2006 in 2006 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). 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.
2007 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. 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). 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.
2008–2010 In July 2008, Karjakin convincingly won a
rapid chess match against GM
Nigel Short 7½–2½. 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 29May 2010, defeating
Dmitry Jakovenko in the final by 4–3.
2011 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. In November, Karjakin shared third place with
Vassily Ivanchuk and
Ian Nepomniachtchi in the category 22
Tal Memorial in Moscow.
2012: World Rapid Champion In July 2012, Karjakin won the
World Rapid Chess Championship, a full point ahead of world number one Magnus Carlsen in
Astana,
Kazakhstan. In the same month, he also tied for first at
Dortmund with
Fabiano Caruana but came in second after tiebreak. 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.
2013–2014 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. 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 top10.
2015 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 29July to 1August 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. In the second half of the event, which was held in
Harbin in December, he also defeated
Wang Yue, leading team Russia to victory.
2016: Candidates winner and World Blitz Champion 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 11–30November 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: 1win, 4losses, and 16draws. Karjakin won the eighth game, but lost the tenth, leaving the match tied 6–6. Carlsen defeated Karjakin 3–1 in the rapid tiebreaks and won the match. 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 30December 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. 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.
2017–2018 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). From 28 May to 7 June, he competed in the
sixth edition of Norway Chess, finishing last with 3/8 (+1−3=4).
2019–2020 In March 2019, Karjakin competed as part of the Russian team at the World Team Championship in
Astana,
Kazakhstan. He was defeated by the Kazakh grandmaster Rinat Dzhumabaev. Karjakin criticised
Daniil Dubov for serving as a second for Magnus Carlsen in the
World Chess Championship 2021 against
Ian Nepomniachtchi. 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. 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.
2022–present In January 2022, he competed in the
Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022, where he finished tied for fifth with a score of 7/13. Controversy arose among spectators after the tenth round when Karjakin and Carlsen drew by three-fold repetition after 16moves in 20minutes, with Karjakin's deciding to enter a drawn line of the
Berlin Defence. After the game, Karjakin tweeted "#drawmagnus #saynoto2900".
Suspension In February 2022, 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
Russian invasion of Ukraine. This led FIDE to refer him (as well as fellow 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", while
Chess.com banned him from participating in all prize tournaments that same month. In March 2022, the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission banned him from playing any FIDE-rated events for six months. The
Russian Chess Federation filed an appeal, which was denied. The decision meant that Karjakin was not able to participate in the
Candidates Tournament 2022. 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. 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. 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. Notably, Karjakin opted out of playing at the
2023 Chess World Cup despite his eligibility to play at the event due to rating, reiterating his disapproval for "the upcoming tournament [where] I can't represent my country, play under my (country's) flag, and if I successfully perform, I will not hear my country's national anthem." == Playing style ==