07/24/2026
Chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura spent 67 minutes and 44 seconds thinking about a single move.
It happened during round five of the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament, where he was facing 20-year-old Uzbek star Javokhir Sindarov.
After Sindarov played a move Nakamura had not expected, the American grandmaster became trapped in one of the longest calculations of his career.
For more than an hour, he studied the board, searching through countless possible variations.
He finally committed to an aggressive move.
It was the wrong choice.
The move left Nakamura in a worse position and, after using so much of his clock, he had very little time left to recover.
Sindarov took advantage and went on to win the game.
Nakamura’s 67-minute think was reportedly the second-longest ever recorded at a Candidates Tournament.
Imagine spending over an hour trying to avoid a mistake, only to make it anyway.
