> Hikaru was solidly middle of the pack in the Grand Prix...

This is factually true. He was like 6/16 in elo in the first and 7/16 in the third leg. He'll be 8/8 in the candidates. Literally nothing I've said discredits him. His performance was unexpectedly strong, that's giving extra credit for an impressive performance. But I'm also realistic.

> Anyways, if you're familiar with what makes Hikaru great, you understand why Hikaru has as good a chance as anyone.

Lol no, and Hikaru would be the first to tell you he has at most an outside chance. You claim you're not defending Hikaru, but you really, really are. In fact, you're reading things into comments that weren't actually said, and assuming these things that weren't actually said are criticisms of Hikaru and it's worth asking yourself why you're doing that.

Actually Hikaru would be (as of today) 6/8 among the Candidates in classical ELO, as the world #11 in live ratings. If anything, Hikaru is probably underrated; he gained around 20 ELO points in the two Grand Prix legs. Like the OP, I'll disclaim being a Hikaru apologist; but he is world #1 in blitz and world #2 (briefly #1 this year) in rapid rating, which is why, for example, http://universalrating.com/ratings.php has him as world #2 in general playing strength. If a game gets into time trouble in the Candidates, he's the favorite against any of the competition. It seems his strategy is just to survive the openings and then try to outplay or flag people later on, which is a surprisingly viable strategy.

Who is he higher than? He's tied for last as of current ratings on the fide website, or does that not yet include results from grand prix round 3? (Which would put him ahead of Teimor and Duda, presumably)

> seems his strategy is just to survive the openings and then try to outplay or flag people later on, which is a surprisingly viable strategy.

This doesn't work when people are both stronger middlegame players than you and know your strategy. And of course Ian and Alireza are liable to put hikaru in time pressure even if they don't straight outplay him.

As sibling comment says, he's higher than Duda + Radjabov in live ratings now.

It's just not obvious to me that any of your statements about the other players being so much stronger than Hikaru are true. It's really hard to objectively estimate his classical playing strength because he just didn't play for two years and the rating has been volatile since he started playing again, but (for example) he played 4 classical games with Levon Aronian between the two legs with a +1 -1 =2 score, and +2 -0 =0 in rapid tiebreaks. Aronian is a roughly 2780 player, world #5, likely to be the strongest player who missed candidates. Hikaru also scored 50% in classical Grand Prix matches with Wesley So and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, two other strong top-10 players.

My argument would be something like: Aronian was the strongest player Hikaru played (and was the highest rated player in both Grand Prix events Hikaru participated in). Depending on how you determine things, either 3 or 5 of the participants are rated higher than Aronian is/was in classical, and Naka won't be able to rely on winning the rapid against any of Ian, Duda, Alireza, Ding, Rapport or even Caruana, because they're not 150 points worse than him in Rapid (well except Alireza but that's probably inaccurate).

If the best Hikaru can do is draw against So and Aronian, that's not going to cut it in the candidates. Maybe he can o better than that, but there's nothing we've seen that suggests that.

"Naka won't be able to rely on winning the rapid against any of Ian, Duda, Alireza, Ding, Rapport or even Caruana,"

Remember way back in 2021 when Hikaru won the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz? Going undefeated in the entire event ahead of Caruana, Rapport, So, Mamedyarov...

Furthermore, Hikaru has always outplayed Nepo. His lifetime record against him including rapid/blitz is 19 to 12, with 29 draws.

Hikaru also drastically out performs Duda: 26 to 9, with 17 draws.

So, obviously Hikaru is rated lower than most of the players in the candidates, even with the recent surge. It's equally obvious that he's a much stronger player than he was going into his semi-retirement a few years ago. The question is, given his recent 2800+ tournament performance ratings and dominance in all time controls that he's played over the last year, is his actual playing strength back at the 2800+, world #2 level it used to be? It's entirely plausible based on what we see, and lots of chess people think that he, indeed, as strong of a player as he looks. That would make him competitive in the candidates (though, that is a total crapshoot, and no one is a "favorite" to win.)

https://2700chess.com/ (live ratings) has him over Radjabov and Duda currently

You seem to have no sporting understanding of how the Grand Prix tournament works. His goal was to qualify for the candidates, he did exactly as much as was needed for that, nothing more. His positioning within the field is completely meaningless from a results perspective considering he won the only meaningful prize of qualifying for the candidates. The fact that you're misunderstanding the significance of that tells me you don't really understand any of this.

I guarantee you every top chess player is favoring Hikaru a lot more than you are. Even Danya has said as much. People that know, know. It's that simple.

I've never said anything about Hikarus performance or goal in the Grand Prix. I said he was middle of the pack going in. You're trying to argue about things I never said, to defend hikaru against accusations I never made. Which is fine, but admit you're defending him if you're going to do that, don't pretend you aren't.

At this point I'm just refuting absurd chess arguments more than I'm defending Hikaru. Objectively Hikaru is one of the best places in the world. I'd make similar defenses for most players on his level.

Your criticisms so far have little to do with actual chess, despite your attempts to make them as such. You have a clear bias mixed with a casual understanding of the game and it doesn't hold up very well.

> Objectively Hikaru is one of the best places in the world. I'd make similar defenses for most players on his level.

Yes, as are many of the players he beat in the Grand Prix, most of whom would stand no chance whatsoever in the candidates. One can acknowledge that he's one of the best players while also acknowledging that he's clearly not one of the top 3 in classical chess.

He knows that too. That doesn't mean I don't look forward to him competing and seeing how he does. I do! Despite what you think I like Hikaru and enjoy his content and play! But like I said, I'm realistic about his chances.

>you understand why Hikaru has as good a chance as anyone

Then his rating would be higher.

Unclear when we are talking about someone who has played 10 classical games in the last 2.5 years with a performance clearly above his rating in the only competition he was in (last month).

>a performance clearly above his rating

His live rating takes his performance into account. And it's more likely that the high performance was luck, since every player has good and bad streaks around their rating. A few wins does not magically make one a solid 2800 player.

As such, since Nak's current rating fully accounts for his last performance, and even with that (which even he says was simply good luck, not some fundamental new mastery of chess), Nak is currently live rated at 6th of 8 candidates (assuming Ding is the last one, which seems likely)).

So, given that it's more likely for a player to have random ups and downs (as borne out by millions of games of chess evidence across all players, including Nak), Naks performance last month is most likely above his rating.

You can argue all you want about what you feel. The ratings are a much more solid prediction of performance than all the good feelings in the world, especially since most of the Candidates have performed at the current level of ratings for years and years and years, including Nak.