Magnus Carlsen, the World Chess Champion, has now been the world no. 1 on every rating list over the previous decade starting July 2011, an unbeaten stretch that will soon surpass Garry Kasparov’s two-decade-long streaks as world no. 1 from 1986 to 1996 and 1996 to his retirement in 2006. Although Magnus has had scares — for example, a loss to Fabiano Caruana in the 2018 World Championship match would have put Fabi on top – he has also been unbroken world no. 1 on the live rating list for a decade.

Magnus was startled to learn that he had been the world’s number one for ten years in a row.

“I didn’t even know that, but for me I guess it was more special either January 2010, when I was officially no. 1 for the first time, or in, I think, it was October 2008, when I was unofficially no. 1 for the first time, but it’s been a long time!”

Magnus has remained at the top of every published list since then, as well as the live rating list, which is updated after each game played.

As you may expect, such an accomplishment places him in the most exclusive company. Since the official FIDE rating lists were originally published in 1971, just seven players have led the list, and only three of them have spent as much time at the top as Magnus.

Magnus has overtaken Anatoly Karpov’s 102 months as world number one, but he still has nearly a decade to go to match Garry Kasparov’s 255 months – 21 years and 3 months! Will Magnus hold the number one spot for another decade? “Unlikely, but we’ll see,” he adds in the video above, although in terms of unbroken streaks as world number one, he has already beaten Garry.

Anatoly Karpov held the continuous world no. 1 ranking from 1976 to 1983, but Garry first matched that with a run from 1986 to 1993. Officially, the run stopped then, but only because FIDE deleted Kasparov and Nigel Short from their rating lists in 1994, after they rebelled against FIDE to play their World Championship match in 1993. Garry was virtually the number one player until January 1996, when the 20-year-old Vladimir Kramnik matched Garry’s 2775 rating but gained the top rank on the tiebreak of having played more games.

That meant a fresh run began when Garry has ranked first again in July 1996, this time lasting until he retired in March 2006 – he was no longer ranked first in the April 2006 rating list. This gave the streak an official length of 9 years and 9 months.

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