CHENNAI: Hikaru Nakamura has had a pretty interesting month or so. Last week, the American GM became a father. Less than a day later, he flew halfway across the world to be ready in time for the third edition of the Global Chess League, currently being held in Mumbai. Part of the Fyers American Gambits outfit, one of the highest-rated players of all time across formats, has had a mixed opening to the competition in the first three days.
Against the world champion D Gukesh on Day One, Nakamura was solid in a draw. On Monday, he beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Twenty-four hours later, he, however, suffered a reverse against Alireza Firouzja, who has now taken out Gukesh, Fabiano Caruana and Nakamura in the opening three rounds.
Before becoming a father, Nakamura, after making the decision to try and qualify for the Candidates through the FIDE Rating spot, took part in multiple tournaments in the US to be eligible to qualify via that route. He had shown an extremely high level of play at Norway Chess in May-June. Around that time, he had firmed up the idea of how he would navigate the process of qualifying for the Candidates.
But the way he went about getting to the Candidates has divided the chess world. For the record, what the 38-year-old did was perfectly legal. "He read the rules (laugh)," was how Viswanathan Anand, FIDE's deputy head, put it when he was asked about Nakamura's personal 'Road to the Candidates' mission.
Magnus Carlsen, one of Nakamura's close friends on the circuit, had called it 'shameless'.
"I kind of admire the way he is going about it because it is so shameless," he had said a few months ago. "It's absolutely shameless, but it's probably the right thing to do."
Firstly, what's the rating pathway to the Candidates? Any player hoping to make it to the Candidates via this route plays a minimum no. of Classical rated games (40) while maintaining a very high average rating over a specific time-frame this year.
With Carlsen out of the reckoning, Nakamura thought this was the safest route even if he had alternate but riskier paths in front of him (qualifying via Grand Swiss or the World Cup). So he played in smaller tournaments but rated Classical events like the Louisiana State Championships, the Iowa Open and the Maritime Chess Festival to hit the minimum appearances mark while maintaining his ratings at a high level. Considering most of his opponents were rated below the 2200 mark, he was in no real danger of losing or even drawing. He played his last few Classical games at the first Annual Washington Dulles Open in November to meet the mark.
What does Caruana think about it? "I think FIDE could definitely change the rating spot in a way it makes more sense," Nakamura's compatriot, set to feature in a sixth consecutive Candidates event, said. "I mean he clearly deserves to play, it makes sense that he plays, right? If you look at the best players over the last few years, he would certainly be near the top but you don't really want to see a process where the best way to qualify is just play tournaments where you massively outrank your opponents and kind of are guaranteed to win almost every match. Just the process doesn't feel right."
Anish Giri, another 2026 Candidate, sympathised with Nakamura because the Dutch GM did something similar a few editions before. But he was fairly intimate with the subject. "It's an interesting topic," he said. "You can't universally say it's by the rules, that's it... there can be a case where what you do is violating some principle of fair play or ethics of sport. I don't think Hikaru has violated it here but I think that you can't just say it's by the rules, so it's fine. Rules have lots of loopholes.
"But with Hikaru, it's an understandable situation. I have said it before. People should give him credit for the events he did play. Norway Chess was tremendous, American Cup was tremendous... he played half the games frankly but he played them really well, his rating was so high before you could sort of argue that he's good enough to play the Candidates this season.
"I had a similar situation to his many years ago in the Candidates cycle for 2020. I, at some point, started to be the favourite for the rating spot. I pulled out from an event knowing that my spot was kind of safe. I didn't go with the flow but I also went against the flow to make sure my chances of qualifying were extra high. He did it actively, I did it passively (laughs). It would also be hypocritical of me... There's some kind of grey area."
What does FIDE make of this?
"Every once in a while you will get someone who reads the rules," Anand said smiling. "For us, till that person does that, you think the rules are okay for a long time. I'm fine with it because Hikaru did everything by the book and his level is still incredibly high so what's the big deal is kind of my attitude. We would love to have him qualify anyway but inevitably we will tighten the rules again."
Results (Day Three): Fyers American Gambits 10-8 Triveni Continental Kings, Alpine SG Pipers 9-7 UpGrad Mumba Masters, Ganges Grandmasters 12-3 PBG Alaskan Knights.
