This week we are looking at the young and rising Russian star - Andrey Esipenko. Born on March 22, 2002, Esipenko started playing chess at the age of five, and he quickly showed great promise.
Esipenko's early chess accomplishments include winning the European U10 Championship in 2012 the next year, he earned his FIDE title.
2017 was a busy year for the 15 year old star. He won both the European Under 16 Championship and the World Under 16 Chess Championship and he didn’t stop there.
At the end of 2017, he competed in the 2017 World Rapid Championship scoring a performance rating of 2622. During the tournament he played a queen sacrifice against Sergey Karjakin which broadcaster Leonard Barden commented may be “the move of the year”. We are not looking at that game today, but I have attached it to the show notes.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1904002
Fast forwarding to 2020, he finished in a tie for first in the Gibraltar Masters tournament with an incredible performance of 2809, but eventually was eliminated in a four-way playoff to the eventual winner David Paravyan.
Kicking off 2021 with a bang - in January, the then 18 year old Esipenko competed in the Tata Steel Masters tournament. In round eight, he defeated the then World Champion Magnus Carlsen in their first game in a classic time control. Esikpenko chose an aggressive line against the Sicilian and caught Carlsen in an awkward tactical bind. After a long grind, Magnus resigned. I remember watching the game live - it was hard not to feel happy for Esipenko as his smile and sigh of relief came through after Carlsen’s resignation. He later commented that that was one of the happiest days of his life.
I’ve left a link to that moment in the show notes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZsK96-mASY
It is really hard not to feel emotional about chess after watching and experiencing moments like that.
This was Carlsen's first loss to a teenager in classic time controls since 2011, and his first loss to a sub-2700 rated player since 2015.
A quote from the letter says - “Chess teaches responsibility for one's actions; every step counts, and a mistake can lead to a fatal point of no return. And if this has always been about sports, now people's lives, basic rights and freedoms, human dignity, the present and future of our countries are at stake.”
Joining Esipenko is - Ian Nepomniachtchi, Daniil Dubov, Peter Svidler, and many others.
There is a lot of promise for Mr Esipenko - standing up to a world leader, beating the World Champion, and performance ratings above 2800 all before the age of 21 - he is someone to watch out for.
In today’s game we are going to the Tata Steel Challengers Tournament of 2019.
Andrey Esipenko versus Dinara Saduakassova
Now, if we’re ready - let’s begin.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Nxc3 6. dxc3 Be7 7. Be3 Nd7 8. Qd2 O-O 9. O-O-O c6 10. h4 d5 11. Kb1 Re8 12. Bd3 Nc5 13. Ng5 h6 14. Bh7+ Kf8 15. c4 Na4 16. Qd3 Qd6 17. Bc1 hxg5 18. hxg5 Bd8 19. cxd5 cxd5 20. Qf3 Be6 21. Bf5 Nb6 22. Rde1 Nd7 23. Rh8+ Ke7 24. Rxe6+ 1-0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Esipenko