Magnus Carlsen says no one is ready to take over his World No. 1 position

Magnus Carlsen is only 34, but it feels like he has been ruling the world of chess for a very long time. The last time anyone came close to displacing him from the World No. 1 position was in 2011, the same year he reached the summit. It was India's five-time World Champion, Viswanathan Anand. But within a few weeks, Carlsen reclaimed his place and has stayed firm at the top ever since. He reached an all-time high Elo of 2882, first in 2014, then in 2019. His latest rating of 2837 is still more than 30 points clear of second-placed Hikaru Nakamura.

Carlsen reminded of his relevance in the classical format by clinching the Norway Chess in Stavanger last week. At the end of the week-long event, he was asked if anyone from the younger generation could take over his place as World No.1. Carlsen was blunt: "There is no one. There is no one at the moment. That's the honest answer. There could be, but at the moment, its not likely."

Among the men's players in the top-10, Nakamura is the oldest at 37, followed by Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi (age: 34). World No. 4 Fabiano Caruana is 32, while the Indian trio of Arjun Erigaisi (No. 3), D Gukesh (No. 5) and R Praggnanandhaa (No. 7) are 21 and 19 each respectively. France's World No. 8 Alireza Firouzja is 22, while Uzeb World No. 6 Nodirbek Abdusattorov is 21.

Carlsen calls the younger lot as 'kids'. "At the moment, I still think that the older guys are better. Every single one of them (kids) has very, very clear flaws in their games," Carlsen told the commentators after Norway Chess.

Carlsen singled out India's youngest World Champion, Gukesh, who played an exciting tournament in Norway, scoring his first classical win over the Norwegian and coming close to clinching the title. "I think Gukesh showed in this tournament that he is on track, he is doing fantastic, but he's maybe not way ahead of track as we may have thought."

"I think he is kind of little bit where I was, 2008, 2009ish, where he can do extremely well, but you can still see that there are that great results that come not only with the quality of positional play, it's a lot of fighting qualities. That is what kids are supposed to do, you are not supposed to master everything at that age. As for the others, yes, they are good but the likelihood of one of them becoming like a very clear number one, I don't see it very clearly at the moment."

One of the 'kids' Carlsen finds promising is Turkish GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, who is 14 and already a 2600-rated player. "Erdogmus.. is way ahead of schedule and is extremely good at 13, or I don't know if he turned 14."

After winning five titles in a row, with the last secured in 2021, Carlsen stopped contesting for the classical world title, claiming he lacks motivation. His absence from the event allowed Ding Liren of China to emerge the world champion in 2023 and then Gukesh, last year. "It feels good that at least in parts of the game I feel lot better than the kids who are trying to take over. Fabi and Hikaru are very good at what they do, fair enough. I generally feel that I can outplay the kids," Carlsen said. "Once in a generation talents are once in a generation for a reason. It's not that easy," he added.