If this is FIDE rating there must be some sort of a typo. The highest FIDE rating ever achieved is 2851 by Garry Kasparov. Currently only 3 chess players have a rating > 2799.
Magnus Carlsen - 2826
Veselin Topalov - 2803
Viswanathan Anand - 2800
August Hoelldorfer the greatest ever?
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I was looking up a scotch game in game explorer, 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 and wanted black's best possible reply so I looked at highest rated players and what did I find? August Hoelldorfer rated (2870)! Unfortunately August lost his game to Baeuml Ulrich (2095). Conspiracy, you say? How could someone almost 800 points lower win against someone of August's elite stature? There must be more to this story, I will continue to dig ...