Carlsen hires Nielsen and is rated 2872 - reactions by Kasparov, Kavalek and Rowson

Winning 11 more points at the Tata Steel tournament in January, Magnus Carlsen improved his record rating of 2861 to 2872 on the February FIDE rating list. The world's number one chess player is now 62 points ahead of his closest rival, #2 Vladimir Kramnik (whose son Vadim Vladimirovich was born on January 29th in Paris!). Meanwhile, the Norwegian newspaper VG published the news that Danish grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen will assist Carlsen during his preparation for the Candidates Tournament.
Levon Aronian also played a good tournament in Wijk aan Zee, and by winning 7 points the Armenian is now just 1 point behind Kramnik. Anand and Karjakin also took home a few rating points from the Tata tournament but for Fabiano Caruana it could hardly have gone worse. The Italian lost 24 points and dropped from the 5th to the 13th place in the rankings.

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Much as been said about Carlsen's continuous rise in the world rankings. We'd like to take the opportunity to quote three grandmasters. Let's start with Garry Kasparov, who saw his rating record broken a month ago. After the Tata Steel tournament, the 13th World Champion wrote on his Facebook page:

Congratulations to Magnus Carlsen for his huge victory at the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee! He matched my record score of 10/13 there and without losing a game, and he pushed his record rating up even higher. I would like to say he owes his success to my year of coaching him, but it was already clear then and even clearer now that Magnus is a very special talent with no limits on what he can achieve.
Carlsen's next step is obvious, but not easy: winning the March candidates tournament in London to become Vishy Anand's challenger in a world championship match later this year. I try to root for good chess and big fighting spirit, not for players, but of course it will be hard for me not to support my three Russian compatriots in London: Kramnik, Svidler, and Grischuk. How can the world chess title move from sunny India to frigid Norway without stopping by in its traditional home of Russia?
Some say world championship matches are old-fashioned, or that a sport with a rating list and top tournaments doesn't need a world champion at all. But I still believe that head-to-head combat is the most exciting and fairest way to decide the title, and that our legacy of great champions is one of the most potent elements in chess as a global sport. Magnus is destined to join these ranks. It only remains for him to win when it matters most, a true test of a champion.

In his column for the Huffington Post, Lubosh Kavalek  wrote:

After triumphing in two major tournaments, in London in December and in Wijk aan Zee in January, Magnus Carlsen is a clear favorite to win the eight-player Candidates event in London (March 15-April 1). (...) However, Carlsen shines in the middlegame and endgame. That's where the fun begins for him and sets him apart from the rest. He plays with great determination, exploiting every possible chance to win. "I was happy I got the maximum out of every game," he said in Wijk aan Zee. Not everybody is capable of playing like this every single game. He is cool under pressure and very patient.

In his January 26th column for The Herald in Scotland, Jonathan Rowson summed up Carlsen's qualities:

I believe the core of Magnus’s strength is his capacity to out-last his opponents, and that this quality depends upon several other skills and dispositions coalescing in a way that is hard to match. First, and perhaps most important, he doesn’t really blunder. Second, he enjoys the competitive tension of being at the board and is in no rush to get away. Third, he manages to be deeply self-confident while retaining both objectivity and a good feeling for the fallibility and vulnerability of the opponent. Fourth, he is extremely versatile- there are no positions that he doesn’t like. Fifth, he has an excellent sense of timing, of knowing when to change the nature of the position to pose practical problems. Sixth, he has the energy of youth, and makes the most of it by carefully managing his diet and lifestyle. This energy allows him to stay alert in the final moments of the game while others begin to fade.