Sergey Karjakin

Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin (; ; born January 12, 1990 in Simferopol) is a Russian (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. He has an Elo rating of 2788, making him Russia's top chess player, and the fourth in the world.

On July 25, 2009 Karjakin adopted Russian citizenship and will henceforth be playing for Russia., Chess.com, August 1, 2009

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 championship. 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...
Read More