up of Karjakin, Magnus Carlsen, Wang Hao, Daniel Stellwagen, and Jan Smeets) and "Experience" (Alexander Beliavsky, Artur Yusupov, John Nunn, and Ulf Andersson), held with the Scheveningen system. The former won by 28–22. 2007 Karjakin played again in the NH Chess Tournament for team "Rising Stars", which beat "Experience" by 26½–23½. He was the best player, having scored 7/10, and this earned him an invitation for the 2008 Amber chess tournament. In October 2007, Karjakin finished second behind Bu Xiangzhi in the Blindfold Chess World Cup in Bilbao, scoring 17 points after five wins, two draws and three losses (the scoring system was 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss). During the Chess World Cup 2007, which served as a qualification tournament for the World Chess Championship 2010, Karjakin reached the semi-finals, in which he lost to Alexei Shirov. On the January 2008 FIDE rating list, published just before Karjakin's 18th birthday, he passed the 2700 mark for the first time, often seen as the line that separates "elite" players from other grandmasters, with a new rating of 2732 and a world rank of 13. 2008–2010 In July 2008, Karjakin convincingly won a rapid chess match against GM Nigel Short 7½–2½. In February 2009, he won his first elite tournament in the A group of the Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee (category XIX), with a score of 8/13. He won the ACP World Rapid Cup, which was conducted from 27 to 29 May 2010, defeating Dmitry Jakovenko in the final by 4–3. 2011 In June 2011, Karjakin took second place in the Bazna Kings Tournament in Mediaș, Romania, after sharing the lead with Magnus Carlsen in the final round, and after ranking was then determined by the tournament’s official tie-break regulations. The final standings listed Carlsen followed by Karjakin, then Hikaru Nakamura, Teimour Radjabov, Vassily Ivanchuk, and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu. The results affected the world rankings, as Carlsen reclaimed first place, and Karjakin passed Kramnik for fourth place. In November, Karjakin shared third place with Vassily Ivanchuk and Ian Nepomniachtchi in the category 22 Tal Memorial in Moscow. 2012: World Rapid Champion In July 2012, Karjakin won the World Rapid Chess Championship, a full point ahead of world number one Magnus Carlsen in Astana, Kazakhstan. In the same month, he also tied for first at Dortmund with Fabiano Caruana but came in