Chess Community

Bosnian-born Ivan Sokolov became a Grandmaster in 1987 and was Yugoslav Champion in 1988. He represented Yugoslavia in team tournaments and Olympiads until 1988, but now plays for the Netherlands. Ivan has had a notable career at the board with many invites to top tournaments. His most memorable game was out-preparing and beating Garry Kasparov at Wijk aan Zee 1999.

Ivan has written some insightful books, including Sokolov's Best Games, Winning Chess Middlegames and his latest, The Ruy Lopez Revisited. In a career switch, he's now organizing tournaments and has become the Tournament Director for the upcoming Bosna2010 Open- an event that ICC this weekend will be hosting a qualifier for.

Full show (FREE)

The 9th Aeroflot Open is taking place from February 9th to 18th, 2010, for the fifth year in succession in the tourist complex Izmailovo Hotel Gamma-Delta, where most of the participants also stay. The prize sum is EUR 180,000, including prizes for the World Blitz Qualification Tournament. Four Open Tournaments (A1, A2, B and C) are made up according to the rating of the participants. The A1 tournament has players with a rating of 2550 or higher.

Time controls: for tournament A1 and A2 it is 40 moves in 100 minutes, then 20 moves in 50 minutes, finally 15 minutes for the remaining moves, with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move one. For tournaments B and C: 90 minutes for the whole game with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move one.

Photos by WGM Yana Melnikova.

Ukrainian GM Andrei Volokitin, US GM Jaan Ehlvest

GM Sanan Sjugirov from Kalmykia playing US GM Gata Kamsky (draw in 36 moves)

Armenian GM Zaven Andriasian watches Motylev vs Shabalov (Motylev won in 27 moves)

Official tournament site

Crosstable of grandmaster group A

		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Score
1	S. Karjakin		½	½	½	½	½	½	1	1	0	½	½	½	½	7
2	L. Dominguez	½		½	½	1	½	½	½	½	0	½	½	½	½	6.5
3	P. Leko	½	½		1	½	1	0	½	½	½	½	0	½	½	6.5
4	F. Caruana	½	½	0		1	0	½	½	½	½	½	0	½	½	5.5
5	S. Tiviakov	½	0	½	0		1	0	½	0	½	½	0	½	½	4.5
6	J. Smeets	½	½	0	1	0		1	½	½	0	0	0	0	½	4.5
7	L. van Wely	½	½	1	½	1	0		1	0	0	0	0	0	½	5
8	N. Short	0	½	½	½	½	½	0		0	½	½	½	½	½	5
9	H. Nakamura	0	½	½	½	1	½	1	1		½	½	1	0	½	7.5
10	M. Carlsen	1	1	½	½	½	1	1	½	½		1	½	0	½	8.5
11	V. Ivanchuk	½	½	½	½	½	1	1	½	½	0		½	½	½	7
12	A. Shirov	½	½	1	1	1	1	1	½	0	½	½		½	0	8
13	V. Kramnik	½	½	½	½	½	1	1	½	1	1	½	½		0	8
14	V. Anand	½	½	½	½	½	½	½	½	½	½	½	1	1		7.5

Crosstable of grandmaster group B

		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Score
1	Ni		1	1	½	0	1	½	½	1	½	½	½	½	½	8
2	E. Sutovsky	0		0	0	1	½	½	½	½	½	½	½	1	½	6
3	T. Nyback	0	1		0	0	½	0	0	½	1	½	0	1	½	5
4	A. Giri	½	1	1		1	0	½	1	½	½	1	1	½	½	9
5	D. Howell	1	0	1	0		½	½	½	0	½	½	½	1	0	6
6	A. Muzychuk	0	½	½	1	½		0	½	½	½	0	½	½	½	5.5
7	A. Naiditsch	½	½	1	½	½	1		½	1	½	0	1	½	1	8.5
8	W. So	½	½	1	0	½	½	½		½	½	½	1	1	½	7.5
9	V. Akobian	0	½	½	½	1	½	0	½		0	½	½	0	0	4.5
10	P. Negi	½	½	0	½	½	½	½	½	1		½	½	1	0	6.5
11	P. Harikrishna	½	½	½	0	½	1	1	½	½	½		½	0	½	6.5
12	L. Nisipeanu	½	½	1	0	½	½	0	0	½	½	½		½	½	5.5
13	D. Reinderman	½	0	0	½	0	½	½	0	1	0	1	½		½	5
14	E. l'Ami	½	½	½	½	1	½	0	½	1	1	½	½	½		7.5

Crosstable of grandmaster group C

		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Score
1	R. Robson		1	½	1	1	1	0	½	0	0	1	½	0	1	7.5
2	R. Swinkels	0		1	½	½	1	½	1	0	0	½	1	½	1	7.5
3	M. Muzychuk	½	0		0	½	½	0	1	0	1	1	0	½	1	6
4	S. Kuipers	0	½	1		0	0	1	1	½	0	½	1	0	½	6
5	Z. Peng	0	½	½	1		0	0	0	0	½	1	½	½	½	5
6	B. Bok	0	0	½	1	1		1	½	0	½	0	1	½	1	7
7	D. Vocaturo	1	½	1	0	1	0		1	½	1	0	1	0	1	8
8	S. Plukkel	½	0	0	0	1	½	0		0	0	½	0	0	½	3
9	L. Chao	1	1	1	½	1	1	½	1		½	1	0	½	1	10
10	R. van Kampen	1	1	0	1	½	½	0	1	½		½	0	1	1	8
11	K. Lie	0	½	0	½	0	1	1	½	0	½		0	1	½	5.5
12	N. Grandelius	½	0	1	0	½	0	0	1	1	1	1		0	0	6
13	A. Gupta	1	½	½	1	½	½	1	1	½	0	0	1		1	8.5
14	S. Swaminathan	0	0	0	½	½	0	0	½	0	0	½	1	0		3

There was a safety-first start to the 72nd Corus Wijk Aan Zee tournament in the Netherlands, as all the top players had black on the opening day and it proved to be a cautionary tale of draws all round. The only winners on the opening day were Loek Van Wely and Alexei Shirov, who turned on the style to beat, respectively, Nigel Short and Peter Leko to lead at the end of the first round. GM Gregory Kaidanov's choice for GOTD was Van Wely vs. Short - ICC members can view this video in full below. Non-members can view a free 5 min preview of the video - to watch in full, join ICC now.

Rd	Commentator	Game	Watch			Free
1	GM Gregory Kaidanov	GM Loek van Welyvs. GM Nigel Short

N	Name	FED	FIDE	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	3	4	PTS	TPR
1	Shirov, Alexei	ESP	2723	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	1	.	1	--
2	Van Wely, Loek	NED	2641	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	1	1	--
3	Anand, Viswanathan	IND	2790	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	2720
4	Carlsen, Magnus	NOR	2810	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	½	2662
5	Caruana, Fabiano	ITA	2675	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	2749
6	Dominguez Perez, Leinier	CUB	2712	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	½	2788
7	Ivanchuk, Vassily	UKR	2749	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	2675
8	Karjakin, Sergey	UKR	2720	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	2790
9	Kramnik, Vladimir	RUS	2788	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	2712
10	Nakamura, Hikaru	USA	2708	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	½	2657
11	Smeets, Jan	NED	2657	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	½	2708
12	Tiviakov, Sergei	NED	2662	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	2810
13	Leko, Peter	HUN	2739	0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	0	--
14	Short, Nigel D	ENG	2696	.	0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	0	--

World #1 Magnus Carlsen heads the field for this year's Corus tournament that also includes World Champion Vishy Anand, former champion Vladimir Kramnik and last year's winner Sergey Karjakin. Completing the Corus line-up is: US champion Hikaru Nakamura, Vassily Ivanchuk, Leinier Dominguez, Fabiano Caruana, Jan Smeets and Sergei Tiviakov.

Chess.FM will have extended live coverage of Corus throughout starting each round at 7:30am ET (1:30pm CET local). Joining Mig Greengard each day will be our expert team of Chess.FM commentators that includes Peter Svidler, Jan Gustafsson, Gregory Kaidanov, Joel Benjamin, Larry Christiansen, Jon Speelman, Gawain Jones, Ronen Har-Zvi, Andy Martin and Nick De Firmian.

Macauley Peterson will also be in the press room at Corus for all the latest news & gossip and a round-up of all the best video action.

We'll also have the New In Chess trivia, where each day an ICC member can win a 1-year subscription to New In Chess magazine. There's also Game of the Day trivia sponsored by USCF Sales, where each day an ICC member can win a $70 gift certificate for the USCF Sales store.

Now is the time to join ICC for the best in all the live chess action from Corus here at Chess.FM. To join ICC, please click here.

Final Ranking

Rank	Team	Gam.	+	=	-	MP	Pts.	Res.	SB.
1	RUSSIA	9	7	1	1	15	24	0	127,75
2	UNITED STATES	9	6	1	2	13	21½	0	103,00
3	INDIA	9	6	1	2	13	21	0	103,25
4	AZERBAIJAN	9	5	2	2	12	22	0	93,75
5	ARMENIA	9	5	2	2	12	20½	0	97,00
6	GREECE	9	4	0	5	8	18	0	68,50
7	ISRAEL	9	3	1	5	7	17	0	53,50
8	BRAZIL	9	2	0	7	4	12½	0	23,50
9	EGYPT	9	1	1	7	3	12	0	23,75
10	TURKEY	9	1	1	7	3	11½	0	23,00

The United States and Russia have both posted impressive 5-1 records to share the lead at the 2010 World Team Championships, taking place in Turkey. Despite the broken English, the official site has all the important information on the tournament. There's also a four way tie for third place between rivals Armenia and Azerbaijan, along with India and Israel.

The US team -- made up of Nakamura, Alexander Onischuk, Yuri Shulman, Varuzhan Akobian and alternates Robert Hess and Ray Robson -- lost their head-to-head match with the Russians, but got some help from the Greek team, who beat the Russians in the second round to give both leading teams a match loss.

Perhaps the story of the tournament so far has been the sensational win by Hikaru Nakamura over Israel's Boris Gelfand. Nakamura took the black side of a King's Indian and left his queen en prise for several moves in route to a big win.

Nakamura Brilliancy beats Gelfand

Mark Crowther - Sunday 10th January 2010

It's been quite a while since I've seen such a spectacular game. Hikaru Nakamura's win with black against Boris Gelfand in Round 5 of the World Team Championships contained a number of wonderful tactical points. 24.dxc7? missed the full consequences of the rather wonderful mating threat of g2 mate that Nakamura set up with his following move. Then when the pawn disappeared the threat was replaced with Bg2 mate, the final blow was Qd3 placing the queen en-prise but setting up fatal threats on g2 and f3 again. Gelfand had to give up a ruinous amount of material to stave off mate. He resigned shortly afterwards. Malcolm Pein annotates.

Gelfand,B (2761) - Nakamura,Hi (2708) [E97]
7th World Team Championship Bursa TUR (5), 09.01.2010
[Pein,Malcolm]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Nd2 Ne8 10.b4 f5 11.c5 Nf6 12.f3 f4 13.Nc4 g5 14.a4 Ng6 15.Ba3 Rf7 16.b5 [16.a5 h5 17.b5 dxc5 18.b6 g4 19.bxc7 Rxc7 20.Nb5 g3 21.Nxc7 Nxe4!! Belyavsky - Nakamura NH Amsterdam 2010]

16...dxc5 17.Bxc5 h5 18.a5 g4 19.b6 g3 20.Kh1 [20.Nb5 Nxe4 (20...Nd7) 21.fxe4 Qh4 22.hxg3 fxg3 23.Rxf7 Qh2+ 24.Kf1 Qh1+ 25.Bg1]]

20...Bf8 21.d6 21. Bxf8 Nxe4 22. Nxe4 Qh4 wins.A game with a very similar idea was played in a tournament Nakamura competed in, that game finished: 21. Bg1 Nh4 22. Re1 Nxg2 23. Kxg2 Rg7 24. Nxe5 gxh2+ 25. Kh1 Nxe4 {0-1 Roussel Roozmon, T (2486)-Charbonneau,P (2499)/Montreal CAN 2008/The Week in Chess 720}

21...axb6 22.Bg1 [22.axb6 Rxa1 23.Qxa1 cxd6 24.Rd1 Rd7]

22...Nh4 23.Re1 [23.dxc7 Bh3 24.gxh3 g2#]

23...Nxg2 24.dxc7? 24.Kxg2 when either 24...Rg7 or possibly 24..h4 look best. Alternatives are less good: a) 24...Nxe4 25.Nxe4 Qh4; b) 24...Bh3+ 25.Kxh3 Qd7+ 26.Kg2 gxh2 27.Kxh2 Ng4+ 28.fxg4 hxg4; c) 24...Qd7 25.Kh1 Rg7 (25...g2+ 26.Kxg2 Qh3+ 27.Kh1 Rg7) 26.Bf1;

24...Nxe1

25.Qxe1 [25.hxg3 Qxd1 26.Rxd1 Nxf3 27.Nxb6 (27.Bxf3 Rxc7) 27...Rxc7 28.Nxa8 Rxc3]

25...g2+! 26.Kxg2 Rg7+ 27.Kh1 Bh3 28.Bf1 Qd3 29.Nxe5 [29.Bxh3 Qxf3+ 30.Bg2 Qxg2#]

29...Bxf1 30.Qxf1 Qxc3 [If 30...Qxf1 31.Rxf1 bxa5 32.Nb5 White is back in the game now Black is a rook up]

31.Rc1 Qxe5 32.c8Q Rxc8 33.Rxc8 Qe6 0-1

The ICC e-mail:

As expected, we start 2010 with Magnus Carlsen of Norway becoming the youngest player ever to be world #1 with the publication on January 1 of the new FIDE rating list.

The 19-year-old won two of the biggest tournaments of the old year past at Nanjing and London, while finishing close to the top at almost every other elite tournament he played in 2009. Carlsen (2810) also now becomes only the fifth player in history to break the 2800 barrier as he tops the world rankings ahead of Topalov (2805), Anand (2790) and Kramnik (2788).

And ICC's countdown to Corus starts with Carlsen heading the field in one of the strongest super-tournaments of the year at Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands.

The annual "Dutch treat", sponsored by steel makers Corus, also sees an intriguing battle likely to ensue as World Champion Vishy Anand and former champion Vladimir Kramnik get set to again test the mettle of the young Norwegian teenager. The full field can be found by clicking here.

Chess.FM will also be on the air throughout bringing you all the best of the live action from Corus! We'll have the regular live broadcast with Mig and the grandmaster Chess.FM team. Macauley Peterson will also be in the press room at Corus for all the latest news and the video action.

We'll also have the New In Chess trivia, where each day an ICC member can win a 1-year subscription to New In Chess magazine. There's also Game of the Day trivia sponsored by USCF Sales, where each day an ICC member can win a $70 gift certificate for the USCF Sales store.

And with 2010 being officially the start of the Magnus Carlsen era, this could be the best year ever to join ICC as we follow his path to the World Championship and beyond! To join ICC in time for our Corus coverage, please click here.

The 2009 World Team Chess Championship takes place 5th till 14th January in Bursa, the old capitol of Turkey.

The Federations qualified to participate in the Championship are: Continental Champions - Russia, Brazil, India (replacing China) and Egypt; top three teams from the 2008 Chess Olympiad - Armenia, Israel and USA; two wildcard teams invited the approval of the FIDE president - Azerbaijan and Greece; and finally host team Turkey.

There's been some spectacular play so far during the first five rounds of the competition (checkout Gelfand-Nakamura Rd.5!). Russia and USA are tied in first place with 8-points with top seeds Russia with the better tiebreak scores. In 3rd-4th place is Armenia and India on 7-points. The last four rounds looks likely to be exciting, and you can follow the action each day live here on ICC. Play gets underway each day at 8AM ET (final round 3AM).

Eleven-year-old Kayden Troff of West Jordan, one of the top elementary-school chess players in the country recently achieved the rank of mational master and is currently the North American Champion, No. 1 in the world for his age and the top current quick chess player for 13-year-olds and under. (Francisco Kjolseth / The Salt Lake Tribune)

By Natalie Dicou, The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 12/30/2009 04:54:35 PM MST

West Jordan The next Bobby Fischer is living on a quiet street in West Jordan, says Damian Nash, a U.S. Chess Federation senior tournament director.

Utah's own chess phenom is Kayden Troff, and in many ways, he's a normal 11-year-old boy. He loves to swim, go sledding and play video games.

He's also the No. 1 chess player in the world in his age group (11 and younger), according to the World Chess Federation, a gold medal winner at the 2009 North American Youth Championship and a member of the 2010 All-America Team. .

Kayden's latest accomplishment is his biggest yet. In November, the West Jordan boy achieved the rank of National Master, a lifelong title. He is one of two National Masters living in Utah, and one of about 1,500 in the U.S., Nash says.

"Just to give you an idea, Bobby Fischer didn't make National Master until he was 13," said Kim Troff, Kayden's mother. "It never ceases to amaze me. In Germany, they're talking about him, and in Australia, they're talking about him. It's just absolutely amazing. They're talking about him as the next U.S. superstar."

Kayden's story brings to mind that of Josh Waitzkin, a chess prodigy and the subject of the movie, "Searching for Bobby Fischer."

Just like Waitzkin, Kayden, who is home-schooled, began playing chess after watching others play. As a toddler, Kayden sat silently on his father's lap watching him play with Jeremy and Zachary, Kayden's older brothers, who are also accomplished chess players.

"When he had just barely turned 3 years old, he announced to Dad [Dan Troff] he was ready to play," wrote Kim Troff on Kayden's Web site, Kaydentroff.blogspot.com. "Dad thought that he would be a good sport and humor 'the baby.' So, he set up the board and had Kayden give it a try. The whole family was amazed that Kayden knew how all the pieces moved and he knew how to attack with them without ever being taught."

An almost identical scene plays out between Waitzkin and his father in "Searching for Bobby Fischer."

"Here's the deal," Nash said. "Kayden is a better player at 11 than Josh was at 14."

Nash calls Kayden "Utah's Mozart of chess." Nash, one of the strongest players in the state, says he couldn't beat Kayden on a good day. The sixth-grader, Nash said, is the best player in the state and has remarkable potential.

Nash said if Kayden can become a grandmaster by age 13, he'll be on track to be a world champion. If he reaches that lofty rank by age 15 or 16, he'll have the potential to be the U.S. champion.

"It makes me wonder if he has alien DNA or something," Nash said. "He really seems like a superhuman in what his brain is capable of. ... He's seen as one of the great hopes for the future."

When asked to put into words what he likes about chess, Kayden responded simply: "It's fun."

His favorite part about chess, he said with a wicked smile, is "the winning."

Kayden, the fifth of sixth children, practices about eight hours a day and takes lessons two or three times a week from a grandmaster in Serbia, using Skype. He plays against the world's top players via the Internet Chess Club.

The son of a banker and stay-at-home mom hopes to become a grandmaster by "no later than 15," Kim Troff said. She said the family is looking for sponsors to help pay for travel costs and lessons.

"In a lot of ways, he is very normal," she said. "He teases his sister; he hangs out with his friends. And in a lot of ways, he's very not normal. How many 11-year-olds do you know that sit for six hours at a chess game and enjoy it and want to be there?"

This year, Kayden will participate in tournaments in Brazil and Greece. He travels to tournaments outside Utah about once a month. It's the only way to play against top competition and keep his ranking on the rise.

Utah, Nash said, isn't known for chess, which makes Kayden's accomplishments all the more astounding. Chess prodigies typically come from places like New York, California, Texas, Arizona and spots with strong chess scenes, he said.

"My secret hope is he'll put his mind toward curing cancer," Nash said.

By Eben Harrell / London

Monday, Jan. 11, 2010

Not Bobby Fischer "It's easy to get obsessed with chess," Carlsen says. "I don't have that same obsession."

Pal Hansen for TIME

Vladimir Kramnik, former world chess champion and current No. 4, is playing in the first round of the London Chess Classic, the most competitive chess tournament to be played in the U.K. capital in 25 years. Tall, handsome and expressionless, he looks exactly as a man who has mastered a game of nearly infinite variation should: like a high-end assassin. Today, however, he is getting methodically and mercilessly crushed.

His opponent is a teenager who seems to be having difficulty staying awake. Magnus Carlsen yawns, fidgets, slumps in his chair. He gets up and wanders over to the other games, staring at the boards like a curious toddler. Every now and then, he returns to his own game and moves one of his pieces, inexorably building an attack so fierce that by the 43rd move Kramnik sees the hopelessness of his position and resigns. (See the top sports stories of 2009.)

Genius can appear anywhere, but the origins of Carlsen's talent are particularly mysterious. In November, Carlsen, then 18, became the youngest world No. 1 in the game's history. He hails from Norway — a "small, poxy chess nation with almost no history of success," as the English grand master Nigel Short sniffily describes it — and unlike many chess prodigies who are full-time players by age 12, Carlsen stayed in school until last year. His father Henrik, a soft-spoken engineer, says he has spent more time urging his young son to complete his schoolwork than to play chess. Even now, Henrik will interrupt Carlsen's chess studies to drag him out for a family hike or museum trip. "I still have to pinch my arm," Henrik says. "This certainly is not what we had in mind for Magnus."

Even pro chess players — a population inured to demonstrations of extraordinary intellect — have been electrified by Carlsen's rise. A grand master at 13 (the third youngest in history) and a conqueror of top players at 15, he is often referred to as the Mozart of chess for the seeming ease of his mastery. In September, he announced a coaching contract with Garry Kasparov, arguably the greatest player of all time, who quit chess in 2005 to pursue a political career in Russia. "Before he is done," Kasparov says, "Carlsen will have changed our ancient game considerably." (See pictures of the late chess prodigy Bobby Fischer.)

In conversation, Carlsen offers only subtle clues to his intelligence. His speech, like his chess, is technical, grammatically flawless and logically irresistible. He dresses neatly but shows a teenager's discomfort with formality. (He rarely makes it through a game without his shirt coming untucked.) He would seem older than 19 but for his habit of giggling and his coltlike aversion to eye contact.

Carlsen joins chess's élite at a time of unprecedented change. He is one of a generation of players who learned the game from computers. To this day, he's not certain if he has an actual board at home. "I might have one somewhere. I'm not sure," he says. Powerful chess programs, which now routinely beat the best human competitors, have allowed grand masters to study positions at a deeper level than was possible before. Short says top players can now spend almost an entire game trading moves that have been scripted by the same program and that such play by rote has removed some of the mystique of chess. He likens chess computers to "chainsaws chopping down the Amazon." (Read a Q&A with Carlsen.)

But Kasparov says Carlsen's mastery is rooted in a "deep intuitive sense no computer can teach" and that his pupil "has a natural feel for where to place the pieces." According to Kasparov, Carlsen has a knack for sensing the potential energy in each move, even if its ultimate effect is too far away for anyone — even a computer — to calculate. In the grand-master commentary room, where chess's clerisy gather to analyze play, the experts did not even consider several of Carlsen's moves during his game with Kramnik until they saw them and realized they were perfect. "It's hard to explain," Carlsen says. "Sometimes a move just feels right."

Not that Carlsen lacks computational prowess, though. He often calculates 20 moves ahead and can comfortably play several games simultaneously while blindfolded simply by hearing each move in notation. The fear surrounding any such beautiful mind is that a life spent probing the edges of the infinite — the possible permutations of a chess game outnumber the estimated number of atoms in the universe — will eventually lead to madness. Grand masters say Carlsen's precociousness is reminiscent of Bobby Fischer's. The great American player spent his later years in isolation, reappearing only to spout anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. "It's easy to get obsessed with chess," Carlsen says. "That's what happened with Fischer and Paul Morphy," another prodigy lost to madness. "I don't have that same obsession." (Read: "Fischer vs. Spassky: Battle of the Brains.")

Although firmly atop the chess rankings, thanks in part to his victory in London, Carlsen must now fight his way through a series of qualifying competitions in order to earn a chance to play for the world-championship title — the game's highest prize, which is contested every two or three years. His father says he is more concerned about "whether chess will make him a happy person." It seems to be doing just that. "I love the game. I love to compete," Carlsen says. Asked how long he will continue to enjoy chess and where the game will take him, Carlsen pauses to ponder the variables. "It's too difficult to predict," he concludes. So far, at least, he's been making all the right moves.