Pontus Carlsson

Carlsson was born December 18, 1982 in Cali, Colombia. At age one, Carlsson's family passed and he was taken to an orphanage. There he was adopted by former chairman of the Swedish Chess Federation, Ingvar Carlsson, who would teach him chess at the age of four.^[2] In Sweden, Carlsson would begin playing chess both nationally and internationally, representing the country in the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy (+3=1−2) as an International Master.^[3] Along with representing his county internationally, Carlsson has won a number of youth championships both at the regional and national level. He played in his first national championship in 2001 at age 18 in his hometown of Linköping.

Carlsson holds dual citizenship for both Colombia and Sweden.^[2]

Carlsson continues to represent Sweden throughout his adult life, being a member of the senior national team. He has spent most of his chess career traveling throughout Europe. His first international tournament of record was the under-10 European Championships in Rimavská Sobota.

Carlsson is known for his playing in rapid chess, where he has won the Swedish Tusenmannaschacket Rapid tournament three times, becoming the only player in its history to do so.

His performance stagnated from mid-2001 to mid-2005^[4] due to losing small amounts of rating points in successive tournaments during that period. He attributed this delay to not playing enough tournaments and activating himself.

In 2007, Carlsson played for the Swedish national team in the 16th European Team Chess Championship and scored 6/9 without a loss. His performance rating was 2686, having played against other Grandmasters such as Dmitry Jakovenko and Mark Hebden.^[5]

He plays for the Sollentuna SK chess club, with which he took part in the European club cups in 2002, 2005, and 2007. Beyond the Swedish league he has also played in the Spanish league and other tournaments in Spain.^[6]

Carlsson became an International Master and Grandmaster within a period of three years. He achieved the International Master title in August 2005, and the grandmaster title in October 2007 after earning four GM norms. Making him the 16th Swede to become a GM.^[6] He earned his first GM norm at the 2005 European Team Championship,^[6] his second at the Open de Tarragona (Spain),^[6] the third at the Torneig Internacional Ciutat de Sóller, and the fourth in the 3rd round at the European Club Cup. Having received the Grandmaster title, he is to be elected into the Swedish Chess Academy.