Magnus Carlsen, the 22-year-old Norwegian who has been the most dominant chess player since 2010, finally broke through on Friday to win the game's most important title, the world championship, for the first time.
He defeated Viswanathan Anand, 43, of India, the titleholder since 2007, and he did not lose a game in the best-of-12 series, which was held in Anand's hometown, Chennai. Carlsen so dominated the match, which began Nov. 9, that it lasted only 10 games, with Carlsen winning three and the others ending in draws.
The championship has long been dominated by players from Russia and, before that, the Soviet Union. Carlsen is only the second player from the West to become champion since World War II, and the first since Bobby Fischer, the eccentric American who held the title from 1972 to 1975.
Carlsen has been the world's top-ranked player almost continually since January 2010 and his current rating, the system used to compute the rankings, is the highest in history.
He has not achieved the level of celebrity that Fischer, who died at age 64 in 2008, enjoyed. But Carlsen has been something of a star since he was 13, when he became one of the youngest grandmasters ever, and he has won attention both inside and outside the chess world because of his youth and his looks.
He is frequently featured in magazines that do not cater to chess players, and is a favorite of television interviewers. He is also a model for the clothing company G-Star Raw.
For his victory, Carlsen will receive 60 percent of the roughly $2.5 million prize fund, although the World Chess Federation, which organizes the championship, would not be more specific.
It was Carlsen's first time to make the world championship finals, and he said he was nervous going in because Anand had won the title four times, back to back, in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012.
Carlsen said he realized he had a chance to grab the title from Anand during Game 3 on Nov. 12.
Anand had built up a considerable advantage, but Carlsen fought his way back, and the game ended in a draw.
'What I realized during the game was that he was also nervous and vulnerable,' Carlsen said in a Skype interview on Friday after he won the title. 'He was no Superman.'
Anand played well throughout, but he could not match Carlsen, whose specialty is to relentlessly pressure opponents and create problems for them.
'You have to do something to try to make your opponents make mistakes,' Carlsen said.
Carlsen does not like drawn games and tries to avoid giving his opponents that opportunity. 'You should play to the end,' he said.
Even in the last game of the match on Friday, when he needed only a draw to clinch the championship, Carlsen pressed on until, after five hours and 65 moves, there were only kings left on the board.
Norway is not known for its chess players, and the championship match was shown live on television there, with the broadcasts topping the Norwegian ratings.
The games were also followed closely in India, where Anand is a national hero.
This championship also garnered greater international attention than usual, and in unexpected ways.
British GQ ran a story about the match in the same issue containing a photo feature on the Victoria's Secret lingerie show in New York. The surprised editors posted on Twitter, 'So this story about #chess is currently more popular on the site than our 100 shots of Victoria's Secret models.'
There is hope in the chess world that with Carlsen as the game's official standard-bearer, it will regain the cachet it briefly enjoyed after Fischer's victory.
Carlsen seems to be aware of that pressure. In the news conference after the match, he was wary when asked if chess could have other than niche appeal, given the interest in the championship.
His answer was modest: 'I know a lot of people who don't play chess found it very interesting to follow.'
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