Magnus Carlsen vs Fabiano Caruana – 2nd Sinquefield Cup 2014 (Video)


Aug 30, 2014

This is the 3rd round game between the #1 ranked chess player in the world and current world chess champion, Magnus Carlsen, and the #2 ranked chess player in the world, Fabiano Caruana, from the 2nd Sinquefield Cup chess tournament of 2014. The tournament was held in the United States – Saint Louis, Missouri at the Saint Louis Chess Club & Scholastic Center (Home of the World Chess Hall of Fame). This tournament’s 6 competitors (Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Veselin Topalov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave) have an average rating of nearly 2802, making it the strongest tournament in chess history. In this encounter Carlsen, as he so often does, elects a simplistic opening. Carlsen chooses the Bishop’s Opening to avoid any opening preparation, with the goal to then try and slowly outplay his opponent. Caruana makes use of Carlsen’s bishop on c4 by preparing an ideal central pawn structure where the d5 advance will come with tempo. Caruana’s Bb4+ provokes a reply that makes pressurizing the black center slightly more difficult. Carlsen however illustrates the center can still be attacked indirectly by his queenside bishop. What follows is a position where Carlsen’s dark-squared bishop is accesible to a black knight which soon results in a knight for bishop imbalance. In the end it is Caruana who possesses the bishop pair, and Carlsen who has a half open f-file. The world chess champion’s sudden strike, as early as move 15 against Caruana’s uncastled and slightly underdeveloped side, shocked nearly every chess fan watching at the time.

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