Learning From The Very Top

On January 2010, 19-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway officially become the youngest person in history to earn chess's No. 1 ranking (followed by Veselin Topalov and the World Champion Viswanathan Anand).

His coach, former world champion Garry Kasparov, said that Carlsen's strength is not calculation, but rather his ability to intuit the right moves, even if their ultimate purpose is not clear. Carlsen: "I'm good at sensing the nature of the position and where I should put my pieces. You have to choose the move that feels right sometimes."

But his calculation is not at all bad! "Sometimes I can calculate 15 to 20 moves ahead. But the trick is evaluating the position at the end of those calculations."