Fabiano Caruana just can’t stop winning at GRENKE Chess 2018

There was an overwhelming sense of déjà vu as he beat Nikita Vitiugov with Black in the final round to win the GRENKE Chess Classic by a full point with a +4 score, just as he’d won the Candidates two weeks earlier in Berlin. This time it was Magnus Carlsen who fell short in the final round after Vishy Anand gave as good as he got, though the World Champion had the consolation of taking clear second place. We draw some conclusions from the tournament.

Going into the last round of both events he had a half-point lead and Black against a Russian player, and he ended up winning the game when he already knew that a draw would have been enough for first place. The parallels continued even in the details, with Fabiano playing the Petroff, as he did against Grischuk in Berlin, but this time he sprung a very early novelty by not capturing on d2 but instead playing 5…Qd7!?