After 8 rounds he has 1 win, 3 draws, 4 losses. As the top rated player in the field, he is now sitting dead last.
It’s a tough tourney. I never saw him play this badly. But it’s just one tournament. He’s got to just play it out, then go home and forget it happened. Even Michael Jordan had is 4-20 nights.
He's got to take the attitude some baseball managers take when their team loses 13-0. They tell the media "it still counts as only one loss". That's it, it's just one tournament.
Nakamura came in as #1 seed and had high expectations. He’s pressing a little, and a little means a lot in this no-potted-plants crowd. Also, as recently as two rounds ago, a high place in this Grand Prix event was realistic.
Tiger Woods also just “castled queenside” in the Ryder Cup. It happens to the best players.
If one includes his last game in the Olympiad, he has only 1 win in the last 9 games with 5 losses. My gut feeling is that this is more than an “off” tournament. Hopefully, he will dig deep and regroup soon.
My guess: he’s just tired. Playing continuously against 2700-level opposition must be exhausting (wouldn’t I like to know?). And he didn’t have much of a break between events.
I’m not sure what his schedule is between now and the London Chess Classic in December. I hope he gets a well-deserved rest before that tournament. He’s going to need it. Anand, Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, Polgar, Adams, a fast-improving Gawain Jones, and the ever-dangerous Luke McShane await him there. I’d call that pretty stiff competition.
Moderator Mode: Off
Nakamura has a history of playing strongly. He did beat Kramnik in the Olympiad not too long ago, and Kramnik is no slouch at chess.
Boyd is right, Hikaru has played a lot in a relatively short period of time. There was the US Championships which he won, the Olympiad and now this tournament. That’s a lot of hard working chess.
He is also young and has a future in front of him. This tournament is a rough one for him, performance-wise. It is at the end of this long series of competitive events as well.
Yes, give the guy a break. Let him get some rest and I bet he’ll be back in December performing well again.
This is also a much too short of series of losses, to say it is a trend of poor play for him. No, he’s just having a bad tournament.