Championships
World Champion from 2013 until 2023.
After defeating Anand to take the world crown in classical chess in 2013, Carlsen successfully defended his title against Anand in 2014, Karjakin in 2016, Caruana in 2018 and Nepomniachtchi in 2021, Carlsen retired from the World Championship cycle ceding the crown to the winner of the Nepomniachtchi-Ding Liren World Championship match held in April 2023. He is the first player to retire from the title, although Lasker attempted to do so before his fateful match with Capablanca in 1921.
In 2023, he achieved his dream of winning the World Cup, defeating Praggnanandhaa in the final 1-1 (classical) 1.5-0.5 (rapid). This was his fifth participation in the World Cup. In 2005, he placed 10th thereby qualifying for the Candidates Tournament, and at the age of 15 was the youngest player to do so, beating Fischer's record by 5 months. In 2007, Carlsen reached the semi-final but lost to Aronian and subsequently declined to participate in 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2019. In 2017, Carlsen lost to Bu Xiangzhi in round 3, in 2021 he lost to Duda in the tiebreak in the semi final before finally breaking through to win in 2023 in a tense final. However, he waived his right to play in the Candidates as he was satisfied with finally taking out the World Cup.
U10 Nordic Champion (2001); Norwegian Junior Champion (2003); Norwegian Open Champion 2006.
He was World Rapid Champion 5 times in 2014, 2015, 2019, 2022 and 2023 and outright World Blitz Champion 7 times in 2009, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023, as well as joint World Blitz Champion (with Nepomniachtchi) in 2024. He was triple World Champion (classical, rapid and blitz) in 2014, 2019 and 2022.
Ratings
Currently (as at Jan 2025) he is the World #1 in standard chess, World #1 in rapid and World #1 in blitz. He is the only current triple-2800 player, ie: rated over 2800 in each of these forms of the game, although Nakamura, Caruana, Anand, Aronian, So, Vachier-Lagrave, Ding Liren, Grischuk and Mamedyarov have also officially achieved this feat in the past. Carlsen has also had ratings of over 2900 in the rapid and blitz formats, the only player to have done so: in fact he is the only player to have been rated over 2900 in rapid. He will possibly be the last player for the foreseeable future to achieve the 2900+ feats since FIDE amended the K-factor to 10 in calculating ratings in all three forms of the game thereby standardizing rating calculations for classical, rapid and blitz.
Carlsen has also achieved the highest ever ratings to date in all three forms of the game, the figures for which are shown at the top of this page.
Titles
FM (2002), IM (2003), Carlsen became a Grandmaster in 2004 when he was 13 years old, at that time the second youngest grandmaster ever. In 2019-20, he recorded what is still the longest ever unbeaten streak in top level chess of 125 games.
Classical Tournaments
Eight-time winner at Wijk aan Zee (Corus until 2010, currently the Tata Steel Tournament) in 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2022.
Also won the category 21 Pearl Spring Tournament (2009) in Nanjing with 8/10 and a record performance rating of 3002.
Other victories in major events include
- Biel 2007 & 2011
- Aerosvit 2008
- the London Classic in 2009, 2010, 2012 & 2015
- King's Tournament 2010 & 2011
- Pearl Spring Tournament 2009 & 2010
- Bilbao Masters 2011, 2012 & 2016
- Tal Memorial 2011 & 2012
- Sinquefield Cup 2013 & 2018 (co-winner)
- Zurich Chess Challenge 2014
- Gashimov Memorial 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019
- Qatar Masters 2015 & 2023
- Norway Chess 2016, 2019, 2022 & 2024
- Isle of Man Masters 2017 and
- Grenke 2019, Zagreb (Grand Chess Tour) 2019).
Carlsen played in the category 22 Sinquefield Cup 2019 in August 2019, placing equal first alongside Ding Liren in the classical games, both scoring 6.5/11, but losing to Ding in the rapid/blitz playoff by 1-1 (rapid) and 2-0 (blitz).
He won the online Champions Chess Tour in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. In 2024 he won the most events and prize money, but Firouzja won the most points.
Team Events
He represented Norway on board 1 at the Chess Olympiads of 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2022 (winning bronze on board 1) and 2024 (bronze on board 1) and at the European Team Championship in 2023 where he won gold for board 1. He won team gold and gold for board 1 at the European Club Cup Championship in 2023.
