FM (2001); International Master (2003); Grandmaster (2007); Russian U10 Champion (1999); Russian Junior (U20) Champion (2009 and 2010); World Junior Champion (2010); World Cup finalist and runner-up (2013); Candidate (2014).
Preamble
Andreikin quickly developed as a strong player, competing in and consistently making the leader boards in youth and junior tournaments. His junior career culminated in winning the World Junior Championship in 2010. Three years later, he reached a new zenith in his career when he reached the final of the World Cup 2013 to qualify for the Candidates Tournament 2014.
Championships
<Youth> Andreikin won the 1999 U10 World Championship and was runner up in the same event in 2000. Subsequently he competed in a number of Russian and European Youth Championships without bothering the top of the leader board. However, his experience in these events started to give him traction in 2004, when he placed =1st at the World U14 Championship with 8.5/11 (losing on tiebreak to Ildar Khairullin), and in 2006, when he placed =3rd in the Russian U18 Higher League Championship, half a point behind Roman Nechepurenko and Pogos Nakhapetiane.
<Junior (U20)> He first competed in the World Junior Championship when he was 16 in the World Junior Championship (2006), scoring 7.5/13 (par rating). In 2008, he competed in the Russian Junior Championship and the World Junior Championship (2008). In 2009, he won the Russian Junior Championship ahead of Ivan Popov and Ian Nepomniachtchi, successfully defending his title in 2010 ahead of Nepomniachtchi and Khairullin. His crowning achievement as a Junior came in 2010, when he scored 10/13 to secure the World Junior Championship (2010), this victory qualifying him for the World Cup of 2011.
<National> He first competed in the Russian Higher League Championship, the qualifier for the Russian Superfinal, in 2004 at the age of 14, and scored 5/9 – and a GM norm - amongst a sea of grandmasters. He competed in the higher league championship regularly since then without any especially outstanding results until he came 1st on tiebreak in the Russian Chess Championships Higher League (2012), which advanced him to contest the Russian Superfinals (2012), where he placed =1st. He went on to win the round-robin Russian Superfinals (Tiebreak) (2012) by 4/5 (+3 =2) to take first place overall and to become the 2012 Russian Champion. This result qualified him for direct seeding to the Russian Superfinals (2013), where he placed =3rd on 5.5/9, a point behind the joint winners Ian Nepomniachtchi and Peter Svidler.
<Continental> Aged 15, he first contested the continental championship at the 6th European Individual Championship (2005) scoring 6.5/13. He scored 7.5/11 at the European Individual Championship (2008), qualifying for the World Cup 2009. He placed =2nd (4th on tiebreak) with 8/11 at the 13th European Individual Championship (2012), qualifying him for the World Cup 2013.
<World> At the World Cup (2009), he was eliminated by Finnish GM Tomi Nyback in the blitz tiebreaker of round 1. In the World Cup (2011) he defeated GM Murtas Kazhgaleyev of Kazakhstan in the first round before losing in the second round to Russian GM Evgeny Tomashevsky. In the World Cup (2013), he has defeated Iranian GM Pouria Darini in the first round, Vietnamese GM Ngoc Truongson Nguyen in the second round, compatriot GM Alexey Dreev in the third round and compatriot GM Sergey Karjakin in the Round of 16 (round 4), the winner of the previous World Cup and former Candidate, compatriot GM Peter Svidler in the quarter final (round 5) and his close friend and compatriot GM Evgeny Tomashevsky in the semi-final (round 6), thereby qualifying for both the World Chess Championship Candidates (2014) and for the World Cup (2015). He met former World Champion and compatriot GM Vladimir Kramnik in the final, losing the first game and drawing the remaining three to become the runner up of the 2013 World Cup. At the World Chess Championship Candidates (2014) held in March 2014 in Khanty-Mansiysk, he scored above expectations by placing =3rd (5th on tiebreak behind Kramnik and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov) with 7/14 behind Viswanathan Anand and Karjakin.
Apart from qualifying for the World Cup in 2015, Andreikin commenced his participation in the 2014-2016 World Championship cycle by participating in the Grand Prix series of 2014-15, commencing with the FIDE Grand Prix Baku (2014). There he placed 11th and scoring only 20 Grand Prix points to almost knock himself out of contention in the new reduced Grand Prix format. However, he bounced back by winning the FIDE Grand Prix Tashkent (2014) outright with 7/11, and 170 GP points to his tally, for a progressive total of 190. This placed him 3rd after the second leg of the Grand Prix, putting him into solid contention for one of the top two places that would have qualified him for the Candidates tournament of 2016. However, a poor result in the third leg of the series at FIDE Grand Prix Tbilisi (2015) eliminated him from top 2 contention.
At the World Cup of 2015, Andreikin defeated Zhou Jianchao, Anton Korobov and, in a minor upset, Vladimir Kramnik in the first three rounds to progress to the Round of Sixteen (round four) where he met Sergey Karjakin, in a match that guaranteed a Russian advances to the quarter final. In the event, Andreikin lost their encounter 1.5-2.5 in the first set of rapid game tiebreakers to be eliminated from the tournament.
Standard Tournaments
In 2001, aged 11 and already an FM rated over 2200, he scored 8/11 to place equal first in a category 3 round-robin Masters Tournament in Rjazan alongside Vladimir P Vasiliev and Tikhon Koshil. Before his 12th birthday he almost reached the 2400 rating mark. A few months later he was competing in open tournaments alongside international masters and grandmasters, eg: in the White Knights 2001 event, where he still gained significant ratings points even though he scored only 3/8 against rated players. In 2002, he won the International Festival Section D event, a category 2 round robin event, with 11/14. In 2003, he was =1st in the Ryazan Regional Championship with 9.5/13 alongside Stepavoj, Oleg Aleshin, and Alexander N Panchenko.
There followed:
• 2006: =1st alongside Konstantin Chernyshov and Alexei Kornev at the Lipetsk Open in 2006;
• 2007: 1st at the 7th Eseninskaya Open in Ryazan
• 2008: 1st the 4th Inautomarket Open in Minsk and = 3rd in the Chigorin Memorial Tournament
• 2009, =1st–3rd with Yuri Kuzubov and Rauf Mamedov in a category 16 tournament at Lubbock, Texas. He also came =1st with 7 others at the Voroznezh Open Master Tournament;
• 2010:, he tied for 2nd–7th with Dreev, Ivan Sokolov, Vladimir Fedoseev, Alexander Areshchenko and Konstantin Sakaev in the Chigorin Memorial, a half point behind Eltaj Safarli;
• 2011: 2nd on tiebreak ahead of Emil Sutovsky in the Baku Open (2011), and he was 3rd, a point behind the leaders Le Quang Liem and Vassily Ivanchuk, in the 46th Capablanca Memorial (2011);
• 2012: he tied for =4th with Alexander Khalifman, Maxim Rodshtein, Fabiano Caruana and Hrant Melkumyan in the Aeroflot Open (2012), half a point behind the leaders Pavel Eljanov, Mateusz Bartel and Anton Korobov;
• 2013: he achieved his best tournament result to date, placing an undefeated =3rd (5th on tiebreak) at the category 22 Tal Memorial (2013) and
• 2015: he was second at the Capablanca Memorial (2015).
Team Events
<National representation> Andreikin represented Russia at the 2004 Russia-China summit match and at the European Team Championship (2013), where he helped his team to the bronze medal.
<National events and leagues> Andreikin participated in the 2003 Russian Young Olympiad and in the 2008 Russian Student Teams Championship. He has participated in the Russian Premier League since 2007, playing with Ekonomist SGSEU Saratov, helping them to a bronze medial in 2010 and earning an individual silver at the same time. He also participated in the 2009 Ukrainian League where he won gold playing board one for his team PGMB Kharkiv, with his team winning the silver medal, and in the 2012 Macedonian Team Championship. In 2015, he played board 2 for Universitet Belorechensk in the Russian Premier League, scoring 3.5/7 and helping his team to a team silver in the event.
He has played in the European Club Cup since 2008, also with Ekonomist SGSEU Saratov, helping his team to win gold in 2009 and 2010, on the latter occasion also winning individual gold for his performance on board 4. He also won individual silver in 2008 on board 5.
Match
Andreikin won the Razuvaev memorial match, Andreikin - Nepomniachtchi Match (2012), by 3.5/6 (+1 =5).
Rapid
In May 2012, he was =1st with 8.5/11 in the powerful Gran-pri Donskoj rapid. In July 2012, he was =2nd at the Kazakhstan-open, half a point behind Pavel Ponkratov. Several months later he came =3rd in another powerful rapid event, the Grand-prix Azovskiy rapid, half a point behind Dreev and Sjugirov. He won the Rector Cup Rapid (2012) outright in November 2012 to confirm his status as one of the world's best rapid players. In January 2013, he placed outright second behind Ernesto Inarkiev at the GP Volgograd 2013 rapid and in June scored 9/15 in the FIDE Rapid World Championship.
Blitz
In July 2012, he won the World Blitz Championship Semi Finals with 16.5/22, 2 points clear of Le Quang Liem, and then went on to score 17/30 to place =5th in the 2012 Blitz World Championship, behind Alexander Grischuk, Magnus Carlsen, Sergey Karjakin and Alexander Morozevich. He was 9th at the 2013 World Blitz Championship held in June 2013.
Ratings and Rankings
Andreikin was one of the world's top Juniors (U20) for some years, peaking at world #6 in July 2009, at which time he also entered the top 100 for the first time. He has remained in the top 100 since March 2010. He crossed the 2700 rating mark in May 2012 and has remained rated above 2700 since that time. His peak rating to date was 2737 for the three months December 2014 until the end of February 2015, during which period his ranking peaked at #18 in the world.
References
(i) Live rating: http://www.2700chess.com/
(ii) Wikipedia article: Dmitry Andreikin
Kibitzing
