By David R. Sands – The Washington Times – Tuesday, September 9, 2014
It ranked a tournament performance for the ages, and that was with three rounds still to go.
Italian-American GM Fabiano Caruana opened with seven straight wins to blow away the field at the Sinquefield Cup tournament that wrapped up last week in St. Louis. In a six-player, Category 23 field that included Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen and American No. 1 Hikaru Nakamura, Caruana coasted home with three draws to finish at a stunning 8½-1½ — a full three points ahead of Carlsen.
Caruana’s amazing run against a world-class field, which earned him 35 rating points and leaves him trailing Carlsen by just 27 points for the top rating slot, sparked comparisons to storied tournament performances of the past, including Bobby Fischer’s 11-0 whitewash in the 1963-1964 U.S. championship and Russian star Anatoly Karpov’s brilliant 11-2 run at the fabled 1994 Linares tournament in Spain, considered by some the greatest tournament result in history before the Sinquefield.
The Miami-born Caruana, at 22 a year younger than Carlsen, has long been considered one of the world’s top players, but the Sinquefield result makes him an undeniable contender for the Norwegian’s crown in the coming years. Even his fellow competitors were in awe of his play in St. Louis, a combination of strong preparation, accurate calculation and iron nerves that produced one brilliant win after another. (The winner could even have padded his score, missing a Round 9 win against Nakamura.) Joked veteran Bulgarian GM Veselin Topalov, a surprise third-place finisher with a 5-5 score: “I was plus-two against regular guys, but I lost two to Fabiano. That shouldn’t count really.”
Caruana narrowed his career deficit against Carlsen in classical chess to 5-4 with an amazing Round 3 win against the champ.
Congrats Fabby. At your current form, you are the one to beat in the Candidates Match/WC. More power to you.