Nakamura youngest US chess champ since Fischer

Hikaru Nakamura (right) receives his trophy and winners cheque of US$25,000
 from Erik Anderson, founder and president of America's Foundation for Chess, Dec. 6. - AP

New York - A teenager from New York state, who just became the youngest US national chess champion since Bobby Fischer in 1958, says he is "more sane" than his troubled predecessor.

Hikaru Nakamura, a 16-year-old grandmaster, took the national title in San Diego on Monday, beating Alex Stripunsky, 34, in two overtime matches.

Fischer, rated one of the greatest ever tournament chess players, was 14 when he won the same title nearly 50 years ago.

Nakamura had already beaten one Fischer milestone last year, when he became an American grandmaster at 15, eclipsing Fischer by a few months.

The Japanese-born Nakamura learned chess from his stepfather and began playing competitively at the tender age of seven. Two years later he became an American master.

Home-schooled by his mother, Nakamura told reporters that he was in no rush to follow Fisher's footsteps all the way to the world chess championship.

"It's a possibility," he said. "But there's plenty of time for that."

While Fischer is one of his heroes, Nakamura does not see himself as cast from the same mould as the erratic genius who became a national icon after defeating Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in 1972.

"I think I'm a little bit more sane," Nakamura said.

Fischer, 61, is currently being held by authorities in Japan, pending deportation to the United States, where he could face a 10-year prison term for replaying Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992 in violation of US sanctions against Belgrade.

Stripped of his world title in 1975 because he refused to be challenged, Fischer became an eccentric recluse, known for his anti-Semitic rants.

On September 11, 2001, he went on Filipino radio to hail the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon as "wonderful news."

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin