Ian Nepomniachtchi: All you need to know about the 2023 Challenger
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi aka “Nepo”, the 2021 Challenger against Magnus Carlsen, can be the next World Champion in 2023, in Astana, Kazakhstan, against Ding Liren. Less than 3 weeks away from the Match, we’re trying to break down the Challenger’s profile and road to the Title.
Summary
Ian Nepomniachtchi is World No.2 behind Magnus Carlsen, currently at his peak rating (2795) and ranking. Nepo won the 2021 and 2022 Candidates Tournament with a round to spare, garnering the highest score in any Candidates tournament since the modern format was introduced in 2013. In 2021 he unsuccessfully faced Magnus Carlsen for the World Chess Championship Title and in April 2023 he will face the Chinese GM Ding Liren, following Carlsen’s withdrawal from the thrown.
The Russian GM counts numerous achievements since his young age, including winning the 2010 and 2020 Russian Superfinal, the 2010 European Individual, the 2008 and 2015 Aeroflot Open, and the 2016 Tal Memorial. He has also won two silver medals in the World Rapid Championship and a silver medal at the World Blitz Championship, as well as a silver medal in FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship 2022.
First chess steps
Ian Nepomniachtchi was born in Bryansk, an old city 350km from Moscow. Ian started playing chess at the age of five and was initially tutored by FM Valentin Ekimenko. At the age of seven, Ian had his early triumphs, and as the years went by he started winning more tournaments and master-level players. After seeing his great progress, Ekimenko handed Ian over to the famous coach IM Valery Zilberstein, who passed away in 2005. At the national level, Ian was tutored by the Russian youth team coach GM Sergey Janovsky, who had the invaluable and rare skill of finding sponsors.
Nepomniachtchi soon became the European and World Youth Champion, despite exceptionally strong competitors also born in 1989-1991 including Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Dmitry Andreikin, Wang Hao, and Le Quang Liem.
At the time, Nepo was often mentioned in the Russian press and considered the brightest chess star of his generation. Janovsky found top coaches for Ian’s training sessions, such as IM Mark Dvoretsky, GM Sergey Shipov, and GM Igor Zaitsev, one of Karpov’s coaches.
First elite tournament
After coming second at the 2007 Tata Steel Tournament ahead of Emanuel Berg, Parimarjan Negi, and Hou Yifan, and getting his GM title later the same year, Nepomniachtchi won the 2008 Aeroflot Open with a 7/9 score by winning GM Aleksey Dreev and GM Le Quang Liem
The Aeroflot winner was automatically getting an invitation to the Dortmund Sparkassen elite tournament, so Nepo got to play against GMs Kramnik, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Vassily Ivanchuk, and Peter Leko for the first time. The young prodigy managed to not lose and single game, defeat GM Loek van Wely and share second.
Team successes
Nepomniachtchi made his debut for Russia at the 2010 Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk on the first board of the second youth team, winning the individual bronze on the first board, but his team could not win a medal. After that, Nepo has won the 2013 and 2019 World Team Chess Championships as a member of the Russian team in Antalya and Astana respectively. He has also won the 2015 European Team Chess Championship in Reykjavík with the Russian team.
Dota
Nepomniachtchi, a.k.a. FrostNova, is fascinated by computer gaming and is among the most famous Russian Dota players and a member of the TR Cybersport team, which soon won the prestigious ASUS Cup Winter event. In 2008 Nepo played at the Russian Championship Higher League, organized in Novokuznetsk by IM Maxim Ivakhin and was sharing his time between Dota and preparation. Despite starting the tournament with a 3.5/4, Ian got exhausted by the end of the tournament and finished with a 50% score.
It wasn’t a bright period of Ian’s career, but it was the start of his work with the strong GM Vladimir Potkin, who still plays a great part on Ian’s chess career.
First win against Carlsen as a 2700+ player
Nepo won the 2010 Russian Championship Superfinal by defeating Karjakin, crossed 2700 and was invited to the 2011 Tata Steel tournament, where he could challenge the former World Champions Anand and Kramnik, the World’s No.1 Magnus Carlsen, as well as Aronian, Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura, and Anish Giri. Nepo scored 6/13, but he defeated Carlsen with Black, after a great preparation with Potkin and a precise playing in the critical moments of their game.
More triumphs
In 2013, Nepomniachtchi shared first place at the European Championship, the Russian Higher League, and the Russian Championship Superfinal. In 2014 he was runner-up in the World Blitz Championship, and in 2015 he won the Aeroflot Open. In 2016 Nepo won the Hainan Danzhou tournament and the Tal Memorial in Moscow. In 2017 he won Carlsen once more at London Chess Classic, and it wasn’t until the 2019 Grand Chess Tour Croatia when Carlsen finally obtained his first classical win against Nepo.
In 2018 Nepo won the Gideon Japhet Memorial in Jerusalem and the Dortmund Sparkassen tournament, while Kramnik, who had won that event ten times, stayed behind.
The 2021 Candidates
In 2019 Nepo won two FIDE Grand Prix legs, in Moscow and Jerusalem, and earned the much-needed invitation to the Candidates Tournament in March 2020 in Yekaterinburg. He started the 2020 Candidates with a 4.5/7, sharing first with Vachier-Lagrave, when the tournament had to stop due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After a year pause, the Candidates was resumed with Nepo taking advantage of MVL’s and Ding’s poor performances and winning the tournament with a round to spare to qualify for the 2021 World Chess Championship Match against Magnus Carlsen.
Meanwhile in 2020, Nepo won the Russian Championship Superfinal, his only over-the-board tournament during the Candidates pause, becoming the National Champion for the second time in his career.
The 2021 World Championship Match
The match between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi started with five consecutive draws. It wasn’t until game six that we had a decisive game, the longest World Chess Championship game in history with 136 moves, beating the 124-move Game 5 of the 1978 Karpov-Korchnoi match! The sheer amount of stress in that chess marathon was phenomenal and the match probably moved from a game of skill into a competition of endurance — something Carlsen is known for in the chess world.
Game six seemed to be a pivotal one as the match got away from Nepo after that, blundering away three games and losing by 4 points with 3.5 to 7.5.
The 2022 Candidates
After a disappointing performance at the 2021 World Chess Championship Match, Nepo won the 2022 Candidates Tournament with a round to spare and a 9.5/14 score, the highest since the format was introduced in 2013! With no loses, 5 wins and 9 draws, Nepo crossed his peak rating of 2792 on the live rating list and qualified to face Carlsen once more as a Challenger.
On the Internation Chess Day though, Carlsen officially announced that he will not defend his World Chess Championship Title in 2023 against Nepo. “I’ve been thinking about this decision for a long time, more than a year and a half. I spoke with people from my team, with FIDE, with Ian. It’s very simple. I am not motivated to play another match.” Carlsen stated on “The Magnus Effect” podcast. As a consequence of this decision was that the 2023 World Chess Championship will be played between Nepo and the 2022 Candidates runner-up Ding Liren.
Other interesting facts about Ian Nepomniachtchi
Ian has a middle name which is Alexandrovich and his whole name is properly written Yan Aleksandrovich Nepomnyashchiy.
He has graduated with honors from the Russian State Social University (RSSU).
During the pandemic Nepo started to love “What? Where? When?”, an intellectual game show that is extremely popular in Russia. He played it in the open format and also participated on the TV show!
Nepo has a terrific overall record against world champions. At standard time controls, he has positive scores against GM Vladimir Kramnik (+5 -4 =4), GM Viswanathan Anand (+3 -2 =5), and even had a winning record against Carlsen (+4 -1 =6, with two wins coming during their youth careers) before their 2021 match. Nepomniachtchi also has positive records against GM Anatoly Karpov (+2 -0 =0 in 2013) and GM Garry Kasparov (+2 -0 =3 from 2017-21) in rapid/blitz, the only formats he has played them in.
According to chessarena, Nepo has burned 3,171 calories during the 2023 WR Masters!
