Magnus Carlsen – The Complete World Chess Champion

Magnus Carlsen

For 23-year-old Magnus Carlsen, breaking chess records has become child’s play. Nobody in the history of world chess has ever been able to show the kind of dominance the young Norwegian has been displaying since winning the World Championship in 2013.

The game format doesn’t matter; it is all about winning, and winning in style for the poster boy of the game. Magnus underlined his supremacy by winning both the World Rapid Championship and World Blitz Championship held in Dubai from 15th – 21st June, which makes him the only player in the history of the game to be holding the World Chess Championship title in all three formats of the game – Classical, Rapid and Blitz at the same time.

The older generation of chess professionals has always shied away from the quicker format of the game because of the relatively poor quality of the games, but things have changed now and chess professionals today are more open to the format since it brings much-needed excitement to the game. FIDE – the world chess governing body, has arrived at a common ground by introducing rapid and blitz ratings in July 2012, giving the formats official status.

This year, the championships had the world’s best players vying for the title of the world’s quickest chess mind. Former world classical chess champion, and current classical challenger to Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, known for his exploits in the quicker formats, beat Magnus Carlsen in the rapid game. But the Indian could not catch Carlsen in the final rounds, and finished third in the Rapid section.

Fabiano Caruana, touted as the next challenger to Magnus Carlsen, finished second. The Norwegian may have squeaked through to win the Rapid event – finishing half-a-point ahead of his nearest rivals (scoring 11 points out of the possible 15) – but breezed through the blitz event scoring 17 points in 21 rounds, a clear point ahead of Ian Nepomniachtchi and the most popular blitzer, Hikaru Nakamura. The most mind boggling statistic is that Magnus Carlsen lost just two games in both events combined.

Here’s a look at Carlsen’s blunders against Anand in the rapid event:

After winning the World Classical Chess Championship last year, Carlsen continued with his exploits by winning the Zurich Chess Challenge and Shamkir Chess tournament. He had a minor blip in finishing second in the Norway Chess tournament, but has now completed a clean sweep of World Chess titles by winning the Rapid and Blitz events, making chess fans around the world wonder if there is anything left for the Norwegian to achieve.

The scary part is that Carlsen is still only 23 years old! Come this November, it will be interesting to see what Viswanathan Anand’s strategy would be against the magnificent Magnus. The Indian seems to be up against a chess machine – a cyborg if you will – sent by Caissa herself to rule the game of thrones.