World chess champion Magnus Carlsen celebrated his 30th birthday on Monday and received plenty of wishes for his special day on social media.
The Norwegian chess grandmaster has a number of records to his name. Having first reached the No 1 position in the Fide world rankings back in 2010, he is behind only Russian legend Garry Kasparov when it comes to most amount of time as the highest rated player in the world.
Carlsen, who set the record for the longest unbeaten run in the sport, has a peak classical rating of 2882 which is the highest in the history of the game. He is the current World Chess Champion, World Rapid Chess Champion, and World Blitz Chess Champion.
Earlier this year, Carlsen suffered his first defeat in more than two years and a record 125 games, while playing a tournament in his native Norway. The world No 1 lost to Polish grandmaster Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who is ranked a relatively humble No 15 in the world.
Carlsen who is often tough on himself in post-game analysis, had offered no excuses for that shock defeat. “Extremely disappointing”, he said: “Completely unforgivable”.
Carlsen’s undefeated run stretched all the way back to July 31, 2018, when Azerbaijani grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamedyarov defeated him. During that time, Carlsen scored 44 wins and 81 draws against his opponents.
Here are some of the birthday wishes that came in for Carlsen on Monday:
(With inputs from AFP)
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