The Mozart of Chess, the highest rated human player in history (2882), the 5-time World Champion, and the second longest reign of holding the FIDE number 1 title which has been uninterupted since July 2011.
Magnus Carlsen is in a league of his own in the chess world.
At the time of recording this, he is currently 50 rating points ahead of World Number 2. To put that into comparison, there is a 50 point difference from 2nd place and 8th in the world standings.
Growing up -
Taught chess by his father at the age of 5, Magnus originally showed little interest in playing. It wasn't until he was motivated to beat them that he took the game seriously.
He played his first tournament at the age of 8 years and 7 months scoring a modest 6 out of 11.
During the year 2000, with the help of coaches, his rating jumped from 904 to 1907 studying on average 4 hours a day.
Around this point, he and his family took a year off of school to travel so he could play in international tournaments in Europe.
In 2004 at the age of 13, he earned all 3 Grandmaster norms within 4 months.
At 15, he was the youngest to crack 2600.
At 16, the youngest to crack 2700.
At 18, the youngest to crack 2800.
And at 19, the youngest world number 1 in the world (before him, it was Vladimir Kramnik at 25 years old).
Around that time, he turned down his first invitation to the Candidates cycle and began working with Garry Kasparov.
In 2013, at the age of 22, he defeated Vishwanathan Anand to become the World Champion.
He defended the title against Anand in 2014.
He beat Sergey Karjakin in tiebreaks in 2016 (this was also the last time he lost a World Championship game).
In 2018, he beat Fabiano Caruana in tiebreaks.
in 2020, his unbeaten streak of 125 games was ended after 2 years and 2 months.
In 2021, he defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi which featured a 136 move win for Carlsen - the longest in World Championship History.
In 2022, he declined to defend his title for the World Championship in 2023.
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Carlsen has a repuation for sitting and grinding on equal positions and squeezing out wins.
In a 2013 conversation with Kasparov, he said, "Carlsen is a combination of Karpov and Fischer. He gets his positions and then never lets go of that bulldog bite."
Off of the board -
In 2010, he was in an advertising/modeling campaign with G-Star Raw.
Magnus was on an episode of the Simpons, 60 minutes, The Colbert Report, and was approached by Star Trek into Darkness.
He has helped create the Play Magnus app which was later merged with Chess24 and Chessable, then later acquired by Chess.com.
In 2019, reached the number 1 global spot for Fantasy Football ahead of 7 million other players.
In 2022, he finished 25th out of 1050 in the Norwegian Championships Poker Event.
He has won 'Name of the Year' twice, 'Sportsman of the Year', been on the '100 most influential people in the world', and been given the Peer Gynt Prize.
But for today - we're looking way back in the year 2000 when Magnus was 10 at the Norway Junior Team Championship.
Erik Eikeland versus Magnus Carlsen
Now, if we're ready - let's begin.
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. f3 Nc6 6. c4 e5
7. Nc2 Nxe4 8. fxe4 Qh4+ 9. Kd2 Qxe4 10. Qf3 Qh4 11. Be2 Be6
12. Nba3 O-O-O 13. g3 Qe7 14. b4 d5 15. c5 e4 16. Qf1 d4
17. Bc4 d3 18. Ne3 Nd4 19. Bxe6+ Qxe6 20. Nac4 Nf3+ 21. Kd1
Be7 22. Nd2 Bf6 23. Rb1 Qxa2 24. Nec4 Qc2# 0-1
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1820446
https://www.magnuscarlsen.com/en
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