Sergey Karjakin

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**Sergey Karjakin**

Full name	Sergey Karjakin
Country	Ukraine
Born	January 12, 1990 (age 17) Kramatorsk, Ukraine

Title	Grandmaster


Rating	2686 (No. 26 on the April 2007 FIDE ratings list)
Peak rating	2686 (April 2007)

Sergey Karjakin (Ukrainian: Сергій Карякін; Russian: Сергей Карякин) (born January 12, 1990 in Kramatorsk) of Ukraine became the youngest chess grandmaster in history at the age of 12 years and 7 months.

On the FIDE ranking list of April 2007, he has a rating of 2686, making him number 26 in the world, number 2 in the category of boys up to 20 years old and number 3 in the Ukraine.

He was the official second of fellow Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov, during the 2002 FIDE World championship. In 2004, Karjakin finished second to Boris Gelfand at the Pamplona, Navarra tournament, held from December 20 to December 29.

At age 15, Karjakin scored +7 =3 -1 to win the Young Stars of the World 2005 tournament held in Kirishi, Russia from 14 May to 26 May. Practicing before the tournament with Nigel Short in Greece, Karjakin was involved in a car accident on the way to the Athens airport and suffered minor injuries. This may have contributed to a slow start, as he lost a game and obtained only 1.5 points in the first three rounds.

He finished strongly with six wins and just two draws the rest of the way to win the tournament by a full point.

In his career, he has already beaten top grandmasters including (in a blitz game) Vladimir Kramnik. He 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.