MEET THE “MOZART OF CHESS”: WORLD CHESS CHAMPION MAGNUS CARLSEN, IN CONVERSATION WITH PETER THIEL
SPEAKERS:
Magnus Carlsen, World Chess Champion
Interviewer: Peter Thiel, Technology entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist; President, Clarium Capital
Time: 5:00 PM Registration & Chess Demonstration | 6:15 PM Buffet | 7:15 PM Program
Location: Computer History Museum, Mountain View | Directions
Magnus Carlsen took the world by storm as a child prodigy, becoming an international Grand Master at 13. At 19, he was the youngest chess player to be ranked number one in the world, and at 22, in November 2013, he defeated five-time former world champion Viswanathan Anand. Now, at age 23, Magnus holds a record rating of 2872.
Don’t miss this chance of a lifetime to meet and be inspired by Magnus. He will be interviewed by entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel, former US-rated Chess Master with a lifelong passion for chess. Topics covered will include Magnus’s views on the game, his experience winning the championship, and the role he believes chess can play in advancing young people’s critical thinking, social skills, and ability to achieve academically.
Prior to the onstage program, Magnus will play—blindfolded—in a six-board simultaneous chess demonstration. Participate in a drawing benefiting First Move, a dynamic non-profit organization that brings chess to second and third graders across the country—and possibly become one of the six brave players if you dare!
Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (Norwegian: [sʋɛn mɑŋnʉs øːn kɑːɭsn̩]; born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster, reigning World Chess Champion and the No. 1 ranked player in the world. His peak rating is 2872, the highest in history.
A chess prodigy, in 2004 Carlsen became a grandmaster at the age of 13 years, 148 days, making him at that time the second youngest grandmaster in history, although he has since become the third youngest. On 1 January 2010, at the age of 19 years, 32 days, he became the youngest chess player in history to be ranked world No. 1. On the January 2013 FIDE rating list, Carlsen reached an Elo rating of 2861, at that time the highest in history. In November 2013, Carlsen beat Viswanathan Anand in the World Chess Championship 2013, thus becoming the new world chess champion.
Known for his attacking style as a teenager, Carlsen later developed into a more universal player. He does not focus on opening preparation as much as other top players, and plays a variety of openings, making it harder for opponents to prepare against him. His positional mastery and endgame prowess have drawn comparisons to those of former world champions José Raúl Capablanca, Vasily Smyslov, and Anatoly Karpov.
Carlsen was born in Tønsberg, Norway, on 30 November 1990, to Sigrun Øen and Henrik Albert Carlsen, both engineers by profession. The family spent one year in Espoo, Finland, and then in Brussels, Belgium, and in 1998 returned to Norway and settled in Lommedalen, Bærum. They later moved to Haslum.[1] Carlsen showed an aptitude for intellectual challenges at a young age: at two years, he could solve 50-piece jigsaw puzzles; and at four, 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. The first-ever chess book he read was Bent Larsen’s Find the Plan.[4] Carlsen developed his early chess skills by playing alone for hours at a time—moving the pieces around the chessboard, searching for combinations, and replaying games and positions shown to him by his father. He participated in his first tournament—the youngest division of the 1999 Norwegian Chess Championship—at the age of 8 years and 7 months, scoring 6½/11.
Carlsen was later coached at the Norwegian College of Elite Sport by the country’s top player, Grandmaster (GM) Simen Agdestein. In 2000, Agdestein introduced Carlsen to Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen, an International Master (IM) and former Norwegian junior champion, and they started weekly training sessions in March. Carlsen made great progress with Hansen, gaining over a thousand rating points in little more than a year. His breakthrough tournament occurred in the Norwegian junior teams championship in September 2000, where Carlsen scored 3½/5 against the top junior players of the country, and a performance rating (PR) of about 2000. Apart from chess, which Carlsen studied about three to four hours a day, his favourite pastimes included football, skiing, and reading Donald Duck comics.
From autumn 2000 to the end of 2002, Carlsen played almost 300 rated tournament games as well as several blitz tournaments and other minor events.[9] After this, he obtained three IM norms in relatively quick succession: the first was at the January 2003 Gausdal Troll Masters (score 7/10, 2345 PR); the second was at the June 2003 Salongernas IM-tournament in Stockholm (6/9, 2470 PR); and the third IM norm was obtained at the July 2003 Politiken Cup in Copenhagen (8/11, 2503 PR). He was officially awarded the IM title on 20 August 2003.[10] After finishing primary school, Carlsen took a year off to participate in international chess tournaments held in Europe during the fall season of 2003. That same year, he finished in a tie for third in the European Under-14 Boys Championship.
2004
Carlsen made headlines after his victory in the C group at the Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Carlsen had a score of 10½/13, losing just one game (against the highest-rated player of the C group, Duško Pavasovič). As a result of the victory, he earned his first GM norm and achieved a PR of 2702. Particularly notable was his win over Sipke Ernst in the penultimate round, when Carlsen sacrificed material to give mate in just 29 moves. The first 23 moves in that game had already been played in another game—Almagro Llanas–Gustafsson, Madrid 2003 (which ended in a draw)—but Carlsen’s over-the-board novelty immediately led to a winning position. Carlsen’s victory in the C group qualified him to play in the B group in 2005, and it led Lubomir Kavalek, writing for the Washington Post, to give him the title “Mozart of chess”. Agdestein said that Carlsen had an excellent memory and played an unusually wide range of openings. Carlsen’s prowess caught the attention of Microsoft, which became his sponsor.
Carlsen obtained his second GM norm in the Moscow Aeroflot Open in February. On 17 March, in a blitz chess tournament in Reykjavík, Iceland, Carlsen defeated former World Champion Anatoly Karpov. The blitz tournament was a preliminary event leading up to a rapid knockout tournament beginning the next day. In that event, Carlsen was paired with Garry Kasparov, then the top-rated player in the world. Carlsen achieved a draw in their first game and lost the second one, and was thus knocked out of the tournament.
In the sixth Dubai Open Chess Championship, held 18–28 April, Carlsen obtained his third and final GM norm. He thus became the world’s youngest GM at the time and the second-youngest GM in history (after Sergey Karjakin, who earned the title at the age of 12 years and 7 months), although his record was later surpassed by Parimarjan Negi. Carlsen played in the FIDE World Chess Championship, thus becoming the youngest player ever to participate in one, but was knocked out in the first round by Levon Aronian.
In July, Carlsen and Berge Østenstad (then the reigning Norwegian champion) tied for first in the Norwegian Chess Championship, each scoring 7/9. A two-game match between them was arranged to decide the title. Both games were drawn, which left Østenstad the champion because he had superior tiebreaks in the tournament.
2005
In the Smartfish Chess Masters event at the Drammen International Chess Festival 2004–05, Carlsen defeated Alexei Shirov, then ranked No. 10 in the world. In the semifinals of the Ciudad de León rapid chess tournament in June, Carlsen played a four-game match against Viswanathan Anand, who was ranked No. 2 in the world at the time and had won the 2003 World Rapid Chess Championship. Anand won 3–1.
In the Norwegian Chess Championship, Carlsen again finished in a shared first place, this time with his mentor Simen Agdestein. A playoff between them was arranged between 7 and 10 November. This time Carlsen had the better tiebreaks, but the rule giving the title to the player with better tiebreak scores in the event of a 1–1 draw had been revoked previously. The match was closely fought—Agdestein won the first game, Carlsen the second—so the match went into a series of two-game rapid matches until there was a winner. Carlsen won the first rapid game, Agdestein the second. Then followed three draws until Agdestein won the championship title with a victory in the sixth rapid game.
Carlsen in Warsaw, 2005
At the end of 2005 Carlsen participated at the Chess World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. In the knockout tournament, he upset the 44th-ranked Zurab Azmaiparashvili in round one, and proceeded to beat Farrukh Amonatov and Ivan Cheparinov to reach the round of 16. There Carlsen lost to Evgeny Bareev, but then won against Joël Lautier and Vladimir Malakhov before losing again to Gata Kamsky. Thus Carlsen finished in tenth place and became the youngest player to be an official World Championship Candidate. In October, he took first place at the Arnold Eikrem Memorial in Gausdal with 8/9 and a PR of 2792.
2006
Carlsen qualified for a place in the Corus B group from his 2004 first place in Corus group C. His shared first with Alexander Motylev with 9/13 (+6−1=6) qualified him to play in the Corus A group in 2007.
Carlsen was close to winning the 2006 Norwegian Chess Championship outright, but a last-round loss to Berge Østenstad dropped him into another tie for first place with Agdestein. It also prevented Carlsen from beating Agdestein’s record as the youngest Norwegian champion ever. Nonetheless, in the playoff held 19–21 September, Carlsen won 3–1. After two draws at standard time controls, Carlsen won both rapid games in round two, securing his first Norwegian championship.
Carlsen won the Glitnir Blitz Tournament in Iceland. He won 2–0 over Viswanathan Anand in the semifinals, and achieved the same score in the finals. He scored 6/8 in the 37th Chess Olympiad and achieved a PR of 2820.
In the Midnight Sun Chess Tournament, Carlsen finished second behind Sergei Shipov. In the Biel Grandmaster Tournament, he placed second, beating the tournament winner Alexander Morozevich twice.
In the NH Chess Tournament held in Amsterdam in August, Carlsen participated in an “Experience” vs. “Rising Stars” Scheveningen team match. The “Rising Stars” won the match 28–22, with Carlsen achieving the best individual score for the youngsters (6½/10) and a 2700 PR, thus winning the right to participate in the 2007 Melody Amber tournament.
With a score of 7½/15, Carlsen placed 8th out of 16 participants at the World Blitz Championship in Rishon LeZion, Israel. In the rapid chess tournament Rencontres nationales et internationales d’échecs in Cap d’Agde, France, he reached the semifinal, losing to Sergey Karjakin. In November, Carlsen achieved a shared 8th place of 10 participants in the Mikhail Tal Memorial in Moscow with two losses and seven draws. He finished ninth in a group of 18 participants in the associated blitz tournament, which was won by Anand.
2007
Carlsen playing Levon Aronian at Linares 2007
Playing in the top group of the Corus chess tournament for the first time, Carlsen placed last with nine draws and four losses, scoring 4½/13.[42] In the prestigious Linares chess tournament, Carlsen met the following top-rated players: Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Peter Svidler, Alexander Morozevich, Levon Aronian, Peter Leko, and Vassily Ivanchuk. Despite being rated significantly lower than any of them, he finished in second place on tiebreaks with 7½/14, having scored four wins, seven draws and three losses, and achieving a PR of 2778.
Carlsen played for the first time in the Melody Amber blind and rapid chess tournament in Monte Carlo in March. In the 11 rounds he achieved eight draws and three losses in the blindfold games, and three wins, seven draws and one loss in the rapid games. This resulted in a shared ninth place in the blindfold, shared second place in the rapid (behind Anand), and a shared eighth place in the overall tournament.
In May–June, he participated in the Candidates Tournament for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007 and faced Levon Aronian in a six-game match at standard time controls, which Carlsen drew (+2−2=2) by coming from behind twice. The four-game rapid playoff was drawn as well (+1−1=2), with Carlsen winning the last game to stay in the match. Eventually, Aronian eliminated Carlsen from the tournament after winning both tiebreak blitz games.
In July–August, Carlsen won the Biel Grandmaster Tournament with a 6/10 record and a PR of 2753. His score was matched by Alexander Onischuk and they played a match to break the tie. After drawing two rapid and two blitz games, Carlsen won the armageddon game. Immediately after the Biel tournament, Carlsen entered the open Arctic Chess Challenge in Tromsø, but his fourth place result with +5=4 was a slight underperformance in terms of rating. In the first round, Carlsen surprisingly conceded a draw to his classmate Brede Hagen (rated 2034) after having a lost position at one point. A game which attracted some attention was his sixth-round win over his father, Henrik Carlsen.
Carlsen reached the semifinal round of the World Chess Cup in December after defeating Michael Adams in the round of 16 and Ivan Cheparinov in the quarter-finals. In the semifinal, he was eliminated by the eventual winner Gata Kamsky.
2008
Carlsen in 2008
In the top group A of the Corus chess tournament, Carlsen scored 8/13, achieving a PR of 2830. Carlsen won five games, lost two and drew six, sharing first place with Levon Aronian.[51] At the Linares chess tournament, Carlsen had another 2800+ PR, scoring 8/14. He finished in sole second place, ½ point behind the winner World Champion Viswanathan Anand.
In March, Carlsen played for the second time in the Melody Amber blind and rapid chess tournament, held in Nice for the first time. In the 11 rounds he achieved four wins, four draws and two losses in the blindfold, and three wins, two losses, and six draws in the rapid. This resulted in a shared fifth place in the blindfold, shared third place in the rapid and a shared second place in the overall tournament.
Carlsen was one of 21 players in the six-tournament FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2009, a qualifier for the World Chess Championship 2012. In the first tournament, in Baku, Azerbaijan, he finished in a three-way tie for first place, with another 2800 PR. Carlsen later withdrew from the Grand Prix cycle despite his initial success, criticizing how FIDE was “changing the rules dramatically in the middle of a [World Championship] cycle”
Carlsen won a rapid match against Peter Leko held in Miskolc, Hungary, scoring 5–3. In June, Carlsen won the annual Aerosvit event, finishing undefeated with 8/11 in a category 19 field and achieving a PR of 2877, his best PR at that point in his career. Playing in the category 18 Biel Grandmaster Tournament, Carlsen finished third with 6/10, with a PR of 2740.
In the Mainz World Rapid Chess Championship, Carlsen finished in second place after losing the final to defending champion Anand 3–1. In the qualification round Carlsen scoring 1½–½ against Judit Polgár, 1–1 against Anand and 1–1 against Alexander Morozevich. In the category 22 Bilbao Masters, Carlsen tied for second with a 2768 PR.
2009
Playing in Group A of the Corus chess tournament, Carlsen tied for fifth with a 2739 PR. In the Linares chess tournament, Carlsen finished third with a 2777 PR. Carlsen tied for second place with Veselin Topalov at the M-Tel Masters (category 21) tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria. He lost to eventual winner Alexei Shirov in their final game, dropping him from first.
Carlsen won the category 21 Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament, 2½ points ahead of second-place finisher Topalov, the world’s highest-rated player at the time. He scored an undefeated 8/10, winning every game as white (against Topalov, Wang Yue, Leko, Radjabov, and Jakovenko), and also winning as black against Jakovenko. By rating performance, this was one of the greatest results in history, with a PR of 3002. Chess statistician Jeff Sonas has declared it one of the 20 best tournament performances of all time, and the best chess performance of all time by a teenager.
In the Tal Memorial, played from 5 to 14 November, Carlsen started with seven straight draws, but finished with wins over Ruslan Ponomariov and Peter Leko. This result put Carlsen in shared second place behind Kramnik and equal with Ivanchuk. After the Tal Memorial, Carlsen won the World Blitz Championship, played from 16 to 18 November in Moscow, Russia. His score of 28 wins, 6 draws and 8 losses left him three points ahead of Anand, who finished in second place.
Carlsen at the World Blitz Championship 2009
Carlsen entered the London Chess Classic as the top seed in a field including Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Michael Adams, Nigel Short, Ni Hua, Luke McShane and David Howell. He defeated Kramnik in round one and went on to win the tournament with 13/21 (three points were awarded for a win, and one for a draw; using classical scoring he finished with 5/7) and a PR of 2844, one point ahead of Kramnik. This victory propelled him to the top of the FIDE rating list, surpassing Veselin Topalov.
Based on his average ranking from the July 2009 and January 2010 FIDE lists, Carlsen qualified for the Candidates Tournament that would determine the challenger to World Champion Viswanathan Anand in the World Chess Championship 2012. In November 2010, however, Carlsen announced he was withdrawing from the Candidates Tournament. Carlsen described the 2008–12 cycle as “[not] sufficiently modern and fair”, and wrote that “Reigning champion privileges, the long (five year) span of the cycle, changes made during the cycle resulting in a new format (Candidates) that no World Champion has had to go through since Kasparov, puzzling ranking criteria as well as the shallow ceaseless match-after-match concept are all less than satisfactory in my opinion.”
In early 2009 Carlsen engaged former World Champion Garry Kasparov as a personal trainer.In September their partnership was revealed to the public by Norwegian newspapers.
Responding to a question in an interview with Time magazine in December 2009 regarding whether he used computers when studying chess, Carlsen explained that he does not use a chess set when studying on his own.
2010
Carlsen won the Corus chess tournament played 16–31 January with 8½ points. His ninth-round loss to Kramnik ended a streak of 36 rated games undefeated. Carlsen appeared to struggle in the last round against Fabiano Caruana, but saved a draw, leaving him half a point ahead of Kramnik and Shirov.
In March it was announced that Carlsen had split from Kasparov and would no longer be using him as a trainer, although this was put into different context by Carlsen himself in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, in which he stated that they would remain in contact and he would continue to attend training sessions with Kasparov. In 2011, Carlsen said: “Thanks to [Kasparov] I began to understand a whole class of positions better. … Kasparov gave me a great deal of practical help.”[80] In 2012, when asked what he learnt from working with Kasparov, Carlsen answered: “Complex positions. That was the most important thing.”
Carlsen shared first place alongside Ivanchuk in the Amber blindfold and rapid tournament. Scoring 6½/11 in the blindfold and 8/11 in the rapid, Carlsen accumulated 14½ from a possible 22 points. In May it was revealed that Carlsen had helped Anand prepare for the World Chess Championship 2010 against challenger Veselin Topalov, which Anand won 6½–5½ to retain the title. Carlsen had also helped Anand prepare for the World Chess Championships in 2007 and 2008.
Carlsen played in the Bazna Kings Tournament in Romania on 14–25 June. The tournament was a double round robin involving Wang Yue, Boris Gelfand, former FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov, Teimour Radjabov, and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu. He finished with 7½/10 and a 2918 PR, winning the tournament by two points ahead of Radjabov and Gelfand. Carlsen then played in a rapid tournament 28–30 August at the Arctic Securities Chess Stars tournament in Kristiansund, Norway. The field featured World Champion Viswanathan Anand, female world No. 1 Judit Polgár, and Jon Ludvig Hammer. In the preliminary round robin, Carlsen scored 3½/6 to qualify for the final, second behind Anand. In the final, Carlsen defeated Anand 1½–½ to win the championship.Following this event, Carlsen suffered setbacks in his next two tournaments. In the 39th Chess Olympiad from 19 September to 4 October, he scored 4½/8, losing three games, to Baadur Jobava, Michael Adams and Sanan Sjugirov; these were his first losses with the black pieces in more than a year. His team, Norway, finished 51st out of 149 teams.
Carlsen’s next tournament was the Grand Slam Masters Final on 9–15 October, which he had qualified for automatically by winning three of the previous year’s four Grand Slam chess events (2009 Nanjing Pearl Spring, 2010 Corus, 2010 Bazna Kings). Along with Carlsen, the finals consisted of World Champion Anand and the highest two scorers from the preliminary stage held in Shanghai in September: Kramnik and Shirov. The average Elo of the participants at the time was 2789, making the Grand Slam Final the strongest chess tournament in history. In the first round, Carlsen lost with black to Kramnik; this was Carlsen’s second consecutive loss to Kramnik, and placed his hold on the world No. 1 ranking in serious jeopardy. In his second round, Carlsen lost with the white pieces to Anand; this was his first loss as White since January 2010. Carlsen recovered somewhat in the latter part of the tournament, achieving a win over Shirov, and finishing with 2½/6. The tournament was won by Kramnik with 4/6. Carlsen finished this tournament with a rating of 2802, two points behind Anand at 2804 who temporarily ended Carlsen’s reign at world No. 1. These setbacks called into question from some whether Carlsen’s activities outside chess, such as modelling for G-Star Raw, were distracting him from performing well at the chessboard. Carlsen said he did not believe there was a direct connection.
Carlsen’s next tournament was the Pearl Spring chess tournament on 19–30 October in Nanjing, China, against Anand, Topalov, Vugar Gashimov, Yue, and Étienne Bacrot. This was the only tournament in 2010 to feature Anand, Carlsen and Topalov, at the time the top three players in the world, and was the first tournament in history to feature three players rated at least 2800. With early wins over Bacrot, Yue, and Topalov with white, Carlsen took the early lead, extending his winning streak with white in Nanjing to eight. This streak was halted by a draw to Anand in round seven, but in the penultimate round Carlsen secured first place by defeating Topalov with black. This was his second victory in the tournament over the former world No. 1; his final score of 7/10 (with a PR of 2903) was a full point ahead of runner-up Anand.
Carlsen at the 2010 London Chess Classic
In the World Blitz Championship, held in Moscow on 16–18 November, Carlsen attempted to defend his 2009 title. With a score of 23½/38, he finished in third place behind Radjabov and winner Levon Aronian. After the tournament, Carlsen played a private 40-game blitz match against Hikaru Nakamura, winning with a score of 23½–16½.
Carlsen won the London Chess Classic on 8–15 December in a field comprising World Champion Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Nakamura, and British players Adams, Nigel Short, David Howell, and Luke McShane. Carlsen had a rocky start, losing his games to McShane and Anand in rounds 1 and 3, but winning with white against Adams and Nakamura in rounds 2 and 4. He joined the lead with a win over Howell in round 5, and managed to stay in the lead following a harrowing draw against Kramnik in round 6, before defeating Short in the last round. Since the tournament was played with three points for a win, Carlsen’s +4−2=1 score put him ahead of Anand and McShane who scored +2=5 (a more traditional two-points-for-a-win system would have yielded a three-way tie, with Carlsen still on top, having the better tiebreaker due to four games with black—Anand and McShane played only three times with black).
2011
Carlsen competed in the GM-A group of the Tata Steel Chess (Corus) tournament on 14–30 January in Wijk aan Zee in an attempt to defend his title; the field included World Champion Viswanathan Anand, Levon Aronian, former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura, and former FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov, among others. Despite losing games with white against Anish Giri and reigning Russian champion Ian Nepomniachtchi, Carlsen finished with 8/13, including victories over Kramnik and tournament winner Nakamura. Although Carlsen’s performance raised his rating from 2814 to 2815, Anand’s 8½/13 score elevated his rating to 2817, making him the world No. 1 for the March 2011 FIDE rating list.
The first tournament victory of the year came in the Bazna Kings tournament, a double round robin played in Medias on 11–21 June. Carlsen finished with 6½/10, equal with Sergey Karjakin but with a better tiebreak score. Carlsen won his White games against Nakamura, Nisipeanu, and Ivanchuk and drew the rest of the games.
The Grand Slam Chess Final was held as a double round robin with six players, in São Paulo (25 September – 1 October) and Bilbao (5–11 October). Although Carlsen had a slow start, including a loss against bottom-ranked Vallejo Pons, he finished +3−1=6, equal with Ivanchuk (whose +4−3=3 finish was equal due to three points for a win). Carlsen then won the blitz tiebreak against Ivanchuk. The other players were Anand, Aronian, Nakamura, and Vallejo Pons.
Another tournament victory was achieved in the Tal Memorial in Moscow 16–25 November as a round robin with ten players. Carlsen won two games, against Gelfand and Nakamura, and drew the rest. Although he finished equal on points with Aronian, he placed ahead since the tiebreak was determined by the number of Black games; Carlsen had five Black games while Aronian only had four.
In the London Chess Classic, played 3–12 December, Carlsen’s streak of tournament victories ended when he finished third, behind Kramnik and Nakamura. Carlsen won three games and drew five. Although he did not win the tournament, Carlsen gained rating points, rising to a new personal record of 2835.
2012
Carlsen at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in 2012
At the Tata Steel Chess Tournament held 14–29 January in Wijk aan Zee, Carlsen finished in a shared second place with 8/13, behind Aronian, and equal with Radjabov and Caruana. Carlsen defeated Gashimov, Aronian, Gelfand, and Topalov, but lost against Karjakin.[106] At the Blitz chess tournament at Tal Memorial, Moscow 7 June, Carlsen shared first place with Morozevich. In the main event (a category 22 ten-player round robin), he won two games and drew seven. He finished in first place, ahead of Radjabov and Caruana.
Carlsen then went on to finish second in the Biel Grandmaster Tournament, with 18 points, just one point behind Hao using the 3–1–0 scoring system. As in the Tal Memorial earlier in 2012, Carlsen managed to finish the tournament without any losses (+4−0=6). He also defeated the winner Hao in both of their individual games. In the exhibition blitz tournament at Biel before the GM tournament, Carlsen was eliminated (+1−2=0) in the first round by Étienne Bacrot. Bacrot deprived Carlsen of a win in the classical tournament by holding him to a draw in the final round. Carlsen would have won the classical tournament on the traditional 1–½–0 scoring system, with 7/10.
The Grand Slam Chess Final was again held as a double round robin with six players, in São Paulo and Bilbao. Carlsen started with a loss against Caruana, but after three wins in the second (Bilbao) round, finished +4−1=5, equal first with Caruana, and ahead of Aronian, Karjakin and Anand. Carlsen won the tournament by winning both tiebreak games against Caruana.
From 24 to 25 November, Carlsen took part in the chess festival Segunda Gran Fiesta Internacional de Ajedrez in Mexico City. As part of it, Carlsen took on an online audience (dubbed as “The World”) with the white pieces and won. He then took part in the knockout exhibition event Cuadrangular UNAM. Carlsen first beat Lázaro Bruzón 1½–½, thus qualifying for a final against Judit Polgár (who had in turn beat Manuel León Hoyos 1½–½). Carlsen lost the first game, but won the second one, and in the tiebreak defeated Polgár 2–0.
Carlsen won the London Chess Classic in December with five wins (over McShane, Aronian, Gawain Jones, Adams and Judit Polgár) and three draws (against Kramnik, Nakamura and Anand). This win, the third time Carlsen had won the tournament in the past four years, increased his rating from 2848 to a new record of 2861, breaking Kasparov’s 13-year record of 2851. By rating performance, this was one of the best results in history, with a PR of 2994.
2013
Carlsen in play during round seven at Tata Steel in Wijk aan Zee, 2013
Carlsen played in the 75th Tata Steel Chess Tournament from 11 to 27 January in Wijk aan Zee. In the 13-round tournament, he scored 10 points (+7−0=6), winning clear first 1½ points ahead of second-place finisher Aronian.[115] On 1 February, Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen joined the team of assistants who helped Carlsen prepare for the Candidates Tournament in March. Before this, Nielsen was on Viswanathan Anand’s team.
Carlsen played in the 2013 Candidates Tournament, which took place in London, from 15 March to 1 April. He finished with +5−2=7, and won the tournament on tiebreak over Vladimir Kramnik. As a result, he earned the right to challenge Anand for the World Champion title.
In May, Carlsen played in the tournament Norway Chess. He finished second, scoring 5½/9 (+3−1=5), half a point behind Sergey Karjakin.
Carlsen played in the Tal Memorial from June 12 to June 23. He finished second, with 5½/9, half a point behind Boris Gelfand. Carlsen ended the tournament with +3−1=5, losing to Caruana but beating Anand, Kramnik and Nakamura. Later that month, Carlsen played a four-game friendly rapid match against Borki Predojević, which he won 2½–1½.
In the Sinquefield Cup, held in September, Carlsen finished first, scoring +3−0=3, a point ahead of Nakamura.
World Chess Championship 2013
Main article: World Chess Championship 2013
Carlsen faced Anand in the World Chess Championship 2013 in Chennai, India, from 9 to 22 November. Carlsen won the match 6½–3½ by winning games five, six and nine and drawing the remainder. Thus, Carlsen became the new world chess champion.
Playing style
As a youth, Carlsen had an aggressive style of play, and, according to Agdestein, his play was characterised by “a fearless readiness to offer material for activity”. As he matured, Carlsen found that this risky playing style was not as well suited against the world elite. When he started playing in top tournaments, he was struggling against top players, and had trouble getting much out of the opening. To progress, Carlsen’s style became more universal, capable of handling all sorts of positions well. In the opening, Carlsen starts with both 1.d4 and 1.e4, as well as 1.c4 and 1.Nf3 on occasion, thus making it harder for opponents to prepare against him. Evgeny Sveshnikov has criticised Carlsen’s opening play, claiming in a 2013 interview that without a more “scientific” approach to preparation, his “future doesn’t look so promising”.
Carlsen has been known to say that he isn’t all that interested in opening preparation; his main forte is the middlegame, in which he manages to outplay many of his opponents with positional means. … Carlsen’s repertoire is aimed at avoiding an early crisis in the game. He invariably aims for middlegames that lend themselves to a strategic approach.
Jan Timman, 2012
Garry Kasparov, who coached Carlsen from 2009 to 2010, said that Carlsen has a positional style similar to that of past world champions such as Anatoly Karpov, José Raúl Capablanca and Vasily Smyslov, rather than the tactical style of Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Tal and himself.According to Carlsen, however, he does not have any preferences in terms of playing style. In 2013, Kasparov said that “Carlsen is a combination of Karpov [and] Fischer. He gets his positions [and] then never lets go of that bulldog bite. Exhausting for opponents.” Anand has said of Carlsen: “The majority of ideas occur to him absolutely naturally. He’s also very flexible, he knows all the structures and he can play almost any position. … Magnus can literally do almost everything.” Kasparov expressed similar sentiments: “[Carlsen] has the ability to correctly evaluate any position, which only Karpov could boast of before him.” In a 2012 interview, Vladimir Kramnik attributed much of Carlsen’s success against other top players to his “excellent physical shape” and his ability to avoid “psychological lapses”, which enables him to maintain a high standard of play over long games and at the end of tournaments, when the energy levels of others have dropped.
Carlsen’s endgame prowess has been described as among the greatest in history. Jon Speelman, analysing several of Carlsen’s endgames from the 2012 London Classic (in particular, his wins against McShane, Aronian, and Adams), described what he calls the “Carlsen effect”:
… through the combined force of his skill and no less important his reputation, he drives his opponents into errors. … He plays on for ever, calmly, methodically and, perhaps most importantly of all, without fear: calculating superbly, with very few outright mistakes and a good proportion of the “very best” moves. This makes him a monster and makes many opponents wilt.
Rating achievements
In the January 2006 FIDE list, at the age of 15 years, 32 days, he attained a 2625 Elo rating, which made Carlsen the youngest person to break the 2600 Elo barrier (the record has since been broken by Wesley So at the age of 14 years, 358 days). In the July 2007 FIDE list, at the age of 16 years, 213 days, Carlsen attained a 2710 Elo rating, which made him the youngest person to break the 2700 Elo barrier. On 5 September 2008, after winning round 4 in the Bilbao Grand Slam chess championship, Carlsen, just 17 years, 280 days old, briefly became No. 1 on the unofficial live ratings list. Carlsen’s September–October 2009 victory in the Nanjing Pearl tournament raised his FIDE rating to 2801, making him at age 18 years, 336 days, the youngest player ever to break 2800. The youngest before him was Vladimir Kramnik at age 25. Before Carlsen, only Kasparov, Topalov, Kramnik, and Anand had achieved a 2800+ rating. After the Tal Memorial (November 2009) he became No. 1 on the unofficial live chess rating list with his new peak rating of 2805.7, 0.6 point over the No. 2 ranked player, Veselin Topalov.
The FIDE rankings from January 2010, which took into account the 16 games played at the Tal Memorial and the London Chess Classic, were enough to raise Carlsen’s rating to 2810. This meant that Carlsen started 2010 by being, at the age of 19 years, 32 days, the youngest ever world No. 1, and also the first player from a Western nation to reach the top of the FIDE rating list since Bobby Fischer in 1971. The press coverage of this feat included an interview and article in Time magazine.
The March 2010 FIDE rating list showed Carlsen with a new peak rating of 2813, a figure that only Kasparov had bettered at that time. On the January 2013 FIDE rating list, Carlsen reached 2861, thus surpassing Garry Kasparov’s 2851 record from July 1999.
Notable games
Carlsen–Garry Kasparov, Reykjavík Rapid (2004), Queen’s Gambit Declined: Cambridge Springs Variation (D52), ½–½ At the age of just 13 years, Carlsen had serious winning chances in a rapid game against Garry Kasparov, ranked No. 1 in the world at that time, and considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time.
Carlsen–Veselin Topalov, M-Tel Masters (2009), Semi-Slav Defense: General (D43), 1–0 This was Carlsen’s first win against a 2800+ player.
Carlsen–Boris Gelfand, Tal Memorial (2011), Slav Defense: Quiet Variation. Schallopp Defense (D12), 1–0 The No. 1 Israeli player and future World Championship challenger creates a seemingly decisive rook invasion into White’s back rank, but Carlsen vanquishes his threats. Carlsen called it “one of the most interesting games I have played in recent times”.
Carlsen–Hikaru Nakamura, London Chess Classic (2011), Italian Game: Classical Variation. Giuoco Pianissimo (C53), 1–0 Facing the No. 1 American player, Carlsen demolishes Black’s pawn structure.
Carlsen–Viswanathan Anand, Bilbao Masters (2012), Sicilian Defense: Canal Attack. Main Line (B52), 1–0 Playing against the then World Champion in a game he considers one of the best in his career, Carlsen sacrifices a pawn to leave Black with a cramped position, and forces him to resign on move 30.
Beyond chess
Carlsen modelled for G-Star Raw’s Autumn/Winter 2010 advertising campaign with actress Liv Tyler. Noted Dutch personality Anton Corbijn was the photographer. The campaign was coordinated with the RAW World Chess Challenge in New York, an event where Carlsen played an online team of global chess players who voted on moves suggested by three GMs: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura, and Judit Polgár. Carlsen, playing White, won in 43 moves. Film director J. J. Abrams offered Carlsen a role in the movie Star Trek Into Darkness as “a chess player from the future”, but he had to decline, unable to get a US work permit in time for shooting. In 2012, Carlsen was featured in a 60 Minutes segment, and appeared as a guest on The Colbert Report. He was also interviewed by Rainn Wilson for SoulPancake. Carlsen was selected as one of the “sexiest men of 2013″ by Cosmopolitan. In August 2013, Carlsen became an ambassador for Nordic Semiconductor.
As of 2012, Carlsen is the only active chess professional with a full-time manager. Espen Agdestein, brother of Carlsen’s former trainer Simen, and a FIDE Master and twice member of the Norwegian team at the Chess Olympiads, began working as an agent for Carlsen in late 2008. His work consisted initially of finding sponsors and negotiating media contacts, but since 2011, he has taken over management tasks formerly performed by Carlsen’s father Henrik. Carlsen reportedly earned roughly US$ 1.2 million in 2012, the bulk of which was from sponsorships.