Magnus Carlsen - Former World Chess King
Sven Magnus Qen Carlsen (Norwegian: Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen, IPA: [svɛn ˈmɑ̀ŋnʉs øːn ˈkɑːɭsn̩]) born 30 November 1990 [1][2]) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, reigning World Rapid Chess Champion and reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. Carlsen first topped the FIDE world rankings in 2010 and is only behind Garry Kasparov in terms of time as the player with the highest ELO in the world (elo 2881). His peak standard chess ELO coefficient was 2903, the highest in history.
A chess prodigy, Carlsen won joint first prize in the 2002 World U12 Chess Championship. Shortly after turning 13, he finished first in group C of the Corus and Corus chess tournaments. won the title of grandmaster a few months later. At age 15, he won the Norwegian Chess Championship, and at age 17, he tied for first place in the top group of the Corus chess tournament. He surpassed the ELO level of 2800 at the age of 18 and reached number one in the FIDE world rankings at the age of 19, becoming the youngest person ever to achieve those feats.
Carlsen became world chess champion in 2013 by defeating Viswanathan Anand. The following year, he successfully defended his title against Anand, winning both the 2014 World Rapid Championship and the 2014 World Blitz Championship, thus becoming the first player to hold all three titles simultaneously; a feat he repeated in 2019. He defended his standard chess world championship title after defeating Serge Karjakin in 2016, Fabiano Caruana in 2018 and Ian Nepomniachtchi in 2021.
Known for his attacking style as a teenager, Carlsen has developed into a well-rounded player. He uses many different openings to make it more difficult for his opponents to prepare for competition and reduces the effectiveness of computer chess analysis. He has declared the middle game to be his favorite stage in chess because it "returns to pure chess". Carlsen's positional play and endgame prowess have earned him comparisons to former world champions Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, Vasily Smyslov and Jose Raúl Capablanca.
Childhood[edit | edit source]
Carlsen competed in the series in Molde in July 2004
Carlsen was born in Norway on November 30, 1990, to Sigrun Øen, a chemical engineer, and Henrik Albert Carlsen, a consultant in the IT field. His family lived for a year in Espoo, Finland, then moved to Brussels, Belgium and then returned to Norway in 1998 and settled in Lommedalen, Bærum. They later moved to Haslum.[3] Carlsen showed an aptitude for intellectual challenges: at age 2 he could solve a 50-piece puzzle, at age 4 he played Lego with instructions for children aged 10-14.[4 ] Carlsen was taught chess by his father at the age of 5, although he did not show any interest in chess.[5] Carlsen has three older sisters, and in 2010, Carlsen said that one of the things that motivated him to focus on chess came from his desire to beat his sisters. The first book he read was Bent Larsen: Find the Plan.[6] Carlsen developed his chess skills by playing chess alone for hours on end – moving pieces around the board, finding combinations and replaying matches or positions. I teach. He participated in his first tournament – the youngest division of the 1999 Norwegian Chess Championship – at the age of 8 years and 7 months, scoring 6½/11 points.[7]
Carlsen was then coached at the Norwegian College of Elite Sport by the nation's top player, Grandmaster Simen Agdestein.[8] In 2000, Agdestein introduced Carlsen to Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen, an International Master (IM) and former Norwegian junior champion. They started training weekly in March. Carlsen advanced very quickly with Hansen, gaining over a thousand elo points in less than a year. The tournament that marked his turning point was the Norwegian Junior Chess Championship in September 2000, when Carlsen won 3½/5 against the top young Norwegian players and a Performance Rating (PR) of about 2000.[ 9] Besides playing chess, which Carlsen studies for 3 to 4 hours a day, he enjoys playing soccer, skiing and reading Donald Duck comics [10]
From the fall of 2000 to the end of 2002, Carlsen played about 300 elo tournaments, several blitz tournaments and a few other small tournaments.[11] He achieved 3 International Master standards almost consecutively: the first time in January 2003 at the Gausdall Troll Masters tournament (7/10 points, 2345 PR); the second in June 2003 at the Salongernas IM in Stockholm (September 6, 2470 PR); the third time in July 2003 at the Politiken Cup in Copenhagen (November 8, 2503 PR). He was officially named an International Master on August 20, 2003.[12] After finishing elementary school, Carlsen took a year off to attend international tournaments held in Europe during the summer.
