Teenager topples ex-world chess champ

Magnus Carlsen of Norway continues to make headlines on the international
chess circuit. The 13-year-old boy from Baerum defeated one of the game’s most
successful players ever, former world champion Anatoly Karpov, in a blitz
tournament in Reykjavik, Iceland on Wednesday night.

Carlsen’s victory over Russian Karpov came in a lightning game where both
players had roughly five minutes each for the entire game. Conventional
tournament games allow much more time for thinking and lower margins of error, but the
result is still sensational.
Carlsen has made headlines in recent months after achieving two successive
results towards the international grandmaster (GM) title, the game’s highest
ranking.
The Baerum youngster won a grandmaster tournament in Holland in January and
then placed highly in an open event in Moscow, one of the year’s top
tournaments.
One more such result will give Carlsen the GM title, and make him the
youngest titleholder in the world.
The Reykjavik blitz event was a preliminary for a knock-out tournament which
was to continue on Thursday. The star line-up features a total of 16 players
and includes the world’s top-rated player, Garry Kasparov, who will meet
Carlsen in the first round.
The knock-out event will be a ‘rapid’ chess event, with each player having
roughly half an hour each for the entire game.
Carlsen is trained by Norway’s Simen Agdestein, a national celebrity who was
both a young chess grandmaster and a member of Norway’s international soccer
team.
Aftenposten English Web Desk
Jonathan Tisdall