IOWA CITY, Iowa — The chess players scrambled to their boards to compete in round five of the Iowa Open tournament.
It is an annual event that often escapes notice beyond the midwestern chess world, but a last minute entry by world’s No. 2-ranked player, Hikaru Nakamura, created international buzz. Eric Vigil, the event’s chief referee, kicked off the round with a reminder about decorum as fans hovered near Nakamura and his final opponent, Palatine teenager Artemii Khanbutaev.
“Those about to play chess, I salute you!” Vigil said as he kicked off the round.
For Nakamura, a 37-year old American chess legend, the event was a pit stop on his quest to compete for the world championship in 2026. But for those assembled in the converted Hilton conference room, especially his opponents, it marked an opportunity to learn from one of the game’s all-time greats.
Waubonsie Valley High School sophomore Anjaneya Rao attended the tournament as its defending champion, having won the 2024 edition.
This year turned out to be a tougher challenge than expected.
On Saturday morning, the 15-year old Aurora resident received a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when Nakamura jolted the field.
Nakamura is in the process of qualifying for the Candidates Tournament, which will be held in 2026 to select one player who will challenge current world champion Gukesh Dommaraju of India for the world title.
Aspiring world champions can qualify by winning top tournaments or securing the highest ranking in chess. The world’s top-rated player, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, relinquished the chess title in 2023 and doesn’t want to play for it anymore, leaving an opening for Nakamura.
But to qualify for the Candidates, Nakamura must play in 40 officially sanctioned games. That journey brought him to Iowa City, where he matched with Anjaneya on Sunday morning.
Nakamura defeated Anjaneya in 33 moves. After the contest, Nakamura sat at the board and talked through the moves with his young opponent, giving him an extraordinary chance to learn from the master.
Chess games are often rated by computer programs that analyze how closely players mirrored the best moves through a complex analysis. According to Chess.com, Nakamura played the best move 96.6 percent of the time. Anjaneya played the best move 87.8 percent of the time.
While analyzing the position, Anjaneya asked Nakamura about his chances and Nakamura told him an early move he made complicated his ability further in the game. Anjaneya said he appreciated the chance to play and the feedback.
“It’s just an exciting experience, no matter the result,” Anjaneya said. “To even get the opportunity, it’s not like playing anyone else.”
Reflecting on Nakamura’s accuracy, Anjaneya said, “It’s like, the closest a human can get to a computer.”
Anjaneya first met Nakamura as a fan during a meet-and-greet with other top players in St Louis, where he tried to soak up knowledge from him and other top players.
“I remember I was holding up the entire line by, like, asking each one of them, how do I get to 2,200?” Anjaneya recalled, referring to a rating that marks strong players.
Nakamura’s entrance into the tournament sparked discussion for the broader chess community but prompted Artemii, a 13-year old from Palatine, to rush to Iowa City at the last-minute Saturday morning when he and his father learned that Nakamura would be competing.
Artemii, also a strong young player, didn’t make it in time for the first match but won the next three to face Nakamura, who beat him in a tough contest.
“I messed up in the opening and I didn’t really know the line, so I mean, he explained it to me after,” Artemii recalled after.
Between moves during his games, Nakamura walked around the conference room looking at other players’ positions and thinking. Outside the chess matches, Nakamura made time to sign autographs, take pictures and joke. One young man joked afterward that he saw Nakamura looking at his game and, wanting to impress him, thought, “I need to sac something.”
In an interview, Nakamura reflected on playing Anjaneya, the Aurora teen.
“What I said after the game was mostly that my young opponent, I think he needs to study the openings a little bit more because it felt like he played the first nine or ten moves very quickly, and then he played a plan which is pretty much never played in the position we reached, where he tried to open the center right away. And so it’s just a sign that he needs to study a little bit more,” Nakamura said. “And, you know, I think he’s talented, definitely considering, I would say the mistakes that he made in the opening phase, he still played quite well, so the future’s probably quite bright for him.”
Nakamura also reflected on his broader career and the challenges of tournaments such as the Iowa Open for him.
“To everybody who thinks that it’s just very easy and I’m enjoying it, I’m not enjoying it,” he said.
The games are trickier than they might seem.
“You have to change the mindset, because you’re trying to figure out how to trick them versus play the absolute best move. And that’s definitely a challenge for me,” Nakamura said. “I think that that makes it quite difficult because the deeper you get into the game, your opponent’s not making a mistake, you are becoming more frustrated because it’s sort of expected that a weaker opponent will make mistakes, and sometimes they don’t like last night or today, in particular.”
At the same time, Nakamura said, “I grew up playing a lot of these tournaments, whether it’s in places like Chicago, whether it’s in Philadelphia. I played in a lot of basements, you know, a lot of conference rooms. So it does remind me a lot of my childhood.” He said he is looking at next year’s Candidates Tournament “as sort of one of the last opportunities that I have to potentially play for the world championship. So it’s just returning to my roots in the Twilight phase, you could say, of my career.”