Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen

Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who is the current World Chess Champion, World Rapid Chess Champion, and World Blitz Chess Champion. Carlsen first reached the top of the FIDE world rankings in 2010, and trails only Garry Kasparov in time spent as the highest rated player in the world. His peak classical rating of 2882 is the highest in history. Carlsen also holds the record for the longest unbeaten streak at the top level in classical chess.A chess prodigy, Carlsen finished first in the C group of the Corus chess tournament shortly after he turned 13, and earned the title of grandmaster a few months later. At age 15, he won the Norwegian Chess Championship, and at 17, he finished joint first in the top group of Corus. He surpassed a rating of 2800 at age 18 years and 336 days becoming the youngest at the time to do so. At the age of 19, he reached number one in the FIDE world rankings, becoming the youngest person ever to achieve the feat. Carlsen became World Chess Champion in 2013 by defeating Viswanathan Anand. In the following year, he retained his title against Anand, and won both the 2014 World Rapid Championship and World Blitz Championship, thus becoming the first player to hold all three titles simultaneously, a feat he repeated in 2019. He defended his classical world title against Sergey Karjakin in 2016, and against Fabiano Caruana in 2018. Known for his attacking style as a teenager, Carlsen has since developed into a universal player. He uses a variety of openings to make it more difficult for opponents to prepare against him and reduce the utility of pre-game computer analysis. He has stated the middlegame is his favourite part of the game as it "comes down to pure chess". His positional mastery and endgame prowess have drawn comparisons to former world champions Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, José Raúl Capablanca, and Vasily Smyslov.

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