New chess champ also fashion model

NEW DELHI — The world of chess has a new king, and it’s a 22-year- old who is as much at home posing for fashion shoots as he is pushing pawns.

Magnus Carlsen of Norway won the chess world championship Friday, becoming the first Western player since Bobby Fischer to hold the title.

Carlsen, a former child prodigy who has already been on a list of the world’s sexiest men and has moonlighted as a model, defeated defending champion Viswanathan Anand of India in a title match that was the game’s most highly anticipated in decades.

A draw in Game 10 gave Carlsen the necessary 6½ points to clinch the win, having won three of the previous games with no losses.

The victory fulfilled the lofty expectations that have been placed on Carlsen since he became a grandmaster at 13 — the second youngest in history at the time.

What remains to be seen is whether the Norwegian — who has been referred to as the “Justin Bieber of chess” — can fulfill an even bigger hope among fans: to bring the cerebral game back into the mainstream.

“I really hope that this can have some positive effect for chess, both in Norway and worldwide,” Carlsen said after clinching the title.

“The match was shown on television and I know a lot of people who don’t play chess found it very interesting to follow. And that’s absolutely wonderful.”

Since the days of Fischer’s title match against Boris Spassky during the height of the Cold War in 1972, chess has lost much of its appeal to a general audience — especially in the era of video games.

Carlsen’s good looks and youthful personality make him the game’s best opportunity by far to reverse that trend.