Background
He learned chess from his father at age 3, and was later coached by former Garry Kasparov"s trainer Alexander Nikitin.
He learned chess from his father at age 3, and was later coached by former Garry Kasparov"s trainer Alexander Nikitin.
He finished first in the Karpov Poikovsky Tournament in 2007 and 2012.
He tied for first place in the Russian Championship Superfinal 2006, but lost the playoff against Evgeny Alekseev, got second place at Pamplona 2006/2007, Corus B Group 2007, and Aeroflot Open 2007. In the July 2009 FIDE World Rankings Jakovenko became the fifth highest rated chess player in the world and overtook Vladimir Kramnik as the number one Russian chess player (Kramnik regained the position in September that year). In the same month Jakovenko took part in the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting, where he tied for 2nd–4th with Peter Leko and Magnus Carlsen having all three players scored 5.5/10, half point behind Kramnik.
In December 2014, Jakovenko took second place behind Igor Lysyj in the Superfinal of the 67th Russian championship in Kazan.
Jakovenko shared first place with Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana in the last leg (Khanty Mansyisk) of the FIDE Grand Prix 2014-2015. He placed third in the Grand Prix overall standings with 310 points.
Evgeny Najer vs Dmitry Jakovenko, Russian Championship Superfinal 2006, Nimzo-Indian Defense: Romanishin Variation, English Hybrid (E20), 0-1
Dmitry Jakovenko vs Emil Sutovsky, 8th Poikovsky Karpov Tournament 2007, Spanish Game: Open Variations, Main Lincolnshire (C80), 1-0
Vugar Gashimov vs Dmitry Jakovenko, Elista Grand Prix 2008, Caro-Kann Defense: Classical Variation, Main lines (B18), ½-½.
He was a member of the gold medal-winning Russian team at the 2009 World Team Chess Championship and at the European Team Chess Championships of 2007 and 2015.