Caruana move by move

En bok om Caruana før VM-matchen i London. Her blir spillet hans grundig gjennomgått og forklart. Boka har 51 hele partier, derav 5 mot Magnus, og forfatteren sammenligner de to og gir sine vurderinger før matchen.

Sist i boka kommenteres 11 rene sluttspill.

Forlagets egen omtale:

Italian-American grandmaster Fabiano Caruana is the perfect role model for any aspiring player. Already a very strong grandmaster, he announced his presence as a leading contender for the world title in 2014 when he scored an incredible 8½/10 (including seven straight wins from the first seven games) in the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis. This was an elite event where he finished an astonishing three points clear of Magnus Carlsen, whom he will challenge for the world title in late 2018. Caruana earned this right thanks to his fine victory in the Berlin Candidates where he scored 9/13 and finished a point clear of a world class field.

Caruana’s style is universal. He is a very dangerous attacking player who is also equally at home in quiet strategic positions or manoeuvring in an endgame. In this respect he is the epitome of the modern grandmaster, being a hard-working and determined fighter who prepares thoroughly and plays with great determination and accuracy.

Et lite utdrag fra innledningen i boka:

Botvinnik 2.0: Caruana’s Style Chess is a world where we are identified by our styles, as much as our playing strength. As chess players we are more than just the sum of our study and experience. There is some- thing else there – a distinct, on e-of-a-kind identity, which pops up from time to time. If we admire, let’s say, a movie star, we may begin to dress like them, or have our hair done the same way, or adopt their mannerisms of how they speak or walk. In the same way, when we admire a great player, like Botvinnik or Caruana, we (perhaps subconsciously) begin playing a bit like them, albeit a lot worse! I remember desperately trying to emulate Bot- vinnik’s iron logic and Capa and Fischer’s frictionless quality in my play, and maybe a tiny bit of it rubbed off in the end.

Here are some of the features of Fabiano’s (early) Botvinnikian style. Caruana’s chess style is so vibrantly dynamic and alive that, after studying his games, my own games, by comparison, feel as if a zombie plays my side.

Caruana is one of those rare players blessed with the ability to switch from a slow posi- tional build-up to irrati onal tactics, without loss of efficiency in either mode. He is combat- ive, a high risk taker, in every stage of the game, yet almost always from a strategic vantage point. In this book, we find many examples of speculative pawn sacrifices for vague com- pensation. He also seems to delight in play ing positions with opposite castling, relishing the opposing wing attack war. Caruana’s opening preparation is the last word in sophistication. He is supremely prepared in this phase of the game and, along with Kramnik, is perhaps the best prepared player in the worl d. In his game agains t Anand (Game 11), the Indian former world champion hit Caruana with a theoretica l novelty. Caruana responded immediately and without thought. He had alre ady foreseen Anand’s idea and had preparation ready for an idea which had never been played before!