Nakamura to cross 2800 at Gibraltar?

GM Hikaru is sitting at an impressive 7.5/8 in Gibraltar. With 2 more wins against (likely 2600-2700) opponents he will cross the 2800 mark. 

My question is, how well earned is this, and does it diminish the achievement, given he hasn't had to play against a GRENKE like field to achieve it?

Admittedly, he did beat 2800-level Topalov, and Yi at 2724, but everyone else was relatively weak. Does this call into question the Elo system at all, or is Nakamura just exceptional at beating up patzers?

The Elo system is a bit faulty and prone to inflation like I think. It's good Nakamura is playing in such an open field. 2600s are not patzers; just look at how Agdestein held off an impressive field last year (if going by rating alone, that was impressive, given he was such a "patzer" compared to the rest.

Indeed. I used the term patzer based only on Nakamura's position near the Mount of Olympus. Given his TPR is 3053, it's fair to say he deserves such a rating. Had he beaten Howell yesterday he'd already have reached 2799.8, which rounded is 2800. Honoured to say I have played and lost to Nakamura: http://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=86995450 

I both agree and disagree. If you remove Carlsen he is possibly even the strongest. Add Carlsen into the equation and he is diminished significantly as others tend to do a bit better than he does against the WC. 

Therefore, overall, he cannot quite be regarded as 3rd best.

I'd like to see an annual Top 10 contest that wasn't part of the Candidates/WC cycle, more of a year end tussle for end of year Ranking order. Imagine this field in an all play all event!

#	↑↓	Name		Classic	+/−		Rapid		Blitz			Age
1		Carlsen		2867.1	+2.1		2855.0		2948.0			24
2	↑1	Grischuk		2810.0	0.0		2846.0		2852.0			31
3	↓1	Caruana		2809.4	−1.6		2856.0		2679.0			22
4	↑1	Giri		2798.6	+1.6		2720.0		2771.0			20
5	↓1	Topalov		2797.0	−3.0		2772 i		2641.0			39
6		Anand		2796.0	−1.0		2808.0		2767.0			45
7	↑3	Nakamura		2794.8	+18.8		2844.0		2883.0			27
8	↓1	So		2788.0	0.0		2635.0		2726.0			21
9	↓1	Kramnik		2783.0	0.0		2770.0		2763.0			39
10	↓1	Aronian		2775.8	−1.2		2821.0		2816.0			32

@PDubya

Elo is elo. Who you play is quite irrelevant actually because losses and draws are punished so severely while you get few points for wins vs lower level opponents. In the GRENKE field, lets take a closer look. Nakamura has a - record vs Carlsen and Aronian. He has a +Record vs Caruana, Anand, Bacrot and has an even record with Naiditsche but hasn't lost to him in 11 years and has beat him twice in the past few years. Assume he loses to Carlsen as usual and Aronian (who Nakamura just beat in a match a month or two ago) Ok now assume he beats the players he has a nice plus score against and beats one of the 2600s while drawing the other. He would still have at least +10 elo and be destroying the field if that happened. The question is why should we assume that He would not have success in the GRENKE field just because Carlsen is there when he does well, especially in the past few years vs everyone else in the event? His TPR is 3050 or so right now and might get up to 3100 with two more victories. If Nakamura only beat IMs and weaker GMs and didn't manage to beat Topalov, Yu yangyi then we could say he can't beat the strongest players but I have definitely noticed a difference in his play these past few months. It appears he has been eating his WHEATIES.

I agree. I think Nakamura is in really good form, and would probably hold his own in GRENKE. He did well in the Grands Prix as well, so is likely to qualify for the Candidates. If he continues to improve, and loses his Carlsen jinx I think he has an outside shot at the title. Very exciting times!

If he did "Caruana", the achievement would definitely not be the same. However, 2600s are also not easy to beat. Remember last yeat on the Olympiad - Nybäck (2600) drew Carlsen easily.

It would be well earned, I think. Even if one of my pet peeves is people claiming that the top players avoid opens since those events lose them Elo points. The opposite is in general the case, as for example Giri and Kramnik showed in Qatar and Nakamura here. But that doesn't mean that it's easy to just line up wins the way Nakamura has been doing, and he won a couple of really nice games against strong opponents. If he wins today he will be 2797.8 before the last round, but it is in no way easy to beat a 2600 players with black and a draw would be no surprise.

@PDub:
Of course you are right, no comparing this to Sinquefield because strength of field. Still, if he wins two more I'd say it was more impressive than Carlsen's Tata 2015 because Carlsen a) Didn't beat the top performers in that event like Nakamura is in this one and b)9 wins and one draw out of 10 games is just mathematically absurd. The thing about a swiss is that the leader is always facing winners round aftr round, at least at the time you see them they are winners. If someone is in bad form, you don't even get a chance to take advantage of them because of how the tournament table is setup.

I wouldn't go that far though. Nakamura has after all only played one opponent in the top 25, and in his three games against players in the top 150 he has two wins and one draw. Also difficult to say that Nakamura has beaten the top performers in the event before it's over. At the moment the top performers apart from Nakamura are Howell, who he drew against, together with Naroditsky and Bachmann (who he is playing today). Carlsen for example won (with black) against Caruana and faced much stronger opposition. Nine wins and one draw would be quite impressive though.

+1. He can't do a "Caruana" here. Caruana played against the very best in the world. Even Carlsen said he was unstoppable. His moves matched those of Stockfish 5 most of the times.

That was an "anomaly"

Oh come on.

One good tournament from Caruana and he's better than Carlsen, and now Hikaru would be the best if you removed Carlsen.

Seriously, study his tournament results over the last few years and you wont come up with any case for him being #2. He was 9th/12 in Tata Steel, below Van Wely and Carlsen wasn't present. 4th/6 in the Chess Classic, no Carlsen.

Nakamura is called a barbarian for a reason. He plays a style of chess which is so aggressive it borders on insanity.

In fact, take a few minutes to watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfZK_KqKBtY

But still, Hikaru is nowhere near Magnus. I hope they meet in a one-on-one match though.

+1

Totally agree, Caruana get`s 8.5/10 (which by the way is an absoluetly fantastic result, and i'm not trying to dimish it) and everyone yapping on about how great he is and that he's the only one who can challenge Carlsen. Aronian was the hot topic back in February, and now he's 2770, and everyone's doomsaying how he should retire. The fact is preformances vary, sometimes people have good streaks, and sometimes they have bad. Just because someone's having a good streak doesn't mean they'll be a match for Carlsen and just because their having a bad streak doesn't mean that should retire!

Carlson really sucks. However, Anand is not playing him in R4?

Nope, I checked it and Anand is not paired with Carlson for sure.

Man! Who's Carlson? It's Carlsen. And Anand can beat Carlson, but not Carlsen easily.

Really not sure about all this talk about ratings.... Though I DO notice Mr Carlsen seems to be vulnerable against weaker players.....How you Can call 2700 and 2600 players weak is beyond me. He's not so Dominate at the Olympiads playing run of the Mill..GMS. I'm not demeaning is Genius....I'm just noticing something.

Mr Nakamura fully deserves his surge. When Top flight GMS 2780 and up just keep on playing against each other...well..I think there is something in the numbers that keep em above and beyond the rest of the crowd. Re reading Fischers my 60 Memorable games....I was struck how he seemed to just play everybody ...(Normal GMS) and that was great. I'm not sure how I like it that top GM's only play each other. Just my opinion but that probably contributes to rating inflation. When you argue that Kasparov...With an incredible team of analysts..(before computers) ONLY beat 2600 GMS to get that 2850 rating...it makes me wonder how Carlsen ONLY beats 2700 players. Something is screwy...but bleh. Congrats to Mr Nakamura! Great result.,

Kasparov was the only 2800, Karpov the only 2700. I can't imagine Carlsen or anybody else surpassing this. Ok, if he goes over 2900, then maaaybe yes.