Magnus Carlsen biography

Carlsen’s father first taught him how one can play chess when he was 5 years outdated. He performed in his first match on the age of eight. Carlsen completed second within the boys’ under-12 division on the 2002 Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) World Youth Chess Championship, held in Iráklion, Greece.

In January 2004 he received his first match, at Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. Although he was enjoying within the lowest-rated group in opposition to grownup gamers, his domination of the match, greatest exemplified in a recreation received with a 29-move checkmate, established him as a participant with huge potential and led American chess participant Lubomir Kavalek to dub him the “Mozart of chess.” In March of the identical yr, at a blitz chess match (the place the sport is performed at a a lot quicker tempo than regular) in Reykjavík, he defeated former world champion Anatoly Karpov and drew a recreation in opposition to one other former champion, Garry Kasparov. He turned a grandmaster after ending in second place on the Dubai Open Chess Championship in April 2004.

Carlsen got here in tenth on the 2005 World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, thus turning into the youngest participant to earn a spot on the Candidate Matches in Elista, Russia, in 2007, the place the highest 4 gamers acquired a spot on the FIDE World Chess Championship later that yr in Mexico City. However, he was defeated within the first spherical by Armenian chess participant Levon Aronian (who went on to put seventh on the world championship).

Carlsen’s victory on the Pearl Spring Chess Tournament in Nanjing, China, in October 2009 with 8 out of a doable 10 factors was thought-about one of many all-time greatest match performances. In November he received the World Blitz Championship in Moscow.

In January 2010 FIDE introduced that Carlsen was the highest participant on the planet. He had not too long ago turned 19 and was thus the youngest participant to change into primary. That yr he was employed by the Dutch clothes firm G-Star to mannequin its denim clothes in an promoting marketing campaign. Carlsen stunned the chess world in November 2010, when he determined to forgo the 2011 Candidate Matches to pick out a challenger to play in opposition to Indian chess participant Viswanathan Anand for the world championship, arguing that the championship construction was flawed and that the reigning champion mustn't obtain an computerized spot within the last spherical.

However, Carlsen participated within the 2013 Candidates Tournament in London. Despite dropping within the last spherical to Russian participant Peter Svidler, he gathered sufficient wins earlier within the match to greatest Russian participant Vladimir Kramnik (who had the identical variety of factors) and safe the challenger spot in opposition to Anand. In November 2013 Carlsen defeated Anand in 10 video games on the world championship match in Chennai, India, with a rating of three wins and seven attracts. Carlsen was the second youngest participant (after Kasparov) to win the world title. He efficiently defended his title in a rematch in opposition to Anand in 2014 in Sochi, Russia, with a rating of three wins, 7 attracts, and 1 loss. At the 2016 world championship in New York, he was tied in opposition to Russian participant Sergey Karjakin after 12 video games. He defeated Karjakin by successful 2 video games in a 4-game speedy spherical, through which every participant had solely 25 minutes on the clock, with 10 seconds added after every transfer. Carlsen clinched his victory with fashion on the final transfer of recreation 4 by sacrificing his queen to arrange checkmate on the subsequent transfer.

From the very starting of his profession, Carlsen impressed his coaches with a prodigious reminiscence, which he has utilized in his profession to play a big number of openings. He favours a positional fashion of play through which general management of the board, reasonably than attacking an opponent’s items, is of paramount significance.