The Guardian Weekly

CHESS

Leonard Barden

After eight of the 11 rounds at the US championship in St Louis, Aleksandr Lenderman, Samuel Sevian and the defending champion Wesley So shared the lead on 5/8.

The big shock has been the poor showing of topseeded Fabiano Caruana, whose stellar result at St Louis 2014 is widely regarded as the best tournament performance of all time, and who narrowly failed to capture Magnus Carlsen’s world crown at London in 2018.

Caruana began St Louis as the world No 2

but his first four rounds brought him a single win plus three shaky draws, while rounds five and six were losses to lower-rated opponents. In round six he was worse against the rising talent Sevian.

3785 Shirov v Sevian, Stockholm 2016. Black to move and win. The then 15-year-old grandmaster outcalculated a legendary tactician here. How did Black score quickly?

In round seven he won, but the defeats caused his rating to nosedive to well below the new No 2, China’s Ding Liren.

Even if he finishes an also-ran in the US Championship, Caruana has a chance for redemption in the Fide Grand Swiss, which starts in Riga on 25 October. Some Caruana fans believe he is using the US contest as a training ground for the more important task of qualifying for the 2022 Candidates, or Grand Prix, for which places are at stake in Riga.

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