Fabiano Caruana vs Arkadij Naiditsch, Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense, C65
2018 Grenke Chess Classic, Round 4, Germany, Baden Baden, 04/04/18
Fabiano Caruana is playing chess worthy of a world champion (or at least the challenger for the title). He faced Arkadij Naiditch in rd.4 of Grenke Classic and managed to score a full point, which now brings him to ¾, sharing first place. He went for the Ruy Lopez and Naiditch played Nf6, the dreaded Berlin Defense. They didn’t go for the queen exchange and the endgame because Fabiano continued with d3, entering a maneuvering position which is unique in the Spanish game since the moves a6 or b5 weren’t played yet.
Both players developed normally and the position was equal. Pieces soon got exchanged and the pawn structure straightened out for both sides which made the position very boring and a draw the most likely result. Both sides had queen and knight and five pawns. Neither player could push for the initiative, really, and a serious blunder had to be made for someone to win. Naiditsch made such a blunder. His king was in a slightly worse position than Caruana’s and it had to be looked after, and Arkadij grabbed an insignificant queenside pawn instead. That gave Caruana just enough time to start an attack quickly resulted in an insurmountable advantage for white. Black’s king was a move away from being checkmated and the position was lost. Soon after Naiditsch gave up and resigned. Caruana once again played an almost perfect game and managed to exploit his opponent’s mistakes ferociously.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.d3 d6 5.O-O Bd7 6.Re1 Be7 7.c3 O-O 8.h3 Re8 9.a4 Bf8 10.Bg5 h6 11.Bh4 g5 12.Bg3 Ne7 13.Bxd7 Qxd7 14.Nbd2 Ng6 15.Nc4 Rad8 16.Ne3 d5 17.exd5 Bg7 18.d4 exd4 19.cxd4 Nxd5 20.Nxd5 Rxe1+ 21.Qxe1 Qxd5 22.Bxc7 Rc8 23.Rc1 Bxd4 24.Qd2 Qd7 25.Nxd4 Rxc7 26.Rxc7 Qxc7 27.Nf5 Kh7 28.g3 Ne5 29.Qe3 Nc4 30.Qc3 Qe5 31.Qd3 Nxb2 32.Qc2 Qe1+ 33.Kg2 Qd1 34.Qe4 Qxa4 35.Qxb7 Qa2 36.Ne3 Kg7 37.Qb4 Qb1 38.g4 Kg8 39.Nf5 Qc2 40.Qb8+ Kh7 41.Qb7 Kh8 42.Qe7 1-0
2018 Grenke Chess Classic, Standings after Round 4:
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 3/4
Fabiano Caruana 3/4
Nikita Vitiugov 3/4
Magnus Carlsen 2.5/4
Levon Aronian 2.5/4
Viswanathan Anand 1.5/4
Matthias Bluebaum 1.5/4
Arkadij Naiditsch 1/4
Georg Meier 1/4
Yifan Hou 1/4