Since the launch of the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge in February 2024, Freestyle Chess has evaluated all classical games played in Freestyle events (Weissenhaus 2024, Singapore 2024, Weissenhaus 2025, Paris 2025, Karlsruhe 2025). The Freestyle ratings have been available in the player info on this page ever since, but there has been no official world ranking list until today.

For now, the new list with 578 players is available as a document to download here. Next week, it will be published in a searchable format on this website. The list highlights trends and differences compared to traditional chess. Here are two examples:

• World champion Gukesh has struggled with this discipline so far. His Freestyle rating of 2701 is significantly lower than his rating in traditional chess.
• Conversely, Vincent Keymer seems to be more at home in Freestyle. His Freestyle rating of 2766 is significantly higher than his Elo in traditional chess.

Be it Freestyle or traditional, Magnus Carlsen stands far above the rest. He is topping the world rankings in traditional chess since July 2011 and in Freestyle since its inaugural event in February 2024.

After his Grand Slam triumph in Paris, his Freestyle rating stood at 2873, a record in this young discipline with its equally young rating system. For Magnus, 2873 was the base camp to climb even higher, breaking the final barrier.

Shortly after the Grand Slam in Paris came the Grenke Freestyle Open. Carlsen’s result: nine games, nine wins, a perfect, extraordinary performance, so good that Carlsen doubts he can ever replicate it. After the final game, he said: “I’m not going to be able to do that again, that’s for sure!”

Observers drew parallels to historic achievements: Carlsen’s 9/9 in Karlsruhe was said to be on a par with Bobby Fischer‘s legendary 11/11 in the 1963/64 US Championship. Mathematician and chess lover Mehmet Ismail calculated a performance rating of 3191 for Carlsen’s victory in Karlsruhe, just ahead of Fischer (3187) and Fabiano Caruana‘s famed performance at the 2014 Sinquefield Cup (3096).

Until now, everyone could only speculate, including grandmasters and Carlsen friends Jon Ludvig Hammer and David Howell. Both hinted in a video that Magnus Carlsen’s historic achievement was accompanied by a historic number. He should now have reached 2900 for the first time, they assumed. However, there was no official list to confirm this assessment and provide the exact number.

Until today.

At 2909, Carlsen’s Freestyle Elo is 72 points above his Elo in traditional chess with classical time control. Having started his Freestyle run at 2830 in February 2024, it shows how much embracing a new and fresh discipline has propelled him to unprecedented heights. In 5 events over 14 months, Carlsen has gained 79 Freestyle rating points.

After his final victory over Hikaru Nakamura at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in Paris, Carlsen reflected: “There’s more of a childish joy in just playing chess rather than being worried about openings, rating points, and all those things that are important but don’t necessarily equate to joy. I want to win as well, but you want to be reminded of why you started playing chess in the first place, and I am reminded of that when I sit down for a Freestyle Chess game.”

“…rather than being worried about rating points?”

Apologies, Magnus. Rating points do exist in Freestyle. Perhaps now, having shattered the mythical barrier, he can keep playing without being overly concerned by the numbers. And without worrying about how much his wife Ella Victoria appreciates being married to the chess G.O.A.T.: “My wife is way more attracted to me now that I’ve achieved 2900,” Carlsen joked after hearing about his 2909 rating.

Magnus Carlsen had been chasing the 2900 target for over a decade, but never quite achieved it. Six months after winning the World Championship against Viswanathan Anand in 2013, his rating had climbed to heights that no chess player had ever come close to reaching before. In May 2014, Carlsen topped the world rankings with 2882 Elo, the highest ever.

Already back then, media and fans were speculating whether the new world champion could be the first person to break the 2900 barrier. Carlsen was ambitious: “I have this big goal of reaching 2900 Elo in classical,” he admitted in interviews at the time. Yet, 2882 remained his peak, with his rating generally hovering around 2850.

In 2019, Carlsen launched a second attack on 2900 – and once again came close. He played a phenomenal first half of 2019, winning tournament after tournament. It was during this period that he set another record: 125 classical games in a row without defeat between July 2018 and October 2020. The streak of 100 games in a row without defeat, which had only just been set by Ding Liren, was crushed.

In July 2019, after winning the Grand Chess Tour tournament in Zagreb with a performance rating of 2943, Carlsen returned to exactly 2882 Elo. Colleagues outdid each other with superlatives to describe the Norwegian’s stratospheric rise: Wesley So compared Carlsen’s dominance to Fischer in the 1970s, when everyone else was “just playing for second place.” Anish Giri joked that we would just have to wait until “the storm passes,” because at some point Carlsen would become “very old and tired.” Until then, he would be untouchable.

Nevertheless, the 2900 barrier held. The 2882 mark, matched for the second time, remains the all-time high in traditional chess with classical time control.

2021 marks the beginning of a new chapter. Magnus Carlsen had run out of goals. He had long since decided not to defend his world championship title again. Although Carlsen made no secret of this, hardly anyone believed him until he actually refused to compete in 2023.

Magnus Carlsen has won everything there is to win in chess. And so, in the end of 2021, he set out once again to climb Everest, setting his sights on this last, yet unattainable goal. Finally reaching 2900 Elo was more important than further world championship matches, he explained before the chess year 2022 began with the traditional tournament in Wijk an Zee. But, once again, he did not make it.

A year later, he said on the Norwegian podcast Sjakksnakk: “I have given up a bit on trying to reach 2900. It will just be very, very difficult.”

Why is 2900 so hard to achieve?

A player at this level is alone at the top, beyond all competition. By way of comparison, Garry Kasparov, who was the first to break the 2800 barrier in 1990, “only” reached 2851 Elo at his peak. Later top players such as Fabiano Caruana (peak 2844), Levon Aronian (2830) or Ding Liren (2816) remained at a respectful distance from the 2900 summit. No other player except Magnus Carlsen has ever been in the high 2800s, let alone close to 2900.

In chess, those who defeat opponents of equal or higher rating win many points, while those who defeat weaker opponents win few. This mathematical hurdle of the Elo system makes “Project 2900” an extremely challenging task. Carlsen lacks opponents of equal strength against whom he could make significant Elo jumps. To win even a few points, Carlsen must consistently beat weaker 2700+ grandmasters. And every slip-up costs him dearly. And yet Magnus Carlsen has now managed, in his own unique way, to add the seemingly unattainable 2900 Elo in classic time control to his extensive list of achievements.

Milestone conquered, on to new challenges. In December 2025, the winner of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam will be crowned for the first time. As the leader in the standings, Magnus Carlsen has a good chance of being the first to conquer this mountain as well.