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Teen Chess Genius Is Game's Youngest No. 1

A teenager who can think 20 moves ahead in a chess match has become the game's youngest ever number one.

Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, 19, has been called the 'Mozart of Chess'.

He is listed at the top of the World Chess Federation's rankings for January with 2,810 points, five ahead of his nearest rival, Bulgarian Veselin Topalov.
His coach is the Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who took the top spot himself at the age of 20.

Carlsen, who can remember every detail of matches he played six years ago, dismissed comparisons to troubled chess genius Bobby Fischer.

"Bobby Fischer was obviously one of the greatest chess players of all time - one of the inventors.

"The difference between him and me, for example, is that he was obsessed with chess in a way that is not healthy and that's a line I don't intend to cross.

"I try not to mix chess with life. When I don't play I more or less do normal things for a teenager."

Carlsen started playing chess at the age of eight.

It took him a few weeks to learn to beat his older sister, and just a year to win against his father, who plays club level chess in Norway.

At 13 Carlsen became a grandmaster, and beat world Champion Anatoly Karpov in a speed chess competition.

Source

Posted in: News on January 9, 2010 @ 10:09 PM

Tags: Cool

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