Lev Milman won his second GM norm at the East Bay Masters. Photo Jacob Okada

by IM Greg Shahade
 
This is the first in a bi-monthly series that will focus on the top ten juniors
on theUSCF top ten rating lists. I am writing this article based on the December 2006 list. I have a pretty good feel for these players, as five of the top ten attended the first US Chess School Session in 2006, while most of the others competed regularly in the New York Masters. I had a great seat while watching them go from 2200 up to 2400 or 2500.

What would be considered a success for our juniors? Any American player that achieves the GM title should be extremely proud. Very few young American players in the past decade have been able to earn the GM title--The good news is that there are a multitude of players on this list whom I believe will earn the title and help to end our relative drought. The bad news is that while most of these players have the potential to be a Grandmaster, they are very unlikely to be one of the top players in the world.

Even making the top 100 World List I'd say is unlikely for the bulk of the players. This is true for a few reasons:

1. Players around the world are becoming Grandmasters at an earlier and earlier age. 13-18 year old GM's are commonplace these days. You can easily become a GM, yet never break the top 300 in the World. If you become a GM at the age of 20-21, you are already way behind the world class players, and still have a lot of work to do to get to that level. It's much harder to do the required work at 21-25 than it is at 14-18. There are of course exceptions to these guidelines, but in general they hold true.

2. There are simply too many opportunities to live a good life in the USA. This is especially true if you are an extremely intelligent person, which probably categorizes everyone on this list. Many players decide to switch to more lucrative pursuits while eventually playing chess as a hobby, or in some extreme cases quitting the game altogether (GM Ilya Gurevich, GM Patrick Wolff, GM Stuart Rachels and GM Michael Wilder are perfect examples of the latter)

Despite this, everyone on this list should be praised for their fantasic progress and devotion to the game. To break into the top ten, they clearly opted out of PlayStation sessions (at least some of the time!) to study chess and play in weekend tournaments.
I want to be realistic and honest in this column. In the past 20 years there have been many young prospects who were expected to one day fight against the best players in the World, but only Hikaru Nakamura has been able to fulfill this prophecy. So it's best not to get carried away and annoint our young stars as World Class players just yet. As in all fields, there is an exponential difference between being very very good, and being one of the very best.

Let's get on with the rankings:

1. GM Hikaru Nakamura: 19 years old (2707 USCF)

Just call this Hikaru's home for the next couple years. Hikaru is currently 19, and until he turns 21, I'd say there is about a 99% chance that he will occupy this spot, and this is probably being a bit conservative. It won't help that by the next rating list, Hikaru is due to gain about 20-30 points. Hikaru is the first homegrown American talent of his level in decades.

Recently Hikaru competed in the ACP Rapid knockout event, losing to Super GM Boris Gelfand 2-0 in the first round. Despite this loss, Hikaru has the potential to be one of the top 20 players in the world, and it should be fun for all American chess fans to see whether he can make it to the elite level. He is already a legend on the Internet, with some of the highest ICC blitz ratings of all time.To read more about Hikaru, check out the regular top ten write-upsevery even numbered month of the year.