Grandmaster Hikaru impressed by Pokimane’s chess skills

Grandmaster Hikaru is one of the most popular chess players on Twitch, and has taken a number of top streamers and content creators under his wing — though few quite as instantly-impressive as Pokimane.

In the past, we’ve seen Hikaru look almost hurt by some of the epic blunders top content creators have made, such as when MrBeast completely ruined his opportunity to put Hikaru in checkmate.

Despite that, he is always happy to bring new names into the chess mix, and the first in 2021 was Twitch’s biggest female streamer, Pokimane, who was looking to bring out her inner Beth Harmon.

While Poki is still incredibly new to the game, Hikaru couldn’t believe some of the moves she was making, looking like someone who had a lot of practice under their belt.

Throughout the ‘lesson’ Hikaru would constantly put Pokimane in different scenarios, giving her puzzles to solve and see what the best way to attack the opposing pieces would be.

• Read More: Best chess streamers to watch on Twitch

For the most part, though she barely needed any help. In the clip below, she manages to solve the puzzle and put Hikaru in checkmate with relative ease, with the GM “not even really sure what to say” to her decision-making abilities on the board.

Not long after, she found another checkmate quite quickly, and Hikaru once again couldn’t hide how impressed he was.

Through a wide smile, he tells Pokimane that she found the move “really, really quickly,” adding that it was “absolutely perfect” and he “couldn’t have done it better.”

You can watch the full lesson on Hikaru’s YouTube channel, and he even titled the video (embedded below) “Pokimane is NOT NORMAL,” clearly mind blown by how quickly she has picked up the game and become a competent player.

While other names such as MrBeast and xQc have been about where you would expect rookie players to be, Pokimane looks like someone who has been practicing for a long time.

Who knows, maybe she’s a secret chess prodigy without realizing… Grandmaster Pokimane definitely has a ring to it.