He was born in Simferopol, Kramatorsk in Ukraine and learned to play chess when he was five years old. On 20 August 2002, at the international tournament in Sudak, he shocked the chess world by fulfilling his third and final GM norm, making him the youngest grandmaster in chess history, at the age of 12 years and 7 months (a record that still stands). At 11 years and 11 months, he had also been the youngest ever to acquire the IM title. Sergey Karjakin was one of the seconds for Ruslan Ponomariov during his world championship match against Vassily Ivanchuk in 2002. At age fourteen he defeated the then 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 Deep Junior (Computer) program. On July 25, 2009 Karjakin took out Russian citizenship and now plays for the Russian team in the national arena.

Classical Tournaments

In June 2001, Karjakin was =1st in the Alushta Summer tournament with 7.5/11. He gained his first two GM norms at Aeroflot in 2002, and at the category 8 Alushta-100 tournament in May 2002 when he scored 9.5/13 to share first equal in the tournament with GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko. At Hastings 2002 (2002), he came fifth in the category 12 Premier division with 5/9 and a 2590 TPR, immediately moving on for his first taste of Corus, in the B Division where he came 5th with 7/13, a point behind the winner Peter Heine Nielsen. In December 2004, he finished second to Boris Gelfand at the category 16 Pamplona Tournament (2004). In January 2005, he won the Corus Tournament: Group B (2005) in Wijk aan Zee with 9.5/13 (TPR 2735), a full point clear of the field, and in April 2005 he became the first player born in the 1990s to enter the FIDE World Top 100 in rankings. In May 2005, he also won the Young Stars of the World tournament, scoring 8.5 points out of 11 (TPR 2677), a full point clear of Ildar Khairullin. In 2006, Karjakin won the category 18 double round robin 10th Petr Izmailov Memorial (2006) in Tomsk, Russia with 7/10 (TPR 2834). In 2007, after leading for most of the tournament, Karjakin came second at the 2nd Aerosvit (2007) with 7/11 (+3 -0 =8; TPR 2791), half a point behind the winner Vassily Ivanchuk; he came third in Aerosvit (2008) behind Magnus Carlsen and Ivanchuk with 6/11 (TPR 2741). Immediately after his narrow World Rapid Cup victory in Odessa in May 2010, Karjakin won the Karpov Poikovsky tournament on tiebreak from Viktor Bologan scoring 7/11 (+4 -1 =6; TPR 2787). In October 2011, he was =1st with Etienne Bacrot at the Poikovsky 12th Karpov International (2011) with 5.5/9 (+2 =7), but came 2nd on count back.

<Super tournaments>: Karjakin’s first taste of a super tournament was the Dortmund Sparkassen (2004), where he finished last. He finished with a plus score in the A-group of Corus Wijk aan Zee (2006), came third in the double round robin quadrangular 2nd Grand Slam Masters Bilbao Final (2009) and won his first super tournament with 8/13 (TPR 2798) in the category 19 Corus (2009). He placed 6th in the Corus (2010) with 7/13 (+2 -1 =10; TPR 2746) and narrowly came second on tiebreak with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov behind Levon Aronian at the Tal Memorial (2010) in November 2010, all three scoring 5.5/9 (Karjakin’s TPR was 2835). In June 2011, Karjakin scored 6.5/10 at the Category 21 Bazna King's Tournament (2011), coming second on tiebreak to Carlsen. In November 2011, he came =3rd (4th on countback behind Ivanchuk) in the category 22 Tal Memorial (2011) with 5/9 (+1 =8 -0 and TPR of 2820), behind Aronian and Carlsen respectively. He scored 6.5/13 (+5 -5 =3; TPR 2754) at the category 21 Tata Steel (2012) (formerly Corus) tournament at Wijk aan Zee, placing 8th out of 13, and in July 2012, he scored =1st (2nd on tiebreak behind Fabiano Caruana) at Dortmund (2012). In October 2012, he came 4th at the Bilbao Masters (2012), and a few months later in January 2013 placed =3rd behind Carlsen and Aronian and alongside World Champion Viswanathan Anand at the category 20 Tata Steel (2013) tournament. In May 2013, Karjakin won the inaugural Norway Chess Tournament (2013), a category 21 event held in the Stavanger region of Norway, with a score of 6/9, half a point ahead of world number 1 Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura; he also won the preliminary Norway Chess Tournament (Blitz) (2013) used to determine the draw with 6.5/9, earning the right to start with White in 5 games out of 9. Karjakin considers this the best tournament of his career so far. (1)

Championships

<National> The then 13 year old Grandmaster came =2nd-9th in the 2003 Ukrainian Men’s Championship with 6.5/9. He lost an Armageddon blitz tiebreak to Nepomniachtchi at the Russian Championship Superfinal (2010) to place 2nd and then came =3rd with 4/7 in the Russian Superfinals (2011). In 2012, he came =1st in the Russian Superfinals (2012), but came 2nd in the round robin Russian Superfinals (Tiebreak) (2012) to place 2nd in the championship behind the winner, and therefore the 2012 Russian Champion, Dmitry Andreikin.

<Continental>: Karjakin came 4th in the 6th European Individual Championship (2005).

<Age championships>: Karjakin won the U10 European Championship in 1999 and placed =2nd in the U10 World Championship in 2000. In 2001 the 11-year old FM won the U12 World Championship, the Ukrainian U14 championship, competed in the Ukrainian U20 championship, scoring 5/10 and coming =5th and in the 2001 European U14 championship he came =1st (2nd on count back) behind Borki Predojevic.

<World championships>: Karjakin played in the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2004) but was eliminated in the first round by Mikhail Kobalia. He has also reached the semi-finals of the last two World Championship cycles, losing to Alexey Shirov in the World Chess Cup (2007) and to Boris Gelfand in the World Cup (2009). His results in the latter qualified him for participation in the World Cup (2011), where he defeated Mejdi Kaabi and Wesley So in the first two rounds, but was eliminated from the Cup when he lost to Judit Polgar in the third round. He is eligible via his rating to contest the 2013 World Cup.

<2008-2010 FIDE Grand Prix series>: Karjakin’s performance in the Grand Prix series 2008-10 was mediocre by his standards. He was 10th at the Baku Grand Prix (2008), 7th at FIDE Grand Prix (2008) in Sochi, 10th at the 4th FIDE Grand Prix (2009) in Nalchik and 7th at the FIDE Jermuk Grand Prix (2009). The combined points from these results were insufficient for him to be seeded into the 2011 Candidates.

<2012-2013 FIDE Grand Prix series>: Karjakin started off the cycle in auspicious style be coming =1st (winning on tiebreak) alongside Wang Hao and Alexander Morozevich with 6.5/11 in the FIDE Grand Prix Tashkent (2012), kicking off his Grand Prix tally with 140 points. His next Grand Prix event, the FIDE Grand Prix Zug (2013), was less successful, his 5/11 earning him only 50 points. However, he has two more opportunities in the current Grand Prix series to make a bid for the top 2 placements that will qualify for the Candidates in 2014.

Olympiads

Karjakin’s first taste of the Olympiads was playing for Ukraine in the 2002 U16 Olympiad in Kuala Lumpur, at which time he scored both a team and an individual silver medal playing on board 2.

Karjakin has played in the Olympiads in 2004, 2006 and 2008 (for Ukraine) and in 2010 for Russia. His debut in the 36th Olympiad (2004) in Calvia was stunning, one team gold and one individual gold for best performance on 2nd reserve, where he scored 6.5/7 (TPR 2929). Although there were no medals forthcoming in 2006 in 37th Chess Olympiad (2006) in Turin, he scored 8.5/11 (TPR 2798) on Board 3 (coming 4th) for Ukraine. The Olympiad (2008) in Dresden saw Ukraine place 4th and Karjakin 6th on Board 2 with 5/9 (TPR 2714). The Chess Olympiad (2010) in Elista saw Karjakin back in the medals with his new team Russia 1 taking the silver, ironically behind Ukraine, while Karjakin took individual gold for best performance on board 4 with 8/10 and a TPR 2859. His second stint with the Russian team at the Chess Olympiad (2012) on board 3 earned him a team silver and an individual bronze medal, scoring 7/10.

Other Team Events

In 2006, Karjakin helped the Youth team win the Youth vs Experience (2006) by 28-22. In 2007, he was the top scorer in the NH Chess Tournament (2007) Rising Stars vs Experience contest with 7/10 (TPR 2759), won 26.5-23.5 by the Rising Stars.

Karjakin has participated in Ukrainian, Spanish, Russian, European and World Team championships, as well as in Asian Club Cup and the Rising Stars vs Experience teams. Karjakin started playing in Ukrainian Club Championships since he was at least 11, and has been an outstanding team player in the European Club Cup. In his first experience in the ECC in 2002, 12 year old Karjakin played for the Momot Regional Donetsk; while the club finished midway down the table, Karjakin scored 5.5/7, including 2.5/3 against his GM opponents. In the 2005 ECC, he played for the powerful NAO Chess Club which came third, Karjakin scoring 6/7 (TPR 2798). Playing for Tomsk, which won silver, Karjakin scored 5.5/7 (TPR 2743) and won individual gold in the Russian Team Championship (2007). In 2008, he played for PVK Kiev, and while the club came third, Karjakin had a poor tournament. After moving to Russia in 2009, he has played for ShSM-64 Moscow. Thriving in the Russian environment, in April 2010, he helped ShSM-64 win the Russian Team Championships (2010) with 16 points from 9 rounds, and in so doing turned out a TPR for the tournament of 2889. His participation in the World Chess Team Championship (2011) saw a rare lapse of form when he only scored 2/6 (TPR 2624). However, in November he played board 3 for his adopted team Russia in the European Team Championship (2011), scoring 4.5/7 and winning individual silver, improving on his bronze medal he won for his native Ukraine on board 2 during the 2007 edition of the event. He won individual and team gold playing board 1, leading his team Tomsk to win the Russian Team Championships (2012); his TPR for the competition was 2896.

Matches

In the February 2003 Dannemann Match (2003), the then 13 year old Karjakin defeated the 18 year old vice-Women’s World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk in a six game match by 4-2 (+2 -0 =4). In December 2004, Karjakin played a best of six game match against 2004 US Champion 17 year old GM Hikaru Nakamura in the Karjakin-Nakamura Match (2004) aka "Duelo de los Jovenes Prodigios" (the Duel of the Wonder Boys) in Cuernavaca, Estado de Morelos, Mexico, losing 1.5 - 4.5 (+1 -4 =1).

Rapids and Blindfold

A keen and deadly rapid player, Karjakin was 13 when played in the 2003 Ciudad de León tournament, making it to the semi final before being eliminated in the four game match by Veselin Topalov 1.5-2.5 (+1-2=1). He reached the final of the 2006 Cap D'Agde (2006), which he lost to Teimour Radjabov by 0.5-1.5. In 2007, he won the EURO Blitz tournament and was runner up in the Bilbao Blindfold Chess World Cup (2007) behind Bu Xiangzhi and ahead of Magnus Carlsen, Judit Polgar, Veselin Topalov and Pentala Harikrishna respectively. In July 2008 he won the ten game Karjakin-Short Rapid match (2008) by 7.5-2.5. In May 2009, he scored 5/8 playing for the FIDE World team which defeated the Azerbaijani team in the Azerbaijan vs the World (2009) rapid tournament, the President’s Cup. Also in 2009, he came equal second with Alexander Morozevich and behind Alexander Grischuk in the Moscow Blitz Championship, won the Aeroflot Blitz Qualifier for the World Blitz Championships with 15/18; in November 2009 he placed third in the World Blitz Championship (2009) behind Carlsen and Anand scoring 25/42. In 2010, he made it to the 8th round of the combined Amber Tournament (Rapid) (2010) / Amber Tournament (Blindfold) (2010) before being eliminated by Grischuk. In the fourth ACP World Rapid Cup (2010) which took place from in May in Odessa, Karjakin won the final against Dmitry Jakovenko in the Armageddon blitz game. In January 2011, the Russian State Social University staged a rapid game match between him and Nepomniachtchi, a reprise of the blitz tiebreak between the two that enabled Nepomniachtchi to win the 2010 Russian Superfinal; the two rapid games were drawn, and four subsequent blitz games were drawn with a win and a draw each. Karjakin won by drawing the Armageddon game as Black. Videos of the 5 blitz games can be seen at http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp.... On 16 February 2012, Karjakin played in the Moscow blitz tournament that was held after Aeroflot, and won the contest outright with 15/18 ahead of a galaxy of GMs and other masters. (2) In July 2012, Karjakin won clear first place in the World Rapid Championship (2012) held in Astana with 11.5/15 and followed up by scoring 18.5/30 to take 3rd place behind Grischuk and Carlsen at the World Blitz Championship (2012). He then won the Aeroflot Rapid Open (2013), a restructured version of the traditional Aeroflot Open, defeating Grischuk in the Armageddon final with 2 seconds left on his clock. (3)

Ratings and rankings

<Classical> 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, the first time it rose above 2600. On the January 2008 FIDE rating list, published just before Karjakin's eighteenth birthday, he passed the 2700 mark for the first time. In the FIDE ratings list for 1 July 2011, Karjakin's rating reached an all time high of 2788 (and an all time high in the world ranking of number 4). As of 1 May 2013, Karjakin's rating was 2767, ranking him number 2 in Russia and number 10 in the world;

<Rapid> 2808 (world #3); and

<Blitz> 2873 (world #1).

Personal

He married WIM Kateryna Dolzhykova in 2009, but they are now divorced.

Sources and references:

(1) https://twitter.com/SergeyKaryakin; (2) [ http://www.chessarbiter.com/turniej...; (3) http://chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211...; Live rating: http://www.2700chess.com/; Wikipedia article: Sergey Karjakin Article on becoming the world’s youngest grandmaster: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail... Article and list of chess power couples: http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp....