Magnus Carlsen Biography

Magnus Carlsen is a Norwegian chess player who won the World Chess Championship in 2013, becoming the second youngest world chess champion at age 22. A chess prodigy, he had become a Grandmaster at the age of 13 in 2004, and was ranked world No. 1 in 2010 when he was just 19 years old. At that time he was the youngest chess player in history to be ranked world No. 1. The son of engineers, he began displaying his intellectual abilities at a young age. He could solve 50-piece jigsaw puzzles by the time he was two and assembled Lego sets meant for much older children at the age of four. Recognizing his mental gifts, his father taught him chess and soon the young boy was hooked. He started participating in prestigious chess tournaments when he was eight, winning several of them. He gained international fame following his victory in the C group at the Corus chess tournament, in Wijk aan Zee, in 2004. He went on to become a grandmaster after finishing second at the Dubai Open Chess Championship in April the same year. His career touched newer heights over the next few years and in 2010, Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) announced that Carlsen was the top player in the world.