Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen is a child prodigy. Born in Tons berg, Norway on 30^th November, 1990 his parents were both engineers by profession. Carlsen showed an aptitude for intellectual challenge at a young age: at two years, he could solve 50- Piece jigsaw puzzles; at four, he enjoyed assembling Lego sets with instructions intended for children aged 10-14. His father taught him to play chess at the age of 5 although he initially showed little interest in the game until he saw his older sister playing well. After achieving his goal of defeating his sister and then father, his enthusiasm for chess grew. Carlsen participated in his first tournament- the youngest division of the 1999 Norwegian College of Elite sport by the country’s top player, Grandmaster (GM) Simen Agdestein.

Apart from chess. Which Carlsen studied about three to four hours a day, his favourite pastimes included football, skiing and reading Donald Duck comics. Magnus because an International Grandmaster at the age of 13, the youngest at the time. In October 2009, during the Nanjing Pearl Springing tournament, he became the fifth chess player in the history to achieve an Elo-rating over 2800- by far the Youngest to do so. That year he also became The World blitz Chess Champion. On January 1^st of 2010 the new FIDE list was published and at the youngest ever chess player to be ranked World Number One. Since July 2011, he has been the highest rated chess player in the world. On January 2013, Magnus broke Garry Kasparov’s record by ten points achieving the highest rating ever with 2862. He increased his own record by 10 points, making 2872 and then to 2881, the current rating record.

Magnus become the World Chess Champion in November 2013, defeating Viswanathan Anand in Chennai, India Twenty- Two year old Magnus won game 5, 6 and 9 and clinched the title with a hard fought draw in game 10. This year Carlsen again faced Anand in a match for the title of World chess Champion in November 2014. The rematch was held from November 7 to 23 in Sochi, Russia. After 11 of 12 games, Carlsen led 6.5-4.5, thereby defending his World Champion title.