Written by: Emadeldin Teama

First of all we would like to introduce briefly Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi. GM Ian is a Russian super grandmaster. He is a chess prodigy who won the European youth chess championship under the age of 10 scoring 9 out of 11 rounds in 2000. He went on winning the same tournament in 2001 and 2002 proving that he is a chess talent that cannot be reckon with!

In this article we are going to discuss GM Ian Nepomniachtchi career and how he got where he is right now challenging the best player of all time Magnus Carlsen.

Was GM Ian a young prodigy in chess?

The answer is Yes! , Ian showed great skill in chess from a very young age. Ian was lucky to be tutored by FM Valentin Ekimenko, who was fascinated with his student. He accompanied Ian to various tournaments and spent almost all available time with him. The boy’s progress was steady: first category, candidate master, first wins against master-level players, and so on.

Ekimenko soon realized that the rising star needed a better coach and handed him over to Valery Zilberstein, who passed away in 2005, but was coaching Ian during his formative years. The grateful student annually holds the Zilberstein Memorial tournament in Bryansk. Its first seasons were organized on a moderate scale, as Nepomniachtchi provided the prize fund himself, but the latest edition was supported by the regional government.

Nepomniachtchi soon became the European and World Youth Champion, despite exceptionally strong competitors also born in 1989-1991. Only Karjakin blossomed very early and preferred adult tournaments, bypassing youth competitions. The rest of the best was awesome: Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Dmitry Andreikin, Wang Hao, Le Quang Liem, and Sergey Zhigalko, all eventually became strong GMs.

Meeting Magnus Carlsen

Nepomniachtchi and Carlsen first met in 2002 in round five of the U-12 European Championship in Peniscola, Spain.
Nepomniachtchi was a favorite rated 2344 (only Vachier-Lagrave’s 2359 rating was higher; Khairullin’s was 2339; Andreikin’s was 2332), while the Norwegian boy was an obvious underdog: only 2250.
Carlsen surprised his opponent with the Alekhine Defense. His position was better, but he got off track and Ian did not miss that chance. In the final standings, Nepomniachtchi and Carlsen shared first, scoring nine points each, but the tiebreaker was in Ian’s favor.

Here is a link to the first game they played against each other:

GM Ian Newpomniachtchi achievements

There are so many achievements Gm ian has done over the years in his chess career. We are going to mention some of them to give you a sense of who he is and what force will Carlsen face in the upcoming days in Dubai!

Nepomniachtchi won the 2010 and 2020 Russian Super final and the 2010 European Individual titles. He also won the 2016 Tal Memorial and 2008 and 2015 Aeroflot Open. He won the World Team Chess Championship as a member of the Russian team in Antalya (2013) and Astana (2019). Nepomniachtchi won the 2015 European Team Chess Championship in Reykjavík with the Russian team.

In October 2016, Nepomniachtchi was ranked fourth in the world in both rapid chess and blitz chess. He has won two silver medals in the World Rapid Championship and a silver medal at the World Blitz Championship as well as winning the 2008 Ordix Open. In December 2019, Nepomniachtchi qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2020–21 by finishing second in the FIDE Grand Prix 2019. He won the 2021 FIDE Candidates tournament with a round to spare!

How did GM Ian win the candidate tournament?

The 2020 Candidate was a tough one. It was held at the early days of the pandemic and everyone was nervous. The 2020–21 Candidates Tournament was an eight-player chess double round-robin tournament to decide the challenger for the World Chess Championship 2021.

The first half of the tournament was played in Yekaterinburg, Russia, from 17 March to 25 March 2020. It was suspended at the halfway point due to the COVID-19 pandemic with the second half of the tournament played from April 19 to 27, 2021, also in Yekaterinburg .With over 13 months from beginning to end, it is believed to be the longest over-the-board chess tournament in history!

Nepomniachtchi took an early lead with wins in rounds 1, 5 and 6, but was caught by Vachier-Lagrave, who defeated him in round 7. The tournament was halted at the halfway point, with every player having played each other once. Vachier-Lagrave and Nepomniachtchi shared the lead on 4½/7, with Vachier-Lagrave’s win in their individual game putting him provisionally ahead on tie-breaks. A point behind on 3½ were Caruana, Giri, Grischuk and Wang Hao. Ding Liren, who was one of the pre-tournament favourites, started the tournament badly with two consecutive losses, and shared last place on 2½ with Alekseenko.

When the tournament resumed, Caruana defeated Vachier-Lagrave in round 8, and Nepomniachtchi was again the sole leader, a lead he extended to one point with a win over Alekseenko in round 10. Giri moved to within half a point of the lead (but with a worse tie-break than Nepomniachtchi) with wins over Wang Hao and Ding Liren in rounds 9 and 11. In round 12 Giri faced third-placed Caruana, in a game which both needed to win; Giri won, but Nepomniachtchi won against Wang Hao and kept his half-point lead; giving lead standings of Nepomniachtchi 8, Giri 7½, and Vachier-Lagrave 6½.

In round 13, both Giri (against Grischuk) and Vachier-Lagrave (against Nepomniachtchi) played for wins with the black pieces, but both obtained inferior positions. When Nepomniachtchi saw that Giri was losing, he offered Vachier-Lagrave a draw, which was accepted. This smart move from Ian left the standings at Nepomniachtchi 8½, Giri 7½, Vachier-Lagrave and Caruana 7. With a superior tie break due to his 1½–½ head-to-head score against Giri, Nepomniachtchi won the tournament with one round to spare.

We would like to share the speech which Ian said after winning the candidate tournament. He thanked his team for this great victory and was very happy about his performance

Here is a link to the full video for the confirence done by the fide with GM Ian :

Conclusion:

We believe that we are going to see great games between Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi. GM Ian has a psychological edge against carlsen due to the fact that he has a positive results against him in classical games.However, we all know that Carlsen is the best player in the world and he has an edge over all players in rapid and blitz chess.

Ian chances are in the classical games. If he can’t win there it would be extremely hard to defeat carlsen in rapid or blitz! We are going to cover all the world chess championship held in the next days so stay tuned!