He can't do it, except with rating inflation. I've given the answer why numerous times; one of them [in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1c30r56/comment/kzdw65z/) Basically, to reach 2900, Magnus Carlsen needs to score 65% of the points against any 2800. (If you score 6.5-3.5 in a 10 game match, your rating performance is 100 points higher than the rating your oppoenent has.) This means that if Magnus plays a 2800 player in a match, he needs to win it with 6.5-3.5, each time, every time, to warrant a 2900 rating. If he doesn't, his rating will immediately drop, and he needs to win the next match with an even greater difference. [See the win probability table](https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/images_users/tiny_mce/0110001101101000/phpvuqs48.jpeg) for how this works. What it tells you is: If your rating difference is 99-106, you are expected to score 64%; or more concretely: if you are 2400 and play a 10 game match against a 2300, you are expected to win it with 6.5-3.5. If you don't, your rating will drop because your +100 over the 2300 is not warranted. (And the 2300's rating will rise accordingly, of course.) The same holds true for 2500 vs 2400, and so on. Let's say Magnus plays a tournament. He is rated 2800. There are 9 other players, all rated 2800 as well. They play 2 games against every other player, so each player will play 18 games. If every player plays exactly according to their rating, they will all score half of their points, so everybody will end the tournament with 9 points out of 18 (50%). This would be the expectation: every 2800 player scores half of the points against any other 2800 player because they are exactly the same strength. But, Magnus wanting to reach 2900, would need to perform above expectation. To perform at a 2900 level, he would therefore need to score 65%, as the win probability table shows, or 11.7 out of 18. (11.5 or 12 out of 18.) Note that, if he scores 12 out of 18, he will not immediately jump to 2900; he just has a 2900 performance. But, the make that performance into his rating he will need to keep playing at this level. He has done it before; he has had tournament performances of 2930+ if I remember correctly, but because he doesn't do so consistently, he never reached 2900. And the bigger the gap between him and the others becomes, the lesser the rating gain will be if he wins, and the bigger the rating loss will be if he draws or loses. If Carlsen is rated 2850, for example, and then finishes this tournament at 9 out of 18 (which would be expected if he was 2800, just like the others), he would actually lose rating. The reason is him being 2850 (and everyone else being 2800) the expectation is that his +50 Elo nets him a 57% score (10.26 out of 18). So even if he WINS the tournament with 10 out of 18 against a field of all his opponents being 2800 vs him being 2850, he will STILL lose rating because 10/18 is lower than expected. A win of 10.5/18 will net him a tiny, tiny gain; maybe 1 or 2 Elo over the entire tournament. Do you see Magnus Carlsen scoring 11.5 out of 18 or 12 out of 18, in tournaments full of players that are 2800 rated, all day every day? I don't. And that's why Carlsen will never reach 2900 short of the rating inflating to that level due to _everyone_ gaining a higher rating (which can happen if a lot of overrated new players are added to the pool: the rating will drift upwards because the stronger players will 'steal' those overrated points).

Consider also that there are only 2 players rated 2800 or higher to really hammer how gargantuan of a task this would be

This. Take the candidates for example. One of the most prestigious tournaments in chess. The average rating of the 8 participants is 2745. This means if magnus played in the tournament he'd need to score 71%, which translates to a 10/14 score. Keep in mind that Gukesh won with 9/14. Magnus would need to score an entire point above Gukesh *just to preserve a 2900 rating* meaning any meaningful progress to 2900 would likely mean a score of 10.5 or above. Doing this every single tournament he plays in is just absolutely absurd and just not possible.

> Doing this every single tournament he plays in is just absolutely absurd and just not possible. The funny thing is, if we are talking about Prime Magnus, I don't think it's impossible. He twice reached 2882. The problem is I just don't think he has it in him anymore.

Oh it was definitely possible for prime Magnus, he hit like 2889 iirc in live ratings in 2014, he could’ve been in the 2890s but he lost to Radjabov for the first time in like 6 years at that point and then lost the next game to Fabi, which I’m pretty sure was the last time he’s lost two classical games in a row until Tata Steel 2023 (I think?).

“The amount of venom that can be delivered from a single bite can be gargantuan." You know, I've always liked that word... 'gargantuan'... so rarely have an opportunity to use it in a sentence.”

Can’t your logic be applied to make the argument that no one will ever reach 2882? The only modification being the expected score would be like 62% instead of 65%.

Only answer with a brain

> Can’t your logic be applied to make the argument that no one will ever reach 2882? ceteris paribus (and it is quite an assumption, as FIDE tweaks ratings a lot every now and then), it will be pretty hard to reach 2882 too. It would need a Fischeresque performance and nowadays it is very unlikely to be that dominant over the rest as there are many strong competitors. This to say that, yes, the logic holds for 2882 too. For the actual computation see [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1doyzgf/do_you_think_anyone_will_ever_reach_2900_elo_if/lae8xow/)

okay, but you understand the point he's making, right?

The higher you go the more of a statistic outlier you need to be. 2882 doesn't seem very reachable either atm.

uh no, as some seem to have missed it, their point (the reply) was the opposite that the reasoning given would imply the impossibility of something that we know is possible, because it's already happened

Carlsen has had those kinds of performances, though. In 2019 he played the Shamkir Chess tournament and the Grenke Chess Classic back to back at performance ratings of 2991 and 2983, respectively. He played the Zagreb GCT a little while later with a TPR of 2948. That wasn't really a period of rating inflation, either: Caruana and Ding were the only other 2800+ players at that point, and both were playing incredibly well. Carlsen's form dropped after that, but if he'd just kept that level for twice as long he'd have hit 2900. That's obviously very hard to do, and statistically unlikely, but far from impossible. Carlsen's played at that level for two or three stretches in the past 10 years or so. If you figure those are roughly 6 month stretches of form and his form moves in a relatively random manner, that's a bit better than a 10% chance to have that kind of surge. If you simplify it and say that Carlsen can only hit 2900 if he has two of those windows of form back to back, that's a 1% chance per year of being in top form. If he kept his current level of play indefinitely, he'd be 50/50 to hit 2900 in the next 70 years or so. That won't happen. Carlsen's mean strength is likely dropping a bit at this point, he's not playing that much Classical chess, and it's extremely unlikely that he'll be the one to hit 2900. It's not a statistical impossibility, though. With 70 years of Carlsen-level players sitting at the top of the heap the odds are 50/50 that *someone* would do it. Whether it's better or worse than 50/50 in the next 70 years will depend on if we consistently get players of that caliber, if we get players with a higher mean level than that, or if Carlsen proves to be an outlier in terms of strength. It's definitely statistically possible, though. I'd lean towards there being players stronger than Carlsen in the next few decades. Chess is currently more popular than its ever been, and there's more resources available for strong young players to get really strong really fast than ever before. Odds are the person to break 2900 isn't alive yet, but I think someone will manage the feat in our lifetimes.

I think the mistake the top post makes is assuming that Magnus would have to play at that level consistently; it basically answers the question 'could Magnus be a 2900 player', rather than 'could Magnus hit 2900 ever', which is a much more realistic goal I think the most likely way to do that would be to be at a high rating and then happen to get a bunch of good results in a row for example, when he was 2882, he would've needed about 4 wins vs 2700 players consecutively to hit 2900 so, could he get to 2850, and then happen to get a 9/10 in a tournament or something like that? it's possible, but I agree his best chance is likely already past I'd also add that if the question was 'could Magnus become significantly better than he is right now', it's still not impossible. like the greatest factor against him would be how unlikely it is to be make big improvements at his age. looking at the gap between computers and the best players, it's still possible for a player to make a hundred Elo improvement. it's just unlikely that one person would do that, and no one else would match them, so they still most likely wouldn't hit 2900

>And that's why Carlsen will never reach 2900 short of the rating inflating to that level due to *everyone* gaining a higher rating (which can happen if a lot of overrated new players are added to the pool: the rating will drift upwards because the stronger players will 'steal' those overrated points). Isn't this true when players of *any* rating are added to the pool? Over the last 50 years, the elo of the world #1 ranked player has climbed by about 160. This can't be explained simply by Carlsen being 160 elo stronger than the competition - as you explain, 160 elo is a ridiculous skill difference. Besides, the elo of other ranking placements (#2, #3 and so on) has climbed at a similar rate. So the explanation of historic peak elo is mostly due to player pool and overall elo inflation. If the players in the FIDE pool keep increasing at the current rate, I would expect 2900 to be broken within 20 years (This is a simple mans guess simply from looking at a graph). It will be taken by whoever is #1 and comes across a streak of good results over one year, or a couple years, simply when the total player pool has inflated the elo numbers of top 10 players high enough.

FIDE can do stuff to factor in the inflation though. Magnus's peak 2882 was reached in 2014. In 2019/2020, when Magnus had his 125(IIRC) streak of not losing, and was at his most dominant(Vishy Anand said Magnus was dominant in 2014, but was even more freakishly strong on his 2019 run), his rating was lower than his peak. 2900 can only be reached, if FIDE allows a bunch of inflation, and I don't think they'll do that. Because it'd also mean they need to up GM and other title requirements, and really change the system. If someone hits 2900, it means there are gonna be 30 2800's.

> In 2019/2020, when Magnus had his 125(IIRC) streak of not losing, and was at his most dominant(Vishy Anand said Magnus was dominant in 2014, but was even more freakishly strong on his 2019 run), his rating was lower than his peak. He had 2882 in [August 2019](https://ratings.fide.com/toparc.phtml?cod=557)

> and I don't think they'll do that to be fair they could. One can see how people are obsessed on absolute rating values. This very thread proves the point. since 2020 there is deflation going on, as more and more heavily underrated players from outside europe come into the system. Europe is more or less where the rating stabilizes quickly due to a ton of rated tournaments with ton of stable rated players. Now one can say: deflation? Who cares. First, we had already a long period where at the top there were very few 2700+ (pre 2000). Second, what matters in rating are not absolutes, rather rating gaps. If FIDE would give tomorrow everyone 2000 points, thus carlsen would be 5800+, nothing would change for the ratings, as the differences would stay exactly as they are. But since a lot of fans obsess on absolute values, rather than keeping in mind that the elo is relative, then 2700 and 2800 start to be very important and FIDE wants to maintain those. Therefore all the work of Mr. Sonas with the rating adjustments under 2000, in the hope to keep the values at the top stable. If one would focus only on rating gaps, it wouldn't matter if the #1 would go back to 2750 rather than being over 2800. But that is not what the community wants.

> FIDE can do stuff to factor in the inflation though. Magnus's peak 2882 was reached in 2014. In 2019/2020, when Magnus had his 125(IIRC) streak of not losing, and was at his most dominant(Vishy Anand said Magnus was dominant in 2014, but was even more freakishly strong on his 2019 run), his rating was lower than his peak. > > A small critique, he did hit 2882 in August of 2019.

elo inflation is just a result of the development of chess theory and the implementation of computers into pro play. since pros spend a lot more time on chess they can leverage technology much better. elo is always just a way to compare someone to the average chess player of that moment in time. and just because you dont believe that the difference in skill is not 160 points does not mean its true lol memorizing all the lines with ever increasing computational power is already a great enough advantage at that level aside from changes to the nominal average elo, inflation definetly shows an increase in skill. the best way to measure it would probably be in terms of standard deviations though

> elo inflation is just a result of the development of chess theory and the implementation of computers into pro play. That allows for having "longer" tails in a distribution. But actually to get pure inflation (as in Economics) you need to "print points" (as in economics, when they print money). That is, the average amount of points per rated player needs to go up over time. Otherwise if the points in the system stay stable, the tails can get a tad longer, but only a tad. (that is, the top100 can accrue more points, but not that much)

Get out of here with your actual facts. Meanwhile everyone else just going on vibes not understanding why this won’t ever happen without massive rating inflation.

Feelings don't care about your facts.

Yeah it's not like FIDE had recently gifted players hundreds of points or something

You might also be interested in [Sokolov et al](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.09563) (2022) >How likely is it that Magnus Carlsen will achieve an Elo rating of 2900? This has been a goal of Magnus and is of great current interest to the chess community. Our paper uses probabilistic methods to address this question. The probabilistic properties of Elo’s rating system have long been studied and we provide an application of such methods. By applying a Brownian motion model of Stern as a simple tool we provide answers. You also make this plausibility argument >Do you see Magnus Carlsen scoring 11.5 out of 18 or 12 out of 18, in tournaments full of players that are 2800 rated, all day every day? I don't. Neither do I fwiw. That said, from June 2012 to April 2014, Magnus's performance rating [exceeded 2900](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/yk4ky7/in_april_2014_carlsens_100game_performance_rating/) over 100 consecutive games, probably the only time it's been achieved; he did that by scoring 69.5/100 against opponents averaging a 2755 rating.

> You might also be interested in Sokolov et al (2022) I knew that paper would appear. Well such research should be reproducible. They say Magnus had 4% chance of reaching 2900 (that for me is way too high, 0.4% would have been more realistic) and I asked the author for the log of the simulations to analyze them. Not even an answer. Sure, I am a random person, but the point is that if one does a nice formatted paper but the result cannot be checked, then it is only that, a nice formatted paper. I still think, based on the actual data that one can see (that is, keeping a 2900 performance is really hard), that 4% is way too high. But unless I do a nice formatted paper, it remains a reddit comment. E: for those that downvote a tip. Nice formatted paper that cannot be reproduced are marketing not science.

Well you made my day. I've seen a few chess stats posts by you over the years(?), super high effort, as a stat collector I appreciate it a lot, so it's nice to be able to say thank you directly now that I have your attention. Yeah in your position I'd be suspicious too of the inability to reproduce the results because the data isn't open.

> I've seen a few chess stats posts by you over the years(?), super high effort, thank you for the compliment! Unexpected! You made my day too!

Cool. I didn't know this existed. It seems that, at his current performance level (assuming it is the same as 2020-2022) the chance of Carlsen reaching 2900 in 200 games 4.5%. If he had maintained his streak in 2019, for another 200 games, the chance would have been 80% that he´d reached 2900. But... would it been humanly possible to keep playing at that level for another 200 games? (And even then, there's still a 20% chance he won't make it and needs even more games.)

> If he had maintained his streak in 2019, for another 200 games, the authors of the paper stretched things. Magnus plays around 50 games per year (on average post 2020). 200 games are 4 years. Keeping 4 years of near 2900 performance - even considering the status of 2019 and not the deflation that was apparent later - would be incredible. Sure they employ a brownian motion (that is more or less somewhat random, trying to simulate good/bad periods) and thus they predicted some streaks here and there, but the point is that the performance needed to be real high all the time. It would be much "easier" for magnus to have a short stint of back to back 3000+ TPR (and those are Fischeresque already) and then go back to around 2830 than what the simulations showed. For this it would really help to see the simulation logs, or at least the trace of the rating for each simulation, to see whether those could be realistic. 4% is way too high.

Stupid question - does a difference of 100 Elo in terms of performance victories mean the same for a 2300/2400 and 1600/1700? Would a 1700 also be expected to win 6.5-3.5 against a 1600?

Yes.

He can't do it, except with rating inflation. I've given the answer why numerous times; one of them [in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1c30r56/comment/kzdw65z/) Basically, to reach 2882, Magnus Carlsen needs to score 61% of the points against any 2800. (If you score 6.0-4.0 in a 10 game match, your rating performance is 78 points higher than the rating your opponent has.) This means that if Magnus plays a 2800 player in a match, he needs to win it with over 6.0-4.0, on average, every time, to warrant a 2882 rating. If he doesn't, his rating will immediately drop, and he needs to win the next match with an even greater difference. [See the win probability table](https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/images_users/tiny_mce/0110001101101000/phpvuqs48.jpeg) for how this works. What it tells you is: If your rating difference is 77-83, you are expected to score 61%; or more concretely: if you are 2382 and play a 10 game match against a 2300, you are expected to win it with 6.0-4.0. If you don't, your rating will drop because your +82 over the 2300 is not warranted. (And the 2300's rating will rise accordingly, of course.) The same holds true for 2482 vs 2400, and so on. Let's say Magnus plays a tournament. He is rated 2800. There are 9 other players, all rated 2800 as well. They play 2 games against every other player, so each player will play 18 games. If every player plays exactly according to their rating, they will all score half of their points, so everybody will end the tournament with 9 points out of 18 (50%). This would be the expectation: every 2800 player scores half of the points against any other 2800 player because they are exactly the same strength. But, Magnus wanting to reach 2882, would need to perform above expectation. To perform at a 2882 level, he would therefore need to score 61%, as the win probability table shows, or 11 out of 18. Note that, if he scores 11 out of 18, he will not immediately jump to 2882, he just has a 2882 performance. But, the make that performance into his rating he will need to keep playing at this level. He has done it before; he has had tournament performances of 2930+ if I remember correctly, but because he doesn't do so consistently, he never reached 2882 (excluding the two times he did). And the bigger the gap between him and the others becomes, the lesser the rating gain will be if he wins, and the bigger the rating loss will be if he draws or loses. If Carlsen is rated 2850, for example, and then finishes this tournament at 9 out of 18 (which would be expected if he was 2800, just like the others), he would actually lose rating. The reason is him being 2850 (and everyone else being 2800) the expectation is that his +50 Elo nets him a 57% score (10.26 out of 18). So even if he WINS the tournament with 10 out of 18 against a field of all his opponents being 2800 vs him being 2850, he will STILL lose rating because 10/18 is lower than expected. A win of 10.5/18 will net him a tiny, tiny gain; maybe 1 or 2 Elo over the entire tournament. Do you see Magnus Carlsen scoring 11 out of 18, in tournaments full of players that are 2800 rated, all day every day? I don't. And that's why Carlsen will never reach 2882 short of the rating inflating to that level due to _everyone_ gaining a higher rating (which can happen if a lot of overrated new players are added to the pool: the rating will drift upwards because the stronger players will 'steal' those overrated points).

> he never reached 2882 (excluding the two times he did). this let me chuckle, but then the ratings of the opponent was a bit more lenient (that is, the rating of the opposition was higher). For example this parody says correctly "you need to score 61%" to get a PR of 2882. Yes but you need a certain opposition, otherwise the PR is not 2882. If you score 61% against 2300, is not the same as scoring 61% against 2800 in performance rating terms. "nonsense!" you say. Well it is really easy to verify even with actual data. The PR of carlsen in 2023 was [2791](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/17zlzgc/carlsens_rating_performances_over_the_years/) . He scored 43.5 / 63 or 69% against an avg opposition of 2661. See what is the problem? In 2019, when he achieved 2882, he had a performance rating of 2892, scoring 55.5 / 79 (70% just a tad higher) with an average opposition of 2743 See? this is exactly the point that OP was doing. In one case you have 69% and the other 70%, a mere 1% more, yet in one case one has 2791 in the other 2892. Because the rating of the opponents matter. Without inflation, with widespread competition and information (thanks to internet and democratic knowledge), 2882 or 2900 are pretty much unlikely unless one becomes a Fischer, but being a Fischer nowadays is pretty much impossible. Everyone at the top is a massive talent and more talents are coming. E: downvoted for hard data. Reddit never changes, no wonder it tends to drama rather than quality posting. Oh well.

Great point. Opposition fluctuating isn't something I considered, though neither did the original comment so do I get a pass? For the record I think Carlsen's chances to hit 2900 are next to zero, especially this late in his career. I just think the comment I parodied was an excessive wall of text that pretended to be "it's statistically impossible and here's why" but underneath the trench coat and hat it was just "I can't see it happening, can you?"

>but underneath the trench coat and hat it was just "I can't see it happening, can you?" His argument, when you break it down, is essentially "Carlsen can't hit 2900 because he isn't a 2900 level player." Which is probably true, but the argument is a tautology. If Carlsen *were* a 2900 level player, he would be able to hit 2900 because he would be able to pull off the tournament performances mentioned.

> though neither did the original comment so do I get a pass? yes. Lots of people forget how important is the average opposition. Then once one stress it, there is the "well actually" guy that say that "score is enough". No it is not, at least not if one wants to talk about absolute values (that everyone is obsessed with).

This is a very long winded way of saying "Magnus is not good enough to hit 2900"

Yes. It's the mathematical explanation why he won't. It's not impossible of course, but he's still human. Even if he gets as close as 2895 and then has one bad day and loses to a 2700, he tanks his rating by 15 points. If he is seeded in a tournament with an average player strength of 2750, playing 10 games and he has a bad tournament, scoring only 50% of the maximum points, he'd lose 4 points on average with each game he plays. Even if he draws all games to score that 50%, losing none, he'd still lose 40 rating points. Someone will hit 2900 though, after enough rating points are added to the pool and they've drifted upwards and everybody has a higher rating number. It's inevitable, but it probably won't be Carlsen probably, because it'll take too much time for the inflation to happen.

> Even if he gets as close as 2895 and then has one bad day and loses to a 2700, he tanks his rating by 15 points no it doesn't. The most you lose is around 9 points (9.2 I think) with K=10. If you talk about math explanation, double check the numbers at least. For the rest, if inflation is there it will eventually happen. The real beasts were Fischer and Karpov-Kasparov (see Jan 1990). Those got the rating gap real large, inflation or not that is massive.

No, it is not a mathematical explanation of why he won't. It's an explanation of how elo works, and then a non-sequitur conclusion saying that he won't. There's no statistical analysis that is related to the conclusion. It's a long winded technical explanation with a bad argument. This is like the post on r/NFL where someone provided statistical analysis comparing Patrick Mahomes' stats to an average QB and concluded that Mahomes had to revert to being average because he was too far above average. The conclusion doesn't follow from the argument. Odds are the Magnus won't reach 2900. By his own admission it is just a stretch goal to replace defending the world championship, and I'm not sure he is even seriously pursuing it. But this argument in how it is being framed could be applied just as easily to the peak that Magnus has already reached. It isn't a good, concrete explanation for the specific situation.

Find the mathematical paper linked a bit lower down in the thread. I actually does the same thing as I do above, but staves it with actual figures by running simulations. They come to the conclusion that Magnus Carlsen has a 4.5% chance to reach 2900 Elo in 200 games (playtime: about 4 years) if he keeps up his current level. If he could regain his 2019 level and then keep that for 200 games (4 years) there would have been an 80% chance that he reaches 2900. The two dominating 2900+ Elo performance stretches that Magnus had were about 6 months, but he would need to keep those up for 4-5 years without fail. So it would be possible, but probably not for a human. So that research paper basically says "Magnus can reach 2900, but the effort required is unsustainable", and that is also what I'm saying in my post which describes how the Elo system works.

But how many games are needed for him to hit 2900 from 2850? He doesn't need to consistently play at 2900 level, just long enough to reach the gain the 50 point difference. Depending on how many games are required it might not be that unlikely to have a streak that takes him over. Edit: Also he got to like 2889 in live rating, how many more wins would he have needed to tip over 2.9k? 2... 3..? He was so close and a it of extra luck at the right time and he would have broken the barrier over 10 years ago. So yes, it is very possible without rating inflation.

Yes it would be possible. At 2889 he´d be so strong compared to others that he´d be in the situation that he'd need to win 2-3 more games against another 2800 to take him over 2900. However, one single draw against a 2800 would mean he'd need 2 extra wins to compensate. I think it's impossibly hard to maintain that level. In the end, Carlsen couldn't do it at his utmost peak, so I don't think he could achieve it now. Gukesh might, if he's very lucky and achieves Carlsen-at-his-top performance + a little more.

Theoretically couldn't a 2850 just farm rating against 2600s? I know there is a point where you can't gain any more elo, but Erigaisi has linda being doing something like it.

Winning every time against 2600s is still almost impossible, and drawing a single game is quite substantial rating loss at that rating difference

No, it's actually the opposite. Playing against players over 200 points below you is essentially rating suicide, since the higher rated player will lose rating even if they perform as empirically expected of them. Some players have managed to do it in short term like Erigaisi recently, but that's just an insane streak and if he did it for a thousand games, he too would lose rating. Basically, if Magnus exclusively plays 2800 opponents, he will get to 2900 eventually if he performs at around 2900 level consistently. But if he played against 2600s, he would need to perform at close to 3000 level to get there. Of course, if you go low enough then you will eventually get to a point where you can farm opponents because you simply win every game. But that's not 2600, not even close, it's probably between 1800-2000 where Magnus could, in the long run, win every single game to farm unlimited rating. I have seen a player beat a player 800-900 points higher than them, and as for draws even much bigger upsets have surely happened. I can't even say for sure that even 2000 is low enough where Magnus could farm to 2900 without dropping even a single draw.

Against a single player, it wouldn't be unexpected for the expected winning percentage to be different from what elo suggests given characteristics of the matchups (maybe the higher elo player knows the lower players' openings exhaustively). However, at least in some formats the winrate of lower elo players against higher elo players exceeds that predicted by pure elo difference, even with titled players. This is true both otb and online. https://www.chess.com/news/view/chess-com-publishes-fair-play-report-on-titled-tuesday So I think it's reasonably fair to say that attempting farming elo this way would in the long run work against the higher rated player, especially since a draw is a positive outcome for the lower rated player and chess games don't have to be decisive (purely win/loss)

I talked to god he told me carlsen will reach 2900 do you know more than god lolllll just joking thanks for nice explanation of ratings

Very interesting! I wonder what the effects of the fide circed will be. With more super gms playing open tournaments maybe the top guys all gain/loose a lot of rating.

Crabs in a bucket. Will fide let people play 2800-2900 engines and count the results as official?

Yes he did a maths.

OP didn't ask if Carlsen would reach 2900, he asked if someone, someday, would reach 2900.

In that case: yes. Due to rating inflation, someone, at some time in the future, will reach 2900, but no current player will do so in the next 200 games he plays. (If you find the linked research paper in this thread you can read why.)

Reachable once Magnus finds and spams his «Magnus setup and countergame King side gambit»

Only inflation. I don't see anyone ever being more dominant than Magnus. Maybe match him, but not surpass him in dominant performance. Right now it's not that he isn't winning enough, it's that the field is too weak for him to get meaningful rating off of them. So only way for 2900 is an inflated field.

I think Fischer and Kasparov in their peaks were more dominant than Magnus has been

I think it's likely that they wouldn't have been as dominant as they were if engines had existed. Fischer famously hated the growing importance of studying opening theory, and that was even before computers were clearly better than humans. I feel like intense engine-aided study and preparation helps close the gap between the singular once-in-a-generation players like Kasparov and Carlsen, and the "regular great" players. Ultimately though no way to know for sure.

I’m surprised chess 960 didn’t become more popular.

It's so good, but this is chess. If it gains popularity it could take a few more decades before you start to notice.

Fischer and Kasparov were known for being obsessively hard working, especially when it came to openings. Fischer knew every opening under the sun from every variation from every book or article he could find(he learned foreign languages to study from foreign theory). Kasparov had an elite team of GMs and preparation for 20 years. Probably the player who popularized deep opening theory the most and shaped up modern chess as it is today. The point being that it's very likely it would've gone the opposite way and engines would have propelled those 2 players to an even bigger dominance. It's hard to say, but it's not as easy of a prediction.

> Kasparov had an elite team of GMs and preparation for 20 years. But this also goes the other way. There is a limited number of elite GMs, and I think it's fair to say that they'd rather work for the #1 player than the #2, #3... Not saying that access to Stockfish is exactly the same as access to an elite GM, but it could be an improvement to the overall resources at the disposal of the #3 player.

I understand fischer, but why kasparov exactly?

During most of Kasparov's career chess engines, especially those available to the public, were not better than an elite human chess player.

I'll use Anand as an example. Kasparov has a good record against him. Anand successfully converted from the 90s to the engine era while still being dominant. It should follow that Kaspaorv, had he been younger, would've done the same

In my mind the question here is "Are engines the reason that the difference between Carlsen and his peers seems a bit smaller than that between Kasparov and his peers?" Basically the only way to actually know the answer to this question is if a new #1 comes along who's more dominant than Carlsen. Then we could probably say "no" with some certainty. Since Anand was less dominant than Carlsen, I don't think he would inform the answer to the question either way.

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I mean for the first sentence of the last comment. I understand why Kasparov is the GOAT

Also no one gave a fuck about chess so long ago. Now it’s super popular and much much easier to train.

Us vs Russia was the last time chess was really popular, but it was really popular.

You don’t think chess was popular in the Fischer era?? Neither of my grandmothers have ever even known how to move the pieces, but they both recognise the name Bobby Fischer. He was a huge celebrity.

Please tell me you’re joking lol.

Chess was considerably more popular in the 1970s in the US at least than it is now. Chess has undergone a significant renaissance lately but it’s still very much so a niche hobby for the majority of people

Chess is more popular now than ever. Why? Internet, streamers, queens gambit, lock down. You don’t need to go somewhere or with someone to play anymore, just grab a phone and you’re good to go.

Chess is more popular now than it was 10 years ago. Don’t mistake that with more popular now than ever. If you polled 100 people on the street today you’d be surprised how few of them have ever heard of Magnus Carlsen and even fewer still would know who the world champion is. 50-60 years ago chess was broadcast over the radio and major tournaments were covered by the major newspapers. We may have increased access now and more people may be dedicated to learning the game and watching content but in terms of general popularity it pales in comparison to the golden age. That isn’t to say we won’t ever get back to that point, but streaming and YouTube is a dedicated niche of people it’s not nearly as widespread as you might think outside of that ecosystem

You keep talking about “ifs”, using empirial data of your own. Here’s some hard data: 60 years ago there were exactly 0 indian GMs and 0 chinese GMs. 60 years ago around 10 people applied to be a FIDE GM per year, this decade the number has grown to around 70 per year, highlighting not only the exponential increase in interest at the top level but also the increase in amount of quality players.

> 60 years ago around 10 people applied to be a FIDE GM per year, this decade the number has grown to around 70 per year Tbh I would think that a 7x increase in 60 years is actually less than the increase in the number of people on earth who are in an environment where a serious pursuit of chess is a realistic endeavor (as opposed to mostly worrying about securing tomorrow's meal). Especially in China and India.

Has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about but sure China and India have had a chess boom

Why it has nothing to do with chess being more popular today? What?

Kid named 1972 WC match:

I can understand the argument for Kasparov. I think in terms of pure playing strength, Magnus has to be the best of all time, just since knowledge and technology continues to improve. Domination is probably more subjective and based on either time at #1, or the gap between #1 and #2. Time at Number 1 = Kasparov 1st with 255 months, Carlsen 2nd with 168 months (needs to remain #1 until 2031 to beat Kasparov) and Karpov is third with 102 months. In terms of the largest gap between #1 and #2, that probably goes to Fischer, then maybe Carlsen. I only say this because in the mid 90s Karpov, Kasparov and Kramnick were all interchangeably #1, which suggests less of an outright gap in strength.

The funny thing for me is that Garry Kasparov is the first player that I really had a "wow, this guy is a different beast" moment with when watching games. Like Fischer and Carlsen are clearly very strong compared to their peers, but their games are always straightforward and logical. Obviously it takes a lot of skill to be that consistently good and make so few mistakes, but you have to take a step back to appreciate them as players. With Kasparov I remember seeing Kasparov - Topalov, Wijk een zee 1999, and really being blown away by the feat of calculation that was. Like it really is the game that makes you go "this guy was something really special".

I’ve been into chess for 11 years now and Kasparov’s double rook sacrifice is, for me, a clear top 3 all time tactic. Obviously that’s subjective but the vision and calculation required to pull that off and capitalise with other tough moves down the line is actually insane. If I have to round out the top 3 it’s probably Shirov’s [47. Bh3!!](https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1143956) and Khismatullin’s [44. Kg1!!](https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1786318). Poor Topalov is on the receiving end of Kasparov’s and Shirov’s Edit: Khismatullin’s may look like an only move more or less but he had to have seen it before the knight trade at the very least, possibly even earlier

For both gap and time, it would be Morphy. He was, by most measures (as evaluated by modern engines or by performance against common opponents) better than Steinitz who was #1 even 40 years after Morphy.

I thought Steinitz was actually calculated to be stronger than Morphy by modern statisticians. According to chess metrics, Morphy was first #1 in 1858, and lost his #1 spot in 1861, holding it for 39 months in total. I actually forgot, Lasker was objectively #1 for over 24 years, to Kasparovs 21 years.

Morphy was a time-traveller, confirmed

-97 years as the world number 1. Incredible.

Chess metrics looks at ELO, which underwent a major inflation after Morphy popularized the game. Which is why Anderssen peaked at age 52...with a peak rating above Morphy! It is obviously nonsense. A 52 year old Anderssen was not going to beat Morphy either. A more objective stat is accuracy of moves or ACPL if you want to consider stats....or simply just performance against common opponents.

You last paragraph is not true. The best player in the all 90s was Kasparov by a large margin, way more dominant than Magnus

This is a nice breakdown. Magnus is the strongest of all time. But in terms of greatness you have either longevity you’d give to Kasparov, or how much better you were than the competition which would be Fischer. The modern day there’s no longer a way to be as far ahead of the competition as Fischer due to engines existing. So it’s hard to put any real comparisons to this in the modern day. Magnus at least has that perception from his competitors as being such an entity though. And a Kasparov vs Magnus comparison is hard. Kasparov was dominant and undisputed: but plugging him into modern day with engines: his playstyle if unchanged would not stand up against the engine prep machines, and even if he did change it to align with engines, despite everyone with the same prep, Magnus is still the best to ever do out once outside preparation throughout this engine era. But this shouldn’t be a knock to Kasparov. Sustained excellence should still put him #1. But in reality, pre-engine and engine eras should be entirely separate categories.

This is true. But I just think Magnus' skill set is unparalleled, his memory is insane. Just immediately recognising historical positions from blank counters being placed on a board. A lot of the other GMs that aren't magnus and don't have this ability appear to be around the same level. As far as I know neither Fisher or Gary are known to have a photographic memory. So we don't know whether if you transpose the I tire current top group back in time whether they would have settled below Kasparov with Kasparov and Magnus ahead. Or it might be that actually the top guys are Kasparov level (and we're just finding and developing more of them) and still Magnus stands alone above them. There's no real way to tell, I just think that the traits Magnus has really seemed to astound even other Super GMs

The argument for Magnus is that he’s still considerably better than all his peers and all his peers get to study the answer key. There will always be outliers but to separate like he has in this era is just different

I remember having seen a documentary on Kasparov, where his exceptional, even photographic, memory was mentioned. I think most top players have an excellent memory, of course that of the elite guys will be outstanding.

I think most top chess players do. Growing up playing it their brain just works that way. It's just seeing videos of Magnus being tested on like historical games, not even modern stuff you'd want to keep fresh, and he nails it instantly, and other GMs being genuinely shocked by it. There was another clip of him being quizzed about Hikaru's life, where he was born, brothers name. Magnus looks like he is confused and doesn't know the answers but still gets them right every time. It's beyond just a good memory I think, he has recall of things that didn't even interest him or he didn't intend to learn and didn't know he knew. Plus then he also forensically studies like the entire history of chess. He just seems like an outlier to me.

I mean...this could just be recency bias on your part (the evidence here seems to be two recent youtube videos). Kasparov also had an insane memory, beyond that of other GMs

Yeah I remember looking up major tournament victories and Kasparov won something like 75% of them, while Magnus was closer to 60-66%. And Fischer had a stretch where he was winning everything.

Both played a lot less too. I think Magnus keeping his dominant rating for so long, while playing as actively as he has, is more impressive. I also think in the age of computers, Magnus's competition is stronger than Fischer, and probably Kasparov's. This is why I think Magnus is the last dominant champ we'll have. I think the next generation isn't gonna have anyone who stands above the others clearly. I think they are all too close in strength. I think Prag, Gukesh, Arjun, and Nodirbek are gonna play musical chairs with the title going forward.

They might be close in their strength now but have varying ages. If a 18 and a 21 year old have the same strength now, that does not mean they'll be the same strength in 5 years. That conclusion is just stupid.

Fischer wasn't around as long so I don't find his domination as meaningful, but Kasparov is a good argument for now, unless Magnus manages to surpass him.

>Right now it's not that he isn't winning enough, it's that the field is too weak for him to get meaningful rating off of them. So only way for 2900 is an inflated field. At his first 2882 in [May 2014](https://ratings.fide.com/toparc.phtml?cod=305) there was only one other 2800+ (Aronian at 2815) and top 10 finished at 2768. At his second 2882 in [August 2019](https://ratings.fide.com/toparc.phtml?cod=557) there were two other players at 2800+ (Caruana at 2818, Ding at 2805) and top 10 finished at 2763. At the moment (official Elo as of June 2024) we have Caruana at 2805 as the only non-Magnus 2800+ and top 10 finishes at 2755. It's not that very different. If 2882 was possible back then, at least 2870 is possible now.

Magnus wasn't even that dominant. Not like Fischer or Kasparov. And all of their peaks would seem  impossible until they happened, especially Fischer. So we really don't know. 

Exactly! Between 1967 and 1972 Fischer won every single tournament and match with a huge score, including two matches against top players where he won every single game (the famous 6-0).

If dominance is your metric then there have been atleast two players who were more dominant than magnus, even if you don't count Morphy (btw chess player didn't start a world championship till Morphy does for that exact reason) . Kasparov and Fischer. Kasparov did it for way longer and I don't think magnus can even come close to the duration just because he is unmotivated nowadays. As for fischer , even though his peak wasn't that long lived due to him disappearing the feat he accomplished during that time are crazy enough that I don't think even peak magnus can repeat. Not loosing against gm is easy if you are a top gm but absolute battering he gave other gm was insane, especially considering they were fixing matches trying to beat him. Ps : I am not saying magnus isn't the strongest player strength wise, i think most top 10s are better than previous generation, but dominance is really different matter.

If the field is too weak then he should just be climbing non stop at a very slow pace. Obviously that is not the case. It is just the fact that Magnus is not so high above the rest top players to achieve 2900, after all elo is relative

That's not how ELO works. U can win a majority of the time n still lose rating in that minority of losses since your opponents are too weak. Dominant is subjective si let's assign a number. Say he has 85% win rate which is insane already but to not lose rating points he has to win 86% overall. He fails by ELO projected win rate but he is definitely dominant by all means. Nonstop gains lmao. The day any human achieves that is near 100% win rate which means he would be Stockfish himself. E.g. let's say the field inflates, i don't believe it would affect Magnus' win rate in any meaningful way but it would give him a better buffer when he loses by losing less and gaining more rating thus making it more likely to hit 2900 and he still is as dominant as before the inflation.

Obviously you didn't understand my point. If he was worth 2900 elo that would be because he was so much better than the rest to pretty much be able to win as many games in a row as is necessary to counter the point loss from a draw or defeat before returning to his winning streak again. Clearly he is not that good. How am I missing how elo works?

Because he needs other high rated players to get to 2900. Hikaru said he thought Magnus was about 50-55 elo higher playing strength than anyone else, which is dominate. But for easy example he would need several 2850 players to play against to get to 2900. There aren't enough points in the system to trickle up to support several 2850 players.

You cannot assign a rating to a player and take away the level of performance that rating assumes. Carlsen would struggle to win against a 2850 because he is at that rating himself. What makes you think that he wouldn't be going even with someone of a similar rating to him in wins/losses?

Exactly my point. All he needs is the regular few he always play with to maybe cannibalize on some other people outside their regular group, gain more rating as a whole, then Magnus can meaningfully make rating gains. At some point, ELO projected win rates are just impossible for a human to maintain if the differences between your closes competitors are too large. Humans have off form days as well and last I heard, Magnus is still human.

Yeah I can see that happening. Anish foregoing closed events to grind the open ones to gain half a point per victory to reach 2850. It should only take him a year or two. Sure there are ways to game the system but not in a beneficial way for the individual that is doing the gaming. Edit: of course Anish would lose all those points and plummet to his current rating meaning that Magnus would follow that trajectory as well or try to find another player to follow anish's example

I don't think people understand the power of readily available engines and online content on chess. Any kid can sit down and analyze a position or get instant feedback and analysis on every move they make during a game. This will be big for kids who would just a few years ago have no access to chess analysis or a chess teacher.

While technically possible with the current system and ratings, it's highly highly unlikely, statistically speaking. So unless there is an elo inflation or changes to the system/formula, I highly doubt that anyone would reach 2900

Shouldn't more players = more rating for everyone? Is that what's called rating inflation? I'm a bit confused on this note

It's actually the opposite. Since the 70s there hasn't been any inflation, in fact there has been a slight general deflation

Inflation is caused by players moving to a rating that’s different from their starting rating and then stopping. So if you start at e.g. 1200, then get to 2000 and never play again, you’ve effectively taken 800 elo away from the rest of the world that can never go back in. The same thing happens in reverse (1200 -> 400 would be like giving 800 elo)

Yes I will and yes I am. Just chilling on 700 ELO right now plotting my path to greatness.

All records get broken with enough time and population growth. With chess being as timeless a game as it is, it is inevitable.

Ever? Absolutely. But odds are they are not alive now, no.

I think Magnus \*could\* do it, but he lacks the motivation for classical at this point. Maybe rating inflation will eventually push him over the line, but I doubt that will happen in the immediate future. If not him, then definitely one of the youngsters at some point; they're actually pretty insane.

>I think Magnus \*could\* do it, but he lacks the motivation for classical at this point When Magnus reached 2882 elo in 2014-15, rating inflation was probably at its peak Now? i am not sure

What about when he reached 2882 again in 2019?

I doubt it. Rating inflation is less these days, Magnus is past his prime He’d have to be pretty lucky to cross 2900. Even if he reached 2900 he would not be able to sustain it

And you so confidently say he's past his prima because?

He himself has said it. He peaked in 2019 and is now just slowing his decline as much as possible.

I heard vaguely he said it himself. I am not sure where was the link though

he said his calculating was past his prime. but that itself does not determine chess strength. experience and knowledge also plays a role. This is how he was able to match his peak again in 2019.

Ah I see In that case he MIGHT get 2900 but it’s gonna be pretty tough

the thing is you also need the motivation and willingness to grind and at this point I think he has given up on that dream. He did make it his goal in like 2021 or 2022 but since then has quit the world championship and played less chess overall as his rating (and the field as well) has declined. So it'd take a miracle at this point id say. He had a real shot in 2014 and 2019 tho

I think he's definitely past his prime and won't be the one to cross 2900. He did hit that same peak Elo when rating inflation wasn't as much of an issue, though.

We’ll see. Magnus’s biggest obstacle to getting to 2900 was that no one was similarly rated to him. Top level chess tends to be drawish, so it’s hard to get to 2900 when your opponent is fine with drawing you and you lose rating even though you’re playing a 2800 player. No other active player has even gotten to 2850, and even Kasparov peaked at 2851 (likely for similar reasons).

Well if they are dead, they definitely won’t be reaching it anytime soon 🤔

Very true

I can do it. Just upload stockfish engine like they do in matrix

It will be harder than ever. Everyone has access to training, theory and opponents (human and engine) which will level the playing field. 2900 implies a level of dominance that will only be more difficult in the future.

Yeah, with how elo systems work, probably. With more and more grandmasters and more and more super grandmasters there will be more points up there. Magnus had an inflated elo tbh, it's closer to where it should be now

Yes, I believe so. Magnus was extremely close to breaking it - I do believe if things got better for him, he might have managed it. If they're alive right now? Who knows? Possibly. I'm not optimistic, but perhaps

Nah it won’t be Magnus. He’s the GOAT but even himself admitted he’s past his prime.

Of course, not Magnus now In 2014-2015 he was surprisingly close. His live rating was 2889.2 which was... so close but no cigar

The thing is, that was around the time of peak rating inflation. Back then you had around 50 2700 players. We've basically been in a deflationary period ever since and now we are down to 35 super GMs. The rating inflation peak was because you had the historically highest classical participation rates, which mathematically leads to higher elo for top players. But fewer people play classical chess these days, so unless the Covid/India chess boom reverses that trend or you start changing the calculation formula, you won't see a 2900 for a long time, if ever.

Absolutely. We are in an unprecedented era right now, we have 8 year olds playing hundreds, if not thousands, of live games every day on their smartphones. The youth today have far more resources and far more access to chess than Magnus ever had growing up.

While it may have correlation, i don't think that is the whole truth. Maybe playing a thousand games on chess.com a day is not as beneficial as sitting down for 2 hours an reading a chess book, which I am pretty sure Magnus did, while i don't know if kids these days study that much. I'd say they just play a huge amount of games.

Spamming online games is a misuse of the resource. The real prodigies are still reading books and studying, just now they do it online and can also play various strong opponents in a way the young carlsen couldn't.

A thousand games a day as an 8 year old? Or as anyone? I don’t think you fully appreciate how unlikely that is.  30 second bullet game with a 30 second break between matches would only get you 960 games. And that’s assuming you played for 24 hours straight. 

It would need to be someone like Fischer who just comes out of nowhere and is just much better than everyone else. I don't see it happening in this age of computers though, everyone is just too good.

No it would need to be so actually. With many players at 2800-ish level already, it may only take a few years for one to reach 2900. If "everyone is soo good", then their Elo can go up together.

That's not how it works. There was actually rating deflation not too long ago. Plus there was a time when we had several people over 2800 and still no one could do it not even magnus and computers weren't that good when he got his rating record

> That's not how it works. It is, actually, over the long term. > There was actually rating deflation not too long ago. There may or may not have been a little. Assuming this was so, it may or may not reverse in the future. That does not matter much for the question at hand. If there are several over-2800 players, and at least some of them improves their playing strength (and/or adjust their established rating due to results from highly rated opponents), then the top one is likely to approach 2900. It is only a matter of time for the topmost rating to surpass what Magnus had. > here was a time when we had several people over 2800 And prior to that it was unheard of to have such group. So there are fluctuations, but their is an overall upward trend for the best of the best.

2900 is possible with sizeable rating inflation at the top, lets say top 10 avg gets inflated to 2800, and a dominant player like magnus has a good run for a while, then the top player will reach 2900 quite easily. under current condition, with rating deflation due to covid, its not possible for anyone.

magnus had a chance in 2019. He was legit 2 good tournaments away. Had it not been for covid breaking his momentum he probably had a chance to do it. I doubt he'll get that opportunity again. As for someone else? Maybe gukesh if he keeps climbing at this rate. prob one of the 5-12 year old super prodigies that will break through

Eventually, yes. It will require having a handful of people advancing into the mid 2800s at the same time, allowing one of them to potentially push their way to to 2900 by performing well against the others who are well over 2800. When you only have Magnus in the mid 2800s, and everyone else struggles to get over 2800, it's very hard for him to gain ELO, because each win doesn't help him a ton, while losses really hurt. A future GM being able to play multiple people in the 2840-2860 range would be what is needed to be able to push their ELO to 2900.

When Magnus reached his peak elo of 2882, there were only 2 other players rated over 2800, Fabiano Caruana and Ding Liren. Fabi was rated 2818, and Ding Liren 2806. If we get another player as dominant as Magnus Carlsen, then it should only require like 3 other players over 2800 rating, with one or two around 2830.

Serious answer is rating inflation. But fun fact, In an interview when he was 10 and had just become an IM, Pragg said that his goal was to reach 3000 elo. [https://www.chessbase.in/news/interview-with-r-praggnanandhaa/](https://www.chessbase.in/news/interview-with-r-praggnanandhaa/)

Hans Mocke Neimann often plays at 3634 ELO level

I reckon so

with time I believe yes

There are some great youngsters! But there needs to be one youngster who is significantly greater. Unclear if the younger players are on a trajectory to surpass existing players or are simply getting faster at approaching the same level.

yes, me, jsut wait, eventually......hopefully........ one day

Yes. All rating increases are relative to the lowest player. I do think that humans at their peak will get better beyond Carlsen because they have and have grown up with tools greater than what Magnus had, so the new prodigies have higher ceilings than Magnus.

>although with all the record breaking youngsters hitting the scenes recently, like Faustino Oro and Ethan Pang, It's hard to believe it won't happen within the next decade or two. this is a misguided notion, because Elo is relative lots of great youngsters doesn't mean anyone would have a 'record-breaking' Elo, if they're all as good as each other the chess players of today are 'better' than previous generations in objective terms, in that they would beat them, but their Elos aren't higher en masse --- I think the mistake the top post makes is assuming that Magnus would have to play at that level consistently; it basically answers the question 'could Magnus be a 2900 player', rather than 'could Magnus hit 2900 *ever*', which is a much more realistic goal I think the most likely way to do that would be to be at a high rating and then happen to get a bunch of good results in a row for example, when he was 2882, he would've needed about 4 wins vs 2700 players consecutively to hit 2900 so, could he get to 2850, and then happen to get a 9/10 in a tournament or something like that? it's possible, but I agree his best chance is likely already past

Of course, it’s only a matter of time till someone plays out of their mind for a period of time

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The only way it is possibly without rating inflation, IMO: we get into a Kasparov-Karpov situation with two dominant players at say 2850-2860 elo and they face each other in the world championship after one of them has undergone a Ding-like collapse. Basically, it’s not happening with ratings that accurately reflect skill level unless there’s inflation.

Only with inflation. Kasparov reached 2800 in 1990, after winning 4 super tournaments in a row in 1989 with crushing scores, 11/13 8.5/10 ...., gaining only 25 points. He made this against 2600s only, because only him and Karpov were above 2700. So Carlsen needs to go up to 2875, win 4 super tournaments with top 20 players, with absolutely dominant scores like he never achieved before, and he will get there.

I think we would need some relatively large rating inflation or a way larger player base. The problem is simply that you lose rating if you draw lower rated players and at the top it's just way too easy to draw stronger players if you're white and/or have a large amount of opening prep. If you're playing against players rated 2750 on average if you wanna reach 2900 you have to get a score higher than 7/10. You think this seems possible? 50% of your games are with black and if your opponents simply play for a draw you're gonna have a really tough time. A score of 7/10 could be reached with: 6 draws 4 wins You're playing a tournament with 10 rounds. Because your opponents are playing for a draw you manage to lose no games and win 1/5 of your games with black and 3/5 of your games with white. Seems possible? Your performance is still slightly below 2900 Oh and btw. you don't just have to do this once you have to be consistently at that level to get to slightly below 2900 if you actually wanna reach 2900 you better relatively regularly win that second game with black even though all your opponents are playing for a draw without ever losing a single game because you pushed too hard for the win Only way to realistically reach 2900 is to be playing a field which can't simply use their opening prep to play for a draw -> a field with a higher average rating This could be achieved either via inflation or a way higher player count (which would result in more strong players) which could allow you to simply pick the strongest players and play against them

i think so. paul morphy was so far above his competition. bobby fischer was 2785 when the next was in the 2600s.. some phenom will come along that will surpass magnus.

It's possible if there are a lot more 2750+ players (say some 50+) and a couple more 2800+ players (say 10+), so that one of the 2800 ones has a chance of passing 2900. Basically transpose the current situation with 2650+ (~80 players) somewhat to 2750+.

eh ... does it even matter really? elo is just a relative measurement according to your win% against others and it depends on how many players are actively playing too.

The only way it’s happening is through rating inflation. No one, till now have broken into the scene who has been as dominant as Magnus or just so much better than everyone that its not even close.

With elo inflation someone will get there eventually

I mean, you said it yourself. The answer is yes - Ethan Pang. I made a few comments here a couple weeks ago but people simply weren’t ready to hear about Ethan Pang, the highest rated U9 player ever. But people are starting to wake up. To Ethan Pang.

Wait til he's 18 to ride him that hard goddamn

I think some of the child prodigies maybe.

I guess the bigger picture is, does it really matter?

The year is 2040. Arjun Erigaisi is playing is 1000th open tournament. He makes about one point per tournament as a whole now

If there's money in it at GM level (not super GM), then a lot more people will see it as a decent profession, and then yes there will be people who cast a shadow over all current top players. Just consider that someone who practices programming puzzles day and night, can get into FAANG, and make half a million dollars per year. If they could do the same with chess, they would, and there would be actual competition in chess.  Chess is a lot more accessible now, including training, I wish I had this access when I was a kid, I only chess life magazines for all my training. So all that's missing is incentive (money). However I doubt there will ever be this money. End of the day, chess is a board game, and it's not going to get as popular as soccer, or any sport with real money behind it.

Unlikely but possible with how good some of these prodigies have been. There’s this one kid who is either ten or under that has beat both Magnus and Hikaru before in a game, of course he’s not better than them. But the fact he’s at a level to be able to at least take a game from them specifically the GOAT is wild. If kids like him keep popping up I can see 2900 happening

RemindMe! 10 years "are we above 2900 Elo yet?"

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Will anyone get the number 2900? depends on how rating inflation/deflation happens Will anyone ever perform be 20 point better than magnus did to get his 2882? possibly

Will anyone get the number 2900? depends on how rating inflation/deflation happens Will anyone ever perform be 20 point better than magnus did to get his 2882? possibly

Well there's a lot of strong kids

Isn't there inflation in elo which makes this bound to happen at some point?

I think currently elo in the top level is quite stable. I read a post about there being more 2700s 10 years ago than today, because back then there was some proper rating inflation happening

Kind of? Ratings do trend upward over time but there's also the situation we have now where there are tons of really great 2600s/underrated people in general who can draw super GMs enough that gaining rating at 2800 is insanely hard.

Fide injected millions of points into the low rated rating pool. Who knows what that will do in the long term. If you didn't know basically everyone under 2000 gained like 200-300 points

I wonder if there is some calculation to past elo numbers. I want to compare my number today with my number in the past. Could turn out that I did not get better over time but it was only "inflation". Or... everybody got better ;)

Genuine question, what does it mean to "inject millions of points"? Did they just hand it out, "okay you were 1400? You're now 1700"?

yes, they did that for anyone under 2000 as far as I know.

So I'm now 1750, no work required? Woohoo!

Lol were you 1400? You probably did get boosted several hundred points, have you checked your fide page? They did this march 1

Well I would say nobody was thinking x was possible 50 years ago. Then 25 years ago nobody was expecting y. Now we had the chess boom, we have indian players that are very strong and other very young players who have a bright future ahead if they follow their career. Maybe in 25 years Faustion Oro will have a 2900 rating, maybe someone who isn't even born yet will have a 3000 elo in 50 years. I think this goes for every sport. Football was a completly different game 50 years ago, 100m sprint was completly different 50 years ago and so was chess.

In this context it it worth addressing that many people keep proposing that there has been rating inflation. It should be pointed out that the only serious [statistical analysis of the matter found none](https://en.chessbase.com/post/minstrength-an-alternative-to-performance-rating#:~:text=However%2C%20Ken%20Regan%20argues%20that,were%20similar%20for%20other%20ratings). Rather, top GM play keeps improving. So yeah, there will be >2900 Elo, and probably in the not too distant future (like within 2 decades at most) - so the player(s) to achive it are likely born already, and may not be very young either.

I have not heard of those two youngsters you mentioned. However, it can happen with rating inflation. I don't believe it would be achieved by one player like Magnus who is far ahead of everyone. It can only be achieved if there are 10-15 players who are rated above 2800. In some ways, if rating becomes inflated enough that 2800 becomes the new 2700, we will see a player reach 2900. It is very difficult to see a 2900 when the remaining players are not even 2800.

Faustino Oro is a young argentinian who has been quite popular recently for beating Magnus Carlsen in bullet (He's 10). He is also currently fighting to become the youngest IM ever, in the [Barcelona IM 2024](https://chess-results.com/tnr932419.aspx?lan=1&art=9&fed=ARG&turdet=YES&flag=30&snr=3) Ethan Pang is an 8 year old who just recently became the youngest player to reach a rating of 2200.

rating inflation is a real thing. So yes, over time it will be done.

Firouzja could do it, if he'd concentrate on chess instead of spending half his time pursuing a different career. Might be too late though. There's other young top GMs who are capable of achieving it (Gukesh, some of the other young Indins, Abdusattorov). If not them, it will be somebody who's 5-15 years old now and who we haven't heard of yet.