How quickly things change

On Friday I gave a talk to the Year 7 Chess class at Amaroo School in Canberra. Chess is part of the curriculum at the school, and part of course involves the history of the game. My talk was on the more modern aspects of chess, with an emphasis on the top players since 1972. Apart from various players whose names started with K, one player I featured was of course, Carlsen. In the talk I featured a couple of facts on Carlsen, firstly that it was his 22nd birthday on the day of the talk, and secondly, that he had the second highest rating ever.
Move ahead 4 days, and both those facts are out of date. Birthdays of course come and go, and in this case, so do rating records. By winning his first round game against Luke McShane in the London Chess Classic, Carlsen gained enough point to equal Kasparovs record, at least on the 'live' list. By beating Lev Aronian in the second round, he has now jumped clear of Kasparov, by around 5 points. The win by Carlsen had another effect in terms of the tournament, by relegating Aronian to the bottom of the field with 2 straight losses. This has also increased the gap between Carlsen and Aronian on the rating list, with Vladimir Kramnik closing in on Aronian. Of course there is still some chess to be played, so what we see in terms of ratings now, may not be reflected when a new lest is published in the New Year.
Carlsen,Magnus (2848) - Aronian,Levon (2815) [C77]
4th London Chess Classic London ENG (2.1), 02.12.2012