What are Magnus Carlsen's chances of reaching 2900?

About the manner of victory, I make an example from the game of go, which being points based makes this case more straightforward to evaluate. In go it's either win or loss, there is no draw. You can win by one point or by one hundred and you still score only one point in the tournament table. Why is that?

Because if you count to be losing by five points you could either resign (I'm assuming a game between strong players) or start playing more adventurous moves to turn the game around. Adventurous moves usually make for a larger win, let's say fifty points. Should players be punished for that and only play games that minimize the difference between the scores of the players? How boring. I guess this applies also to chess. Sacrifice, sacrifice, win. Or sacrifice, sacrifice, mistake, loss. I won't punish a mistake so much more than any other one.

Only if he never actually loses one. Which he really shouldn't, but at high numbers the probability of slipping up becomes non-negligible.

I think one major piece is consistently missed in those articles. Yes, the chances of him hitting 2900 do not depend only on his performance against other players, but from their elo as well. If the following 25 players in the world where all 2800+ Carlsen would already be 2900+.

Thus, Carlsen's best chances largely depend on elo inflation to widen the elo distribution itself.

One example of this: Louis de Bourdonnais which was #1 in the world in the 1800s skyrocketed his elo rating from 2600 to 2650 mostly as a result of the following 10 players moving their average elo from 2350 to 2450.

His winrate against them never changed. And what is required for 2350 players to go higher? That the players below they skill also raise their elos giving the top 10 more points when beating them. The more players will be fide rated the more Carslen's chances will increase but without a sufficient supply of 2700s, those at 2750 won't raise in elo, etc, etc

Technically he could, I believe FIDE has a minimum rating increase of 1 point for the winner of a game with > 400 ELO advantage on their opponent. But if he broke 2900 by playing in minor tournaments against low rated amateur opponents no one would take it seriously that he broke 2900. Realistically many, maybe even all of the top players could push for record ELOs by only playing against players well below their level. But not only are the optics bad and the records would be looked at as illegitimate, it would take a lot of time playing long classical chess games against inferior opponents. Which is a major opportunity cost since their time would normally be spent playing in and studying for professional tournaments.

I would also argue that there is a source of ELO deflation going on. As the top level players all get better, theory evolves, people generally play better chess.

A player with a rating of 2750 today might have beat Kasparov in his prime, simply because chess has evolved.

In a way, it's similar to sports. Plenty of people today might have beat Carl Lewis at 100m 30 years ago, but they would probably not be considered greater athletes.

So in order to beat 2900, it would help if several other players got rankings of 2800-2850, but only if they did so without actually playing much better chess.

Or he could just have a temporary lucky/confident streak, and gain 40 rating points in a few tournaments.