He could assemble jigsaw puzzles at age 2, and was taught chess at age of 5; by 13 he had become the world's youngest grandmaster. Not limited to chess, he also took on a modeling job for G-Star Raw's 2010 campaign and was voted among the 'sexiest men of 2013' by Cosmopolitan. Magnus Carlsen (born November 30, 1990) is a Norwegian chess Grandmaster who is currently playing for Team Liquid. Carlsen is the five-time World Chess Champion, reigning six-time World Rapid Chess Champion, reigning nine-time World Blitz Chess Champion and the reigning FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion. 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. Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen[a] (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster. Carlsen is a five-time World Chess Champion, reigning six-time World Rapid Chess Champion, reigning nine-time World Blitz Chess Champion and the reigning FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion. He could solve complex puzzles by the age of two and memorize countries, flags, and capital cities by the age of five. He learned chess at age five but became serious about the game at age eight, taught by his father. Magnus Carlsen is the youngest person to reach No. 1 in the FIDE world rankings. Apart from being the reigning Chess World Cup Champion, Carlsen is a five-time World Chess Champion, four-time World Rapid Chess Champion, and six-time World Blitz Chess Champion. He earned the grandmaster title in 2004 at the age of 13. His highest FIDE standard rating, 2882, was first reached on the May 2014 list and matched again in August 2019, the highest rating recorded in the FIDE rating system as of 2026. RATING. At 13 years, four months and 27 days of age, Carlsen became the youngest grandmaster in the world and the second-youngest grandmaster at the time (after GM Sergey Karjakin, who held the record at exactly 12 years and seven months of age until 2021). Magnus Carlsen (born Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen, 30 November 1990) was the World Chess Champion, from years 2013 to 2023. He became World Champion on 22 November 2013, by defeating Viswanathan Anand by 6½ to 3½. [1].