I think Nakamura will be stronger than carlsen and karjakin but it is just a feeling, the time will say.

<Frogbert>

<Hikaru Nagasaki> is as powerful as <21 kilotons> of TNT.

However, he has un unflattering nickname: <Fat Man>.

<Frogbert>

You may be pleased to hear that I forgot which thread you put your <Nakamura> comments-- and I mistakenly thought that <CG.com> had wiped out all the posts we made about him.

I imagined that <Nakamura> had read the posts and ocmplained to <CG.com> or something.

DOH!

BTW, did you know that <Magnus Carlsen> reads his own thread here, and that he actually mentioned <slomarko> in an interview?

You probably knew that already.

Now <slomarko> is famous!!

the majority of tournaments in europe are swiss tournaments (or some variant of it), and the majority of swiss tournaments are weekend tournaments. do you think weekend tournaments in europe can be played without double rounds?

practically everyone has played a big number of weekend tournaments with relatively fast time controls and two or three rounds each day at some point in their career. carlsen has certainly played his share of those tournaments.

the net effect, though, of fast time controls and several rounds each day, is that <chess suffers> - its quality goes down. if a young player like nakamura takes that stress better than older players, it's no big surprise, really, but of course it influences nakamura's game as well.

do you think us swisses would've been even more impressive if all the players were fitted on threadmills and had to be running/jogging during their games as well? if us players had been used to that, then you can bet that elite players would've suffered if they were to enter a us weekend threadmill swiss.

<yoga, sf - your entire point about double rounds are misunderstood, in my opinion. nobody becomes a better chess player by having to play chess under worse conditions.>

all over europe weekend tournaments with double rounds are staged, since it's a practical way of getting to play tournaments without taking time off from work or needing to commit too many days to a tournament. but luckily, we can also choose to play swiss or round robins <without> double rounds, due to lots of serious organizers that offer such tournaments.

personally, i'm going to take 6 work days off in april, travel to a good hotel high up in the mountains, with all meals included (and very good meals as well, from own experience), play a 9 round swiss with one game a day, and generally have a good time. when not playing chess, i can relax in the pool, enjoy the excellent nearby skiing facilities or just go for a walk in the fresh mountain air. in summary, i can forget about everything else, and just concentrate on playing good and interesting games of chess. i'm just an amateur, but i know under which conditions i enjoy chess the most. :o)

A win or draw for Black [4/2] while for White[3/1] with in turn a one-half point adjustment plus / minus for rating difference creates a fascinating result as in Moreila-Linares 2008

end[start] RDS 1-7 + RDS 8-14

<Nakamura v. Carlsen/Radjabov>

At the time Karjakin was about to turn 15 while Nakamura had just turned 17. Two years is a big age difference at these lower ages.

That was Tripoli 2004 - Nakamura made it through 3 rounds out of 7, and the players that he beat were Sergey Volkov, Alexey Aleksandrov, and Alexander Lastin (btw, in a knockout format you always lose "only" to one player...).

In the 2005 World Cup, he was eliminated as early as the first round, losing to Surya Sekhar Ganguly.

And he didn't qualify at all to the 2007 World Cup (his rating wasn't high enough to qualify through ratings, and his results in the 2007 US Championship weren't good enough to qualify through a "zonal").

Vasiliev says that Ivanchuk could have scored better if he hadn’t gone wrong in two won positions, but Ivanchuk disagrees about having a won position against Carlsen. As with Tal they say that his moves are incorrect and so on, but somehow he wins anyway, Ivanchuk says.

Aronian means that he scored more points than he deserved, and that he made too many mistakes. He thinks that Carlsen’s weakness is his opening play.

Radjabov would have been content with +1 or +2 but not really with the even score he got, even though he did gain Elo points. Vasiliev wonders at his schedule, since he is playing non stop, and one day between Baku and Sofia doesn’t sound much, but Radjabov says that it is an interesting game so why not play as much as possible.

it surely doesn't come down to that much, when compared to for instance carlsen. ok, carlsen was knocked out in the tie-breaks (despite having a theoretically drawn rook ending in the rapid game he lost) in round one in tripoli - but he was playing up and coming aronian, a tough match for a 13 year old in 2004.

at 15 he went to the last 16, eventually placing 10th (as they played for places 1-16 that year), qualifying for the candidate matches. he won 5 matches and lost 2 (against bareev and kamsky, both in rapid tie-breaks). and aronian, which knocked out carlsen the year before, ended up winning in 2005.

in 2007, at 17, carlsen went to the semi-finals (6th round), where he lost to the eventual winner kamsky. he got there by beating quality players like adams, cheparinov and dominguez - all rated 2690+, with adams and cheparinov above 2700 at the time.

summing up, only kamsky and aronian have stopped carlsen from getting to a world championship final this far - aronian in the 2004 fide world championship and the 2007 fide candidate matches, and kamsky in the 2007 world cup semi-final. :o)

nakamura has done nothing in terms of fide individual championships (world cup, candidates, etc.) between 17 and now, being 20,5 years old.

and while he played a good match against karjakin in mexico, that match took place 3,5 years ago, when nakamura was rated 2620 and karjakin 2576. the 2005 "rematch" karjakin won 5-2, but that one was rapid. still, nakamura was rated 2657 and karjakin 2635 - and karjakin still won 5-2. i seldom hear americans mentioning that match. :o)