Anand reached world #1 ranking at 38, managed to win a world championship and defend the title for a decade in his late 40s, and remains in #13 in his 50s right now.

Magnus' longevity has more to do with his willingness to continue competing than his actual skill. He's been pretty vocal about his issues with FIDE so I can see a world where he stops participating in FIDE events to focus on non-FIDE events that he enjoys more. He's already withdrawn from the Candidates which qualifies you for the World Championship.

Kasparov remained the n.1 player until his retirement at 42, we can likely expect no less from Magnus

Magnus is in uncharted territory here. We won't really know the answer to this question for quite some time.

Like Lasker, Carlsen will still play with 60+.

> the stress of training and competing at that level must get old after a while.

The stress of elite competition clearly has a shelf life, but Magnus is not overly old. Cognitive performance typically hits a plateau at 35 years old and begins a sustained decline after 45 years old.

The current youth wave of GMs is likely a function of compressed training efficiency. Modern players reach the 10,000 hours threshold much earlier because they had greater access to better training material and had better practice.

Is there really a decline with age when it comes to chess? I’m not sure he will really decline until he reaches his retirement age.

Context helps. A lot of really strong players are 12 years old.

> Is it impressive to be winning at 35?

No. Multiple world champions have been older than that.

You... should watch him stream. That'll pretty much answer your questions. Age is far less relevant to chess compared to keeping up with the current "meta" (in gamer parlance).

I don't think it's merely mental albeit it seems like even nervous Carlsen is cooler than his very focused opponents (see game 3 vs Fabiano where caruana had a completely winning position after carlsens blunder).

Carlsen has spent the core of his career mastering two aspects historically underlooked aspects of the game.

The first is the endgame, and there isn't much to say there. He's by far the best end game player by far and it's not even close.

The second are drawish locked positions where most GMs can't but see a draw. Carlsen realized that in order for it to be a draw his opponents still have to play perfect and he focused a lot on accumulating small but convincing advantages in those kind of games.

Another thing that should not be overlook: mental strength, like you point out.

Are you referring to the odd individual game? Magnus beat Lazavik pretty badly in the SCC and knocked Sindarov out of the Freestyle final.

or maybe he's just very good?

This is great, thank you for sharing.

The curse of being born in Smartphones’ generation :3

Hikaru is either in a slump or his skill is starting to age: hasn't won Titled Tuesday since November, hasn't won Freestyle Friday this year, came last in Speed Chess Championship, etc.

We'll see how well he does in Candidates this year to see if he's still a top contender. Although I do believe this is his last chance to fight for the world title.

Candidates prep and also the entire Freestyle chess experiment has been a bit of a mess. Here's what he told chess.com[0]:

A few months ago I was invited to the first leg of the 2026 Freestyle Tour with the same format and prize fund. I let everyone know that I'd be playing there.

Just a few days ago I received news that there will be no year-long tour for Freestyle. The format for the only event to be held will be only three days and only rapid formats. Instead of the tour that was planned, Freestyle has joined forces with FIDE and are now calling it a World Championship. I think it might hold the record for most rushed arrangement for a World Championship title in history.

I truly enjoyed the first event in Weissenhaus in 2025, and it's a shame that the classical length format wasn't continued. Furthermore, this all feels like a hastily arranged tournament with less than 1/3rd the prize fund it originally had, and now it's attached to FIDE, which isn't a positive development in my opinion.

Despite many phone calls and messages from the organizer, I have decided to decline my slot in this event. I have an important tournament in the end of March/April to focus on, and that is where my attention will be.

[0] https://www.chess.com/news/view/freestyle-chess-fide-world-c...

It's a very short, 3 day event: You have Fabi sitting right there in second place, and I don't think anyone is more focused on the candidates than he is.

Hikaru is getting older too, and it shows: I don't think he has a freestyle edge at all.

I think it's because he has a young child too. But I don't think there's an edge.

I'd expect them to have a larger edge in chess960 because humans can't prep openings like in regular chess.

Engines never lose or draw against unassisted humans. Any modern chess engine, if it plays 100 games against any human (even magnus), will have a record of 100 wins, 0 draws, and 0 losses. This is true both in standard chess and Chess960.