22-year-old Magnus Carlsen becomes world champion dethroning Viswanathan Anand.
The World Chess Championship in the Indian city of Chennai was ended with the win of Norwegian chess player Magnus Carlsen. Known for a fast and aggressive style of play, 22-year-old Carlsen needs only a draw to win the Championship. The final game lasted almost five hours and finished in a draw with two kings remained on the board. He achieved the historic victory with a 6.5 to 3.5 score, having won twice as black and once as white.
Originally the tournament was scheduled to last 12 matches, but the score after 10 games left no hope of a series turnaround for Anand. The matches scheduled on Sunday and Monday have been cancelled. Carlsen becomes the second youngest world champion, a record was set by his one-time coach Kasparov in 1985.
“Vish has been the world champion for so long, he’s one of the greatest of all time,” Carlsen said in a post-match press conference in Chennai, India. “I’m of course very, very happy to have got the better of him.”
43-year-old Anand, held chess’ top title ever since 2007, said that game 5 was the turning point in the tournament and he was unable to recover after that.
Carlsen claimed the title, and 60 percent of the total prize fund of $2.24 million in prize money.
