"Nakamura wins Univé tournament convincingly"

Simply because he is too strong to this tournament.

Nakamura actually outperformed his rating a lot, with a 2850 TPR. Picked up five badly needed points on the live ratings. Tiviakov also did well. Giri bombed and Hou Yifan underperformed a little, too.

Well.. He won a tournament in which he was by far the strongest player.. He should be more " convincing " against stronger opposition...

The bottom line he gave a 2850 tpr which means simply he played better against said opposition than a person with his rating is statistically predicted he would.

This last game had a very Karpovian flavor to it positioning and repositioning until he has what he wants in the position. If I had my guess he has recently looked over some of Karpov's gems and every once in a while it shows up in his games.

Sometimes Carlsen is compared to Karpov but much less often does he back up ala Karpov but rather inches forward Ala Capablanca imho. Of course Karpov shares many attributes with Capa so then also Carlsen too. Anyway this is one of about 4 or 5 games of Nakamura's that bring Karpov to mind although generally I see maybe Keres stylistically and the intricate knight and rook coordination that comes out is simply Nakamura with our precident as far as I know. If Nakamura has a weakness its not being able to fully utilize his queen to its fullest and sometimes allowing his opponents to much space the people he struggles against usually control too many squares with advanced pawns not allowing Nakamura to spring his creative counter attacks.

Sorry for the long post but styles and concepts interest me greatly. ;o]

This is a good performance for Nakamura.

of course he's the strongest, although more was expected from Giri in terms of competition.

But Hikaru just proved he's world class, collected a little money and a few points and thus did a professional job.

The dismissal of a strong TPR just reflects bias against Nakamura. I'm neither a Naka-fan nor a Naka-phobe, but a 2850 (or 2848, depending on which site you believe) TPR is a very nice achievement, especially after a really bad stretch of play. Nakamura was never in serious trouble in any game and scored a nice positional win in the final round.

It was funny to read some of the comments on Chessbomb (not a Naka fan site) ridiculing Nakamura's positional play...just as he was methodically building up an overwhelming positional advantage on the d-file.

Let's see, what else...oh, Giri is in one of those downdrafts that always seem to affect junior players (at least when your name isn't Magnus). Maybe he shouldn't play in the same tournaments with his girlfriend. Just kidding!

Tiviakov played well. He did seem passive in the final round, getting into the famous bind and never kicking out of it. Maybe he really meant what he said about looking for a draw and nothing more.

Hou Yifan played slightly below her rating. Not terrible, not great, just sort of blah. For whatever reason, I get the feeling she may be vulnerable in the knockout championship next month.

Ms. Hao's tenacity was very impressive to me. I had expected the separate pools of men and women's chess to have inflated her rating. She was neither under-rated nor intimidated by her opponents.

Yifan has Koneru's number.

In Nakamura's game, whats with the passive d3 by white? How common is this?

The cruel and harsh reality is that Nakamura will never surpass Carlsen, Aronian, and Caruana. I doubt he will ever make it to 3rd on the ratings list.

Well Tom Naka may never pass them players and perhaps nobody else will either those are about the three most promising players in chess today. As far as that being cruel or harsh he has achieved much already. This inspite of those who said he wouldn't break 2700 then it was 2750 then top ten finally world top 5. So if Nakamura never wins another game he has already far exceeded his nay sayers predictions repeatedly threre's just not many more milestones left. 2800 is one world champion another and rated world numeral uno. Of these I think the first is not at all unreasonable WC and numeral one well ok tall order but not impossible either although I thinkCarlsen is just a notch above and the greatest natural genius playing today.

Naka is a fantastic player with a great future.

Well,well,well. Let the Nakamura haters ramble. "he will never make the top 3 in the world" I'm old enough to remember watching Bobby Fischer win the world championship in 1972. (I was 15 years old) I can't tell you how excited i was. 40 years later i'm still playing. A world class player like Nakamura only comes around once or twice in 40 years!!!! Stop all the mud slinging. Or would you rather wait another 40 years? He came back after a TERRIBLE tourney. Shows fighting spirit. GO NAKA !!!!!!

Giri is dissapointing lately. Some time ago he was beating Nakamura and Carlsen and no worse than Caruana. I wonder what happened. Perhaps it's the toll of having a normal education and a girlfriend. Hope it won't stop him though.

I wonder if the ending in Nijboer - l'Ami was ever objectively won after move 57. At the very end, 77.Kg6 is a game- and tournament-deciding mistake because "the knight on the rim is looking grim", and l'Ami used his second chance. 77.Nb5 would have been the only move to avoid this scenario, with a tablebase draw.

Regarding Giri, Nakamura, etc...

In the past 12 months (November 2011/2012), Giri has fallen from 2714 to 2706 (-8 points), Nakamura has risen from 2758 to 2760 (+2 points), Carlsen has risen from 2826 to 2848 (+22 points), and Caruana has risen from 2727 to 2786 (+59 points).

Kamsky is ahead of Naka in the live ratings!