The Norwegian Magnus Carlsen (31) has been the best chess player in the world since 2011. He is a five-time world champion but has now lost interest in defending his title. Instead, he has a new goal: he wants to crack the ELO rating of 2,900, the “chess high score.” No one has done that before him. Many consider this practically impossible.
How good is Magnus Carlsen at chess? Magnus Carlsen is better at chess than most other top athletes are in their sports. All statistics speak for this:
- Carlsen has been world champion since 2013 and has defended the title four times
- Carlsen took the number 1 spot in the FIDE chess ranking on July 1, 2011, and has held it ever since
- In 2014, he achieved an ELO rating of 2,882 – no one has ever been that high
What is going on with the world championship title? The world championship title in chess has been contested every two years since 2014: The strongest challenger at the time must defeat the reigning world champion to become the new world champion.
Carlsen became world champion in 2013 and defended the title 4 times afterwards:
- In 2013, he defeated the Indian Anand in 10 games.
- In 2014, Carlsen won the rematch against Anand
- In 2016, he defeated the Russian Karjakin
- In 2018, he won against Caruana from the USA
- In 2021, Carlsen triumphed over the Russian Nepomniachtchi
Actually, Carlsen would be set to defend the world championship title again in 2023 against the strongest challenger at that time.
Carlsen is no longer interested in defending the world championship title
This is what Carlsen says now: In a podcast, Carlsen announced that he has lost interest in defending the world championship title. He will not participate in a match anymore. He says:
I just feel like I have little left to gain, and I simply don’t really enjoy it.
Carlsen says that in the long run, it should not be about results for him, but about passion, he explains.
Thus, a world championship match would surely be exciting and historically relevant, but Carlsen has no reason to participate.
What happens now? In 2023, the two best chess players in the world will face each other: they are the Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi, who Carlsen defeated in 2021, and the strongest player from China, Ding Liren.
What is Carlsen doing? Carlsen will continue to play chess and is planning his next matches.
He has set another goal: he wants to achieve the legendary “2,900 ELO rating,” considered “The Mount Everest of Chess.”
To reach this goal, he needs to defeat other high-ranking players. This currently seems more important to him than a silly world championship title.
– “Normal players” have an ELO rating of about 1200.
– Good players are around 1600 points.
– At 2000, the true masters begin.
– At 2200, one is considered a master.
– At 2500, one is a grandmaster.
– Carlsen and his opponents usually play around 2700 and above.
Carlsen simply cannot draw
What is the problem with this ELO rating? It is a problem that many MMO players should be familiar with: At the very top of such a distribution curve, it is incredibly difficult to get close to the final goal. There is no room for error anymore:
- There are very few players at such a high level who would give Carlsen significant points if he defeats them. Since no one is higher than him, he always faces weaker opponents.
- Even with a victory, there are only a few points available as a reward. However, every loss and every draw costs him valuable points.
- Moreover, many matches at the top level end in a draw. To win a high-level chess game, one must win “big”; just having one more bishop than the opponent is not enough, after all, “King and Bishop” vs. “King” is a typical draw.
This is a problem for Carlsen because with drawn games against weaker opponents (i.e., anyone else), he loses more points.
Since September 2021, one can follow Carlsen’s arduous grind: for a win against the Croatian Sasa Marinovic, he received 1.5 ELO points. However, a draw against the Pole Wojtaszek cost him 2.1 points.
Ultimately, Carlsen played a total of 14 matches in September, winning 8 of them, but because he also had 6 draws, his rating only increased by 8.4 points. And September was a great month for him.
In March 2021, Carlsen played 13 matches, won only 3, had 9 draws, and even lost once. This already cost him 15.3 points: Alone, the loss against the Russian Esipenko hit him with -7.4 points. That one loss set him back by numerous won matches.
He has thus doomed himself to undertake an almost impossible grind with this goal.
Currently, Carlsen stands at 2,864 points, but he has hardly played any rated matches in the last 5 months. How long it will take him to get the missing 36 points is completely uncertain. “Theoretically,” it might take about 30 consecutive wins against grandmasters – only that seems to be an impossible task, as each draw and every loss sets him back considerably.
In recent years, many gamers have discovered their love for chess, and some chess players their love for the streaming service Twitch:
Chess grandmasters discover Twitch, talk fast, play faster
The featured image is from a YouTube video from Magnus Carlsen’s channel
