Twitch’s biggest chess streamer Hikaru Nakamura, or GMHikaru, reacted to the fact that he did not win the chess streamer of the Year at the Streamer Awards ceremony, saying that he did not care and that he had “won enough” in his career.
Chess has always had a decent presence on Twitch, especially when it exploded thanks to the success of Netflix’s “King’s Gambit”, and GMHikaru was at the head of this category.
Even now, he still has an average of about 10,000 viewers per stream, which is far ahead of his closest competitors, dominating the “Chess” category.
Despite this, Hikaru did not win at the Streamer Awards, and the Chess Streamer of the Year award was instead given to Levi “GothamChess” Rozman.
Speaking about the disparaging attitude, Hikaru bluntly said that he did not receive the award, saying that it did not bother him.
“Let’s be honest, I’ve won so many things, so many awards, do you think I’m really going to be very angry because of this victory?” Hikaru explained. “If you asked me, should I care about that when I was winning things like the U.S. Championships? Of course, I don’t care.”
Hikaru Nakamura reacts to not winning Chess Streamer of the Year pic.twitter.com/IxRkVrr7ba
— Juan Del Pueblo 🇵🇷 (@juandelpueblo02) March 15, 2023
Hikaru also added: “You look at Levi, you look at Botez or people like that, they will never win anything when it comes to chess. It’s just reality. So why should I be upset that they get these awards?”
Of course, as already mentioned, Hikaru does not necessarily need a reward to prove his skills both at the chessboard and on Twitch, because he won several tournaments during his career, played against the very best and dominated chess streaming for years.
If there was a tournament among the best chess streamers, it would be difficult for you to find someone who would beat Hikaru – and, in the end, in any case, this is his goal. It just so happens that he does it very well while he lives on Twitch.
Another possible “dismissive” conversation was also made around xQc, but Hassan argued that xQc’s continued dominance means he has less chance of receiving awards every year. Perhaps the same applies to Hikaru.
