At a press conference on Thursday in Moscow, Sergey Karjakin revealed his brand new personal sponsor: the Russian division of global Forex broker Alpari. The Moscuvite, who is currently the world's #7 in the live rating list, said that the sponsor deal will support his struggle to become World Champion one day.

Alpari: Sergey Karjakin's personal sponsor, at least for a year

In a slightly mysterious tweet yesterday Sergey Karjakin invited journalists to join a press conference on Friday at 16:00 at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Moscow.

Be in for a surprise,

he added.

At the press conference Karjakin was wearing a suit with the logo of Alpari and in fact he was joined by Gleb Petrov, founder and President of Alpari in Russia. The company provides online trading services and investments in foreign exchange, precious metals and CFDs. Karjakin and Petrov signed a contract for a sponsor deal that runs for one year. But, according to Chess-News, Petrov stated that the ultimate goal is

to return the chess crown to Russia.

Karjakin, on his turn, explained that the sponsor deal will be used for coaches, computer equipment and other facilities for preparation. Already at the Olympiad in Istanbul he will play with the Alpari logo on his clothes.

Not long after the press conference Karjakin tweeted:

Finally it happened! It's a sponsor?!))

Ukrainian-born Karjakin, who won the Rapid World Championship last month, moved to Russia a few years ago in order to have the opportunity to work with strong coaches. At the age of 12 he became the youngest grandmaster in the world. He is the second ranked Russian chess player behind former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik.

Sponsor deals are not common in the chess world, but two other top players can regularly be spotted in sponsored clothes: World Champion Vishy Anand and world's number one Magnus Carlsen. Anand has had a deal with NIIT for many years, while Carlsen has three sponsors: Arctic Securities, Simonsen and VG.

Update 23:15 CET: At WhyChess Evgeny Atarov adds that Alpari President Gleb Petrov was a fan of Spassky, Karpov and then Kasparov. He is not expecting a concrete financial return.

For our company this is a pure PR move.