Carlsen - Rating - Rating Achievements

Rating Achievements

In the January 2006 FIDE list, at the age of 15 years, 32 days, he attained a 2625 Elo rating, which made Carlsen the youngest person to break the 2600 Elo barrier (the record has since been broken by Wesley So at the age of 14 years, 358 days). In the July 2007 FIDE list, at the age of 16 years, 213 days, Carlsen attained a 2710 Elo rating, which made him the youngest person to break the 2700 Elo barrier. On 5 September 2008, after winning round 4 in the Bilbao Grand Slam chess championship, Carlsen, just 17 years, 280 days old, briefly became No. 1 on the unofficial live ratings list. Carlsen's September–October 2009 victory in the Nanjing Pearl tournament raised his FIDE rating to 2801, making him at age 18 years, 336 days, the youngest player ever to break 2800. The youngest before him was Vladimir Kramnik at age 25. Before Carlsen, only Kasparov, Topalov, Kramnik, and Anand had achieved a 2800+ rating (Levon Aronian later accomplished the feat in November 2010). After the Tal Memorial (November 2009) he became No. 1 on the unofficial live chess rating list with his new peak rating of 2805.7, 0.6 point over the No. 2 ranked player, Veselin Topalov.

The FIDE rankings from January 2010, which took into account the 16 games played at the Tal Memorial and the London Chess Classic, were enough to raise Carlsen's rating to 2810. This meant that Carlsen started 2010 by being, at the age of 19 years, 32 days, the youngest ever world No. 1, and also the first player from a Western nation to reach the top of the FIDE rating list since Bobby Fischer in 1971. The press coverage of this feat included an interview and article in Time magazine.

The March 2010 FIDE rating list showed Carlsen with a new peak rating of 2813, a figure that only Kasparov had bettered at that time. On the November 2012 rating list published by FIDE, Carlsen reached 2848, the second highest in history (after Garry Kasparov's 2851 set July 1999 to January 2000). On the January 2013 FIDE rating list, Carlsen reached 2861, thus surpassing Garry Kasparov's 2851 record from July 1999.

Read more about this topic:  Carlsen, Rating

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