Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin (Ukrainian: Сергій Олександрович Карякін, Serhiy Oleksandrovych Karjakin; Russian: Серге́й Алекса́ндрович Каря́кин; 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. In September 2011 he had an Elo rating of 2772, making him Russia's second best chess player, and the fifth in the world.

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

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 Xiangzhito 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 minutes for the entire game, plus five seconds per move). Also in 2004, Karjakin was the only human to win against a computer in the Man vs Machine World Team Championship in Bilbao, Spain, where he was the youngest and lowest rated player. He won against the computer programDeep Junior. Later that year Karjakin finished second to Boris Gelfand at the Pamplona, Navarra tournament, held from December 20 to December 29.

Karjakin entered the world's top 100 in the April 2005 FIDE list, where he was number 64 in the world with an Elo rating of 2635. He scored 8.5 (7-3-1) to win the Young Stars of the World 2005 tournament held in Kirishi, Russia from May 14 to May 26. Practicing before the tournament with Nigel Shortin Greece, Karjakin was involved in a car accident on the way to the Athens airport and suffered minor injuries. Afterwards, Short remarked that he had "almost changed the path of chess history by allowing the future World Champion to be killed while in my care".

During the Chess World Cup 2007, which served as a qualification tournament for the World Chess Championship 2009, Karjakin reached the semi-finals, in which he lost to Alexei Shirov. On the January 2008 FIDE rating list, published just before Karjakin's eighteenth 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 played a ten game rapid chess match against GM Nigel Short and won convincingly with a score of 7.5-2.5. In February 2009 he won the A group of the Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee (category XIX) with a score of 8/13.

Later he also won the ACP World Rapid Cup which was conducted from 27 May to 29 May 2010. He defeated Dmitry Jakovenko in the final game by 4-3.

In November 2011 Karjakin tied for 3rd–5th with Vassily Ivanchuk and Ian Nepomniachtchi in the category 22 Tal Memorial in Moscow.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meninos Prodígios do Xadrez - Karjakin

Crianças-prodígio são um fenômeno bem conhecido no xadrez, que é um dos poucos esportes ou atividades intelectuais, onde as crianças podem competir com os adultos em terreno igual. O grande Capablanca aprendeu o jogo aos quatro anos, e foi um dos jogadores mais fortes em Cuba no início da adolescência e apesar da pouca idade. Tivemos também Samuel Reshevsky que também começou aos quatro anos e dava exposições simultâneas aos seis. Esses dois citados foram grandes prodígios de seu tempo e trouxeram importantes contribuições para o xadrez mundial, mas na última década o mundo pôde conhecer inúmeros geniozinhos do xadrez e o XadrezBatatais trará um pouco de alguns deles para compartilhar com nossos amigos leitores. O prodígio de hoje é:

 

SERGEY Karjakin (foto) que nasceu em 12 de janeiro de 1990 em Simferopol, Kramatorsk na Ucrânia e aprendeu a jogar xadrez quando tinha cinco anos de idade. Em 20 de agosto de 2002, no torneio internacional em Sudak, ele chocou o mundo do xadrez, alcançando sua terceira e última norma de GM, fazendo dele o mais jovem grande mestre da história do xadrez, com a idade de 12 anos e 7 meses (um recorde que ainda perdura). Aos 11 anos e 11 meses, ele também tinha sido o mais jovem a adquirir o título de IM (Mestre Internacional). Sergey Karjakin foi um dos segundos para Ruslan Ponomariov durante o seu campeonato mundial contra Vassily Ivanchuk, em 2002. Aos 14 ele derrotou o campeão mundial então reinante, Vladimir Kramnik, durante o torneio Dortmund Sparkassen 2004, em um jogo Blitz (dez minutos com acréscimo de cinco segundos por jogada). Também em 2004, Karjakin foi o único humano a vencer contra o computador no Computer vs Man Machine World Team em Bilbao, Espanha, onde ele era o jogador mais jovem e o menor nome. Ele venceu o Deep Junior programa (de computador). Em 25 de julho de 2009 Karjakin tirou a cidadania russa e agora representa esse país.