Fabiano Caruana continued showing super form at the Grenke Chess Classic, winning the tournament convincingly after a convincing and exhausting Candidates Tournament. The win here puts Fabi at World #2 behind the World Champion and keeps him on the heels of Magnus Carlsen.
Coming off a win at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk Aan Zee Magnus Carlsen was well rested before the Grenke Chess Classic. He faced his challenger in round 1 and the game showed some fatigue on part of Fabi and was very typical of how Magnus starts his tournaments. Magnus is always slow to get off the ground at the start of any tournament and only finds his form a couple of rounds in. Fabi however showed fantastic recovery at the Tournament and showed some solid play in his games to win the tournament convincingly.
Fabiano Caruana v Arkadij Naiditsch Rd. 3 (1-0):
This game is very instructive in the fluent endgame technique shown by Fabi taking advantage of overexposure by Naiditsch. The game looked like heading into a dead draw in a knights and pawn endgame with the Queens on the board. But Fabi pushed on, creating dangerous threats against his opponent. Lot of times this is key- to push to create chances by putting your opponent on the edge and in endgames. The weakness of knights- being short range pieces is clearly exposed by Fabi by totally paralyzing Black’s Knight and winning it in the final combination- thats when Naiditsch resigned. This game demonstrates the importance of keeping the knight towards the center of the board with maneuverability to leverage the Queen’s activity when she’s around. Naiditsch pushed his Knight too far out in this game that almost put it in a corner. Knights on the rim are dim.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave v Fabiano Caruana Rd 7 (0-1):
This game was a classic win by Fabi demonstrating the finest repression of the opponent’s pair of Bishops. It can be very frustrating facing a Bishop pair in the middle game as they can influence sharply in combinations. Caruana showed some fine technique to demonstrate an antidote to the situation. Keeping MVL’s light diagonal Bishop fianchettoed on the long diagonal facing a pillar of an obstruction Fabi showed how the Bishop could be obstructed facing one obstacle after another. A very sound and thoughtful opening concept deployed by Fabi to which MVL found no reply over the board. Fabi kept pushing to create further weaknesses in MVL’s position only to push him to resignation after 36 moves instead of going in for a winning but lengthy endgame.
Vitiugov Nitkita v Fabiano Caruana (0-1):
Heading into the last round with a half point lead over the field Fabi left nothing to chance. Clearly comfortable going into the last round playing Black just as he found himself facing Grischuk in the Candidates Fabi knew his work was cut out for him. Showing no desire to overexpose himself Fabi played solid chess and showed some fantastic tactical acumen to secure the game and a convincing Tournament victory.
Starting a busy 2018 Fabiano Caruana is in the best shape of his life. He now heads back to the U.S. and prepare for the U.S. Championship and its a grueling schedule for him. Pretty surely he’ll be settling down into the World Chess Championship preparation mode heading into June or July. With the excitement for Chess building with his qualification it is no wonder that St. Louis is in talks to host the World Chess Championship by up bidding London for the match. We’ll wait and see!
