MAGNUS CARLSEN

Magnus Carlsen was born November 30, 1990. He learned chess at the age of eight and received the title of International Master in 2003. In 2004, after having gained over 300 rating points in little over a year, he became the second-youngest grandmaster in chess history, behind only Sergey Karjakin. Carlsen's hopes to become a contender for the World Championship in the future took a big step forward by placing tenth at the FIDE World Cup (2005), becoming the youngest player ever to qualify for the Candidates.

He continued to mark his improvement in 2006, tying Alexander Motylev for first place in Corus Wijk aan Zee Group B (2006) and scoring 6 points from 8 games in the 37th Chess Olympiad (2006). He also won his first Norwegian Championship in 2006, after defeating his trainer Simen Agdestein in a tie-break match. After several more strong performances in the spring and summer, including a joint second-place finish at Linares-Morelia (2007), he crossed the 2700-mark, the youngest player ever to do so. In his first Candidates match in Elista in May, he drew Levon Aronian 3-3 in the six normal-length games before losing in quick-play tie-breaks and being eliminated from the 2007 World Championship cycle. He reached the final four in the FIDE World Chess Cup (2007) before being defeated in the semifinals by the eventual winner, Gata Kamsky. Carlsen's placement in the World Cup qualified him for participation in the FIDE Grand Prix for 2008-09 (he later withdrew).

In 2008 Carlsen was the joint winner of Corus (2008) A-Group together with Levon Aronian, and placed second in Morelia-Linares (2008) behind World Champion Viswanathan Anand. Following his strong results in the first half of 2008, Carlsen improved his world ranking to 6th place on FIDE's July 2008 list behind Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Veselin Topalov, Vassily Ivanchuk and Alexander Morozevich with a rating of 2775. Shortly afterward he tied for first place in the Baku Grand Prix (2008), the first round of FIDE's inaugural Grand Prix series, and then won clear first place at Aerosvit (2008) with a dominant 8/11 score. His "disappointing" third placement at 41st Biel International Chess Festival (2008) with 6/10, a half point behind joint winners Leinier Dominguez-Perez and Evgeny Alekseev , was nevertheless still a 2740 performance, whilst his equal second in the Bilbao Grand Slam Chess Final (2008) with 5.0/10 was a 2768 performance. 2009 has seen Carlsen score equal first in the Amber Tournament (Blindfold) (2009) with 7/11 alongside Kramnik and Aronian, and equal second with Veselin Topalov at M-Tel Masters (2009) behind Alexey Shirov with a 2822 performance. He also won the XXII Magistral Ciudad de Leon (2009), a rapid knockout tournament, ahead of Alexander Morozevich, Ivanchuk, and Wang Yue, and was equal second behind Kramnik at Dortmund (2009) with a 2773 performance.

The advent of Garry Kasparov in 2009 as his coach ushered in Carlsen's finest tournament performance to date, and one of the best tournament results in the history of chess. Carlsen eclipsed a powerful and star studded field consisting of Topalov, Peter Leko, Dmitry Jakovenko, Teimour Radjabov and Wang Yue to win clear first prize with 8/10 at the category XXI Pearl Spring Chess Tournament (2009). Carlsen's performance rating for the tournament was a record 3002 and lifted his FIDE rating in the November 2009 list to 2801, which makes him only the fifth player to surpass 2800, and easily the youngest. After a slow start, and sporting a throat infection for most of the tournament, Carlsen placed equal second with Vassily Ivanchuk behind Vladimir Kramnik in the Category XXI Tal Memorial (2009), which fielded ten of the world's top thirteen rated players. His 2838 performance in this tournament moved him to the top of the live ratings (http://chess.liverating.org/) to 2806, a point ahead of Veselin Topalov. Just a few days later he won the World Blitz Championship (2009) with 31/42, a full three points ahead of runner-up Anand.