55 Featured opponents

Magnus vs the World's Best

Head-to-head archives against Magnus Carlsen's most frequent and notable opponents.

Quick answer · Updated October 2026

Who has Magnus Carlsen played the most?

Magnus Carlsen has played Hikaru Nakamura more than anyone (408 games in our database), then Alireza Firouzja and Levon Aronian. The table lists his record against all 55 featured opponents; click a name for the full head to head.

Opponent	Games	Carlsen won	Drawn	Carlsen lost	Score
Hikaru Nakamura	408	144	182	82	57.6%
Alireza Firouzja	266	135	66	65	63.2%
Levon Aronian	237	82	115	40	58.9%
Wesley So	235	100	102	33	64.3%
Fabiano Caruana	216	99	82	35	64.8%
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	208	78	86	44	58.2%
Ian Nepomniachtchi	173	67	81	25	62.1%
Viswanathan Anand	143	40	82	21	56.6%
Andrew Tang	142	82	15	45	63.0%
Anish Giri	130	41	78	11	61.5%
Ding Liren	129	43	64	22	58.1%
Alexander Grischuk	114	49	39	26	60.1%
Jan-Krzysztof Duda	105	50	38	17	65.7%
Sergey Karjakin	95	33	47	15	59.5%
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	95	46	35	14	66.8%
Teimour Radjabov	84	27	46	11	59.5%
Arjun Erigaisi	82	44	20	18	65.9%
Vassily Ivanchuk	75	24	33	18	54.0%
Vladislav Artemiev	75	29	32	14	60.0%
Vladimir Kramnik	72	27	32	13	59.7%
Daniil Dubov	71	34	22	15	63.4%
Peter Svidler	61	20	33	8	59.8%
Le Tuan Minh	59	40	10	9	76.3%
Veselin Topalov	58	29	23	6	69.8%
Hans Niemann	58	34	10	14	67.2%
Jose Martinez	56	35	3	18	65.2%
D Gukesh	55	38	6	11	74.5%
Olexandr Bortnyk	51	25	16	10	64.7%
Jeffery Xiong	47	29	13	5	75.5%
Vidit Gujrathi	46	24	16	6	69.6%
Boris Gelfand	45	19	21	5	65.6%
Vincent Keymer	43	29	13	1	82.6%
Daniel Naroditsky	43	20	12	11	60.5%
Parham Maghsoodloo	43	29	8	6	76.7%
Peter Leko	41	7	30	4	53.7%
Nodirbek Abdusattorov	38	16	17	5	64.5%
R Praggnanandhaa	38	15	16	7	60.5%
Denis Lazavik	37	17	12	8	62.2%
Dmitry Andreikin	34	15	12	7	61.8%
Alexey Sarana	34	22	7	5	75.0%
Rauf Mamedov	33	22	5	6	74.2%
Alexander Morozevich	32	9	15	8	51.6%
Leinier Dominguez	32	12	17	3	64.1%
Eric Hansen	32	28	2	2	90.6%
Etienne Bacrot	30	18	9	3	75.0%
Pentala Harikrishna	28	15	11	2	73.2%
Richard Rapport	28	16	8	4	71.4%
Alexei Shirov	26	15	9	2	75.0%
Gata Kamsky	26	11	8	7	57.7%
Gadir Guseinov	25	16	6	3	76.0%
Jorden van Foreest	25	12	12	1	72.0%
Wei Yi	18	7	9	2	63.9%
Javokhir Sindarov	11	6	2	3	63.6%
Anatoly Karpov	7	5	1	1	78.6%
Garry Kasparov	3	0	1	2	16.7%

Source: the Rama Chess database of 7,484 Magnus Carlsen games, 2001 to 2025 (many of his games, not all of them).

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov

Nodirbek Abdusattorov

Questions

Questions and answers

Who has Magnus Carlsen played the most?

Magnus Carlsen has played Hikaru Nakamura more than anyone (408 games in our database), then Alireza Firouzja and Levon Aronian. The table lists his record against all 55 featured opponents; click a name for the full head to head.

Who has beaten Magnus Carlsen the most times?

Among his featured opponents, in our database: Hikaru Nakamura 82 wins; Alireza Firouzja 65 wins; Andrew Tang 45 wins; Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 44 wins; Levon Aronian 40 wins.

Who has the best score against Magnus Carlsen?

Among opponents with at least 20 games in our database, the best scores against him: Alexander Morozevich (51.6%); Peter Leko (53.7%); Vassily Ivanchuk (54.0%); Viswanathan Anand (56.6%); Hikaru Nakamura (57.6%) (Carlsen's score in brackets).

What is Magnus Carlsen's record against Praggnanandhaa, Gukesh and Arjun?

See the head-to-head pages: vs Praggnanandhaa, vs Gukesh, vs Arjun Erigaisi.