The Greatest Rivalry that Never Existed

Before you comment, No hate intended to either side. They both exceptional in their respective ways. This video is looking over the popular rivalry narrative that some chess fans hold...

They are rivals in a category called "Who's the most popular chess player today"

nobody has ever considered this a rivalry the way you're describing it (ala Nadal v Federer and Messi v Ronaldo). Magnus is way ahead of the rest. If anything, there is a rivalry between Nakamura and Caruana for second place/best US player.

The only rivalry between Magnus and Hikaru is which one GothamChess loves more.

Let's put it this way: 1.Magnus 2.Late Magnus 3.Drunk Magnus 4.Caruana/Hikaru

Nobody seriously thinks Magnus has any rivals, but you’ll always see it because they need people to watch. Without the appearance that Magnus could MAYYYYYBE lose, nobody would watch because we already know Magnus is most likely going to win.

"One of the craziest nights in chess history" literally just two dudes playing chess

To characterize anyone as Magnus' rival would be silly. Using the tennis example, Roger Federer ended with 20 Grand Slams, Rafa with 22, and Novak (unmentioned but relevant) with 24 and possibly more to come. In 2009, Magnus won his first World Championship (Blitz). Magnus has 5 Classical, 5 Rapid, and 7 Blitz World Chess Championships. "Rivals" in the same 2009-Present timeframe. - Vishy Anand has 1 Classical and 1 Rapid. - Sergey Karjakin has 1 Rapid and 1 Blitz. - Alexander Grischuk has 2 Blitz. - Ding Liren has 1 Classical, which he wouldn't have been eligible to compete for if Magnus chose to defend. - 7 other players have 1 Rapid OR Blitz championship. - Hikaru, and for that matter Fabi and Nepo have 0 World championships of any format. This means that across all 3 formats since 2009, Magnus has 17 championships, and the entire rest of the field has 14.

just gotta repost Maguns' paraphrase (15:24). 1) Magnus 2) No Rivals 3) Hikaru

Rivals in terms of biggest stars in chess. But Magnus is way ahead of everyone not jsut Hikaru.

That late night matchup gave Nakamura just as much of an opportunity to study Magnus’ chess as it gave Magnus to study Nakamura’s chess.

only player who was close to Magnus was Peak Fabiano

I think Hikaru dominates the online chess sphere and that’s what is most commonly displayed through his content so it gives the viewers a skewed perspective of his standing vs magnus. It’s not close over the board, but Hikaru is actually very competitive with Magnus online iirc

Hikaru regretting the 40 blitz games because Magnus took the opportunity to understand his playing style, means he couldn't take the opportunity himself to understand Magnus's play. This speaks volumes, Hikaru is a tactician, Magnus a strategist; or Hikaru focuses on his own play, Magnus learns how to destroy the opponent. Now recently with Magnus learning from poker and reinventing openings from zero etc, he's doing that because he's virtually without competition, and he can try to understand chess itself outside of theory or competitors. Edit: case and point, Hikaru says he lost because he played suboptimal sidelines, means he thinks you only win with the best "orthodox" theory, safe main lines, and you win when you force the game to a position where you know for sure you're winning, from memory. Magnus plays mad gambits and sacrifices to go into the uncharted, and thinks actively of a plan in that position. He just calculates better than everybody, so if all are equally in an unknown position, he will win because his trump card is not on the board. It's the meta, the social/diplomatic side of the game, like in poker. Suboptimal play draws others into errors and you can capitalise on that. It puts you to the risk of a temporarily worse position, so it's your responsibility to manage to get something out of the gambit, and to gambit only as much as you understand how to resolve the position in your favour. Eg a complex middlegame, out of theory, where you set up a fork and you win material, paid off, all by your merit.

"we are simply better than the others" ~magnus

Magnus and Hikaru’s rivalry reminds me of Anquetil and Poulidor in 1960’s cycling world. Anquetil won the Tour de France 5 times, Poulidor never did and was 2nd 3 times and 3rd 5 times, but Poulidor was the people’s champion, the most popular rider of the race at the time.

I think you just didn't understand that when Hikaru's fans or people call this as a rivalry, is mainly just because that they're undoubtedly the biggest stars in chess, one gained fame from his chess accolades, one from streaming so the viewership always skyrockets more than anyone else. Most of them are jokes too. Nobody in their right mind, not even me a Hikaru's fan, has ever mentioned that they're very close in terms of skills and achievements. 😂 Edit: Plus, they always seem to have this fervent intensity and passion to beat each other for years, so people are even more pumped up whenever they're matched up.

There is absolutely no rivarly, Hikaru loves to see people think like that though.

Nakamura was never part of the conversation, he didnt even face him once in the Worldchampionship, i dont get why they even talk about this

I think the double bongcloud draw was an important moment for Hikaru. It showed that Magnus finally started respecting him as a competitor. He wouldn't joke around like that with just anyone in a real game