Saturday
Apr202019
Trivia Time: Who is Caruana's Most Unpleasant Opponent?
Saturday, April 20, 2019 at 2:34PM
Let's restrict the scope of possible answers to players Fabiano Caruana has faced since becoming a grandmaster, and has played at least four times. (No doubt there's some club player who has a 1-0 or 2-0 score against him from when he was a kid, and maybe there's some professional with similar results.)
There's a sense in which the answer should be Magnus Carlsen, as Carlsen is the world champion and long-time world #1. The question is referring to actual results, and while Carlsen's overall score against Caruana is good, of course, there's a better answer.
tagged Fabiano Caruana
Reader Comments (3)
Peter Leko
[DM: Yes! Four wins, seven draws, no losses. Of course, two of those wins happened at the start, when Leko was higher-rated, and it certainly helps that Leko had White in 10 of the 11 games. Even so, it's a fantastic score, and Caruana was higher-rated in nine of those games.]
Leko also has a plus score against Carlsen I believe.
[DM: He did, but if my check just now is correct it's 3-3 in classical games (plus lots of draws). Leko led 3-0, but Carlsen caught him in the European Teams in 2015.]
Leko beat Caruana recently in the Bundesliga. He was pretty modest about this in the Grenke commentary box, saying Caruana took risks with Black.