World Chess Candidates : Openings Review | Caruana
The most important tournament in April will be the Candidates Part II.
The winner of the World Chess Candidates will be the official challenger for the world championship to be played against Magnus Carlsen.
The FIDE World Chess Championship between GM Magnus Carlsen and the winner of the FIDE Candidates Tournament will be held November 24-December 16, 2021 alongside the Dubai World Expo.
The world expo was postponed by 1 year due to global pandemic, it will take place end of 2021.
The entire chess world, as well as Magnus below, will be playing very close attention to the candidates.
The candidates tournament will resume on the 19th of April in Yekaterinburg, Russia, as announced by the International Chess Federation.
No doubt all players are preparing for the tournament, with their main focus the opening stage.
While Nepomniachtchi and MVL lead, Caruana and Giri are just behind at the half-way mark.
Today, I will review the openings Fabiano Caruana has played so far, but if there is strong demand, I could do it again for Ian Nepo.
Caruana with Black
Fabiano Caruana played the Ruy Lopez ( aka Spanish Defense) twice with the following position
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O b5 6. Bb3 Bc5 7. a4 Rb8 8. c3 d6 9. d4 Bb6 10. a5
With this opening, and reaching this position twice, he drew his games against MVL ( Round 1 ) and Grischuk ( Round 6).
Against 1 d4, Caruana played the Slav defense with an early c7-c6 and he lost against Ding Liren 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. Ne5
and he got a draw against Giri , with the following diagram showing the different Slav variation
1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bf5 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nh4
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With the WHITE PIECES now
Caruana played 1 d4 and scored a win against Alekseenko by playing a Saemisch variation
Against Nepo, he played 1.d4 and faced the Gruenfeld Defense
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 c5 8.
Ne2 O-O 9. O-O Nc6 10. Be3 b6
This game ended up in a draw.
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Finally in round 7, Caruana chose 1e4 against Wang Hao
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Nxc3 6. dxc3 Be7 7. Be3 O-O
8. Qd2 Nd7 9. O-O-O Nf6
This is a Petroff Defense and here's the position
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It's been many months since this was played in early 2020. Will Fabiano repeat the same openings or will he switch ?
Note that he has played 1.e4 and 1.d4 which makes it more difficult to predict. His next game is against MVL and he has the white pieces. MVL is known to play the Sicilian Najdorf against 1.e4 and the Gruenfeld against 1.d4. but again MVL could have a surprise in store.
GM MVL (Maxime Vachier-Lagrave) earlier this year at Tata Steel Tournament( Wijk Aan Zee)
GM Fabiano Caruana
Stay tuned, and don't forget to drop a comment below !
