Kjetil Aleksander Lie
Encyclopedia
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
player, and Norway's eighth International Grandmaster
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
(GM). Lie is the current Norwegian chess champion
Norwegian Chess Championship
The Norwegian Chess Championship is an annual tournament held in Norway during the month of July, in order to determine the national chess champion. The tournament is held at different venues each year as part of the Landsturnering...
, having won the 2009 title, and then defending it through play-offs in the 2010 championship. Representing the chess club in Porsgrunn
Porsgrunn
is a town and municipality in Telemark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Grenland. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Porsgrunn....
, Lie is the first Norwegian GM not from the Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
vicinity.
Lie started playing scholastic chess at the age of eight. In 1994 he won the Norwegian championship for the cadet age group (14 to 15 year olds). He won the Open Norwegian Championship in 2000, and finished first in the top age group in the Norwegian Youth Championships every year from 2000 to 2003.
In 2002, Lie was awarded the title of International Master. The required three Grandmaster norms came in the Norwegian team chess championship of 2003 to 2004, Politiken Cup in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
in 2004, and Smartfish Chess Masters in Drammen
Drammen
Drammen is a city in Buskerud County, Norway. The port and river city of Drammen is centrally located in the eastern and most populated part of Norway.-Location:...
in December 2004 and January 2005. Even after these norms, Lie had still not achieved the required Elo rating of 2500 until he won the first two rounds in a local tournament in Porsgrunn at the end of February 2005. These wins gave Lie a rating of 2500.5, and it did not matter that Lie immediately proceeded to lose the third game.
During the 2007 candidates matches in Elista
Elista
-Twin towns/sister cities:Elista is twinned with the following sister cities. Howell, New Jersey, United States Lhasa, Tibet, China. Ulan-Ude, Buryat Republic, Russia-See also:*Geden Sheddup Choikorling Monastery*Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume-External links:...
, Lie served as Magnus Carlsen
Magnus Carlsen
Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen is a Norwegian chess Grandmaster and chess prodigy who is currently the number-one ranked player in the world. In January 2010 he became the seventh player ranked number one in the world on the official FIDE rating list...
's second, helping with analysis and preparations. He was praised by Magnus's father for his efforts and humor.
Lie has played on the Norwegian team at the Chess Olympiad
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...
s between 2000 and 2008. In the 2008 Olympiad in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Lie's third round win over Bu Xiangzhi
Bu Xiangzhi
Bu Xiangzhi is a Chinese chess grandmaster. In 1999, he became China's 10th Grandmaster at the age of 13 years, 10 months, 13 days, at the time the youngest in history. In April 2008, Bu and Ni Hua became the second and third Chinese players to pass the 2700 Elo rating line, after Wang Yue...
secured Norway an upset win over China.
Lie secured his first Norwegian chess championship in Bergen
Bergen
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....
2009 with 6.5/9 points, despite an upset
Upset
An upset occurs in a competition, frequently in electoral politics or sports, when the party popularly expected to win , is defeated by an underdog whom the majority expects to lose, defying the conventional wisdom...
loss to Lasse Løvik in the first round. In the 2010 championship, Lie was one of four players to share first place with 6.0/9, the three others being Espen Lie, Joachim Thomassen, and Frode O. O. Urkedal. Later that year, he won the double round-robin
Round-robin
The term round-robin was originally used to describe a document signed by multiple parties in a circle to make it more difficult to determine the order in which it was signed, thus preventing a ringleader from being identified...
play-offs October 14-17 in Stavanger with 4/6.
Lie's playing style is aggressive and sacrificial, and he is known as a dangerous tactician. With White, Lie has varied between 1.c4 and 1.e4, with Black he prefers sharp defenses such as the Sicilian Defence
Sicilian Defence
The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the moves:The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4...
and Benoni Defense
Benoni Defense
The Benoni Defense is a group of chess openings generally characterized by the opening moves 1. d4 c5 2. d5, although Black's ...c5 and White's answer d5 are often delayed. The most usual opening sequence for the Benoni is 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5...
.