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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
 Of the same generation as Magnus Carlsen, and with at least as much ambition, is Sergey Karjakin from the Ukraine. Just like his Norwegian rival, Karjakin reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in December 2007 in Khanty-Manskiysk, where he was eliminated by Alexei Shirov.
Sergey Karjakin was born January 12, 1990 in Simferopol, Ukraine. He first rose to international prominence as the official analyst of Ruslan Ponomariov during the final of the 2002 FIDE World Championship, in January 2002. He had just turned 12! In the same year, at the age of twelve years and seven months, he became the youngest Grandmaster in history - a record that still stands.
In January 2005, Karjakin was invited to play Corus Chess Tournament "B", where he ended clear first, ahead of Mamedyarov and Smeets. Besides securing promotion to the "A" tournament for 2006, he also entered the world's top 100 a few months later (in the April 2005 FIDE list). In May of the same year, Karjakin won the Young Stars of the World tournament held in Kirishi, Russia.
Corus "A", in January 2006, was Karjakin's first real test case among the world elite, and he "passed the test" with flying colors, finishing at a tied 5th place with Boris Gelfand. Then, at the Chess Olympiad in Turin, in May, he scored an amazing 8.5/11 for the Ukrainian team.
In August 2007, Karjakin won the NH Tournament in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The tournament uses the Scheveningen System, according to the formula "Rising Stars against Experience". As the best player of the Rising Stars team, the 17-year-old Ukrainian earned an invitation to the prestigious Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament held in March 2008. There he finished shared 8th in the blindfold tournament, shared 9th in the rapids and clear 9th in the combined standings.
In April 2008, Karjakin was the topscorer (6.5/10) of the Tomsk-400 team at the Russian Team Championship in Sochi, Russia.
Karjakin is a friendly young man, away from the chess board still a bit shy perhaps, but potentially very agressive behind it. His opening repertoire includes the absolute main lines of current opening theory. He's very faithful to his beloved Sicilian Najdorf.
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