Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, soared to a new landmark in chess history last weekend, when the 34-year-old won all his nine games in the Grenke Freestyle Open at Karlsruhe, Germany.
It was a result comparable to the great historical performances. Bobby Fischer won the 1963-64 US Championship with an 11/11 “picket fence”, then defeated Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen by 6-0 in the 1971 Candidates. Anatoly Karpov triumphed at Linares 1994 with an 11-2 total, while further back the yardstick performance was Alexander Alekhine’s 14-1 at San Remo 1930.
