The Norwegian world champion can contest the title of greatest of all time with the legendary Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov

The world champion, Magnus Carlsen, will target his own all-time performance record when he starts the Altibox Norway elite event on home soil at Stavanger on 4 June. The 28-year-old has just triumphed in three major tournaments in a row, triggering a debate on whether he, Bobby Fischer or Garry Kasparov is the greatest of all time.

Just as he did at Wijk in January and at Shamkir in early April, Carlsen swept the closing rounds of the Grenke Classic in Germany last week, winning his final four games. Leading scores were Carlsen 7.5/9, Fabiano Caruana (US) 6, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) and Arkadij Naiditsch (Azerbaijan) 5.

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Carlsen’s defeated rivals were left wondering what had hit them and the commentator called it “scary” when Levon Aronian’s apparently level position fell apart. Fischer and Kasparov in their pomp both radiated a hungry energy at the board, and Jonathan Speelman once described the experience of playing the Russian as like being “bombarded with thought waves”.

Carlsen has a calmer presence and the pressure on the opponent comes more with his universal style. He can majestically sweep through hesitant defence with flowing attacks; he can keep control, probe and induce errors; or he can grind out a marathon endgame. The psychological pressure can still affect his opponent, such as Vachier-Lagrave offering a pawn unsoundly and the eight-times Russian champion, Peter Svidler, making “difficult to explain” mistakes.

After Grenke Carlsen’s live rating is 2875, seven points short of his official 2014 peak and 14 shy of the unofficial daily calculation on 2700chess.com. He could then try to reach a round 2900, which he used to think impossible but which he now, after his 2019 winning streak, refers to as “at least a half-attainable dream”.

Thus far his overall 2019 performance in classical chess is 16 wins, 15 draws, and no defeats. His tournament performance rating with the white pieces is over 3000. How does he explain this prolonged burst of creative form? “It helps me that I still have ideas and concepts from the world championship. I feel well in general. The conditions are there, but I never dreamed it would be this good.”

Carlsen will be in action again as early as Wednesday, when the 2019 Grand Chess Tour kicks off with rapid and blitz at Abidjan, Ivory Coast. He will be the first reigning world champion ever to compete in Africa, where his main rivals over 27 speed games are headed by the US champion and specialist in fast chess, Hikaru Nakamura, and by China’s world No 3, Ding Liren.

Who is now the all-time No 1, Fischer, Kasparov, or Carlsen? Direct comparison from different eras is hard, since Carlsen has the benefit of training with very strong computers and with the accumulated knowledge of his predecessors. Carlsen has the highest all-time rating, 32 points above Kasparov’s peak and 99 above Fischer’s, but the pool of players rated above 2700 who provide the required highly-rated opposition is now much bigger.

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Fischer’s 20-game winning streak in 1970-71 included his 6-0 candidates matches against Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen, but the US legend’s period of total dominance was much shorter than Carlsen and Kasparov. Arguably Fischer was the No 1 from 1967 onwards, and spoilt his chance to prove it by withdrawing from that year’s interzonal when in the lead.

Kasparov had most consecutive tournament victories (15) and most consecutive elite victories (10). He was world champion for 16 years, which Carlsen would need another decade at the top to equal. His career percentage is higher than Carlsen’s, but the Russian was kept under wraps until he was 15 and already grandmaster strength, while Carlsen’s international career began at age 10.

Carlsen himself has said that Peak Kasparov vs Peak Carlsen would be very close, and that he thought every game would go down to the wire. The debate will continue.

3617 Yes, because if 1 Kg2! Rf2+ 2 Kh1! Rxe2 White has 3 Bd3+! Kxd3, draw by stalemate. After 1 Kg2 the endgame database takes around 40 moves to checkmate, so in practical play White might well have drawn by the 50-move rule.