Fabiano Caruana

Fabiano CaruanaFabiano Luigi Caruana (1992-) is an Italian-American, well-known chess player. A chess prodigy, he received the Grandmaster title at the age of only 14 (2007), making him one of the youngest grandmasters.

Hikaru Nakamura

World Cup 2023: Are the favorites winning?

The FIDE World Cup 2023 takes place from July 29 to August 25, 2023, in Baku, Azerbaijan. In the Open section, 206 players were eligible to take part and 103 were invited to the Women’s section. More 🡢

Hans Niemann

Is Hans Niemann the second-best classical chess player of 2022?

Imagine a ranking system in which defeating the World Chess Champion trumps other considerations. In this system, Hans Niemann would be #2 for 2022. Niemann is the only player with a classical chess win over World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen. This imaginary system is more like sports rankings than chess rankings and is loosely based on the Morphy number. More 🡢

Awonder Liang

Chess Move Order Mystery

In the ninth round of the 2022 U.S. Chess Championship, Grandmaster Awonder Liang played a surprising third move against Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana. Liang’s third move has long been considered bad, yet Liang drew the game. At the end of 13 rounds, Caruana became the 2022 U.S. Champion. More 🡢

Fabiano Caruana

FIDE Candidates Tournament and a new Norway Chess sweater

At the opening ceremony for the FIDE Candidates Tournament is June 16, Chilean singer Juga will perform her new chess-themed song, Open Files. Oddsmakers favor China’s Ding Liren and Fabiano Caruana of the United States to be the top finishers at the eight-player FIDE Candidates Tournament. The Candidates winner will face World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen for the title. More 🡢

Fabiano Caruana

2022 American Cup: Double Elimination Chess

From April 18–29, 2022, the Saint Louis Chess Club held the American Cup. The tournament’s format was a rare one for chess: double elimination. With $300,000 in prize money on the line, each game counted. More 🡢

Ian Nepomniachtchi, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Magnus Carlsen

Chess, the number 1,000, and Carlsen’s social media

Although the chess board has 64 squares, the number 1,000 relates to two recent chess milestones. World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen has made 1,000 tweets, including tweets about the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships. His 1,000th tweet linked to a “brand new social media platform.” On New Year’s Day, the Mechanics’ Institute posted its 1,000th Chess Room Newsletter. More 🡢

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave; Photo courtesy of the Saint Louis Chess Club, Lennart Ootes

Queen Sacrifices by Top-Level Chess Players

Sacrificing a queen is rare in chess games. Since the queen is the most valuable piece, giving her up for lesser chessmen or for an attack is difficult to contemplate. Within the last two months, two top-level chess players have sacrificed their queens. More 🡢

UT Dallas chess team

Six Degrees of Separation and One Day More at the World Chess Championship

The recent World Chess Championship made me think of two iconic phrases. The first phrase is “six degrees of separation,” which states that a chain of “friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in six steps. In this article, I’ll share my two-step connections to the challenger, Fabiano Caruana, and to former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer. The second phrase is “One Day More,” which is both a song lyric and a song title from the musical Les Misérables. More 🡢