Hikaru Nakamura praises ‘Indian chess model’ after Koneru Humpy wins Women’s World Rapid title | Chess News

World No 3 chess star Hikaru Nakamura lauded Koneru Humpy for winning the FIDE Women’s World Rapid title and praised the “Indian chess model” for supporting their players.
“Humpy is a player who’s been 2600 for many, many years, I think, for a long time. She was probably the clear number three behind Judith and Hu Yifan. So, it’s great to see her playing so well, assuming that’s good enough to win. I think it’s fantastic,” Nakamura said on Youtube channel “Take Take Take.”
“Of course, the Indians will be celebrating once again, like they have a lot recently.
“I think that it’s really great to see is when you look at chess, I think the Indian model right now is very clearly the best.”
Nakamura said the sponsorship has done wonders to the Indian chess players.
“You have all these players who have serious support behind them. I mean, you have Arjun, for example, who, I think, I mean, his sponsorship is public with Quantbox. I think he’s getting $300,000 a year sponsorship,” he said.
“I mean, I know Pragg, I mean, Vidit, you know, Gukesh, all of them have very serious sponsorships.
“When you’re in that situation and whether it’s the Chess Federation or even the local governments that are taking care of you, it’s very easy to play chess for the love of the game and to focus on it versus a situation where, unfortunately, many, many players who make it into the Grand Chess Tour, they’re simply trying to earn a living.
“The future is very bright for India and the fact that they take care of their players speaks volumes about why they’re doing so well in chess as a whole.
“In India chess is viewed as a very significant cultural thing there.
“I mean, it’s viewed as something that smart people play and it’s something that’s very valued. And when you look at the United States, for example, I mean, I’ve said this many times, you know, there’s nothing comparable. And I think it’s just because at the end of the day, there’s just, you know, there’s a lot of pride, a lot of Indian pride around the game.
“And I mean, yeah, it’s what it is. It’s sad to see on the one hand, but you can hope that when countries like India do support chess the way they do that, maybe down the road there’ll be sponsorship like here in the US. But honestly, I wouldn’t hold my breath for it.”

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