Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen ( 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 2882, 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 defeated Viswanathan Anand in the World Chess Championship 2013, thus becoming the new world chess champion. He will face Anand in the World Chess Championship 2014 in November.

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. 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 Larsens Find the Plan. 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 countrys 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. 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. 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.

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 Pavasovi?). 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 Carlsens over-the-board novelty immediately led to a winning position. Carlsens 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. Carlsens 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.

Fig : Carlsen playing Levon Aronian at Linares 2007

In the sixth Dubai Open Chess Championship, held 18–28 April, Carlsen obtained his third and final GM norm. He thus became the worlds 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.

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.

At the traditional international Bosna tournament in Sarajevo 2006, Carlsen was in this double-rounded event first shared together with Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (winner on tie-break valuation) and Vladimir Malakhov; this could be regarded as Carlsens first “A” elite tournament win, though it was not a clear first.

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 Agdesteins 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 déchecs in Cap dAgde, 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