Carlsen faces new challenger Karjakin in New York
CHESS GLADIATORS
MUMBAI: Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin were born 10 months apart. Two of the biggest prodigies the game has seen, they became Grandmasters (GM) very early — Karjakin earned the title at 12 years and seven months and Carlsen in 2004. Karjakin, born in Ukraine, holds the record of being the world’s youngest GM while Norway’s Carlsen took eight months longer — the third youngest GM ever at 13 years, 148 days.
From there on their career trajectories took divergent routes.
In the next six years, they rocketed up the chess rankings, Karjakin reaching the top five while Carlsen overtook him, becoming the youngest World No 1 (in 2010). The Norwegian continued to dominate chess, intimidating opponents with his unique style of play and soon became the youngest to cross the magical 2800 Elo mark in ratings. In 2013, he became the youngest World Champion ever by beating 25;
Games played: 1532; Won: 643
Lost: 261; Drew: 628; Major titles: World Championship 2013, 2014
Major tournaments: Tata Steel (2013, 2015, 2016), Qatar Masters (2015), Corus Group B (2006), FIDE World Cup (2005), World Chess Cup (2007), XXII Reykjavik Open (2006). PLAYED
Games played: 1060; Won: 319; Lost: 144; Drew: 597
Major titles: Corus (2009), Norway Chess Tournament (2013, 2014), World Cup (2015), Bilbao Blindfold World Cup (2007), World Rapid Championship (2012),
World Candidates
Tournament 2016. CARLSEN WON
in all three formats – Classical, Rapid and Blitz.
Karjakin’s progress was less spectacular. He remained in the top 10 and then top-five in the world, becoming the World Rapid Chess Champion in 2012 and bagging DRAWS
the FIDE World Cup title in 2015. The spurt in his results came soon after he switched from Ukraine to Russia.
The two prodigies face off in the World Championship Match starting Friday in New York for a prize fund of 1 million euro.
Karjakin earned the right to challenge Carlsen by winning the World Chess Candidates Tournament in March – finishing ahead of Fabiano Caruana of the US and Anand.
The chess world is keen to see whether Karjakin can take on Carlsen, after Anand lost meekly in 2013 and could only put up feeble resistance the second time.
Carlsen still looks the favourite. Chess fans have lot of hope from Karjakin, especially banking on the support he gets from the Russian system of training players for World Championship matches.
Carlsen is more of a positional player, who tries to exploit even seemingly equal position with relentlessly aggressive moves that forces rivals into mistakes.
Karjakin’s playing style is less intimidating, more defensive.
Beating Carlsen – considered by many as the irresistible force – is theoretically possible. But will Karjakin be able to practically prove that – the answer will be known by November 29.