Magnus Carlsen

Biography (1990)

The youngest player to surpass the 2800 rating mark, Magnus Carlsen (b. 1990) from Norway, stormed into the chess elite in his teens. Carlsen withdrew from the Candidates in 2010, dissatisfied with the format, but three years later, he won the Candidates Tournament (London, 2013) thanks to better tiebreaks over Vladimir Kramnik and became the challenger. The same year, he convincingly defeated Viswanathan Anand in the title match by a score of 6½–3½, becoming the World Champion.During his reign, Magnus defended the title by beating Anand again 6½–4½ (Sochi, 2014) and prevailing in tiebreaks over Sergey Karjakin (New York, 2016) and Fabiano Caruana (London, 2018). In 2021, Carlsen beat Ian Nepomniachtchi in Dubai 7½–3½ and, shortly after the match, announced that he would not defend his title, later confirming it with an official withdrawal. The almost 10-year reign of Magnus Carlsen has ended.During his illustrious and still ongoing career, Carlsen set many records and is widely considered the greatest chess player of all time. He is five-time World Rapid Chess Champion, seven-time World Blitz Chess Champion, and the winner of the World Cup. Carlsen has held the No. 1 position in the FIDE rating list since July 1, 2011, trailing only Garry Kasparov in time spent as the highest-rated player in the world. His peak rating of 2882 is the highest in history. In 2024, Carlsen received a FIDE award as the Best Player, dedicated to the centenary of the International Chess Federation.

Notable game

Game 9 of the 2013 World Championship match in Chennai was Carlsen’s third and decisive victory which brought him the chess crown

Play like a champion!

Black to move.

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Want chess advice?

# 1 / 6

Some people think that if their opponent plays a beautiful game, it's okay to lose. I don't. You have to be merciless.

Without the element of enjoyment, it is not worth trying to excel at anything.

Self-confidence is very important. If you don't think you can win, you will take cowardly decisions in the crucial moments, out of sheer respect for your opponent.

I have always believed in what I do on the chessboard, even when I had no objective reason to. It is better to overestimate your prospects than to underestimate them.

Once you're a chess player, you spend a lot of time thinking about the game and you can't get it completely out of your head.

Contrary to many young colleagues, I do believe that it makes sense to study the classics.

On Carlsen

Having grown up as part of the “internet generation”, Magnus has gotten an enormous amount of experience by playing thousands of games at fast time controls online, yet has also made a careful study of the classics, often referring to it.

Magnus is a lethal combination of Fischer and Karpov. He gets his positions and then never lets go of that bulldog bite. Exhausting for opponents.

He is definitely the main figure by far in modern chess. He has a very good chance of being considered the best chess player in history.

Normally, you should be a little bit sick of chess on his schedule, but he’s still motivated. He comes up with one good result after another. It’s impressive, and I attribute most of it to his fitness and his willingness to play every game till the end.