The world No 1 abandoned his attempts to reach the round number at classical chess in 2023, but achieved it this week on the first Freestyle rating list
For years the world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, tried to achieve a 2900 classical rating but he always peaked 10-20 points short of the round figure. The Norwegian, 34, had a personal best of 2889, achieved in 2014. That was 33 points ahead of Garry Kasparov’s highest figure and 100 ahead of Bobby Fischer. Carlsen made later attempts but could never get past the 2880s, while the numbers had an eerie similarity to the 28,000s and 29,000s at the top of Everest where George Mallory and Andrew Irvine perished in 1924.
In the new Freestyle rating list Carlsen at 2909 is nearly 100 points ahead of Hikaru Nakamura in second place, with his performance boosted by his perfect 9/9 at Grenke Karlsruhe. In contrast, the Fide world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, ranks a lowly 26th with 2701 points.
Carlsen will hope to maintain his new rating next month when the third leg (of five) of the Freestyle $3.75m Grand Slam takes place on 16-20 July at Wynn Las Vegas. The field of 16 will include most of the usual top names but there will be particular interest in one who could turn out a party pooper.
