Do we like Magnus Carlsen?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Nothing harmful on the record and some real good, but the Niemann accusation and a prickly streak with officials keep him off the top shelf.
Carlsen was born in Tønsberg, Norway, in 1990 and went on to hold the world championship from 2013 to 2023. He gave the title up himself because he tired of the long match format, and his peak rating of 2882 is the highest ever recorded. Back in 2014 he said one of the greatest mysteries of chess was “Why me?”, which sums up the prodigy's puzzlement nicely.
The big stoush is Hans Niemann. In 2022 Niemann beat him at the Sinquefield Cup, Carlsen withdrew and publicly accused him of cheating, and Niemann sued for $100 million. Niemann has admitted to online cheating at 12 and 16 but denies it over the board, a US judge dismissed the suit in 2023, and the pair settled. Carlsen then said he was willing to play Niemann again, and Chess.com said it found no determinative evidence of in-person cheating.
FIDE's ethics panel later cleared Carlsen on three counts, including a reckless accusation of cheating, but found him guilty of withdrawing from a tournament without a valid reason and fined him €10,000. So he was half right to be cross, and half in the wrong, depending on which bit you read.
Then there were the jeans. At the 2024 World Rapid Championship in New York, FIDE fined him $200 for breaking the dress code and he refused to change. He quit the event, saying it “became a matter of principle for me so here we are”. It's a bit much over denim, but it hurt nobody but himself, and he later returned to play.
On the harm test, the record is thin but clean. In 2019 he and Anish Giri launched the Move for Equality campaign for the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Nothing turned up on trans rights, women, climate or vaccines either way, and that is honestly the whole list.
Lately it has been titles and Netflix. He won the first FIDE Freestyle World Championship in February 2026, beating Fabiano Caruana 2.5-1.5 in the final. The Netflix documentary on the Niemann feud put the old fight back in front of millions, with Carlsen saying in the trailer he “was not playing a human”.