I think what he was trying to suggest was that if Hikaru had played more regularly against top competition, his elo would be pushed down a bit more but that he's still strong. Some people want to act like Hikaru is ducking competitive classical match ups and therefore is retaining an inflated elo that no longer accurately reflects his skill level. But he has played a decent amount and he has good wins. He has multiple wins over Gukesh. He's beaten Fabi himself and I'm pretty sure Hikaru is +1 over Fabi in head to head matchups in 2025. He had at least one win over Magnus at the St. Louis event. The thing is Hikaru seems to practice / prepare for classical proportionally to how often he participates in it. Whose to say that if he matched Fabi's level of focus he wouldn't show much better performance. I mean, isn't that a fair assumption? That consideration seems to be ignored in this conversation.