Hi Peter,

Great report.

Maybe you should consider making your links opening in a new page so people can stay on chessvibes.com!

Cheers

re: "Magnus Carlsen reached his peak rating of 2837 and is only 15 points shy of passing Garry Kasparov's all-time high of 2851."

Well yes and no. It is like comparing the salaries that people earned long ago with those of today. We have to adjust for inflation and we must take into account the average of other top earners/players of the time.

That is why Gary Kasparov said that he did not think that Magnus Carlsen's rating achievements compare with Bobby Fischer's. So let's not set things up for a big whoop if Carlsen's inflated rating actually passes Kasparov. Historically, he would still have not proven himself as dominant (over his contemporaries) as Kasparov or Fischer (however maybe Fischer's performance should be punished with an asterisk because he quit before facing Karpov; he would have lost major rating points with each draw with Karpov - as happened to Anand).

please reference:

http://www.thechessmind.net/blog/2012/5/25/the-highest-ratings-ever-adju...

Kasparov 2851 dominance in January 2000 FIDE Rating list!

82 points difference vs number 2,
93 points differencevs number 3,
100 points difference vs number 4,
103 points difference vs number 5,

January 2000 - FIDE Rating List
1 . Kasparov, Garry : 2851
2 . Anand, Viswanathan : 2769
3 . Kramnik, Vladimir : 2758
4 . Shirov, Alexei : 2751
5 . Morozevich, Alexander : 2748

Carslen needs between 2888 and 2898 to show similar dominance among pars!

Exactly, Magnus does not dominate his opponents in a way Fischer or Kasparov did. One reason for that (besides the relative strenght of the player) is that it is much harder nowadays to build up an information edge like Kasporaov with his infamous database obviously did. Nowadays everybody has access to IT which narrows the information gap dramatically, especially since Houdini etc. are way stronger than any human. Thus, (theoretic) knowledge is more evenly distributed, which makes it way more difficult to dominate like Fischer or Kasparov did. Because the average rating of Kasparov's opponents was much lower than the average rating of Carlsen's opponents, it is likely that Kasparov benefited much more from the 400-point rule than Carlsen (http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7941). Thus, Kasparov's rating might be more inflated than Carlson's.

Well, if performance is a function of available knowledge, raw talent, and memory, I would say that available knowledge is much more evenly distributed nowadays than ever before (Anand mentioned this point also during his lecture). The fact that engines play much stronger than any human, has a negative influence on the importance of raw talent. Thus, I think the importance of available knowledge and raw talent has decreased a bit. Instead, memory has become much more important. Still Carlson manages to stick out. Even if it is not as much as Kasparov, this might be at least partially attributed to the diminshed importance of available knowledge and raw talent.

We can hardly imagine something new like this with no big rating calc. errors coming with it.

Get Judit Polgar off the ratings list, tired of seeing her on it, she doesn't even compete

Actually she was rated for games played i 2012.

I tried to find out which events were actually rated for the rapid and blitz "lists" - these are the results of a rather rough survey:

- in rapid the tiebreak games of the Anand-Gelfand match and the rapid games between Karpov and Seirawan (but not the blitz games from the same match!?).
Unrated: French GP Series (Vachier-Lagrave won the first two of five events), Vladimir Petrov Memorial (won by Morozevich ahead of, among others, Shirov, Ivanchuk and Mamedyarov), Topalov-Vallejo match.
- blitz: Dutch Open Championship - that's how Speelman got his blitz rating, other GM participants included Fressinet, Seirawan, van Wely, Sadler, Timman, Naiditsch. Funnily winner Fressinet lost 40 rating points compared to his classical rating, this could well be a record for a tournament winner.
Unrated: Aeroflot Blitz won by Karjakin ahead of, among others, Grischuk, Caruana, Mamedyarov. The Chessvibes report stated "As we understand, this tournament will be calculated for the FIDE blitz ratings" - I don't blame Chessvibes at all, but what's going on??

What's going on in general? Are some time controls not acceptable, or did many organizers fail to submit rating reports for whichever reason(s)? If this seemingly random pattern continues, I will find it hard to take rapid and blitz ratings seriously.

If Elo Rating is ever to be taken seriously it will have to be measured more consistently. f.e. How can we rate a game played at 40 moves 150 minutes against one played at 40 moves 90 minutes against one played at 40 moves 120 minutes against one played in 100 minutes without creating confusion? There are just too many different time controls being lumped together to come up with the NoOne.

Kasprov will always try to put down anybody who even hints at dominance. i am not surprised he doesnt think Carlsen is dominant enough. Carlsen's tournament winning streak is arguablyas impressive, if not more than Kasparov's.

Unless Anand shows otherwise in his next few tournament games, #5 appears a bit high for him. Before the pro-Anand brigade jumps in to attack me, let me add that i think Anand is a top 3 All-Time player along with Fisher and Kasparov. He was 2817 a year ago and has fallen to 2780 having played a relatively few number of games. So, my criticism of his ranking is based on current playing strength (which is what the rating is supposed to measure). Oh, and if only rapid ratings were in vogue the last two decades, Anand would have been even more dominant than a Kasparov (longevity) or a Fisher (peak). Of course, that is all in the past - now both Aronian and Carlsen will be easily ahead of him even in rapid.

Kramnik would be first even today if there was a blindfold rating.

I expect Karjakin to move up towards 2800 in the next few lists.

Who is this Carlson anyway?

Can someone please tell me Magnus's head-head score with Vishy Anand in the classical games? I remember that he has beaten Anand just once and lost more than a couple of times.