Sergey Karjakin

In 2006, Karjakin played for the first time in the Wijk aan Zee Corus A tournament, scoring 7/13 points (4 wins, 6 draws, 3 losses).[16] In the same year, he took part in the NH Chess Tournament in Amsterdam; it was a match between two teams, "Rising Stars" (made up of Karjakin, Magnus Carlsen, Wang Hao, Daniel Stellwagen, and Jan Smeets) and "Experience" (Alexander Beliavsky, Artur Yusupov, John Nunn, and Ulf Andersson), held with the Scheveningen system. The former won by 28–22.[17]

Karjakin played again in the NH Chess Tournament for team "Rising Stars", which beat "Experience" by 26½–23½. He was the best player, having scored 7/10, and this earned him an invitation for the 2008 Amber chess tournament.[18] In October 2007, Karjakin finished second behind Bu Xiangzhi in the blindfold chess World Cup in Bilbao, scoring 17 points after five wins, two draws and three losses (the scoring system was 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss).[19]

During the Chess World Cup 2007, which served as a qualification tournament for the World Chess Championship 2010, Karjakin reached the semi-finals, in which he lost to Alexei Shirov. On the January 2008 FIDE rating list, published just before Karjakin's 18th 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 convincingly won a rapid chess match against GM Nigel Short 7½–2½.[20]

In February 2009, he won his first elite tournament in the A group of the Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee (category XIX), with a score of 8/13.

He won the ACP World Rapid Cup, which was conducted from 27 to 29 May 2010, defeating Dmitry Jakovenko in the final by 4–3.[21]

In June 2011, Karjakin took second place in the Bazna Kings Tournament in Mediaș, Romania, after sharing the lead with Magnus Carlsen in the final round, and after ranking was then determined by the tournament’s official tie-break regulations. The final standings listed Carlsen followed by Karjakin, then Hikaru Nakamura, Teimour Radjabov, Vassily Ivanchuk, and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu. The results affected the world rankings, as Carlsen reclaimed first place, and Karjakin passed Kramnik for fourth place.[22][23]

In November, Karjakin shared third place with Vassily Ivanchuk and Ian Nepomniachtchi in the category 22 Tal Memorial in Moscow.[24]

In July 2012, Karjakin won the World Rapid Chess Championship, a full point ahead of world number one Magnus Carlsen in Astana, Kazakhstan.[25] In the same month, he also tied for first at Dortmund with Fabiano Caruana but came in second after tiebreak.[26] In November–December 2012, Karjakin shared first place with Wang Hao and Alexander Morozevich with 6½/9 in the FIDE Grand Prix event held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

In May, he won the inaugural edition of Norway Chess, scoring 6½/9 (+6−2=1), half a point ahead of Carlsen.

In March 2014, he finished second place in the FIDE Candidates Tournament held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, behind Viswanathan Anand. His second at the event was former FIDE World Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov.[27]

In June 2014, Karjakin won the Norway Chess tournament for the second year running. In this tournament, he competed against nine other players, six of which were rated in the FIDE top 10.

Karjakin won the Chess World Cup 2015 after going down 0–2 to former World Cup Champion Peter Svidler, eventually winning 6–4 in blitz tiebreaks. By finishing in the top two, Karjakin qualified, along with Svidler, for the 2016 Candidates Tournament.

In the same year, he took part in the Russia–China Challenge Match. The first part of the event took place from 29 July to 1 August in the Heixiazi Island, where Karjakin sequentially knocked out four of the five members in the Chinese team: Wei Yi, Ding Liren, Ni Hua and Yu Yangyi.[28][29] In the second half of the event, which was held in Harbin in December, he also defeated Wang Yue, leading team Russia to victory.[30]

In March 2016, Karjakin won the 2016 Candidates Tournament in Moscow and qualified to play a match against Magnus Carlsen for the title of World Chess Champion. He defeated Fabiano Caruana in the last round of the tournament to finish with 8½ out of 14, one point ahead of Caruana and Anand.

The World Chess Championship 2016 took place 11–30 November 2016 in New York City. The format consisted of a maximum of 12 games played under a long classical time control, ending with possible speed chess tiebreak games and an Armageddon game to ensure a winner. Karjakin's record against Carlsen in classical games before the World Championship was: 1 win, 4 losses, and 16 draws.[31] Karjakin won the eighth game,[32][33][34] but lost the tenth, leaving the match tied 6–6. Carlsen defeated Karjakin 3–1 in the rapid tiebreaks and won the match.[35][36] This remains the last time Carlsen was defeated in a classical or rapid game in the finals of a World Chess Championship having gone unbeaten in the rapid tiebreaks with Karjakin and in his subsequent matches with Caruana in 2018 (both in the classical portion and in the rapid tiebreaks) and Nepomniachtchi in 2021.

Karjakin won the 2016 World Blitz Chess Championship, which took place on 29 and 30 December 2016. Before the last round, Carlsen was leading with 16.0/20, while Karjakin was half a point behind. In the last round, Carlsen drew with Peter Leko, while Karjakin won against Baadur Jobava. Thus, they both finished the tournament with 16½/21. The tie-break (the Elo average of the opponents) was used to decide the winner, and as Karjakin's opponents had the better average, Karjakin was crowned 2016 World Blitz Champion.[37][38] The extent of Karjakin's and Carlsen's domination in the event was shown by the fact that their closest rivals, Daniil Dubov, Hikaru Nakamura and Alexander Grischuk (three-time world blitz champion), were a full two points behind.[39]

Sergey Karjakin in Moscow in 2017

In December, he participated in the London Chess Classic, placing eighth with a score of 3½/9.

In January, Karjakin competed in the Tata Steel Masters. He placed seventh, scoring 7½/13 (+2−0=11).

In March, he competed in the Candidates Tournament 2018. He finished third with 8/14 (+4−2=8), one point behind the winner Caruana.

In April, he participated in the fifth edition of Shamkir Chess, finishing third with a score of 5/9 (+1−0=8).[40]

From 28 May to 7 June, he competed in the sixth edition of Norway Chess, finishing last with 3/8 (+1−3=4).[41]

From 31 March to 9 April, he competed in Shamkir Chess 2019. He placed in a tie for second, with 5 points out of 9.

From 5 to 16 December 2020, Karjakin competed in the 73rd Russian Chess Championship. He finished with a score of 7/11, which earned him second place behind winner Ian Nepomniachtchi.

In July–August 2021, Karjakin competed in the Chess World Cup 2021. In round five, Karjakin defeated French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the rapid tiebreaker after drawing the classical games. He then knocked out US GM Sam Shankland in the quarterfinals and eliminated Russian GM Vladimir Fedoseev in the semifinals to qualify for the Candidates Tournament 2022. Eventually, Karjakin lost to Polish GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the finals to finish second.[42]

Karjakin criticised Daniil Dubov for serving as a second for Magnus Carlsen in the World Chess Championship 2021 against Ian Nepomniachtchi.[43] This was also criticised by Sergei Shipov, who along with Karjakin said that Dubov should not have helped a non-Russian in a match against a fellow Russian. Dubov responded that he considered it to be a match between two individuals and counter-argued that working with Carlsen would improve his chess and hence help the Russian team.[44]

From 26–28 December 2021, Karjakin participated in the 2021 FIDE World Rapid Championship, where he ended up in 11th place with 9/13 points after tiebreaks.[45]

2022 was a tumultuous year for Karjakin. It began normally enough: in January 2022, he competed in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022 where he finished tied for fifth with a score of 7/13.[46] Controversy arose among spectators after the tenth round when Karjakin and Carlsen drew by three-fold repetition after 16 moves in 18 minutes. Some spectators derided Karjakin's decision to enter a drawn line of the Berlin Defence, driven by a movement within the chess community to avoid hasty draws. However, Carlsen was the initiator of the opening, and in order for Karjakin to avoid drawish lines, he would have to play riskily against the World Champion. After the game, Karjakin tweeted "#drawmagnus #saynoto2900".[47]

Things changed dramatically in February, when Russia invaded Ukraine. The Crimea-born Karjakin, who had transferred from the Ukrainian Chess Federation to the Russian Chess Federation in 2009, came out in vocal support of the invasion. This led FIDE to refer him (as well as fellow pro-war Grandmaster Sergei Shipov) to the Ethics and Disciplinary Commission. While the investigation was ongoing, several chess tournaments and platforms banned Karjakin: the Grand Chess Tour did so in early March, saying "the GCT Board has determined that Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin is banned from all upcoming and future GCT events due to his recent hostile comments on social media supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine",[48] while Chess.com banned him from participating in all prize tournaments on 18 March.[49] Finally, the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission banned him from playing any FIDE-rated events for six months on 21 March. The Russian Chess Federation filed an appeal, which was denied.[50][51] The decision meant that Karjakin was not able to participate in the Candidates Tournament 2022.[52] In a post to his Telegram channel, Karjakin denounced FIDE for conflating sports with politics. He further declared that he considers himself a patriot first and a chess player second, and that he did not regret anything.[4][53] His public approval of the invasion led to Russian President Vladimir Putin awarding him a Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" in June 2022.[54][55]

After the suspension ended in September 2022, Karjakin continued a self-imposed "ban" by refusing to participate in any tournament where he could not play under the Russian flag.[lower-alpha 2][57] This meant Karjakin was inactive throughout the rest of 2022, dropping out of the FIDE world rankings. The only competitive chess Karjakin has played since was in two Russian events, scoring 1.5/2 in the Russian Premier League team competition[58] and 6/9 in the Cup of the REGION Group of Companies Rapid.[59]