The latest clash between American chess titans Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana ended with another impressive win for the former, who has now put himself in an excellent position to secure a Candidates Tournament invitation to join his compatriot in the battle for the biggest title of them all.
The world number two and world number three battled it out in the penultimate round of the 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss in a bid to set themselves up for a title tilt on the last day of play. With Caruana wielding the Black pieces and having much less to play for, having already secured his spot at the Candidates, some predicted a tame draw—but what the players delivered was anything but.
This wasn’t the first time the two players clashed in high-stakes classical games this year with Nakamura clinching the victory at this year’s Norway Chess event in dramatic fashion. The streamer extraordinaire defeated Caruana to complete a monstrous comeback, detonating some monstrous opening preparation along the way.
History has repeated itself now as Nakamura caught Caruana off guard again, this time in the Scotch Variation of the Four Knights Game. Though the position stayed even for the first 18 moves, the clock times told a different story: Naka, still fully in book, gained a surplus of 6.5 minutes over his starting time while Caruana was already down half an hour, making his first mistake of the game.
The critical error followed just two moves later, with 20. – Rc8? allowing both the cold-blooded Be5 and the less precise but still devastating piece sacrifice that followed in the game.
The position remained extremely complicated throughout, and Caruana even had a narrow opportunity to engineer an escape, but as his time dwindled down to little more than the 30-second increment, Nakamura’s pressure was impossible to resist.
With this result, Caruana is now out of the running for a top finish and he won’t be able to improve on his previous runner-up finishes at previous Grand Swiss events all despite the fact he has also briefly peaked above 2800 Elo again on the live rankings earlier in the tournament after his victory against Hans Niemann.
However, having already confirmed his spot at the 2024 Candidates Tournament—the event that decides the next world championship challenger—he can still look back at this period as a successful one. Defending his US championship title also won’t hurt in that regard.
Meanwhile, Nakamura is still in the running for one of the top two finishes that would confirm a direct invitation to the Candidates, though he’s also got the rating spot in his back pocket now. The highest-rated non-qualified player in the world will also earn themselves a spot, and with Carlsen declining the invitation and Caruana already qualified, plus Alireza Firouzja’s poor showing at this tournament, Naka’s now safe in the knowledge that he can count on that qualification avenue as well.
The 2023 edition of the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament concludes tomorrow. Round 10 was an all-out bloodbath, with each of the top nine boards finishing with a decisive result. With six players (Esipenko, Nakamura, and Vidit on 7.5 points, followed by Predke, Erigaisi, and Keymer on seven) still in the running for a top-two finish, it’s going to be an exciting conclusion for one of the most important chess events of the year.
