Hikaru Nakamura ventures World Cup prediction

by Johannes Fischer
11/14/2025 – “It's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future” is a well-known witticism about the pitfalls of predictions. The quote is often attributed to American baseball legend Yogi Berra, but sometimes also to physicist and Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr. Predictions about the future may be difficult, but they can still be fun. Hikaru Nakamura recently ventured predictions about the round of the last 16 and the possible winner of the World Cup 2025.
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In his video, Nakamura goes through the matches of the round of the last 16 one by one and assesses the chances of the players.

In the duel between Frederik Svane and Javokhir Sindarov, he considers Svane to have no chance. The Uzbek is stronger in all time formats and therefore a clear favourite.

In the match between Pentala Harikrishna and José Martínez Alcántara, Nakamura is confident in Harikrishna's experience. Although Martínez is dangerous in rapid and blitz chess, he expects Harikrishna to win in regular time.

In the other matches, Nakamura also sees the nominally stronger players coming out on top in most cases. He considers Nodirbek Yakubboev the big favourite against Gabriel Sargissian, and he gives Alexander Donchenko little chance against Le Quang Liem.

In the duel between Dubov and Shankland, Nakamura sees Dubov as the clear favourite, considering him "the best player in the entire field" in rapid chess. In Grebnev versus Esipenko, on the other hand, he is backing the underdog Grebnev, whose online blitz strength has impressed him.

In the contest between Wei Yi and Sam Sevian, he believes in his compatriot Sevian. He describes the top match between Aronian and Erigaisi as completely open, but admits that he is rooting for Aronian.

In general, Nakamura believes that Le Quang Liem has the best chance of reaching a place in the Candidates Tournament among the players in the upper bracket.

However, he attributes the greatest chances of victory in the overall tournament to Daniil Dubov, mainly because of his strength in rapid and blitz chess.

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Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".