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).[14] 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.[15]

Karjakin played again in this event in 2007 for the 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.[16] In October 2007, Karjakin finished second to 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).[17]

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.[18]

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 May to 29 May 2010, defeating Dmitry Jakovenko in the final by 4–3.[19]

The next year, Karjakin shared first place (second on tiebreak) with Magnus Carlsen at the Bazna Kings Tournament and third place with Vassily Ivanchuk and Ian Nepomniachtchi in the category 22 Tal Memorial in Moscow.[20][21]

In July 2012, Karjakin won the World Rapid Chess Championship a full point ahead of world number one Magnus Carlsen in Astana, Kazakhstan.[22] In the same month, he also tied for first at Dortmund with Fabiano Caruana but came in second after tiebreak.[23]

In Nov-Dec 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 in 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.[24]

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 in dramatic fashion after going down 0-2 to former World Cup Champion Peter Svidler, eventually winning 6-4 in blitz tiebreaks. By finishing in the final 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 of the Chinese team: Wei Yi, Ding Liren, Ni Hua and Yu Yangyi.[25][26] In the second half of the event, which was held in Harbin in December, he defeated also Wang Yue, leading team Russia to victory.[27]

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 from 11–30 November 2016 in New York City. The format was a match consisting of a maximum of twelve 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.[28] Karjakin won the eighth game,[29][30][31] but lost the tenth, leaving the match tied 6-6. Carlsen defeated Karjakin 3-1 in the rapidplay tiebreaks, and won the match.[32][33]

Karjakin won the 2016 World Blitz Chess Championship, which took place over 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.[34][35] The extent of their domination in the event is shown by the fact that their closest rivals, Daniil Dubov, Hikaru Nakamura and Alexander Grischuk (three-time world blitz champion), were full two points behind.[36]

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).[37]

From 28 May to 7 June, he competed in the sixth edition of Norway Chess, finishing last with 3/8 (+1−3=4).[38]

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