Magnus Carlsen

2005

In January, Carlsen scored 7/13 (+3–2=8) in the B group at Corus 2005 at Wijk aan Zee. In the Smartfish Chess Masters event at the Drammen International Chess Festival 2004–05, Carlsen defeated World No. 10 and eventual co-winner Alexei Shirov. In the semi-finals of the Ciudad de León rapid chess tournament in June, Carlsen played a four-game match against reigning World Rapid Champion and World No. 2 Viswanathan Anand, losing 3–1.

In the Norwegian Chess Championship, Carlsen again finished in shared first place, this time with his mentor Simen Agdestein. A playoff between them was played between 7 and 10 November. This time, the rule giving the title to the player with better tiebreak scores in the event of a 1–1 tie had been revoked. Agdestein won the first game, and Carlsen struck back in the second, so it went into a series of two-game rapid matches. Carlsen won the first rapid game, Agdestein the second. Then followed three draws until Agdestein won the title with a victory in the sixth rapid game.

In October, Carlsen took first place at the Arnold Eikrem Memorial in Gausdal with a score of 8/9 and a PR of 2792.

At the end of 2005, Carlsen participated in the Chess World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. In the knockout tournament, he upset 44th-ranked Zurab Azmaiparashvili in round one, and proceeded to defeat Farrukh Amonatov and Ivan Cheparinov to reach the round of 16. There he lost to Evgeny Bareev, but won against Joël Lautier and Vladimir Malakhov before losing again to Gata Kamsky. Carlsen finished in tenth place and became the youngest player to be an official World Championship Candidate.

2006

In the B group at the Corus 2006, Carlsen scored 9/13 (+6−1=6), which shared first place with Alexander Motylev. As a result, Carlsen qualified to play in the Corus group A in 2007. At the 2006 international 'Bosna' tournament in Sarajevo, Carlsen shared first place with Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (who won on tiebreak) and Vladimir Malakhov; this could be regarded as Carlsen's first "A" elite tournament win, although 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 Agdestein's record as the youngest Norwegian champion ever. Nonetheless, in the playoff held from 19 to 21 September, after two draws at standard time controls, Carlsen won both rapid games in round two to secure his first Norwegian championship title.

Carlsen won the Glitnir Blitz Tournament in Iceland. He achieved a 2–0 win over Vishy Anand in the semi-finals 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 in Tromsø, Carlsen finished second to 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 Rising Stars team (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 d'échecs in Cap d'Agde, France, he reached the semi-final, losing there 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.

2007

Playing in the top group of the Corus chess tournament for the first time, Carlsen placed last with nine draws and four losses, scoring 4½/13. In the Linares chess tournament, Carlsen faced elite opposition and was the lowest-rated player by a large margin. Despite this, he tied for second place with 7½/14 (+4−3=7), with wins over Alexander Morozevich, Vasyl Ivanchuk (twice), and Veselin Topalov, and a PR of 2778.

In March, Carlsen played in his first Melody Amber blind and rapid chess tournament in Monte Carlo. In the blindfold portion, he achieved a winless score of 4/11 (+0–3=8) to finish in shared ninth place. In the rapid portion, he finished 6½/11 (+3–1=7) for shared second place. Overall, he finished in shared eighth place.

In May and June, he participated in the Candidates Tournament for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007, facing Levon Aronian in a six-game match at standard time controls, which Carlsen drew (+2−2=2) by coming from behind twice. The four-game rapid playoff was drawn as well (+1−1=2), with Carlsen winning the last game to stay in the match. Eventually, Aronian eliminated Carlsen from the tournament after winning both tiebreak blitz games.

In July and August, Carlsen won the Biel Grandmaster Tournament with a 6/10 record and a PR of 2753. His score was matched by Alexander Onischuk and they played a match to break the tie. After drawing two rapid and two blitz games, Carlsen won the armageddon game. Immediately after the Biel tournament, Carlsen entered the open Arctic Chess Challenge in Tromsø, but his fourth-place result with +5=4 was a slight underperformance in terms of rating. A game which attracted some attention was his sixth-round win over his father, Henrik Carlsen.

Carlsen reached the semi-final round of the World Chess Cup in December, after defeating Michael Adams in the round of 16 and Ivan Cheparinov in the quarterfinals. In the semi-final, he was eliminated by eventual winner, Gata Kamsky 1½–½.

2008

In the top group A of the 69th Corus chess tournament, Carlsen scored 8/13, achieving a PR of 2830. Carlsen won five games, lost two and drew six, sharing first place with Levon Aronian. At the Linares chess tournament, Carlsen had another 2800+ PR, scoring 8/14. He finished in sole second place, half a point behind the winner World Champion Vishy Anand.

In March, Carlsen played for the second time in the Melody Amber blind and rapid chess tournament, held in Nice for the first time. In the 11 rounds, he achieved four wins, four draws and two losses in the blindfold, and three wins, two losses, and six draws in the rapid. This resulted in a shared fifth place in the blindfold, shared third place in the rapid and a shared second place in the overall tournament.

Carlsen was one of 21 players in the six-tournament FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010, a qualifier for the World Chess Championship 2012. In the first tournament, in Baku, Azerbaijan, he finished in a three-way tie for first place, with another 2800 PR. He later withdrew from the Grand Prix cycle despite his initial success, criticising FIDE for "changing the rules dramatically in the middle of a World Championship cycle".

Carlsen won a rapid match against Peter Leko held in Miskolc, Hungary, scoring 5–3. In June, Carlsen won the annual Aerosvit chess tournament, finishing undefeated with 8/11 in a category 19 field and achieving a PR of 2877, his best PR at that point in his career. Playing in the category 18 Biel Grandmaster Tournament, Carlsen finished third with 6/10, with a PR of 2740.

In the Mainz World Rapid Chess Championship, Carlsen finished in second place after losing the final to defending champion Anand 3–1. In the qualification round Carlsen scored 1½–½ against Judit Polgár, 1–1 against Anand and 1–1 against Alexander Morozevich. In the category 22 Bilbao Masters, Carlsen tied for second with a 2768 PR.

2009

Playing in Group A of the 71st Corus chess tournament, Carlsen tied for fifth with a 2739 PR. In the Linares chess tournament, he finished third with a 2777 PR. He tied for second place with Veselin Topalov at the M-Tel Masters (category 21) tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria. He lost to eventual winner Alexei Shirov in their final game, dropping him from first.

Carlsen won the category 21 Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament, 2½ points ahead of second-place finisher Topalov, the world's highest-rated player at the time. He scored an undefeated 8/10, winning every game as white (against Topalov, Wang Yue, Peter Leko, Teimour Radjabov, and Dmitry Jakovenko), and also winning as black against Jakovenko. By rating performance, this was one of the greatest results in history, with a PR of 3002. Chess statistician Jeff Sonas has declared it one of the 20 best tournament performances of all time, and the best chess performance of all time by a teenager. As a result, Carlsen became the youngest ever player at the time to pass 2800 in rating.

In the Tal Memorial, played from 5 to 14 November, Carlsen started with seven straight draws, but finished with wins over former FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov and Leko. This result put Carlsen in shared second place behind former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and equal with Ivanchuk. After the Tal Memorial, Carlsen won the World Blitz Championship, played from 16 to 18 November in Moscow, Russia. His score of 31/42 (+28–8=6) left him three points ahead of runner-up Anand.

Carlsen entered the London Chess Classic as the top seed in a field including Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Michael Adams, Nigel Short, Ni Hua, Luke McShane and David Howell. He defeated Kramnik in round one and went on to win the tournament with 13/21 (three points were awarded for a win, and one for a draw; using classical scoring, he finished with 5/7) and a PR of 2844, one point ahead of Kramnik. This victory propelled him to No. 1 of the FIDE rating list, surpassing Veselin Topalov.

Based on his average ranking from the July 2009 and January 2010 FIDE lists, Carlsen qualified for the Candidates Tournament that would determine the challenger to World Champion Vishy Anand in the World Chess Championship 2012. In November 2010, however, Carlsen announced he was withdrawing from the Candidates Tournament. Carlsen described the 2008–12 cycle as "[not] sufficiently modern and fair", and wrote that "Reigning champion privileges, the long (five-year) span of the cycle, changes made during the cycle resulting in a new format (Candidates) that no World Champion has had to go through since Kasparov, puzzling ranking criteria as well as the shallow ceaseless match-after-match concept are all less than satisfactory in my opinion."

In early 2009, Carlsen hired former World Champion Garry Kasparov as a personal trainer. In September their partnership was revealed to the public by Norwegian newspapers.

2010

Carlsen won the 72nd Corus chess tournament played 16–31 January with 8½ points. His ninth-round loss to Kramnik ended a streak of 36 rated games undefeated. Carlsen struggled in the last round against Fabiano Caruana, but saved a draw, leaving him half a point ahead of Kramnik and Shirov.

In March it was announced that Carlsen had split from Kasparov and would no longer use him as a trainer, although Carlsen later stated that they would remain in contact and he would continue to attend training sessions with Kasparov.

Carlsen shared first place alongside Ivanchuk in the Amber blindfold and rapid tournament. Scoring 6½/11 in the blindfold and 8/11 in the rapid, Carlsen accumulated 14½ from a possible 22 points. Carlsen helped Vishy Anand prepare for the World Championship 2010 against Veselin Topalov, which Anand won 6½–5½ to retain the title. Carlsen had earlier helped Anand prepare for his World Championships in 2007 and 2008.

Carlsen won the Bazna Kings Tournament in Romania in June, two points ahead of Teimour Radjabov and Boris Gelfand. In August, Carlsen played in the Arctic Securities Chess Stars tournament in Kristiansund, Norway., defeating Anand 1½–½ in the two-game final to win the championship.

Carlsen suffered setbacks in his next two tournaments. In the 39th Chess Olympiad he scored 4½/8, losing three games, to Baadur Jobava, Michael Adams, and Sanan Sjugirov; these were his first losses with the black pieces in more than a year. His team, Norway, finished 51st out of 149 teams.

Carlsen played in the Grand Slam Masters Final in October, which he had qualified for automatically by winning three of the previous year's four Grand Slam chess events. The average Elo of the participants at the time was 2789, making the Grand Slam Final the strongest chess tournament in history. In the first round, Carlsen lost with black to Kramnik; this was Carlsen's second consecutive loss to Kramnik, and placed his hold on the world No. 1 ranking in jeopardy. In his second round, Carlsen lost with the white pieces to Anand; this was his first loss as White since January 2010. Carlsen recovered somewhat in the latter part of the tournament, achieving a win over Shirov, and finishing with 2½/6; Kramnik won the event with 4/6.

In October, Carlsen competed at the Pearl Spring chess tournament in Nanjing, China. This was the only tournament in 2010 to feature Anand, Carlsen and Topalov, at the time the top three players in the world, and was the first tournament in history to feature three players rated at least 2800. Carlsen secured first place by defeating Topalov with black. This was his second victory in the tournament over the former world No. 1; his final score of 7/10 (with a PR of 2903) was a full point ahead of runner-up Anand.

On 5 November, Carlsen withdrew from the 2011 Candidates Tournament, having qualified as the highest rated challenger, citing dissatisfaction with the World Championship cycle format.

In the World Blitz Championship, held in Moscow in November, Carlsen finished third with a score of 23½/38, behind Radjabov and winner Levon Aronian. After the tournament, Carlsen played a private 40-game blitz match against Hikaru Nakamura, winning with a score of 24½–15½. Carlsen won the London Chess Classic in December, ahead of Anand and McShane.

2011

Carlsen competed in the GM-A group of the 73rd Tata Steel Chess Tournament (formerly called the Corus chess tournament) on 14–30 January in Wijk aan Zee in an attempt to defend his title; the field included World Champion Viswanathan Anand, Levon Aronian, former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura, Ruslan Ponomariov, among others. Despite losing games with white against Anish Giri and reigning Russian champion Ian Nepomniachtchi, Carlsen finished with 8/13, including victories over Kramnik and tournament winner Nakamura. Although Carlsen's performance raised his rating from 2814 to 2815, Anand's 8½/13 score elevated his rating to 2817, making him the world No. 1 for the March 2011 FIDE rating list.

The first tournament victory of the year came in the Bazna Kings tournament, a double round robin played in Mediaș, Romania on 11–21 June. Carlsen finished with 6½/10, equal with Sergey Karjakin but with a better tiebreak score. Carlsen won his White games against Nakamura, Nisipeanu, and Ivanchuk and drew the rest of the games.

Carlsen won the 44th Biel Grandmaster tournament, held from 16 to 29 July. He took clear first place with a score of 19/30 (+5−1=4; three points for a win) in a field comprising Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexander Morozevich, Alexey Shirov and Yannick Pelletier, two points ahead of Morozevich. This was Carlsen's second title.

The Grand Slam Chess Final was held as a double round robin with six players, in São Paulo (25 September – 1 October) and Bilbao (5–11 October). Although Carlsen had a slow start, including a loss against bottom-ranked Francisco Vallejo Pons, he finished +3−1=6, equal with Ivanchuk (whose +4−3=3 finish was equal due to three points for a win). Carlsen then won the blitz tiebreak against Ivanchuk. The other players were Anand, Aronian, Nakamura, and Vallejo Pons.

Another tournament victory was achieved in the Tal Memorial in Moscow 16–25 November as a round robin with ten players. Carlsen won two games, against Gelfand and Nakamura, and drew the rest. Although he finished equal on points with Aronian, he placed ahead since the tiebreak was determined by the number of black games; Carlsen had five black games, while Aronian only had four.

In the London Chess Classic, played 3–12 December, Carlsen's streak of tournament victories ended when he finished third, behind Kramnik and Nakamura. Carlsen won three games and drew five. Although he did not win the tournament, Carlsen gained rating points, rising to a new personal record of 2835.

2012

At the 74th Tata Steel Chess Tournament held on 14–29 January in Wijk aan Zee, Carlsen finished in a shared second place with 8/13, behind Aronian, and equal with Radjabov and Caruana. Carlsen defeated Gashimov, Aronian, Gelfand, and Topalov, but lost against Karjakin. At the blitz chess tournament at Tal Memorial, held in Moscow on 7 June, Carlsen shared first place with Morozevich. In the main event (a category 22 ten-player round robin), he won two games and drew seven. He finished in first place, ahead of Radjabov and Caruana.

Carlsen then went on to finish second in the Biel Grandmaster Tournament, with 18 points, just one point behind Wang Hao using the 3–1–0 scoring system. As in the Tal Memorial earlier in 2012, Carlsen managed to finish the tournament without any losses (+4−0=6). He also defeated the winner Wang in both of their individual games. In the exhibition blitz tournament at Biel before the GM tournament, Carlsen was eliminated (+1−2=0) in the first round by Étienne Bacrot. Bacrot deprived Carlsen of a win in the classical tournament by holding him to a draw in the final round. Carlsen would have won the classical tournament on the traditional 1–½–0 scoring system, with 7/10.

Business endeavours

Carlsen modelled for G-Star Raw's Fall/Winter 2010 advertising campaign along with American actress Liv Tyler. The campaign was shot by Dutch film director and photographer Anton Corbijn. The campaign was coordinated with the RAW World Chess Challenge in New York, an event in which Carlsen played an online team of global chess players, who voted on moves suggested by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura and Judit Polgár. Carlsen, playing white, won in 43 moves. In February 2014, he appeared in G-Star Raw's Spring/Summer 2014 campaign along with actress and model Lily Cole.

Film director J. J. Abrams offered Carlsen a role in the movie Star Trek Into Darkness as "a chess player from the future", but Carlsen was unable to get a work permit in time for shooting. In 2012, Carlsen was featured in a 60 Minutes segment and appeared as a guest on The Colbert Report. He was also interviewed by Rainn Wilson for SoulPancake in 2013.

As of 2012, Carlsen is the only active chess professional with a full-time manager; Espen Agdestein, a FIDE Master and brother of Carlsen's former trainer Simen Agdestein, began working as an agent for Carlsen in late 2008. Agdestein's work consisted initially of finding sponsors and negotiating media contacts but, since 2011, he has taken over management tasks formerly performed by Carlsen's father Henrik. According to The New York Times, Carlsen earned US$1.2 million in 2012, the bulk of which was from sponsorships.

In August 2013, Carlsen became an ambassador for Nordic Semiconductor, and in November was selected as one of the "sexiest men of 2013" by Cosmopolitan. In 2017, Carlsen made a special guest appearance on The Simpsons in an episode where Homer's chess history is revealed. In 2020, Carlsen announced that he had signed a two-year sponsorship deal with gambling company Unibet to act as a "global ambassador". Unibet parent company Kindred Group is also a sponsor of Offerspill Chess Club. Offerspill was founded by Carlsen in 2019 after the Norwegian Chess Federation turned down Kindred's sponsorship offer. It is now Norway's largest chess club; Carlsen is its current chairman. In April 2022, the Kindred Group (through Unibet) extended its partnership with Carlsen for another two years, and also extended its sponsorship of Offerspill.

In December 2024, Carlsen became the official chess ambassador for the Esports World Cup, an esports tournament series that takes place in Saudi Arabia, as part of the introduction of chess in the 2025 edition.

Play Magnus

In October 2013, Carlsen co-founded a company, Play Magnus AS, with Espen Agdestein and Anders Brandt. Based in Oslo, Norway, Play Magnus' first product was an iOS app, called Play Magnus, that allows the user to play a chess engine created using a database of thousands of Carlsen's recorded games from the age of five and up. Carlsen stated he wished for the app to encourage more people to play chess.

In March 2019, Play Magnus AS merged with chess24.com, consolidating into the Play Magnus Group. On 8 October 2020, Play Magnus Group was listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. Magnus Chess, an entity controlled by Carlsen and his family, then owned 9.5% of Play Magnus Group.

In August 2022, Chess.com finalised an offer of acquisition for Play Magnus Group, which officially closed on 16 December 2022. As part of the acquisition, Carlsen signed as a brand ambassador for Chess.com.

Take Take Take

In October 2024, Carlsen cofounded Take Take Take. It was the first app in Chess World which offered text-based commentary to fantasy chess, from live games to post-game recaps, and from challenges to some app exclusive content. Take Take Take then partnered with Chess.com to jointly organise Champions Chess Tour Finals in December 2024.

In April 2026, Take Take Take, in partnership with Lichess launched their own Chess Platform.