In our series ‘World Champion Born On This Date’, I take the privilege of writing on the player who is considered the strongest player of all times. He is none other than five times Classical World Champion Magnus Carlsen.
The Chess Prodigy
Magnus Carlsen was born in Tonsberg, Norway, on 30 November 1990 to Sigrun Oen, and Henrik Albert Carlsen. Though Carlsen was first motivated to take up chess seriously in order to beat his elder sister, he was soon able to beat everyone else as well.
A Chess Prodigy, Carlsen earned the title of grandmaster shortly after he turned 13. At 15, he won the Norwegian Chess Championship, and surpassed a rating of 2800 when he was 18. In 2010, at 19, he reached the No. 1 position- the youngest person ever to do so.
The World Champion
Carlsen became World Chess Champion in 2013 by defeating Vishwanathan Anand and retained the title against Anand in 2014. He also won World Rapid Championship and World Blitz Championship in the same year, thereby, becoming the first player to hold all three titles simultaneously. He repeated this feat in 2019 and 2022.
Magnus Carlsen defended his classical world title against Sergey Karjakin in 2016, Fabiano Caruana in 2018 and Ian Napomniachtchi in 2021.
In a recent interview, Garry Kasparov remarked, “The reason Magnus is on top and seems unbeatable today is that he is a lethal combination of Fischer and Karpov.”
In 2023, Carlsen refrained from defending his World Crown due to lack of serious competition. However, he has continued to play actively and is still head and shoulders ahead of the rest of the players. Carlsen now owns most of the Chess Playing Portals and has also started sponsoring Chess Tournaments since pandemic.
Carlsen in the Global Chess League
Magnus Carlsen has been playing for Alpine SG Pipers in the Global Chess League. In the Season 2 of the GCL held at London in October 2024, I had the honour and pleasure of being the Coach and the Captain of the team.
During the tournament, I was indeed astonished by the depth and speed of his calculations as well as his ‘Sense of Chess’. With several younger players making new records in chess every month, it will be wonderful to see Carlsen rejoining the World Championship Cycles and contributing more with his creative ideas.
A couple of weeks ago, Carlsen participated in the Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz Championships after five long years and outclassed all the other participants by winning both the tournaments- Rapid with a score of 7.5/9 points and Blitz with a score of 13/18 points.
Though Magnus Carlsen has stopped playing the Classical World Championship cycle, he still reigns the Chess World by maintaining his top position in all three rating lists – Classical, Rapid and Blitz. We are going to see a lot of creative chess from him in the forthcoming years too.
Learn from the Champion
Today we will see a recent win by Magnus Carlsen from the Tata Steel Rapid Chess Championship held at Kolkata a fortnight ago. It is a typical example of the extent of preparation of some of the top players these days. It reminded me of the last interview of Bobby Fischer, in 2005, when he had already expressed serious concern about what he called ‘Prearrangement’ or preparing with chess playing engines till the end of the game, leaving chess without any creativity or originality.
With the Chess Playing Engines getting stronger, the chess could really boil down to better memory and better ability to hire seconds who would spend hours with Computers and forward the data to their employers. In this game, a strong American Grandmaster Wesley So chooses an opening which can hardly be considered as chess in the real spirit (of defeating the opponent by better skills). Wesley So’s strategy, however, boomeranged against the alertness and accuracy of Magnus Carlsen.
Magnus Carlsen (2831) – Wesley So (2747) [C42]
Tata Steel India Rapid Kolkata IND (5.4), 14.11.2024
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Nxe4 4.Qe2 Qe7 5.Qxe4 d6 6.d4 dxe5 7.dxe5 Nc6 8.Nc3 Qxe5 9.Qxe5+ Nxe5
Black has gone into an inferior ending with the hope of catching the champion unawares, thereby hoping to defend with the help of Home Preparation. It seems that the position was absolutely new to Magnus while Wesley would have analysed it at home with the help of Engines.
10.Bf4 f6
10…Bd6 is no better. A likely continuation could be 11.Bg3 a6 12.0–0–0 0–0 13.Ne4 with advantage to White.
11.0–0–0 Bd7 12.Nb5 0–0–0!?
An idea by FIDE Master Marco Riehle in which Black gives up a Pawn to get initiative and create some threats. 12…Bxb5 13.Bxb5+ c6 14.Be2 Bc5 15.Rhf1! leaves White with a slight advantage with no counterplay to opponent.
13.Nxa7+ Kb8 14.Nb5 Bc5 15.f3 g5 16.Bxe5 fxe5 17.Nc3 g4
Wesley So
Magnus Carlsen
18.fxg4!N
Magnus finds a new move here, the one which turns out to be the best one, retaining slight advantage. A sequence of forced move begins now.
18.Bd3 Bd4 19.Be4?! was tried in a Blitz game but posed no problems to Black after 19…h5.
18…Be3+ 19.Kb1 Bc6!
19…Bxg4 20.Rxd8+ Rxd8 21.Bd3 wasn’t good.
I believe that Black’s home preparation ended here. Black is likely to get back one Pawn and has good drawing chances.
20.Rxd8+ Rxd8
Wesley So
Magnus Carlsen
21.Bd3! Bxg2 22.Re1 Bf4 23.h4 h6 24.Rg1
Wesley So
Magnus Carlsen
In this position Black ‘gets a chance’ to play the first move of his choice. After long preparation, there had been a sequence of forced moves and this was the first time in the game when Black was required to make a decision on his own. The American commits a decisive mistake here and gets into a hopeless position.
24…Bf3?
This loses without any fight.
Perhaps Wesley So had missed the tactical point behind the entire sequence of previous engine moves. Black has a defensible position not because of the fundamental soundness of it but due to a tactical possibility of forcing a repetition or getting rid of White’s strong ‘g’ Passed Pawn.
The Chess Engines reveal that the position wasn’t bad after 24…Bc6! when 25.g5?! allows 25…hxg5 26.hxg5 Be3! 27.Rg4 Bd7 28.Rg2 Bc6 etc, with a draw by repetition of moves. White would, therefore, have been compelled to play 25.Bf5! with a minute advantage.
25.g5+– hxg5 26.hxg5
The Passed Pawn is deadly now!
26…e4 Forced.
26…Be3? was impossible now due to 27.Rg3 e4 (27…Rf8 28.g6) 28.Nxe4 Bxe4 29.Rxe3 etc.]
27.Bxe4 Bxe4 28.Nxe4 Be3
Wesley So
Magnus Carlsen
29.Rf1! But not 29.Re1? due to of 29…Rd4!! forcing a draw.
29…Re8
29…Rd4, too, fails to the move played in the game, 30.g6!.
30.g6!
30.Nf6 was also equally good. For example, 30…Re6 31.Re1! etc.
30…Bh6 31.Nc5 Rg8 32.Rg1 Kc8 33.Rg4 b6 34.Ne4 Bg7 35.c3 Kd7 36.Ng3 Rh8 37.Nf5 Bf6 38.g7 Rg8 39.Re4! 1–0
Black resigned as he is literally in a Zugzwang. The ‘g7’ Pawn is taboo. White simply wins by advancing the King. The game could go as follows :–
39.Re4 Ra8
(39…Bxg7? 40.Re7+)
40.Kc2 Rb8 41.Kb3 Rg8 42.Kb4 Ra8 43.a4 Rg8 44.Kc4 Ra8 45.b4 Rg8 46.b5 Ra8 47.Kd5 Rg8 48.Re6 Bg5
48…Bxc3 49.Re7+ Kd8 50.Kc6 etc.
49.Rg6 Bd2 50.Rf6 Ke8 51.Ke6 Bxc3 52.Rf7 Bb2 53.Rxc7 Kd8 54.Rd7+ etc.
