A Quick note on Magnus Carlsen and youngest GM musings

 A quick note, in the FIDE Live Ratings site (Not Official FIDE Ratings, but what ratings would be if calculated after every player's events), GM Magnus Carlsen would have a very slight edge on GM Veselin Topalov as the top player in the world at the moment! The site and list are maintained by Hans Arild Runde, and has been a popular page for the chessfan to check out to see how their favorite players (over 2700 ELO) are doing. It has been one of my links for quite some time and I check it often. The current rating for Carlsen would be 2805.7 while GM Topalov would check in at 2805.1, if neither played a game until the January Official list came out, I believe GM Carlsen would be 2806 while GM Topalov would stay at 2805, I do think FIDE rounds up to the next highest full number, but not sure.

 Many people predicted GM Magnus Carlsen would be at this point given his quick rise to GM status at 13 years, 4 months, GM Sergei Karjakin holds the record for youngest Grandmaster at 12 years and 7 months of age. Interesting is the fact that GM Bobby Fischer held the record for Youngest Grandmaster Ever from 1958-1991 at 15 years, 6 months and 1 day until finally bested by GM Judit Polgar who was 15 years, 4 months and 28 days old when she broke the record in 1991 as well as becoming one of the few females with the male Grandmaster title! Since then, it seems the record has been broken every 3 years or so, until GM Karjakin got the honor and has held the record since 2002, 7 years, but a far cry from the over 30 year gap between Polgar and Fischer. The title Grandmaster wasn't officially given out until 1950, with older notable players given the title honorarily.