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Before today's round in the Morelia/Linares super tournament, the Norwegian wonderboy Magnus Carlsen, 17, has climbed to an astonishing 4th place in the world.

Here is the unofficial top 5 Elo list after the last round:

1 Viswanathan Anand 2801

2 Vladimir Kramnik 2788

3 Alexander Morozevich 2774

4 Magnus Carlsen 2766

5 Veselin Topalov 2763

It's unprecedented for someone that young to climb that fast to the top. Realistically he should have many years left to develop. He turned 17 in November!

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Before today's round in the Morelia/Linares super tournament, the Norwegian wonderboy Magnus Carlsen, 17, has climbed to an astonishing 4th place in the world.

Here is the unofficial top 5 Elo list after the last round:

1 Viswanathan Anand 2801

2 Vladimir Kramnik 2788

3 Alexander Morozevich 2774

4 Magnus Carlsen 2766

5 Veselin Topalov 2763

It's unprecedented for someone that young to climb that fast to the top. Realistically he should have many years left to develop. He turned 17 in November!

Carlsen is amazing but he lost to Peter Leko today in a disappointing finish--bishops of opposite color and all. Moro has no business being third highest rated. I hope Aronian moves up. He's an exciting player.

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Carlsen is amazing but he lost to Peter Leko today in a disappointing finish--bishops of opposite color and all. Moro has no business being third highest rated. I hope Aronian moves up. He's an exciting player.

Carlsen was not seen from his best side in the Leko game. He seems to have problems against two of the top players. Against Anand it is understandable, but why he has to lose time and time again against Leko who otherwise isn't doing too well these days is more of a mystery.

Anyway, Carlsen came back yesterday with a big win against Topalov (2-0 against Topalov in this tournament!). Thereby he moved back to the #4 spot with a new personal Elo record of 2767. Some feel that he will break the 2800 barrier before he turns 18! His performance Elo consistently is +2800 in his tournaments now.

Aronian is currently #6 and very close to the others above. He actually was #3 at one point, but dropped. He is not always exciting though. He regularly mixes exciting games with short draws.

As for Morozevich, I don't know. He is very efficient against lower-rated GMs, and has achieved his Elo through his results. But it is true that he hasn't won any of the top tournaments, although he hasn't played that many either. His opening play is probably too excentric when meeting Kramnik and the guys.

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Magnus is really making a splash. If he manages to win another game, he'll tie Anand for the lead with +3. It would be an incredible back to back performance after Wijk Aan Zee. The kid is a major talent.

I think we're getting some separation at the top 5 now. Topalov keeps going down, and I'm not sure if he'll beat Kamsky in their match. Top 5 for me are: 1. Anand 2. Kramnik 3. Carlsen 4. Aronian 5. Topalov.

Like to see what Nakamura will do in the near future.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Fascinating story about how they're looking at Bobby Fischer's harddrive and discovering all kinds of emails exchanged with prominent grandmasters over the last couple of decades. For those who follow grandmaster chess, you will find these emails flabbergasting. You mean that Nxf7 novelty in the Slav that Topalov sprung on Kramnik was Fischer's idea and not Ivan Cheparinov's? Hard to believe! Check this out.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4543

Edited by connoisseur series500
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Fascinating story about how they're looking at Bobby Fischer's harddrive and discovering all kinds of emails exchanged with prominent grandmasters over the last couple of decades. For those who follow grandmaster chess, you will find these emails flabbergasting. You mean that Nxf7 novelty in the Slav that Topalov sprung on Kramnik was Fischer's idea and not Ivan Cheparinov's? Hard to believe! Check this out.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4543

Nevermind guys, this is almost surely a chessbase April Fool's joke. I'm laughing now over the details. Had me going for sure.

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Moro has no business being third highest rated. I hope Aronian moves up.

Amazingly Morozevich is now after the 7th round in the Bosna tournament #2 in the world! Aronian has dropped to 12th place after finishing last in the Sofia tournament. Carlsen was for a while #4 after the FIDE Grand Prix in Baku, but both Ivanchuk and Topalov have since then passed him after their results in the Sofia tournament. There is now a clear gap between the top 6 and the rest.

1 Anand 2798

2 Morozevich 2790

3 Kramnik 2788

4 Ivanchuk 2780

5 Topalov 2777

6 Carlsen 2775

7 Radjabov 2744

8 Mamedyarov 2742

9 Shirov 2741

10 Leko 2741

11 Svidler 2738

12 Aronian 2737

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  • 2 weeks later...

Magnus=real deal.

You can say that again! After the third round in the Aerosvit tournament, where he has started with 2½/3, Carlsen is now back at 4th place with a record 2784(!). He only needs to gain another 4 Elo points to advance to second place. It's not out of the question that he could be #1 before he turns 18. He's just 14 Elo points from the first place.

On a sadder note, Armenian GM Karen Asrian, 2630, has died in what seems to be the type of sudden death that has happened to several athletes in recent years. Asrian, who earlier this year won the Armenian championship for the second year in a row, was only 28.

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Yes, much is happening while Kramnik and Anand stay quiet as they prepare for their monumental match. Magnus, Moro, and Chucky are making big moves up the elo charts by winning tournaments impressively. Nice to see the old man Chucky get some nice results.

Magnus is world champion material. Could he be ready by next cycle? I still think Aronian will be in the picture as well. The Topalov-Kamsky match seems to be of peripheral importance right now.

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History is being made right now. After another two wins, today against Shirov, Carlsen is now already #2:

1 Anand 2798

2 Carlsen 2792

3 Kramnik 2788

4 Morozevich 2788

5 Ivanchuk 2778

6 Topalov 2777

If he continues like this he will overtake Anand's spot as #1 and break the 2800 barrier before the tournament is over. He is 17!

He's improving so fast now that he seems to be ready already. The Kramnik-Anand match runs a risk of being obsolete in deciding who's the best in the world. Not to mention the relevance of Topalov-Kamsky of course.

The way he wins the games now is scary also. There are no opening novelties being unleashed; he just enters virtually equal endings and then wears them down. I just couldn't believe that he would win that position with opposite-coloured bishops against Shirov today, and yet he did it again.

Imagine where he would be if he also worked up an arsenal of opening novelties like the other top GMs...

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The way he wins the games now is scary also. There are no opening novelties being unleashed; he just enters virtually equal endings and then wears them down. I just couldn't believe that he would win that position with opposite-coloured bishops against Shirov today, and yet he did it again.

This is an excellent point. Notice the top 5 are still aged by today's chess standards. Magnus still has a crappy record against Anand, though he pulled his first win from him this year.

We'll have to see. Hard to imagine Magnus continuing his performance throughout this tournament. He's likely to cool down a bit.

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After a draw in the sixth round, today saw another victory for Carlsen (as Black against Nisipeanu). He is now at 2795. If he beats Onischuk (who is -3) tomorrow as White, we will have a new #1.

Meanwhile there's a tournament going on which Carlsen is leading by two points with a +3000 performance Elo, but everyone is looking at the live rating now.

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Magnus is trying to break Karpov's record supertournament TPR (11/13 for 2977 @ Linares 1994).

Today, the always unpredictable Ivanchuk played a funny novelty on move 7 (!) of the Russian Game (Petroff):

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. N:e5 d6 4. Nf3 N:e4 5. Nc3 N:c3 6. d:c3 Nc6 7. Bf4 Qf6!?

Russian online commentators (Shipov, Sakaev) waxed lyrical about it. The game (vs. the Carlsen-overshadowed prodigy Karjakin) was drawn in 18 moves.

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I missed that in all the Magnus excitement. The funniest novelty in the Petroff was the one Anand played against Zapata back in the 80s: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 Bf5?? 6.Qe2 1-0!

You're right about Karjakin being overshadowed. In any other time in history having a +2700 Elo at the age of 18 would be seen as incredible, but he has the bad timing of achieving that at the same time the 17-year-old Carlsen is going for +2800 (and possibly +2900 according to some).

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