Jakovenko learned chess from his father at the age of three years and was later coached by
Garry Kasparov's former trainer Alexander Nikitin. In 2001 he won the Under 18 section of the
World Youth Chess Championships and the
Saint-Vincent Open. Jakovenko tied for first place in the
Russian Championship Superfinal 2006, but lost the playoff against
Evgeny Alekseev, got second place at Pamplona 2006/2007,
Corus B Group 2007, and
Aeroflot Open 2007. He finished first in the
Anatoly Karpov International Tournament (
pl) in
Poikovsky,
Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Russia in 2007, 2012 and 2018. In the July 2009
FIDE world rankings Jakovenko became the fifth highest rated chess player in the world and overtook
Vladimir Kramnik as the number one Russian (Kramnik regained the position in September that year). In the same month Jakovenko competed at the
Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting, finishing shared second with
Peter Leko and
Magnus Carlsen, fourth on tiebreak, with a score of 5½/10, one point behind Kramnik. Jakovenko won the 2012
European Individual Chess Championship in
Plovdiv with a score of 8½/11 points. He won the Russian Cup knockout tournament in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017. In December 2014, Jakovenko took second place, behind
Igor Lysyj, in the Superfinal of the 67th Russian championship in
Kazan. In 2015 Jakovenko tied for first place with
Hikaru Nakamura and
Fabiano Caruana in the last stage of the
FIDE Grand Prix series, held in
Khanty Mansyisk, scoring 6½/11 points. He took first place on tiebreak and placed third in the Grand Prix overall standings with 310 points. In November 2017 Jakovenko shared first place with
Levon Aronian in the last leg of the
FIDE Grand Prix 2017 series, which took place in
Palma, Majorca, taking first place on tiebreak. In 2018, Jakovenko tied for 1st - 2nd place in the Superfinal of the 71st Russian championship in
Satka,
Chelyabinsk Oblast. He lost the rapid playoffs to
Dmitry Andreikin and finished in second place. ==Notable chess games==