Will Carlsen be Universially Recognized as the Best in History?

I was just wondering, is it possible for Carlsen to achieve so much that by the end of his career pretty much everyone will admit he was the greatest ever? And if so what would he need to do?

        Are you in cahoots with chepesiuk??   Maybe Carlsen will get hit by a bus next week.

My theory is that chepesiuk is, in fact, Magnus Carlsen.  Maybe this OP is an old friend or his publicist.

         I'm sure the real Magnus has better things to do than waste time & nonsence threads on chess.com  Not to mention the staffs jobs.

There's not a chance...Capablanca, Fischer, and Kasparov will always have people pushing for them as greatest ever.

Plus, with FIDE moving to a WCC match every year, Carlsen will probably lose the championship at least 1 year out of the next 5-10...ending any claim to greatest ever in most people's minds ;)...

          To Chepasiuk;  Your friends are getting deleted one at a time. Where's ChiChi, or In_Love_With_Carlsen??     "What cha gonna do when they come for you"?    (cue music)

Basically, I agree with all of the above.

I DO think that Carlsen can make the "short list" if he has a decent run as WC because he has such a dominant tournament resume.

I don't care about ratings very much, it's about WCs and tournament victories.

"I don't care about ratings very much, it's about WCs and tournament victories"

Then you would have to rank Anand and Kramnik as much greater chess players than Fischer and Capablanca.

Is by any chance Magnus on Chess.com?!

No one will ever be universally recognized as the best in history. If Kasparov isn't, Carlsen will never be either :-)

Until someone can rise from GM to WC without any losses ever then we will have a greatest in history

Capa - pwned by Alekhine.

Fischer - afraid to play a superior player (Karpov)

Kasparov = roflpwned by Kramnik

Alekhine - Dodged Capa for years and avoids tournaments where Capa plays until Capa's death.

Fischer - Afraid of Karpov, Spassky, chess, and life in general.

Kramnik - Dodged Kasparov for years.  Kasparov continued to dominate tournaments and rating list until he retired.

I do.

But this opinion isn't very popular. I value ACHIEVEMENTS (WCs and tournament victories) above all. Quite frankly, I find it ridiculous that some people rate a player who won a mere 10 international tournaments and only one World Championship match (Fischer) the best of all time.

Agreed. Kasparov is the best of all time.

Are you talking the best or the objectively strongest? 

batgirl, you know that now there will have to be a discussion of:

what means "being the best", how can we determine the "strongest", and just for the sake of it, what means "objetively".

Mais oui.

Carlsen gets plenty of attention already.

And him being a "top male model" is laughable.