The London Chess Classic has become a historic tournament on Saturday as with his draw against Hikaru Nakamura, Magnus Carlsen has beaten Garry Kasparov's record rating of 2851. With his win yesterday against Polgar the Norwegian already secured a new rating of 2851, but now even if Carlsen loses his last game on Monday against Anand, he'll leave Londen with a rating gain of 8 points. This means he'll be topping the January FIDE rating list with an Elo of at least 2856.

All games in round 7 ended in draws, and so Carlsen also maintained his 4-point lead over Vladimir Kramnik. However, because the world's number one has his (well deserved!) rest day tomorrow, nothing has been decided yet.

Carlsen will be the highest rated player ever on January 1st, 2013 |  Photos © Ray Morris-Hill

And so he did it. Two years after becoming the world's youngest number one ever, Magnus Carlsen is reaching international headlines once again by becoming the highest rated player ever.

It's pretty cool. It's probably the biggest achievement so far in my career,

he told us in an interview we had with him after the game. The video will be posted as soon as possible!

Before we move on to the game itself, we'll include a tweet from the man who reached 2851 in July 1999 but lost his record today, Garry Kasparov:

Congratulations to @MagnusCarlsen! Could my rating record last other than 13 yrs? It was always 'my' number. 22 was also a good age for me!

Top ratings over the years

Playing Black, Carlsen faced Hikaru Nakamura. The opening was a c3 Sicilian (Alapin), which you don't see too often at this level. Carlsen:

I think we were both pretty surprised by the position that came on the board.

Nakamura said that he had prepared this opening for his game against Topalov at the Grand Prix in September.

At move 16 Carlsen gave a knight for two pawns which seemed quite promising, but when he took on f3 to win a third pawn, it was White who got the upper hand. Still, with some accurate moves the world's number one saved the draw and secured the record.

PGN string

By then Jones and Aronian had finished their game already; a 3.f3 Grünfeld that started very promising but then suddenly petered out into a draw.

PGN string

Not much happened in Polgar-Anand. The Indian felt he might have been slighty better out of the opening, but a few moves later it was White who was pressing a bit. Black's tactic at the end was nice.

PGN string

Yet again Luke McShane was involved in the last game. He was basically defending throughout the game, and many people felt that Adams was going to win another game, but not this time.

PGN string

During Sunday's 8th round, Magnus Carlsen is the one who will be assisting the commentators. We'd say that more than ever, the Livestream page that provides streaming video of the commentary room is worth visiting!

Commentary videos (produced by Macauley Peterson)

Pairings & results

London Chess Classic 2012 | Round 7 standings (football)

London Chess Classic 2012 | Round 7 standings (classical)