Chess: Carlsen also wins last game at Nanjing
Fri, 09-Oct-2009
The Norway Post
After securing overall victory at the Nanjing Pearl Spring Chess Tournament in China on Thursday, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen (18) on Friday also won the remaining game against Russia’s Dmitrij Jakovenko.
This makes Carlsen the youngest player ever to pass the magic 2800 points in the rating. The youngest before him was former world champion Vladimir Kramnik. who was then 25.
– It is unbelievable! I can’t find words, says Secretary General of the Norwegian Chess Association, Dag Danielsen to NRK. He describes Carlsen’s achievement as historic.
(NRK)
Rolleiv Solholm
http://www.norwaypost.no
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Absolute rating numbers are hard to quantify. At what age was Kasparov #1? Probably not as young, right?
Amazing tournament by Carlsen, but his opponents seemed intimidated.
Jakovenko’s play stank today.
2800 Club
Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand, Topalov, and Carlsen!
Wasn’t it just 8 days ago that Susan asked us when we thought Magnus might break 2800?
I wonder if Anon @ 7:23 is correct; are Magnus’s opponents intimidated. I’ll have to wait for a full report to answer that one. I remember Fischer once noted that his opponents had been playing below their strength against him for 15 years. Of course, that is all part of the game, too.
There’s something I’ve wondered about….
How about taking all top-level games since 1900, and running them all through Rybka with the same analysis depth.
Wouldn’t that possibly yield some kind of answer to whether today’s players are stronger or not? And to whether there has been some kind of inflation in the ELO rating system?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Magnus must continue to perform reasonably well in any upcoming tournaments that occur before the next FIDE ratings supplement. Those ratings supplements are published four times a year (January, April, July and September/October).
The “Live chess ratings” website is an unofficial project by a chess enthusiast. It doesn’t reflect the actual FIDE ratings of the player- merely their calculated ratings based on current performance.
The September ratings supplement just came out, so we’ll likely have to wait until January before Magnus’s rating is official. If, by any chance, Magnus does not perform at or above a 2800 level from now until then (the best thing for him to do in this regard would simply be to stop playing… that is, if all he cared about was his rating) in order to officially “lock in” the 2800+ rating. I really hope he does this. However, until that happens, according to FIDE, he hasn’t really achieved a 2800 rating.
This is not, in any way, intended to diminish this extraordinary achievement. I’d love to see Magnus go all the way to the top, perhaps even breaking his current mentor’s all time high rating record.
Brad Hoehne
My Son and My Heart!
The current masters: do they not stand on the shoulders of past giants?
Imagine a GM in days of old – before the current hothousing, the intensity, databases, computing power…but having to read through russian mags/waiting long to get latest games from abroad (e.g., Fischer).
If that GM was transported forward and given the modern technology, wouldn’t they too zoom ahead in ratings?
Then imagine a current GM without the technology – how much longer to get to the same standard?
If Jesse Owens had had the diet, technology, coaching of today? If Usain Bolt went back in time? it’s all makes for interesting what-ifs?
How would the Brasil of Zico and Dr. Socrates do against the Brasil of Revelino and Pele?
We’re getting bigger, stronger, acquiring more knowledge; could we really look down on the games of Stenitz when they hadn’t the 20-20 vision we have of the past?
Still, it makes for interesting debate.
Sergey Karjakin vs Blackburne, Negi vs Steinitz
It’s impossible to compare two players from different epochs. It’s extremely unfair because we know more now and also because my opponents are stronger than those Fischer had to face. I am not trying to underestimate Fischer’s achievements! The only real point of comparison between the two of us is the size of the gaps between ourselves and our respective opponents. I think that the gap between Fischer and his opponents is still the widest in chess history. The only possible way to compare Fischer, Botvinnik, Morphy, Steinitz and Kasparov is to place them in the context of their eras and to measure the distance between themselves and their opponents. Fischer’s distance was vast! — Garry Kasparov
http://www.academicchess.org/Focus/Fischer/Fischerquotes.shtml
Hello Brad Hoehne,
I just correct you the FIDE list is 6 times a year now- January, March,May, July, September and November.
So the next list will be out by November 1.
Ahh, thank you Mr. Anon.
Brad Hoehne