Veselin Topalov

Sep 2, 2014

This is the 6th round game between Fabiano Caruana and Veselin Topalov from the 2nd Sinquefield Cup chess tournament of 2014. Topalov enters the Sicilian Taimanov against the perfect 5 for 5 Caruana who has yet again out prepared his 6th round opponent with Topalov being the first to blink, or “have a think” on move 13. Caruana enters a line where despite Topalov’s uncastled king, black remains with a stronger pawn presence in the center. Moreover, Topalov limits Caruana’s queen to very few options via a kingside pawn storm that both grabs space with tempo and threatens to induce permanent kingside weaknesses against Caruana’s king. 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.