Magnus Carlsen From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the Norwegian chess player. For people with a similar name, see Magnus Carlsson (disambiguation). Magnus Carlsen Magnus Carlsen, 2008 Full name Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen Country Norway 30 November 1990 (age 19) Born Tønsberg, Norway Title Grandmaster 2826 FIDE rating (No. 1 in the September 2010 FIDE World Rankings) Peak rating 2826 (July 2010) Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess Grandmaster and chess prodigy currently ranked number one in the world on the official FIDE rating list. He has achieved the second highest ever rating exceeded only by Garry Kasparov.[1][2] On 26 April 2004 Carlsen became a Grandmaster at the age of 13 years, 148 days, making him the third-youngest Grandmaster in history. On 1 January 2010 the new FIDE rating list was published, and at the age of 19 years, 32 days he became the youngest chess player in history to be ranked world number one, breaking the record previously held by Vladimir Kramnik.[3] Carlsen is also the 2009 World blitz chess champion. His performance at the September–October 2009 Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament has been described as one of the greatest in history[4] and lifted him to an Elo rating of 2801, making him the fifth player to achieve a rating over 2800 – and aged 18 years 10 months at the time, by far the youngest to do so. Based on his rating, Carlsen has qualified for the Candidates Tournament which will determine the challenger to face World Champion Viswanathan Anand in the World Chess Championship 2012. Contents [hide] • 1 Childhood • 2 Chess career o 2.1 2004 o 2.2 2005 o 2.3 2006 o 2.4 2007 o 2.5 2008 o 2.6 2009 o 2.7 2010 • 3 Game style • 4 Rating o 4.1 Standing on each top 100 FIDE list • 5 Books and films • 6 References • 7 External links [edit] Childhood Born in Tønsberg, Vestfold, Carlsen currently lives in Lommedalen, Bærum, near Norway's capital, Oslo. He played his first chess tournament at the age of eight and was later coached at a Norwegian high school (for athletes) by the country's top player, Grandmaster (GM) Simen Agdestein. Agdestein introduced his civil worker Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen, currently an International Master, to Carlsen, and they had one training session every week, along with one of Carlsen's close friends. Becoming an International Master, Carlsen was given a year off from elementary school to participate in international chess tournaments during the fall season of 2003. In that same year, he finished third in the European Under-12 Boys Championship. [edit] Chess career [edit] 2004 Carlsen playing simultaneous chess in Molde in July 2004 Carlsen was brought to the attention of the international chess world after his victory in the C group at the Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee. He had a score of 10½/13, losing just one game (against the highest rated player of the C group, Dusko Pavasovic).[5] As a result of the victory, he took his first Grandmaster norm and achieved a performance rating of 2702. Particularly notable was his win over Sipke Ernst in the penultimate round, when Carlsen sacrificed material to mate him in just 29 moves.[6] Carlsen won the Audience Prize for that game, as the best game of the round (including the games played in the A and B groups). The first 23 moves in that game had already been played in another game Almagro Llanas- Gustafsson, Madrid 2003 (which ended in a draw), but Carlsen's over-the-board novelty immediately led to a winning position. Carlsen's victory in the C group qualified him to play in the B group in 2005, and it also led Lubomir Kavalek, writing for the Washington Post, to give him the title "Mozart of chess". Agdestein, who was once a young GM at 18, said in an interview that Carlsen was a significantly better player than he was himself at the same age. He also said that Carlsen had an excellent memory and played an unusually wide range of different openings. Carlsen's prowess caught the attention of Microsoft, who became his sponsor.[7] Carlsen obtained his second GM norm in the Moscow Aeroflot Open in February 2004. In a blitz chess tournament in Reykjavík, Iceland, Carlsen defeated former world champion Anatoly Karpov on 17 March 2004. The blitz tournament was a preliminary event leading up to a rapid knockout tournament beginning the next day, where Carlsen achieved one draw against Garry Kasparov, who was then the top-rated player in the world, before losing to Kasparov after 32 moves of the second game, thus being knocked out of the tournament.[8] In the sixth Dubai Open Chess Championship, held 18–28 April 2004, Carlsen obtained his third Grandmaster norm (enough for getting the GM title), after getting four wins and four draws before the last game was to be played. As a result of this he was at the time the world's youngest Grandmaster and the second youngest person ever to hold GM status, after Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine who attained the feat at 12 years and 7 months of age in 2002.[9] Carlsen was the youngest player ever to participate in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004, but was knocked out in the first round on tie breaks by Levon Aronian. In July 2004, Carlsen and Berge Østenstad (then the reigning Norwegian champion) tied for first in the Norwegian Chess Championship, each scoring seven out of nine possible points. A two-game match between them was arranged to decide the title. Both games were drawn, which left Østenstad the champion because he had superior tiebreaks in the tournament. [edit] 2005 In Smartfish Chess Masters at the Drammen chess festival 2004–05 (Norway) Carlsen defeated Alexei Shirov, ranked number 10[10] in the world.[11] In June 2005 in the Ciudad de Leon rapid chess tournament Carlsen played a four-game semi-final against Viswanathan Anand, who was ranked second in the world at the time. Magnus lost 3–1. Carlsen was invited to the tournament as the most promising young chess player in 2005. In the 2005 Norwegian Chess Championship, Carlsen again finished in a shared first place, this time with his mentor Simen Agdestein. A playoff between them was arranged between 7 November and 10 November. This time Carlsen had the better tiebreaks, but the rule giving the player with better tiebreaks scores the title in the event of a 1–1 draw had been revoked previously. The match was closely fought, Agdestein won the first game, Carlsen won the second, so the match went into a phase of two and two rapid games until there was a winner. Carlsen won the first rapid game, Agdestein the second. Then followed a series of three draws until Agdestein won the championship title with a victory in the sixth rapid game. At the end of 2005 he participated at the World Chess Cup 2005 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. In the knock-out tournament, Carlsen upset the 44th-ranked Georgian Zurab Azmaiparashvili in round one, winning 2–0 at rapid chess after a 1–1 tie in the normal length games, and proceeded to beat Tajik Farrukh Amonatov and Bulgarian Ivan Cheparinov (also after rapid chess) to reach the round of 16. There he lost 1½–2½ to Evgeny Bareev, which prevented him from finishing in the top eight. He then won against Joël Lautier 1½–½ and Vladimir Malakhov 3½–2½ securing him at least a tenth place and therefore a spot in the Candidate Matches. Carlsen became the youngest player to be an official World Championship Candidate. In October 2005 he took first place at the Arnold Eikrem Memorial in Gausdal with eight out of nine points and a performance rating of 2792 at the age of 14.[12] [edit] 2006 In the January 2006 fide list, at the age of 15 years and 31 days, he officially attained 2625 elo rating, which made Carlsen the youngest person to break the 2600 elo barrier. In 2008, Wesley So broke that record. Carlsen qualified for a place in the Corus B group from his 2005 first place in Corus group C. His shared first with Motylev with 9/13 (+6 -1 =6) qualified him to play in the Corus A group in 2007. In the 2006 Norwegian Chess Championship, Carlsen was close to winning outright, but a last round loss to Berge Østenstad again tied him for first place with Agdestein. The last- round loss deprived Magnus of beating Agdestein's record of becoming the youngest Norwegian champion ever. Nonetheless, in the play-off 19–21 November Carlsen won 3–1. After two draws in the initial full time games, Magnus won both rapid games in round two, securing his first Norwegian championship. Magnus won the 2006 Glitnir Blitz Tournament[13] in Iceland. He won 2–0 over Viswanathan Anand (2003 FIDE World Rapid Chess Champion, 2004 Amber Rapid Chess Champion, 2007 FIDE Classical World Champion) in the semi finals. Carlsen also won 2–0 in the finals. [14] Magnus scored 6/8 in the 37th Chess Olympiad in 2006 against opponents averaging 2627 Elo, gaining 18 Elo (a rating performance of 2820 points). One of his notable wins was against top English grandmaster Michael Adams.[15] In the Midnight Sun Chess Tournament, Carlsen had some misses and came in second, beaten by Sergei Shipov (FIDE-Elo: 2576).