The Week in Chess

Fabiano Caruana didn't even have to play that ambitiously to get a winning position in only 20 moves against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with the black pieces in round 7 of the Sinquefield Cup to move to a perfect score of seven points from seven games (7 and 0 in US phraseology). This run of wins against players exclusively in the top 10 in the world is now without precedent.

"I don't think Fabiano was even pretending to play too ambitiously today but after 20 moves we have this position." was Carlsen's comment and this was confirmed in interview by Caruana after the game. Attention now falls on Korchnoi's 8/8 at Wijk aan Zee in 1968 with wins over Padevsky, Matanovic, Bobotsov, Ivkov, Ree, Karaklajic, Rossolimo, Tal. and with Fischer's 20 straight wins across several events, the end of the 1970 Interzonal and matches against Larsen, Taimanov and Petrosian. The phrase "fox in a hen house" comes to mind for occasions such as this. For the first time Caruana's opponent played truly dreadfully, almost in panic at his score. Vachier-Lagrave just seemed to collapse just out of the opening. As Kasparov put it "I do not believe chess has advanced so much in the 9 years since my retirement that moves like Qa4 and g3 make sense!" Caruana certainly seemed quite bemused at the ease of victory today.

I think this performance has highlighted the truly desperate state of the statistical analysis of chess, to which it lends itself, compared to cricket and baseball. We've all been resorting to what people can remember for any comparison at all to this current performance.

In round 8 I expect Caruana's run to end with a draw with Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen himself was in a great mood, as opposed to the one he had after round 7. Carlsen has been playing quite convincingly with black (white is another matter) and indeed did suggest he might play for a win against Caruana which might rebound but I think he'll make sure he draws above all.

Today Magnus Carlsen was "gifted" a point by Hikaru Nakamura in an opening Nakamura specialises in but yet managed to still go very wrong in early on.

"When he played this move Na6 I seemed to remember that this wasn't possible." said Carlsen afterwards and Nakamura's one hour think and computer evaluations suggest this is also the case. This is now Carlsen's 11th classical win against Nakamura without reply "He doesn't lose this way to other people." said Carlsen who added that Nakamura was just going to have to work out why this was happening.

Carlsen talked of Caruana's chess being based on "very sound values" but that "I still think you can do well against Fabiano by playing more or less normal chess."

The final game between Topalov and Aronian was very much overshadowed by the other two games but Aronian might have pushed harder with black if he'd been doing better. Aronian said afterwards that the two players were "Sharing our mutual misery".

Rex Sinquefield in interview during the round said whilst nothing was decided another event next year was on the cards and they were considering expanding the field yet again to 8 players which without an odd format implies 14 rounds (otherwise it would be a step backwards).

Round 7 Standings: Caruana 7/7, Carlsen 4pts, Topalov 3, Vachier-Lagrave, Aronian 2.5 and Nakamura 2.

Round 8 Thurs 4th Sept 2pm local time: Nakamura-Topalov, Aronian-Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana-Carlsen.