Magnus Carlsen - Rating

Rating

In the October 2006 FIDE Elo ratings, Carlsen advanced to world number 22 with a rating of 2698. In the January 2007 ratings he dropped to 2690 and rank 24. In the July 2007 ratings, after a series of strong results, Carlsen advanced to become world number 17 with a rating of 2710. On the January 2008 FIDE rating list he was rated at 2733, and on October 2008 he reached 2786 Elo rating. He was placed sixth in the July 2008 list, but if his Aerosvit result had been included he would have been ranked second. The omission of the Aerosvit result, which finished after the cutoff date for the July 2008 list, caused some controversy.

On 5 September 2008, after winning round 4 in the Bilbao Grand Slam chess championship, Carlsen, still under 18, briefly became number one on the unofficial live ratings list.

Carlsen's September–October 2009 victory in the Nanjing Pearl tournament raised his official rating to 2801, making him at age 18 the youngest player ever to break 2800. The youngest before him was Vladimir Kramnik at age 25. Besides Carlsen, only Kasparov, Topalov, Kramnik, and Anand had achieved a 2800 rating (Levon Aronian later accomplished the feat in October 2010). Carlsen said that he hoped his victory would mark the "beginning of a new era."

After the Tal Memorial (November 2009) he became number one in the unofficial live chess rating list with his new peak rating of 2805.7, 0.6 point over the number 2, Veselin Topalov.

The official FIDE rankings were published on 1 January 2010, and the 16 games played at the Tal Memorial and the London Chess Classic were enough to raise his rating by 8.6 rating points to 2810. This meant that Carlsen started 2010 by being the official (and, at the age of 700119000000000000019 years, 700132000000000000032 days, the youngest ever) world number one, and also the first player from a western nation to reach the top in the FIDE rating list since Bobby Fischer in 1972. The press coverage of this feat included an interview and article in Time magazine.

Carlsen has stated on several occasions that his main goal for 2012 is to break Kasparov's rating record at 2851. While Carlsen believes he will be able to beat the all-time rating record soon, he doesn't believe that will make him the best chess player of all time yet, because of his young age. He considers Kasparov and Fischer the strongest players of all time.