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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
 Until now, Dmitry Jakovenko probably doesn't regret his decision in 2004 to become a professional chess player, despite the fact that he was an excellent math and physics student. In the last four years he had many successes, and so we should consider him a dangerous outsider.
Dmitry Jakovenko was born June 28, 1983 in Omsk, but spent his childhood in Nizhnevartovsk. He learned chess from his father at age 3, and at 10, he won the Russian under-10 championship in Kazan with a perfect score of 9-0. He then started working with former Kasparov trainer Alexander Nikitin. He gained the International Master title at the age of 14.
In 1999 Jakovenko finished second at the World Championship under-16 and in 2001 he won the under-18 section. In the same year he also won the Valle d'Aosta Open.
One of Jakovenko's best results so far is his shared first place in the Russian Chess Championship Super Final in December 2006, together with Evgeny Alekseev. He had to concede the championship in a two-game rapid playoff.
In 2007, Jakovenko finished shared second in the B group of the Corus Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, and then repeated this result at the strong Aeroflot Open in February. In May he was on the Tomsk-400 team that won the Russian Team Championship with a perfect 9/9 score. Later that year, Jakovenko finished clear first at the Karpov Poikovsky tournament with 6/9.
At the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, in December 2007, Jakovenko reached the quarter finals, beating Rahman, Belov, Almasi and World Cup 2005 winner Aronian. Jakovenko was eliminated in the semis by Alexei Shirov.
Althought he has kept the option open to continue his scientific career, Jakovenko is still enjoying chess a lot. His style has been influenced by the games of his favorite player, Anatoly Karpov. He considers the endgame his stongest area.
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