Is Nakamura no longer a top 2 speed chess player?

To qualify my question: By "speed chess," I'm referring to OTB rapid and blitz under FIDE time controls. He most certainly is a top 2 internet blitz and bullet player.

Anyway... most of us are probably used to thinking of Carlsen and Nakamura as a head above the rest in speed chess, right? In the recently finished Isle of Man tournament, one of the commentators expressed some regret going into the last round that a Carlsen-Naka speed chess tiebreak to decide the winner would not be a possibility. Looking at his results in rapid and blitz since his Paris GCT win in early 2016, though, I don't think Naka looks like the second-best speed chess player in the world at the moment:

Leuven 2016: finished 7th out of 10 players

World Rapid Championship: finished 28th

World Blitz Championship: finished 4th, but was never really in contention for the title in a tournament dominated by Karjakin and Carlsen

Paris 2017: finished 3rd

Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz: finished tied for 2nd in a tournament without Carlsen and MVL

Currently, I think Karjakin looks like the clear #2 blitz player in the world (see performances in World Blitz Championship and blitz portion of Saint Louis), and MVL is perhaps also better than Naka. In rapid there doesn't seem to be any standouts other than Carlsen, but MVL seems slightly better there as well - and maybe even Wesley So too, given his rapid performances Paris and Leuven this year. And in both time controls Naka is by no means clearly better than Aronian, who won the STL Rapid & Blitz ahead of him.

Thus, it seems to me that Naka, in his current form and in the current chess world, is a bit over-glorified as a speed chess player. To be sure, he is still among the elite few in speed chess on the planet, but the notion that he is head to head with Carlsen, and neck and shoulders above everyone else is most certainly inaccurate.

Or at least that's how I see it. What do other people think? Am I missing something? Is anyone willing to make the argument that he still is the #2 speed chess player? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

... and people wonder why I don't create serious chess-related threads. If this thread had been titled "Is Macer75 no longer a top 2 troll," it would have blown up within minutes.

Lemme fix that for you...

The chess.com forums have become a haven for trolls and awesomeness and a place for serious posters to avoid. Boring and/or irritating for you, perhaps, but fun for most.

There! That's much better!

Then stop posting about boring Naka and boring tournaments. Post something awesome and fun about Macer /sarcasm

Why, I do that all the time! If that kind of stuff is what you're looking for, just click on... well, basically any of my other threads.

Seriously, though... it doesn't have to be an either/or thing. Sometimes (well, most of the time) I feel like trolling, and so I troll. Other times I feel like engaging in serious chess discussion, and so I engage in serious chess discussion. Doing one doesn't preclude you from also doing the other. 

Yeah, it's not either or, you're right.

Carlsen is clearly the best blitz player in the world for now. 

That leaves Karjakin, Aronian, Ding Liren, Naka, and MVL fighting for the #2 spot in the world. 

Naka is certainly in the conversation, but Karjakin's recent form and his blitz rating show that he deserves his current spot second behind Carlsen.

Having said that, I'd pick Aronian or MVL over Karjakin in a long blitz match. A Karjakin-Naka match would be very close. 

Ding Liren has been sitting on his 2875 rating for at least more than a year now. He got there by gaining like 100+ points in one tournament, and hasn't played a single blitz game since. I definitely wouldn't put him on that list.

But yes, the remaining four seem to be more or less neck and neck.

Aronian is one of my favorite players, but I don't recall any significant blitz success for him in the last 5 years.

Well, Wiki reminds me:

• On 18 August 2017, Aronian won the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz with a score of 24.5/36.

Yeah, it's easy to forget things when they're far enough in the past.

I remember some of his really bad performances though. Like not even finishing in the top 10 at the world rapid and blitz, and a blitz match against Naka in Saint Louis where he didn't put up much of a fight.

But only Nakamura can freeze time, though it looks like he's trying to exorcise his bowel demons here

This is an American-based website, many members are Americans, Nakamura is American (forget about this). I wonder if those have any connection with the fact that Naka is "overglorified".

Do you really thinks anyone wonders about you?  You're probably not as famous as you suppose.

No, I don't think that at all. I know that. People have literally asked me, why do you do all of this shit that you do? Why don't you talk about chess, which is the only thing in the world that people who an account on chess.com are interested in?

Well, now they know.

I made the effort to read the whole first comment, but then skipped the second...how could I miss this gem?

If this thread had been titled "Is Macer75 no longer a top 2 troll," it would have blown up within minutes

I think you now have a moral obligation to write that thread, or you risk disappointing the whole chess.community.

Obviously people talk about chess on a chess site.  People talk about sports on a sports site, guns on a gun site and politics on a political site.  That doesn't mean people who have an interest in any of the above have no interest in anything else.

Or we could talk about which chess piece would look cooler with an AK-47 in a shooting competition at the Olympic Games, and whether the second ammendment was intended to allow that or not.