Crimean-born Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin, 26, has qualified to challenge Norwegian 
Magnus Carlsen for the world chess championship after he pulled off a brilliant rook sacrifice to beat his closest rival, American Fabiano Caruana, in the last round of the Candidates tournament in Moscow.
Magnus Carlsen for the world chess championship after he pulled off a brilliant rook sacrifice to beat his closest rival, American Fabiano Caruana, in the last round of the Candidates tournament in Moscow.- The Russian triumphed over the United States’ Fabiano Caruana, 23, whom he played in the last round. Karjakin scored 8.5/14 to finish first in the eight-player tournament, a full point ahead of Caruana and former world champion Vishy Anand of India on 7.5 points.
- Born in Simferopol, the capital of the now-Russian republic of Crimea, in 1990, Karjakin, a former child prodigy, broke Carlsen’s record for becoming the world’s youngest grandmaster at the age of 12 years and seven months.
- He has a classical playing style heavily influenced by Russian world champions from the Soviet era, and as a young player was coached by English world championship challenger Nigel Short, one of the few Westerners to qualify for a world title match.
- Formerly a Ukrainian citizen, Karjakin took Russian citizenship in 2009.
- As the winner, Karjakin qualifies to play a 12-game head-to-head match against two-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, the 25-year-old Norwegian wunderkind who is the highest rated player in the history of the game.
- Other players in the tournament were Russia’s Peter Svidler, Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Hikaru Nakamura of the US, Levon Aronian of Armenia and Anish Giri of the Netherlands.
