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Magnus Carlsen
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Magnus Carlsen Magnus Carlsen, right, and Sergey Karjakin, left, sit across from each other at a chessboard.
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Chess pieces on game board.
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Magnus Carlsen
Magnus Carlsen In 2013 Magnus Carlsen won his first world chess championship, making him the second youngest champion at that time. Carlsen (pictured here in 2016) won five consecutive world championships before announcing in 2022 that he would not defend his title.

Magnus Carlsen

Norwegian chess player
Also known as: Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen
Written by
Erik Gregersen
Erik Gregersen is a senior editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica, specializing in the physical sciences and technology. Before joining Britannica in 2007, he worked at the University of Chicago Press on the...
Erik Gregersen
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
History

Magnus Carlsen (born November 30, 1990, Tønsberg, Norway) is a Norwegian chess player who in 2013 at age 22 became the second youngest world chess champion. (Read Garry Kasparov’s Britannica essay on chess & Deep Blue.) Carlsen’s father first taught him how to play chess when he was five years old. He played in his first tournament at the age of eight. Carlsen finished second in the boys’ under-12 division at the 2002 Fédération Internationale...

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