GM Dmitry Jakovenko

One of the best players in Russia and one of the elite players in the world, Grandmaster Dmitry Jakovenko has scaled the chess mountain all the way to the top. His Karpov-like positional style and penchant for the endgame have helped him to win many tournaments and rise to the top of the rating charts. Once he finished his university studies and made the decision to become a professional, he has never regretted his decision and never looked back.

Dmitry Jakovenko was born in Russia and learned how to play chess at the age of 3. He was already playing against adults in tournaments when he was 5 years old. He became an International Master in 1997 at the age of 14 and a Grandmaster in 2001 at the age of 18. He received coaching at a young age from Garry Kasparov’s former trainer, Alexander Nikitin. Jakovenko made the decision to become a professional chess player in 2004 after finishing his university studies and quickly had a lot of success. He broke into the world’s top 100 in 2005. He tied for first at the 2006 Russian Championship, got second place at Pamplona in 2006, at the 2007 Corus B Group and at the Aeroflot Open and won first place at Poikovsky, all in the same year. He surpassed the 2700 rating in 2007 and reached his peak rating of 2760 in 2009 when he became the 5th ranked player in the world and highest rated Russian player, ahead of Vladimir Kramnik. Since then he has continued to be one of the strongest players in the world, rated within the top 20, while improving his game every step of the way. He has a strong positional playing style that is similar to Anatoly Karpov and Jakovenko says that the endgame is his strongest part of his game.