Candidates Chess: Fabiano Caruana steady yet unconvincing

Fabiano Caruana, 33, is not exactly known for his killer instinct. And although by nature the Candidates tournament presents very few mustwin scenarios, ‘Fabi’ is simply not fabulous when it comes to handling nerves.

It’s somewhat of a hazard then to dub the American world No. 3 the favourite for the eight-player men’s tournament in Cyprus that starts on Sunday. However, no one can deny his strength. In addition, the absence of his chief rivals here — Ding Liren and Ian Nepomniachtchi — could end up as a benefit to him.

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Being the first to qualify for the Candidates through the FIDE Circuit of 2024, Caruana had endured the least amount of uncertainty compared to his seven rivals in Cyprus. But is it clearly beneficial? Or is it likely that he undercooked for sterner tests?

In a must-win situation against Nepo (to force a tiebreak against eventual winner Gukesh) in the last round of the previous Candidates, Caruana held a plus-3 advantage for a good part of the game playing with white pieces. The computer evaluation also jumped to decisive +7 in his favour at one stage. But after 110-plus moves, he could only split a point, easing Gukesh’s passage to the title clash.




Of course, Caruana defeated Alexander Grischuk in the last round of the Candidates in 2018 with black pieces when he won the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen. He is the only player who did not allow Carlsen a single win in the classical phase of their world championship match the same year. He is one of the only four players to reach Elo 2825-plus in the history of the sport. But that was 12 years ago. And a lot has flown under the bridge since.

Caruana remains a solid player with great positional understanding, preparation and ability to calculate. But his decision-making skills have clearly suffered in recent years with frequent emergence of mental demons. However, this grim-looking lacuna could suddenly evaporate if he manages to take an early lead in Cyprus.

Since his Candidates debut at 23 years in 2016, he has qualified for all the Candidates tournaments underlining his consistency in no uncertain terms at this level.

Caruana at Candidates

• 2016: Finished second, one point behind Sergey Karjakin
• 2018: Won by a point over Karjakin and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.
• 2021: Finished 4th.
• 2023: Finished 5th.
• 2024: Tied 2nd.

The magic of +4

• The average winning score in the last-four Candidates event is 9 points (which is four more wins than defeats in the 14-round meet). Caruana’s combined head-to-head score against his seven Candidates rivals is exactly +4. That is 27 wins, 23 defeats and 87 draws (over 137 games against these seven rivals). In other words, Caruana needs to show +4 level over only 14 games and not over 130-plus games against these specific players.