekaru just plays Bishop H5 and I mean basically the only thing that white can do is to undevelop undevelop to defend the center the way Karo played this it's like an exchange French but he got his pieces all on the right squares and he's just going to Castle his King but now xuang Yu feeling the pressure of the opening feeling kind of like the annoyance of this plays G4 and hearo is what and that's a very committal move pushing Pawns in front of your king when you Castle not always recommended unless there's a justification Bishop to G6 he plays Knight E5 but again Hikaru want he's like a judoist Hikaru a judoka I don't know if that's the term used for both uh men and women in in Judo but uh he's like a judoka he takes all the forward momentum you dish out he throws it right back Bishop takes C3 removing the pawn uh the Knight damaging White's Pawn structure trading and now just very Knight A5 the idea of Knight A5 is that I'm going to kick your knight out or trade and then I'm going to put my knight on C4 okay now white plays Bishop to G3 and Hikaru doesn't even Castle first he kicks out the Knight because White's only move is this and now Hikaru does Castle and does put that Knight on C4 it's a really nice perch for the night really nice perch and now in the end game Hikaru knows that's going to be a very big problem we just saw him methodically destroy a very very strong Grandmaster in an endgame like this like an avalanche pouring down a mountain okay now hikaro understands light squares he's going to win this game on the light squares cuz white has a dark squared bishop and if that dark squared Bishop is rendered useless like if in the end game you play Pawn C6 that Bishop does not participate at all cannot guard the light squares if white plays Knight F5 the more pieces white trades the worse this gets for white you're going to do all of this then I'm going to play C6 King F7 Rook E8 and I also have Knight D2 which just so happens to trap your Rook but if I didn't that's what I would do Rook E2 Rook F7 Rook E1 Rook f8 Bishop H2 and now out of no by the way notice the time notice Hikaru dominating every single one of his opponents on the clock now it seems like this game has been relatively straightforward both guys kind of maximizing their pieces now one of the most unlikely moves occurs it looks like black was sitting back waiting for white to play Knight F5 right waiting with pressure what pieces are going to get traded now Hikaru plays F5 himself and that's an issue because if you trade on F5 what's going to happen is you split your pawns this one Pawn that he pushed out of inertia like 20 moves ago right white just didn't know what to do so he tried to kick out hikaro just to make something happen and like 20 moves later now we have a massive decision to make now that pawn is really really overextended white decided to push it to safety instead of trading to not open up the file hear says boom now the bishop is mummified look at this it's completely locked in and I have eyes on H3 and I might get to the G5 Pawn Rook E6 and now in this position Hikaru can play Knight E3 disconnecting the Rooks from each other but he does it a slightly different way by playing Knight D6 to try to play Knight to E4 and let's say white plays like Rook E5 cuz he doesn't want to get trapped F3 Queen takes H3 is just game over there is nobody who can protect the pawn so suddenly it's not just the end game that you're on the verge of losing it's getting mated so white plays G6 he tries to make something happen Hikaru takes the pawn Knight takes Knight takes Rook takes it kind of looks like white is attacking black no no no no no no but Knight E4 slightly underestimating C4 I mean you're playing a 3,000 rated grandmas who's suddenly attacking you viciously with a c Pawn trying to remove the defense of your knight on e4 so you play Rook to E8 and you're trying to take and switch the game to the E file Rook G4 played by white going after your Pawn Hikaru plays F3 computer doesn't bless it because it allows the bishop to get back into the game that would have been the best move but then there was like Knight F6 and things like that and again it's a scram ramble C takes D5 hearo plays Knight F6 hits The Rook on G4 we have a trade Black's Queen is going down to the first rank it's arrived now it's hanging around and it's attacking everything here comes the Knight as well lot of threats white plays Rook G4 and suddenly Hikaru is winning with Knight takes F2 if Knight takes F2 Queen takes F2 check here F2 and everything hangs but in a low time situation Hikaru goes this way and gets to E2 and now with best moves it is a draw but uh White unfortunately lacking the time here also Bishop E5 there was winning it's not always going to be perfect it's a fight until The Bitter End and we go to an end game but after Rook D7 white cannot make any progress and another King has been locked away that game that I just showed you how Hikaru boxed away that King he plays G5 King G6 and his opponent I mean this game this game is a mad scramble but after Rook B8 Rook G5 whoops and sometimes you got to win games like this sometimes you got to get down and dirty sometimes sometimes it's not perfect it's not perfect but it was actually very good for a very long time and as you get better and go up the rating ladder you know it's not good enough to have a 45 second time advantage and a minus point9 position because your opponent's not going to go away if you miss a chance that buries people if you miss a chance that completely wins by disconnecting the Rooks and threatening you know for example here rookie E3 Queen takes H3 hitting this threatening mate if the Knight moves if you don't bury the 3000s you know you got to you got to beat a person at this level like four times in the same game and on his fourth attempt Hikaru did in fact beat him and got to 3333 and then this was the game that got Hikaru to his second peak of the day um and then I will show you the game that got him to 3336 Hikaru got to 3336 by beating two people I think both 10-0 uh an Iranian title player who was rated 2950 then Liam putam who's a young American uh very strong player uh who's rated 2,900 Blitz then he won like five more games so he he beat Liam to get to 3336 he drew a game and lost like eight rating points which is can you imagine you draw a game against like a 2900 and you lose eight rating which is just bananas uh for context if hikaro plays a 2900 he gets one point for winning which which is anyway Shield 12 is shamid vov he's a Grandmaster from usbekistan and he actually plays for the Gotham knights in the proess league if you don't know what the proess league is you should know what the proess league is anyway in this game hikaro plays a reverse groomfield so he plays G3 Knight F3 and then plays D4 C takes Knight takes he takes the center with a pawn undevelop his Knight so because he doesn't want to make a trade none of this is particularly important but Shaman plays H5 so Hikaru is already getting attacked he's barely gotten out of bed his opponent's trying to play H4 take or maybe H3 Kar plays H3 so that if if his opponent plays here he will go here okay and Shaman plays Bishop 2 E6 and plays Rook C8 so either black is going to Castle or he's going to leave his King in the center of the board F4 H4 G4 and now a big moment is black going to sacrifice right so that's a major question is black going to sacrifice if black Waits too long these pawns are going to go from defensive measures to offensive measures white is going to play G5 F5 E5 maybe Knight C5 maybe maybe Knight D5 maybe the bishop is going to come to3 it's going to be very unpleasant so he plays Queen C7 now keep in mind it's move 13 and shamin just spent 30 seconds on that move so Hikaru is now up 37 seconds on the clock the master of making things difficult for his opponents and immediately plops a knight directly into his opponent's territory and at some point he's going to follow up the move Knight to D5 with C3 and the the idea of C3 is that he's going to cover D4 and B4 and this Knight is not going to be able to get in you could go here to defend the Knight but it's more important to stop this knight from developing that's that's that's by far more important so Bishop takes e takes Knight A5 take take and now C3 there it is the pawn has moved the square forward it is controlled that well there is no Knight but it's still controlling those two squares the bishop is blocked the pawn is no longer a weakness it is defended by a pawn and black castles how will Hikaru win the position against the 3,000 rated grandmas where he is up 30 seconds on the clock and has a marginal Advantage well first he will finish his development then he will prevent his opponent from expanding with his pawns because his opponent clearly wanted to play B4 so Rook C4 patrolling everything on the fourth rank hikaro makes a preparatory move and centralizes his Bishop in the center with with vision this way and now he's going to go here and Advance rookie 8 rookie one black now sensing that his time is ticking very quickly before hikaro is able to start an attack tries to trade dark squ Bishops hikaro obliges slides the queen out of the way and at some point is going to play F5 G5 but he's not going to rush right because his opponents frequently do it for him his opponents frequently do it for him they feel the pressure they feel this right they feel all this and now takes takes all of White's pieces have opened up Bishop D5 it's not quite a fork because of Rook takes but now Queen C5 Queen D2 and again he's just still up 35 seconds I mean it it's just a really difficult position to play and black C is Rook trapped so for example Rook C5 was possible here but after Queen D4 it's not just it's not just any pawns it's your king getting mated and Bishop F7 and if Knight F6 there is G5 and if Rook D5 I take and then I go here so Queen C5 is played and queen D2 and that Rook on C4 is completely stuck so it has to go here but in Saving it hikaro goes for the king beautiful coordination in hikaru's position all the Pawns in front of the king are Advanced but the king is safe the queen guards the bishop the bishop attacks the pawn along with the Rook which also attacks the Knight and the game is over B4 also seals away The Rook from all of this but we don't even have to get there Rook F7 Queen E2 the bishop can be taken two different ways but this is Checkmate Queen E7 Knight takes D5 Rook H7 Queen F7 mate and that is how hikaro capped off a monster run against Grandmasters getting to 3,335 like I said this was him regaining it slightly earlier in the day uh he uh he he crossed it right before losing a game uh not losing a game drawing a game and losing ad ELO uh technically this was the game where he achieved this peak but I just thought 36 wins and two draws was worth highlighting a Murderers Row of Grandmaster opponents I mean it's like absolutely ridicul he didn't lose a game in 38 games online I mean it just doesn't make any sense Liam putam played a very solid Queens Pawn opening but Hikaru castled and this Thorn uh is a very annoying thing in White's side because he's been removed from the center white is now going going to spend the rest of the game trying to get that pawn also advancing here and maybe fighting with the bishop and in the structure is what black wants to do is black just wants to play H5 and just deliver mate that's that's really what black tries to accomplish hikaro reroutes the Knight he puts the bishop to F5 and the Knight on H7 white tries to trade I told you white is going to try to play D5 and utilize and hikaro says no thank you I'm okay with the trade Knight to G5 and basically let's say white Waits a little bit what black now wants is something like Queen C8 and to take on H3 you want to take on H3 because you want to get there with the queen and white is too congested there's just nothing white can do white plays F3 I'm going to play like even Knight G4 is winning takes and Bishop 2 E5 right like Queen G3 Queen here it's just over so that's really the idea and really what you're trying to wait here with why you're trying to you're trying to fight back with your F Pawn because now black has to take that is the only way that black can play because if black doesn't do that if black leaves black has no attack and then white is going to get completely overwhelming on the side of the board so in the game Hikaru does in fact take on F3 but sometimes in these positions it's not just about the checkmating attack it's also winning the battle for the center of the board and Hikaru promptly plops his Knight directly in the center and asks Liam Liam what are you going to do about it he didn't actually write that he didn't write that in the I mean I don't know maybe he did and so now the computer really just wants white to slowly and you know expand and then you know white black is going to put the Knight on G3 and then black is going to play F5 securing that control over the uh E4 square instead it happens like this and uh Liam here just under the pressure of playing hikaro who is currently rated 3335 at the you know point of this game he should have played Bishop D3 which attacks the knight at which point black would have gone here and would have kept attacking instead of that Liam played here and Hikaru as we have seen in this video seldom seldom misses winning opportunities and this one is no different he just takes on E3 he is now up a pawn he trades the Bishops puts the Knight on G3 and simply too many things are hanging in the white position Liam plays here and hangs a rook uh brain fart I suppose or I don't know I don't know maybe he thought hikaro wouldn't see it hikaro is now the highest ever rated Blitz player on ch.com in history breaking his own record of 3,334 uh and it's just absolutely shocking how he did it now just to tell you how difficult it is to actually preserve this literally the next day he lost 100 rating like literally the next day hearo played in like a chess.com tournament he played in like one of these you know Arena tournaments and he lost 100 points because you have to understand Hikaru is at the level where him beating a 2900 gains him one point Hikaru losing to a 2900 loses him 15 can you imagine you have to beat somebody 15 times to break even it's ridiculous Magnus is currently rated 3295 he's currently chasing him he's roughly around 3290 3300 so just ridiculous do you think he will get to 3,400 I don't know do you think uh the fan and book events in London will be fun I don't know but I'm excited to find out I am now going to walk around get some food uh and uh that's all I have for you today get out of here

Channel: GothamChess

Views: 394,524

Keywords: gothamchess, gothamchess london, gothamchess caro kann, gothamchess openings, gothamchess vienna

Id: vmYSd0l8OTg

Length: 28min 39sec (1719 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 18 2023