Sergey Karjakin
Encyclopedia
Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin ' onMouseout='HidePop("28336")' href="/topics/Simferopol">Simferopol
) is a Russia
n (formerly Ukrainian
) chess
grandmaster. He was a chess prodigy
and holds the record for both the youngest International Master, eleven years and eleven months, and grandmaster in history, at the age of twelve years and seven months. In September 2011 he had an Elo rating of 2772, making him Russia's second best chess player, and the fifth in the world.
On July 25, 2009, Karjakin adopted Russian citizenship
and will henceforth be playing for Russia.
. He first attracted attention in January 2002, when he was the official second of fellow Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov
during the final of the 2002 FIDE World championship, though Karjakin had only just turned twelve at the time. By scoring GM norms at the Aeroflot tournament in Moscow later that month, the Alushta
tournament in May 2002 and the international tournament in Sudak
in August 2002, he surpassed Bu Xiangzhi
to become the youngest grandmaster in the history of chess at the age of twelve years and exactly seven months—a record that still stands.
At age fourteen he defeated the reigning world champion, Vladimir Kramnik
, during the 2004 Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting
, in a blitz game (ten minutes for the entire game, plus five seconds per move). Also in 2004, Karjakin was the only human to win against a computer in the Man vs Machine World Team Championship in Bilbao
, Spain, where he was the youngest and lowest rated player. He won against the computer program Deep Junior
. Later that year Karjakin finished second to Boris Gelfand
at the Pamplona
, Navarra tournament, held from December 20 to December 29.
Karjakin entered the world's top 100 in the April 2005 FIDE list, where he was number 64 in the world with an Elo rating of 2635. He scored 8.5 (7-3-1) to win the Young Stars of the World 2005 tournament held in Kirishi
, Russia from May 14 to May 26. Practicing before the tournament with Nigel Short
in Greece, Karjakin was involved in a car accident on the way to the Athens
airport and suffered minor injuries. Afterwards, Short remarked that he had "almost changed the path of chess history by allowing the future World Champion to be killed while in my care".
, which served as a qualification tournament for the World Chess Championship 2009
, Karjakin reached the semi-finals, in which he lost to Alexei Shirov
. On the January 2008 FIDE rating list, published just before Karjakin's eighteenth birthday, he passed the 2700 mark for the first time, often seen as the line that separates "elite" players from other grandmasters, with a new rating of 2732 and a world rank of 13.
In July 2008 Karjakin played a ten game rapid chess match against GM Nigel Short
and won convincingly with a score of 7.5-2.5. In February 2009 he won the A group of the Corus chess tournament
in Wijk aan Zee
(category XIX) with a score of 8/13.
Later he also won the ACP World Rapid Cup which was conducted from 27 May to 29 May 2010. He defeated Dmitry Jakovenko
in the final game by 4-3.
In November 2011 Karjakin tied for 3rd–5th with Vassily Ivanchuk and Ian Nepomniachtchi
in the category 22 Tal Memorial in Moscow.
Simferopol
-Russian Empire and Civil War:The city was renamed Simferopol in 1784 after the annexation of the Crimean Khanate to the Russian Empire by Catherine II of Russia. The name Simferopol is derived from the Greek, Συμφερόπολις , translated as "the city of usefulness." In 1802, Simferopol became the...
) is a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n (formerly Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
) 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...
grandmaster. He was a chess prodigy
Chess prodigy
Chess prodigies are children who play chess so well that they are able to beat Masters and even Grandmasters, often at a very young age. Chess is one of the few sports where children can compete with adults on equal ground; it is thus one of the few skills in which true child prodigies exist...
and holds the record for both the youngest International Master, eleven years and eleven months, and grandmaster in history, at the age of twelve years and seven months. In September 2011 he had an Elo rating of 2772, making him Russia's second best chess player, and the fifth in the world.
On July 25, 2009, Karjakin adopted Russian citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
and will henceforth be playing for Russia.
Prodigy
Karjakin learned to play chess when he was five years old and became an IM at age eleven and eleven months. In 2001, he won the World Chess U12 championshipWorld Youth Chess Championship
The World Youth Chess Championship is a chess competition for girls and boys under the age of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18.The first predecessor of the youth championship was the Cadet Championship. It started off unofficially in 1974 in France for players under 18. The 1975 and 1976 editions were also...
. He first attracted attention in January 2002, when he was the official second of fellow Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov
Ruslan Ponomariov
Ruslan Olegovich Ponomariov is a Ukrainian chess player and former FIDE World Champion.-Early career:Ponomariov was born in Horlivka in Ukraine. In 1994 he placed third in the World Under-12 Championship at the age of ten. In 1996 he won the European Under-18 Championship at the age of just...
during the final of the 2002 FIDE World championship, though Karjakin had only just turned twelve at the time. By scoring GM norms at the Aeroflot tournament in Moscow later that month, the Alushta
Alushta
Alushta is a resort town in Crimea, Ukraine, founded in the 6th century by Emperor Justinian. It is situated on the Black Sea on the road from Gurzuf to Sudak, as well as on the Crimean Trolleybus line....
tournament in May 2002 and the international tournament in Sudak
Sudak
Sudak or Sudaq is a small historic town located in Crimea, Ukraine situated to the west of Feodosiya and to the east of Simferopol, the capital of Crimea...
in August 2002, he surpassed 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...
to become the youngest grandmaster in the history of chess at the age of twelve years and exactly seven months—a record that still stands.
At age fourteen he defeated the reigning world champion, Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007...
, during the 2004 Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting
Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting
The Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting is an elite chess tournament held every summer in Dortmund, Germany.Dortmund is an invite-only event, and only the strongest grandmasters are invited...
, in a blitz game (ten minutes for the entire game, plus five seconds per move). Also in 2004, Karjakin was the only human to win against a computer in the Man vs Machine World Team Championship in Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...
, Spain, where he was the youngest and lowest rated player. He won against the computer program Deep Junior
Deep Junior
Junior is a computer chess program authored by the Israeli programmers Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky. Grandmaster Boris Alterman assisted, in particular with the opening book...
. Later that year Karjakin finished second to Boris Gelfand
Boris Gelfand
Boris Abramovich Gelfand is a Belarus-born Israeli chess Grandmaster. He won the 2011 Candidates Tournament and will challenge Viswanathan Anand for the World Chess Championship 2012.-Biography:...
at the Pamplona
Pamplona
Pamplona is the historial capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former kingdom of Navarre.The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival, from July 6 to 14, in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions...
, Navarra tournament, held from December 20 to December 29.
Karjakin entered the world's top 100 in the April 2005 FIDE list, where he was number 64 in the world with an Elo rating of 2635. He scored 8.5 (7-3-1) to win the Young Stars of the World 2005 tournament held in Kirishi
Kirishi
Kirishi is a town in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, situated on the right bank of the Volkhov River, southeast of St. Petersburg. Population: -History:...
, Russia from May 14 to May 26. Practicing before the tournament with Nigel Short
Nigel Short
Nigel David Short MBE is an English chess grandmaster earning the title at the age of 19. Short is often regarded as the strongest English player of the 20th century as he was ranked third in the world, from January 1988 – July 1989 and in 1993, he challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess...
in Greece, Karjakin was involved in a car accident on the way to the Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
airport and suffered minor injuries. Afterwards, Short remarked that he had "almost changed the path of chess history by allowing the future World Champion to be killed while in my care".
Rise to the top
During the Chess World Cup 2007Chess World Cup 2007
The Chess World Cup 2007 served as a qualification tournament for the World Chess Championship 2009. It was held as a 128-player single-elimination tournament, between 24 November and 16 December 2007, in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia....
, which served as a qualification tournament for the World Chess Championship 2009
World Chess Championship 2009
The World Chess Championship 2010 match pitted the defending world champion, Viswanathan Anand, against challenger Veselin Topalov, for the title of World Chess Champion. The match took place in Sofia, Bulgaria from April 24 to May 13, 2010, with a prize fund of million euros...
, Karjakin reached the semi-finals, in which he lost to Alexei Shirov
Alexei Shirov
Alexei Dmitrievich Shirov is a Soviet-born Latvian chess grandmaster. He has consistently ranked among the world's top players since the early 1990s, and reached a ranking as high as number four in 1998...
. On the January 2008 FIDE rating list, published just before Karjakin's eighteenth birthday, he passed the 2700 mark for the first time, often seen as the line that separates "elite" players from other grandmasters, with a new rating of 2732 and a world rank of 13.
In July 2008 Karjakin played a ten game rapid chess match against GM Nigel Short
Nigel Short
Nigel David Short MBE is an English chess grandmaster earning the title at the age of 19. Short is often regarded as the strongest English player of the 20th century as he was ranked third in the world, from January 1988 – July 1989 and in 1993, he challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess...
and won convincingly with a score of 7.5-2.5. In February 2009 he won the A group of the Corus chess tournament
Corus chess tournament
The Tata Steel Chess Tournament formerly called the Corus chess tournament takes place every year, usually in January, in a small town called Wijk aan Zee, part of the larger Beverwijk in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands...
in Wijk aan Zee
Wijk aan Zee
Wijk aan Zee is a small town on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk in the province of North Holland of the Netherlands. The prestigious Tata Steel chess tournament formerly Corus chess tournament and before that called Hoogovens tournament takes place there every year.Due...
(category XIX) with a score of 8/13.
Later he also won the ACP World Rapid Cup which was conducted from 27 May to 29 May 2010. He defeated Dmitry Jakovenko
Dmitry Jakovenko
Dmitry Olegovich Jakovenko is a Russian chess grandmaster. On the March 2010 FIDE Elo rating list, Jakovenko has a rating of 2725, making him the 20th highest ranked player in the world....
in the final game by 4-3.
In November 2011 Karjakin tied for 3rd–5th with Vassily Ivanchuk and Ian Nepomniachtchi
Ian Nepomniachtchi
Ian Aleksandrovich Nepomniachtchi is a Russian chess grandmaster and the chess champion of Russia in 2010. , he was listed by FIDE as having an Elo rating of 2730....
in the category 22 Tal Memorial in Moscow.