Chess: machine 3653 against human 2882
Machines passed the human chess champion on 11 May 1997, when IBM’s Deep Blue won a six-game classical match against Garry Kasparov 3½–2½ in New York. It is a confirmed crossover, played under tournament conditions. Today’s strongest engine, Stockfish 18, is rated 3653 on the CCRL 40/15 list against Magnus Carlsen’s peak FIDE rating of 2882 — two separate rating pools, so the gap indicates scale rather than a subtractable difference.
The record in full
| Discipline | Chess BOARD GAME · CLASSICAL |
|---|---|
| What is measured | Match play against the reigning or peak-rated human champion |
| Human benchmark | 2882 — Magnus Carlsen, Peak FIDE rating, May 2014 NORWAY · 1 MAY 2014 · FIDE RATING LIST |
| Machine benchmark | 3653 — Stockfish 18 31 JANUARY 2026 · CCRL 40/15 RATING LIST |
| Attributed to | Stockfish open-source community MULTINATIONAL IBM (1997 crossover) UNITED STATES |
| Difference | No single comparable number. The machine passed the best humans in a contest with an unambiguous result. |
| Crossover | 11 May 1997 — Deep Blue vs Garry Kasparov, rematch, New York IBM’s Deep Blue won a six-game match against the reigning world champion, 3½–2½. |
| Verification status | VERIFIED Verified |
| Comparability status | BROAD Broadly comparable |
| Overtaq classification | CONFIRMED A machine passed the human benchmark in a contest or measurement Overtaq judges both well evidenced and legitimately comparable. |
| Data last checked | 23 AUGUST 2026 |
Conditions and comparability
Machine conditions
CCRL is an engine-only rating pool. Engine and FIDE ratings are calibrated on different populations and cannot be subtracted directly.
Why this is broadly comparable
The crossover event itself is directly comparable: same rules, same clock, same board, an undisputed result. Today’s figures are not. A 3653 CCRL rating and a 2882 FIDE rating come from separate rating pools, so the ~770-point gap is indicative of scale, not a subtraction you can defend. Overtaq shows both and refuses the arithmetic.
Machine progression
5 recorded results. Overtaq keeps every published result rather than only the current best, so the frontier can be read as a history. This table is the full data behind the chart on the interactive record.
| Date | Result | System | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 February 1996 | Kasparov 4–2 Deep Blue | Deep Blue IBM |
VERIFIED DIRECT | The human champion won the first match in Philadelphia, losing one game — the first time a reigning champion lost a classical game to a machine. |
| 11 May 1997 | Deep Blue 3½–2½ Kasparov CROSSING | Deep Blue IBM |
VERIFIED DIRECT | The crossover. Deep Blue took the rematch in New York. |
| 5 December 2006 | Deep Fritz 4–2 Kramnik | Deep Fritz 10 ChessBase |
VERIFIED DIRECT | Consumer hardware beat the classical world champion. Serious human-versus-engine matches effectively ended here. |
| 5 December 2017 | AlphaZero self-taught | AlphaZero DeepMind |
VERIFIED BROAD | Reached top engine strength from self-play alone in hours, defeating Stockfish 8 in a 100-game match. Match conditions were later disputed by the Stockfish community. |
| 31 January 2026 | 3653 CCRL 40/15 | Stockfish 18 Stockfish community |
VERIFIED BROAD | Current strongest publicly rated engine. No human has beaten a top engine in a fair classical match in two decades. |
Evidence
5 sources. Every source is a direct link to the primary record where one exists; where Overtaq has not been able to confirm an exact permanent URL, the entry says so rather than linking to a search page.
- IBM Icons of Progress — Deep Blue
11 MAY 1997
The 1996 and 1997 Kasparov match results and conditions.
- FIDE — FIDE rating lists
1 MAY 2014
Magnus Carlsen’s peak rating of 2882 in May 2014.
NO EXACT URL — NEEDS MANUAL VERIFICATION
FIDE archived rating list for May 2014; the exact archive URL for Carlsen’s 2882 has not been confirmed.
- Computer Chess Rating Lists — CCRL 40/15 rating list
1 MAY 2026
Stockfish 18 at 3653 Elo in the CCRL 40/15 engine pool.
- Wikipedia — Stockfish (chess)
1 MAY 2026
Stockfish 18 release date and CCRL standing as strongest CPU engine.
- Science / DeepMind — A general reinforcement learning algorithm that masters chess, shogi and Go through self-play
7 DECEMBER 2018 · DOI:10.1126/science.aar6404
AlphaZero’s self-play training and match result against Stockfish 8.
What is still missing
- Carlsen’s 2882 peak is the highest FIDE rating ever recorded, not a current rating. Overtaq uses peak deliberately — the strongest human benchmark available — and labels it as such.
Social cards
Every record is rendered into four formats in both themes from the same data, so the verification and comparability status travels with the numbers wherever the card is posted.
Related records
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