He's earned the recognition already, he's a former #2 in the world and one of only a handful of players to ever have an ELO over 2800. Just enjoy his resurgence and see where it takes him.
On Twitch, the most successful players almost never have the most viewership.
It's not discrediting Hikaru to say that there are strong players that can't participate.
That's an exceedingly good argument that he's unlikely to do particularly well (and it's likely his betting market is somewhat inflated by his fan base, his real odds are probably lower!)
I point out that its odd the number of people going out of their way to discredit Hikaru, so a bunch more people follow up by doubling down on discrediting Hikaru.
Anyways, if you're familiar with what makes Hikaru great, you understand why Hikaru has as good a chance as anyone.
This is factually true. He was like 6/16 in elo in the first and 7/16 in the third leg. He'll be 8/8 in the candidates. Literally nothing I've said discredits him. His performance was unexpectedly strong, that's giving extra credit for an impressive performance. But I'm also realistic.
> Anyways, if you're familiar with what makes Hikaru great, you understand why Hikaru has as good a chance as anyone.
Lol no, and Hikaru would be the first to tell you he has at most an outside chance. You claim you're not defending Hikaru, but you really, really are. In fact, you're reading things into comments that weren't actually said, and assuming these things that weren't actually said are criticisms of Hikaru and it's worth asking yourself why you're doing that.
> seems his strategy is just to survive the openings and then try to outplay or flag people later on, which is a surprisingly viable strategy.
This doesn't work when people are both stronger middlegame players than you and know your strategy. And of course Ian and Alireza are liable to put hikaru in time pressure even if they don't straight outplay him.
It's just not obvious to me that any of your statements about the other players being so much stronger than Hikaru are true. It's really hard to objectively estimate his classical playing strength because he just didn't play for two years and the rating has been volatile since he started playing again, but (for example) he played 4 classical games with Levon Aronian between the two legs with a +1 -1 =2 score, and +2 -0 =0 in rapid tiebreaks. Aronian is a roughly 2780 player, world #5, likely to be the strongest player who missed candidates. Hikaru also scored 50% in classical Grand Prix matches with Wesley So and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, two other strong top-10 players.
If the best Hikaru can do is draw against So and Aronian, that's not going to cut it in the candidates. Maybe he can o better than that, but there's nothing we've seen that suggests that.
Remember way back in 2021 when Hikaru won the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz? Going undefeated in the entire event ahead of Caruana, Rapport, So, Mamedyarov...
Furthermore, Hikaru has always outplayed Nepo. His lifetime record against him including rapid/blitz is 19 to 12, with 29 draws.
Hikaru also drastically out performs Duda: 26 to 9, with 17 draws.
I guarantee you every top chess player is favoring Hikaru a lot more than you are. Even Danya has said as much. People that know, know. It's that simple.
Your criticisms so far have little to do with actual chess, despite your attempts to make them as such. You have a clear bias mixed with a casual understanding of the game and it doesn't hold up very well.
Yes, as are many of the players he beat in the Grand Prix, most of whom would stand no chance whatsoever in the candidates. One can acknowledge that he's one of the best players while also acknowledging that he's clearly not one of the top 3 in classical chess.
He knows that too. That doesn't mean I don't look forward to him competing and seeing how he does. I do! Despite what you think I like Hikaru and enjoy his content and play! But like I said, I'm realistic about his chances.
Then his rating would be higher.
His live rating takes his performance into account. And it's more likely that the high performance was luck, since every player has good and bad streaks around their rating. A few wins does not magically make one a solid 2800 player.
As such, since Nak's current rating fully accounts for his last performance, and even with that (which even he says was simply good luck, not some fundamental new mastery of chess), Nak is currently live rated at 6th of 8 candidates (assuming Ding is the last one, which seems likely)).
So, given that it's more likely for a player to have random ups and downs (as borne out by millions of games of chess evidence across all players, including Nak), Naks performance last month is most likely above his rating.
You can argue all you want about what you feel. The ratings are a much more solid prediction of performance than all the good feelings in the world, especially since most of the Candidates have performed at the current level of ratings for years and years and years, including Nak.
I see Hikaru similar to Ivanchuk (who also peaked at nr. 2 in the world). Brilliant player but rarely the favorite for long chess competitions.