Fabiano Caruana

## Background Information:

Fabiano Caruana is the highest rated chess player from the United States of America. He was the 2019 World Chess Championship Challenger who competed against Magnus Carlsen. In his youth, he was regarded as a chess prodigy, becoming one of the youngest chess grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months and 20 days. Caruana also achieved a tournament performance rating of 3103 in the Sinquefield Cup where he decimated the field with a score of seven wins and three draws. Many start to assume that he would be the next Bobby Fischer.

## Notable Tournaments and Victories:

Perhaps his best tournament ever was the Sinquefield Cup 2014 held in Saint Louis Chess Club. Caruana decimated the field and earned a recorded rating of 2844, the third highest ever achieved in history. He finished with a score of 8.5/10, consisting of seven wins and three draws. He scored wins over all players in the field.

* Veselin Topalov vs Fabiano Caruana (0-1)
* Fabiano Caruana vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (1-0)
* Magnus Carlsen vs Fabiano Caruana (0-1)
* Fabiano Caruana vs Levon Aronian (1-0)
* Hikaru Nakamura vs Fabiano Caruana (0-1)
* Fabiano Caruana vs Veselin Topalov (1-0)
* Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs Fabiano Caruana (0-1)

In 2018, Caruana had various successes winning tournament after tournaments. In the World Chess Championship Candidates, he won five games, lost one and drew eight which was enough for a first place finish. This meant that he would be able to challenge Carlsen for the title of world chess champion.

* Fabiano Caruana vs Wesley So (1-0) [Round 1]
* Vladimir Kramnik vs Fabiano Caruana (0-1) [Round 3]
* Levon Aronian vs Fabiano Caruana (0-1) [Round 7]
* Fabiano Caruana vs Levon Aronian (1-0) [Round 13]
* Alexander Grischuk vs Fabiano Caruana (0-1) [Round 14]

## 2016 World Chess Olympiad:

Caruana represented the United States of America in the 2016 World Chess Olympiad held in Norway alongside his compatriots; Shankland, Nakamura, So and Ray Robson. The United States won the Olympiad claiming the gold medal. Caruana finished on a good performance, scoring four wins and six draws.

* Andrew Geet vs Fabiano Caruana (0-1) [Round 1 - America vs United Kingdom]
* Fabiano Caruana vs Fernando Peralta (1-0) [Round 2 - America vs Argentina]
* Fabiano Caruana vs Pavel Eljanov (1-0) [Round 6 - America vs Ukraine]
* Fabiano Caruana vs Evgeny Bareev (1-0) [Round 11 - America vs Canada

## 2018 World Chess Olympiad:

Caruana again represented the United States of America in the 2018 World Chess Olympiad held in Batumi, Georgia alongside his compatriots; Shankland, Nakamura, So and Ray Robson. The team had an average rating of 2772. The American team came in for second place, winning the silver medal only. Similarly Caruana finished on a good performance, winning four games and scoring seven draws.

* Fabiano Caruana vs Viswanathan Anand (1-0) [Round 4 - America vs India]
* Fabiano Caruana vs Boris Gelfand (1-0) [Round 5 - America vs Israel]
* Denis Kadric vs Fabiano Caruana (0-1) [Round 6 - America vs Bosnia]
* Fabiano Caruana vs Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (1-0) [Round 7 - America vs Azerbaijan]

## 2018 World Chess Championship Match:

After winning the candidates, Caruana had one last challenge Magnus Carlsen who he must defeat to become the best chess player in the world. It's been years since an American has become a challenger for the world chess championship. Caruana showed that he's the strongest opponent Carlsen has ever faced yet. He drew Carlsen 6 to 6 in all twelve classical games showing that they were on par with one another. Caruana at the time was rated 2832 while Carlsen was rated 2835. He was really close in claiming the world number one rating from Carlsen.

* Fabiano Caruana vs Magnus Carlsen (1/2-1/2) [Game 1]
* Magnus Carlsen vs Fabiano Caruana (1/2-1/2) [Game 6]
* Magnus Carlsen vs Fabiano Caruana (1/2-1/2) [Game 9]
* Fabiano Caruana vs Magnus Carlsen (1/2-1/2) [Game 10]
* Magnus Carlsen vs Fabiano Caruana (1-0) [Rapid Tiebreak Game 1]
* Fabiano Caruana vs Magnus Carlsen (0-1) [Rapid Tiebreak Game 2]
* Magnus Carlsen vs Fabiano Caruana (1-0) [Rapid Tiebreak Game 3]

Caruana ultimately lost the match to Carlsen in tiebreaks, going down 0 - 3 losing all three rapid games. Caruana was unsuccessful in claiming the status of world champion from Carlsen but gave the champion a better fight than previous challengers.