American chess player Fabiano Caruana won the Grand Chess Tour series in the absence of Magnus Carlsen

The final stage of the largest commercial chess series, the Grand Chess Tour, the Sinquefield Cup, ended with the triumph of Fabiano Caruana. He won the tournament in St. Louis, which intensified the fight for vacant tickets to the Candidate Tournament, which will determine the contender for the title of world champion, and the overall standings of the series. The leader of Russian chess, Ian Nepomniachtchi, finished right behind the top three in both the Sinquefield Cup and the Grand Chess Tour.

For Fabiano Caruana, the famous American grandmaster, the current Sinquefield Cup turned out to be a dream tournament. In a competition with a very tight field (ten elite chess players started it, but Pole Jan-Krzysztof Duda withdrew due to illness), he played very evenly, at times giving out bright flashes and beautiful games. And pure first place vomited in the final round, beating Romanian Richard Rapport and half a point ahead of another US representative, Lenier Dominguez. And such a performance in St. Louis allowed him to, let’s say, cement his already strong leadership in the overall standings of the main commercial series in chess now, the Grand Chess Tour, which consisted of five stages. In it, he had already taken two first places – in Bucharest at Superbet Chess Classic and in the same American city, which shortly before Sinquefield Cup hosted a rapid and blitz chess tournament.

The gap between Fabiano Caruana, who received $310,000 in prize money thanks to the current series – a large bonus by chess standards – and also ensured that after a two-year break, he re-conquered the iconic rating milestone of 2,800 points – from his pursuers in the end turned out to be simply gigantic. The closest, Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, got only 28 points against 46 for the American, whose success is slightly devalued by only one nuance.

This year, Magnus Carlsen refused to fully participate in the Grand Chess Tour, choosing other priorities: despite the fact that he voluntarily gave up the champion title, he still remains a chess frontman.

Meanwhile, at both stages for which the Norwegian entered, he was ahead of everyone.

A rather noticeable figure in this Grand Chess Tour was the best Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi, who lost twice in a row in championship matches, but lost in them first to Carlsen, and in the spring of 2023 – already in the fight for the vacant title – to the Chinese Ding Liren.

In St. Louis, Nepomniachtchi did not suffer a single defeat, but did not win a single victory.

And this is a little less than the stability that was required in order to add a truly pleasant achievement to your track record. In the Sinquefield Cup classification, the Russian, along with Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who play for the USA and France, finished immediately behind the top three, trailing the next American, Wesley So, by half a point. He is in fourth position in the series classification, also, by the way, with a meager two-point gap from the bronze medalist So.

Another result of the Sinquefield Cup is the intensification of the fight for the yet to be won tickets to the Candidates’ Tournament.

At it next year in Toronto, eight grandmasters will determine Ding Liren’s opponent for the next championship match. Six slots are currently filled. Ian Nepomniachtchi received the right to play in the Candidate Tournament as the last holder of Candidate status. Magnus Carlsen, Indian Rameshbabu Pragnanandha and Fabiano Caruana qualified through the World Cup. But it is known that Carlsen is not eager to fight for the championship title, and therefore, his ticket will apparently go to the tournament semi-finalist, Azerbaijani Nijat Abasov. Finally, Indian Vidit Gujrati and American Hikaru Nakamura qualified through the Grand Swiss competition.

Two more tickets are awards for championship in the FIDE Circuit series, created by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), which includes many tournaments, including tournaments within the Grand Chess Tour, as well as for the highest position in the January ranking of the structure. So, a successful performance in St. Louis allowed Wesley So to actually overtake in the FIDE Circuit the second behind Caruana (that is, the first among those who do not yet have a ticket) Dutchman Anish Giri, who performed unsuccessfully in the USA. Moreover, the Indian chess player Dommaraju Gukesh is staying close to them, and there are a number of other tournaments on the December calendar.

In the rating category, everything is also a little confused. Let’s say that because of a misfire in St. Louis (eighth place), the positions of the Frenchman Alireza Firouzja, who looked like the main contender for a ticket, sharply weakened, but they became much better for Wesley So and Lenier Dominguez, who had not even dreamed of fighting for the Candidates Tournament recently.

Alexey Dospehov