Did Hikaru Nakamura ruin his game by playing too much blitz?

@Hikaru is the world's best bullet chess player

He's still a 2793 FIDE player... another of those great great players who don't have a shot at world champion

I don't think one should only focus on rapid or longer time controls though because I am positive the sickness of waiting an hour when it's a completely lost position is brought on by only playing long games.  People with blitz do it too just not as long.  The obvious remedy to wasting an hour of your life as well as the person across from you being wasted as well is to play blitz.  Maybe one doesn't need to play 3 minutes or even 5 minutes, but 10 minutes will be okay especially for someone who never plays blitz.  Of course I know there are people that take way too long to move and 10 minutes is not enough time, however, I am left to conjecture based on preliminary findings that the people that take way too long to move, even to make a bad move, are not all that great at chess.  

I do it too, but I won't do it for an hour.  Maybe 5 to 10 minutes for me.  I did it once, because I knew I didn't have many options so I was thinking outside the box and realized later there was nothing I could do to save the game so I made the only move that lost the least amount of material and lost the game by resigning later when I realized it was obvious I was going to lose.

So I know the mentality of wanting to think about what to do next even when it appears that there is nothing you can do to save the game.  Usually, they wait an hour simply because they were doing what I was doing, thinking outside the box, but it takes longer for them to do it simply because they don't play speed chess.

I gather there are people who would rather have that flaw than my flaw, making moves too fast and losing very easily.

I personally believe once you are good as Hikaru then there is not much you can do to worsen you game unless to take a vow of pacifism sorta meaning in this case not playing any games resembling a war ie chess for a long period of time.  I think if you are playing enough long games you will be fine.  Don't forget people who are rated 2700 and above are playing bullet or blitz chess by instantly recognizing all the patterns that they know and at 2700 that is a lot of patterns.  They often do not just make a move simply because they are low on time, however, I speculate they will use different tactics in bullet than long games as it is common knowledge that certain blitz tactics like checking the king and attacking the queen to gain time sometimes happens just because the person can do it, and not because something can come out of it, but even so, I imagine that sort of thing happens less in higher level play because they automatically know when not to do it because of the patterns that they already know in their head.

Once again, I am just speculating.  I have no idea what is going on in a 2700 rated players head because I am nowhere near that level, I am just making a guess.

yes he has ruined his chances at becoming world champ with blitz...it rots your brain!

As history has proven again and again, not every Top 10 player will or even can become a world champion.

Hikaru plays beautiful chess, but he's just that half step behind the real top players. I doubt blitz has anything to do with that, he's just not quite good enough.

As can be seen in Carlsen beating him in blitz too.

Nakamura is a great player despite his blitz/bullet addiction. I remember him playing on ICC so much as Smallville when he was still 2500-2600, well before he reached 2700. Only a handful have crossed the "magical" 2800 mark, and he's one of them. I think he could very well be a contender for the WC, but it's doubtful he would win against the likes of Carlsen. Not yet anyway. He's older than Carlsen, but he still has room to improve just the same. I wouldn't count him out yet, but I agree that he's going to have to do something different if he ever wants the crown.

Remember this: in the computer age, memorization of computer moves is EVERYTHING!  then you can play with computer ELO strength!

Maybe he can pull an Anand.  Never the best player of his era, but hangs around long enough that he's able to win a title during a lull between generations.

He did not

it makes me think about others sports, sailing, car racing etc ...

How to compare Le Mans 24H with Indy, karting, F1 , rallyes, etc ..; all are on a car thus!

How to compare Vendee Globe, The Race, with America's cup, Sydney Hobart, Cowes Dinard, ... all are on a sailboat thus;

for chess it is exactly the same: bullet is to WCC what 2 monts sail race is to a regatta of 2 hours, qualities involved are not the same, imho.

i suppose it is exceptional to have a WCC in various timing matches, we probably will not see that in the future, to decide a mathc in one minut has nothing to to with playing 08hours long, imho.

Nakamura has really impressive qualities and should put a little of Giri's / Drawjacking qualities in his attack style, imho (i'm just a patzer ) ;

In the discussion between Zac and Stupid I have to agree with Stupid. Right now normal chess might be where more money is (very small at that), but I agree the future of chess is probably faster time controls because it's more fun to watch. So drawing crowds DOES make something more important, that's kind of what makes something important. Right now the best chess player in the world is a machine and from now on that will probably always be the case. A lot of human activities are done better by machines and that trend will probably continue. The world chess championship doesnt determine the best chess player, it determines the best human chess player.

blah blah.. "He even said that Magnus beats him a lot because Magnus can take advantage of his slight inaccuracies." This is the reason Magnus beats everyone. Yeah Naka often says a lotta ugly egoistic blah when he loses. It's never cause the other guy played better. 

It seems rather USAish to assume if your guy isn't #1 in the world, there must be some particular problem with how he's going about it. Why is that?! I guess Naka fans assume he should be #1 because.. he's #1 at blitz supposedly. There's a logic flaw with that argument. Anyway, good luck to him, 2800ish ain't bad.

Faster time controls is the future.  This years WCC was DECIDED by faster time controls as the longer time controls was a draw.  That should tell everyone everything they need to know.

960 is the future, time control will be faster, in case of draw, black should get 1/5 point, white zero ! this rule should make tremendous thrill on ALL chessboards;

the today paradigm comes from soviet stalinian school of chess, afraid by changes, and putting years or learnings, books, etc ... to garbage. imagine pple spending half of their life on Najdorf, other half on Qeen Gambit (accepted), and the rest on life;

the day 960 will be THEgame, how many will commit suicide ? who cares ? all draw aficionados out of the stage, will come thetime of fun, pleasure, thrill.

Magnus opened a new approach saying "i dunno spend much time on openings theories; as soon as i find sthg interesting,i try". 

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7078389-bullet-chess

Could be Word Champion little work on bullet chess. 

We've heard that for decades now, but the truth is fast games by humans often are too full of mistakes to be worthwhile for analyzing or reporting afterwards.

I might be reading this wrong, but aren't you making Fewlios point for him? If tournaments used to be all classical and no fast, and now they include fast, doesn't that  mean back then fast time control was the future?

Fast games = too many mistakes to enjoy analyzing, reporting or discussing them.