Hikaru Nakamura Net Worth (Updated 2022)

As of 2022, Hikaru Nakamura’s net worth is estimated to be roughly $2 million.

Nakamura is a Japanese-American whose main income streams are Playing Chess, Twitch live streaming, and content creation.

Hikaru is ranked first in the United States chess players and the top 20 Chess players by FIDE.

In 2022, in his first classical over-the-board event in over two years, Nakamura won the first leg of the FIDE Grand Prix, taking a major step in possibly becoming a world championship candidate for the second time.

What is Hikaru Nakamura’s Net Worth?

Hikaru Nakamura has accumulated a lot of wealth over the years.

He is amongst the top five chess players in the world.

Nakamura started playing chess as early as nine years, and ever since, he has made significant accomplishments.

Nakamura’s net worth is estimated to be more than $50M as of April 2022.

 Besides Hikaru’s strength in classical time controls, he is very skilled in rapid and blitz chess. He is amongst one of the best Blitz players in the world. 

Currently, he is ranked #1 on the Blitz list and #2 on FIDE rapid list.

Nakamura has had a chance to compete with other well-known chess players since his career began. Some of them include; Alexander Lastin, Lenov Aronian, Gregory, Kaidanov, Sergey Volkov, Vladimir Kramnik, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alexander Grishchuk, amongst others. 

Some other factors influencing Nakamura’s net worth are; his involvement in cryptocurrencies, sponsored by Redbull, and a substantial income from his youtube channel and twitch TV. He also makes money through tournaments and exhibitions and a recently won United States Championship.

Nakamura is a social media fan with many followers on his Twitter and Instagram pages, where he still makes money via different ads on his social media platforms. However, he claimed to have just discovered his net worth through google in one of the interviews. 

Everything happens for a reason, and it is evident in Nakamura’s life. His parents divorced at the tender age of three years shaped his destiny.

After his mother got married, Nakamura’s stepfather coached him to play chess, unknown to him that he would be the grandmaster one day. Hence, whatever happens in your life should always be appreciated as it could be a blessing in disguise!

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Early Life

Nakamura was born in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. She was born to an American mother, Carolyn Merrow Nakamura, a teacher and a trained musician, and a Japanese father, Shuichi Nakamura. When he was two years old, his parents relocated to the United States. Unfortunately, Nakamura’s parents divorced in 1990. 

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At the age of seven, Hikamura began playing chess while being trained by his Sri Lankan stepfather Sunil Weeramantry, a FIDE Master and Chess author.

Career

Nakamura is always growing in his career right from the start. In 2004, Nakamura qualified for the FIDE World Chess Championship held in Tripoli, Libya.

He achieved fourth place after defeating grandmasters Aleksej Aleksandrow, Sergey Volkov, and Alexander Latin. On June 20, 2005, Nakamura became the 19th Frank Stamford fellow. He ended up receiving a $32,000 grant, which helped him further his chess education and competition.

In the same year, he also won the U.S Chess championship scoring seven points per nine rounds: a tie in first place with Alex Stripunksy.

Accomplishments

Nakamura has had so many accomplishments, and some of them include;

In 2009 July, he became the 960 World Chess Champion after winning the Donostia-San Sebastian Chess festival.

In 2011, he won Tata Steel Group A and represented his country at five Chess Olympiads, where he won a gold medal and two bronze medals. He also wrote a book called “Bullet Chase: One minute to mate.” In the same year, Nakamura started training with Kasparov Garry, a former world champion. Their training sessions were held in New York beginning January but unfortunately ended in December 2011.

In 2016, he won Gibraltar Chess Festival after beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave during tiebreaks, Also he won Zurich chess Challenge for the second year in a row. The same case happened in 2017, too, as he won the Gibraltar chess festival again.