Quote:
Originally Posted by The Yugoslavian
Shankland is the only one who could come close to fitting the bill and he started chess waaaay too late and until very recently was way weaker than Hikaru. He's only 4 years younger but the way he talks about Hikaru, it's like they are a full generation apart.
Shankland is no prize to be around either. I'll never forget my one interaction with him - he was brought to our city to play an invitational, and part of the deal was participating in a completely non serious blitz tournament on an off day that was open to anyone. As luck would have it I was paired with him.
The game went about as you'd expect, and in a pretty bad position, I meant to pick up a rook and move it (like, think I was going to play Re7-e2). Instead I picked up the piece beside it and made the same move (like, Nd7-e2). I got about halfway through the move and then realized what I had done, which moved my position from "on the fast track to resignable" to "must immediately resign".
I laughed at myself, looked at him and said out loud "this isn't how a knight moves" and he looked at me with one of the most dead serious faces I'd ever seen and said: "You were lost anyways."