Magnus Carlsen, the world chess champion, has released a statement saying that he believes American teenager, Grandmaster Hans Niemann, has cheated on more occasions than the latter admits. In his statement, which he released on social media, Carlsen says that he refuses to play with anyone who has cheated in the past. He also implored chess authorities to strengthen their efforts of detecting cheating in chess.

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Who is Magnus Carlsen?

The current five-time World Chess Champion, Norwegian grandmaster Sven Magnus Oen Carlsen was born on 30 November 1990. Additionally, he has won the world championships in both blitz and rapid chess five times each.

He has been ranked No. 1 in the FIDE world chess rankings since July 1, 2011, and he has spent the second-most time as the top-rated player in the world, behind only Garry Kasparov. The highest rating ever recorded is his top rating of 2882. In elite classical chess, he also holds the record for the longest unbroken run.

A young prodigy in the game, Carlsen won the Corus Chess Tournament’s C group just after turning 13 and was given the title of grandmaster a few months later.

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He won the Norwegian Chess Championship when he was 15 years old, and at age 17 he tied for first place in the top group at Corus.

He was the youngest person to achieve it at age 18 and surpassed a rating of 2800. The youngest player ever to accomplish so, he attained No. 1 in the FIDE world rankings in 2010 at the age of 19.

In 2013, Carlsen defeated Viswanathan Anand to win the title of World Chess Champion. He defeated Anand the next year to defend his championship and went on to win the World Blitz Championship and World Rapid Championship in 2014, becoming the first player to hold all three titles at once. He replicated this feat in 2019.

In 2016, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Sergey Karjakin were the opponents he faced when defending his classical world championship. In 2023, Carlsen does not plan to play Nepomniachtchi for the title.

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Carlsen, who was formerly recognised for his aggressive play as a teenager, has subsequently matured into a versatile player. He employs a number of openings to hinder opponents’ ability to prepare for him and minimise the value of pre-game computer analysis. He has said that because it “comes down to pure chess,” the middlegame is his favourite part of the match.

Carlsen, who is a social democrat who eats largely vegetarianism and has two vegetarian sisters, self-identifies as such as of 2016.

Football is Carlsen’s favourite sport, and his favourite team is Real Madrid CF. On November 30, 2013, he took the honorary kickoff in a La Liga match between Real Madrid and Real Valladolid in appreciation of being the global chess champion.

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Carlsen participates in fantasy football and watches the Premier League. Prior to seven million other participants, he topped a Fantasy Premier League game in December of 2019 before eventually finishing the season in tenth position.

Carlsen competed in the Norwegian Championships Main Event in April 2022 and placed 25th overall out of 1050 players.