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Caruana was lucky to get out of there with a draw.
Fabiano Caruana might be the man to do it. He is currently playing in (and leading) the Sinquefield Cup here in St. Louis, MO. It's a top event sponsored by billionaire Rex Sinquefield, who has turned St. Louis into something of a chess Mecca in the last decade. All of the best players are duking it out, including World Champion Magnus Carlsen, of Norway.
Caruana will play Magnus for the World Chess Championship this November in London. No American has won the title since Bobby Fischer. Carlsen's form has been in question this year, and many think Caruana is poised to dethrone him.
Fabiano Caruana is a 26-year-old Italian-American, ranked #2 in the world behind Carlsen. Born in Miami and raised in Brooklyn until his early teens, he moved to Italy, where he attained the title of Grandmaster at age 14. In 2014, also at the Sinquefield Cup, he scored a single-tournament ELO performance rating of 3103, the highest in history.
Today, Caruana and Carlsen played a game that may foreshadow their World Championship match. With Caruana leading the tournament, Magnus played aggressively to push for a win, which would both put him into the lead in the Sinquefield Cup and deliver a psychological blow to his challenger a few months ahead of their title match.
Carlsen, playing white, managed to pressure Caruana's king safety in a Petrov Defense favored by Caruana. He marched his wing pawns up the board and forced this dangerous position, with a 6-minute advantage on the time clock:
With massive pawn pressure, misplaced black pieces, and white's pieces ready to close in on the black king, the commentators all thought the game was lost for Caruana. Magnus Carlsen thought so too. In a rare instance of chess trash-talking, Carlsen entered the "confessional booth," where players can drop in and give their thoughts to the camera in the middle of an interesting game.
Carlsen stepped inside the booth but didn't say anything. He simply looked at the camera and held up one finger to his lips, "silencing the haters."
But Carlsen's confidence did not turn into a victory. He missed a defense available to Caruana, and his time ticked down as he looked for a way to keep his attack alive, leaving himself just over a minute to play several moves until they hit the time controls, where an hour is added at move 40.
Caruana defended masterfully and forced an equal position at the time controls. Carlsen could only facepalm, and then offer his hand in a draw.
Grandmasters may play a lot more like computer programs these days, but there remains a critical human element to the game of chess. Just a few years ago, Magnus Carlsen was the young, invincible star who seemed destined to become World Champion, which he achieved in 2013. He has defended his title twice, against Viswanathan Anand and Sergei Karjakin.
But now Carlsen is facing his younger equal- with an ELO rating that nearly matches Carlsen's- a chess star who also seems destined for championship glory. And the psychological advantage going into the match now belongs to American Fabiano Caruana.
he scored a single-tournament ELO performance rating of 3103, the highest in history.
There are a lot of things that people enjoy both recreationally and professionally that machines could do better.Meanwhile, you can download a completely free, open source program on your phone that plays 3400+. Seems like an epic waste spending your life learning a board game skill that anyone with a cell phone can exceed.
Game 3 ends in a draw. Really disappointed in Caruana here. Instead of trying to go for a win he is content to play for the draw.
is this accurate? Up until recently you needed a massive mainframe to reach that rating. I don't think a smartphone's processor has the computational power to beat a grandmaster.Meanwhile, you can download a completely free, open source program on your phone that plays 3400+. Seems like an epic waste spending your life learning a board game skill that anyone with a cell phone can exceed.
is this accurate? Up until recently you needed a massive mainframe to reach that rating. I don't think a smartphone's processor has the computational power to beat a grandmaster.
Game 3 ends in a draw. Really disappointed in Caruana here. Instead of trying to go for a win he is content to play for the draw. Magnus did his damndest to try for a win but couldn't break through. I respect Magnus for taking any small inaccuracy and trying to push for a win. Dude smells any sort of blood and he tries to go for the kill. Caruana needs to take chances, being content to take draws like this is not the attitude he needs to have, especially with white. We had a virtual repeat of game 1 but both players were well prepared this time to avoid losing positions. There are nine games left in the match before tie-breaks kick in and Carlsen has the clear advantage of having an extra game with white. Caruana needs to change something up because he has not shown he can outplay Carlsen in even positions. Caruana needs to avoid the tie-breaks at all costs and, hopefully, he plays more ambitiously from this point on. I think everyone is praying this does not turn out like the Karjakin match from 2016.
Everyone fears Magnus. He's got old school fortitude and new school knowledge. Where are you going to beat him? Against opening experts, he derails into a new game early. Against great calculators, he denies everything and frustrates them. Honestly what could Caruana's strategy be, other than to stay even and hope for blunders?
Stockfish is 3400+ now on desktop hardware. I tested Stockfish and Komodo awhile back on smart phones and estimated both are definitely over 3000 elo. There are probably scores somewhere on the net for Stockfish on modern smart phones maybe. Magnus is like 2800 something. No human can compete with pc chess programs in 2018, not even chess programs on cell phones. No point in studying chess. I'll await my neuralink implants.is this accurate? Up until recently you needed a massive mainframe to reach that rating. I don't think a smartphone's processor has the computational power to beat a grandmaster.
what about Go? It was only recently that AI could beat the top Go players and that level of power is a long ways off for the retail customer.Stockfish is 3400+ now on desktop hardware. I tested Stockfish and Komodo awhile back on smart phones and estimated both are definitely over 3000 elo. There are probably scores somewhere on the net for Stockfish on modern smart phones maybe. Magnus is like 2800 something. No human can compete with pc chess programs in 2018, not even chess programs on cell phones. No point in studying chess. I'll await my neuralink implants.
This is a myopic argument, Luba. A computer can do arithmetic, and won't make mistakes. Does that mean your son/daughter shouldn't have to do their math homework? If you think about it from a humorous point of view in the context of human redundancy, in the age of robotics, chess is actually one of the only areas of human interest that has proven immune to machine takeover. Computers are already superior to us in chess, and yet there are still men like Magnus and Fabiano who make a good living playing (& teaching) chess despite that they are already redundant. Nothing more bulletproof than a redundancy-proof occupation.Stockfish is 3400+ now on desktop hardware. I tested Stockfish and Komodo awhile back on smart phones and estimated both are definitely over 3000 elo. There are probably scores somewhere on the net for Stockfish on modern smart phones maybe. Magnus is like 2800 something. No human can compete with pc chess programs in 2018, not even chess programs on cell phones. No point in studying chess. I'll await my neuralink implants.