Caruana extends lead even further in Sao Paulo

With yet another win Fabiano Caruana extended his lead at the Grand Slam Masters Final in Sao Paulo to four points. On Friday the Italian defeated Paco Vallejo with the white pieces, while both Carlsen-Aronian and Karjakin-Anand ended in draws. On Saturday the fifth and last round will be played in Sao Paulo; then the players will travel to Bilbao, Spain to play the second half of the tournament.
Fabiano Caruana | Photos by Albert Silver courtesy of the official website
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Did Fabiano Caruana just focus on chess while preparing for the Masters Final or did he also study a bit of black magic? For the second time in this tournament the Italian got his opponent to blunder away a drawn position:
Or maybe it was something in the air. Also in the game between the world's number one and two on rating, a tactic was missed by both players:

At the press conference Aronian said he only realized after the game, but Carlsen spotted the mistake right after he played 27.Bf4. The Norwegian didn't really need to put up a pokerface because Aronian played 27...Bc3 quickly, to avoid timetrouble later. He had about 11 minutes for 13 moves. Aronian:
I wanted to play fast. I thought it was a decent game and I didn't want to spoil it in timetrouble.
Carlsen:
I was shaking for the rest of the game.
Vishy Anand played his fourth draw, against Sergey Karjakin.
Grand Slam Masters Final 2012 | Schedule & results
| Round 1 | 24.09.12 | 20:00 CET | Round 6 | 08.10.12 | 16:00 CET | |
| Anand | ½-½ | Vallejo | Vallejo | - | Anand | |
| Aronian | 1-0 | Karjakin | Karjakin | - | Aronian | |
| Caruana | 1-0 | Carlsen | Carlsen | - | Caruana | |
| Round 2 | 25.09.12 | 20:00 CET | Round 7 | 09.10.12 | 16:00 CET | |
| Vallejo | 0-1 | Carlsen | Carlsen | - | Vallejo | |
| Karjakin | 0-1 | Caruana | Caruana | - | Karjakin | |
| Anand | ½-½ | Aronian | Aronian | - | Anand | |
| Round 3 | 26.09.12 | 20:00 CET | Round 8 | 10.10.12 | 16:00 CET | |
| Aronian | ½-½ | Vallejo | Vallejo | - | Aronian | |
| Caruana | ½-½ | Anand | Anand | - | Caruana | |
| Carlsen | ½-½ | Karjakin | Karjakin | - | Carlsen | |
| Round 4 | 28.09.12 | 20:00 CET | Round 9 | 12.10.12 | 16:00 CET | |
| Caruana | 1-0 | Vallejo | Karjakin | - | Vallejo | |
| Carlsen | ½-½ | Aronian | Carlsen | - | Anand | |
| Karjakin | ½-½ | Anand | Caruana | - | Aronian | |
| Round 5 | 29.09.12 | 20:00 CET | Round 10 | 13.10.12 | 16:00 CET | |
| Vallejo | - | Karjakin | Vallejo | - | Caruana | |
| Anand | - | Carlsen | Aronian | - | Carlsen | |
| Aronian | - | Caruana | Anand | - | Karjakin |
Grand Slam Masters Final 2012 | Round 4 standings (football)
1. Caruana,F 10
2. Aronian,L 6
3. Carlsen,M 5
4. Anand,V 4
5-6. Vallejo,F 2
5-6. Karjakin,S 2
Grand Slam Masters Final 2012 | Round 4 standings (classical)
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Comments
Daniel
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Avanti Fabiano!
eric
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Is he working with Kasparov? :)
chill
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Hope carlsen will grind the "so called" world champion in the last round
TomTom
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Kasparov was the last real CHAMPION.
Anonymous
7 months 3 weeks ago
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You are way out in left Field with that comment your ignorante of chess history has been exposed. Run Tom run.@Tom Tom
hrgud
7 months 3 weeks ago
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TomTom ...
How do you know that, will you give any further comment, or shall I just belive you - and trust that you are the only one so far to look into the future?
Anonymous
7 months 3 weeks ago
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You've been sleeping for twelve long years. Time to wake up princess
mig
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Yeah lets hope he doesn't chicken out this time too.
NN
7 months 3 weeks ago
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And who are you to speak in such a derogatory manner about the World Champion?
Xenyatta
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Caruana seems to be poised to vault into 5th place in the Rankings. His potential seems to be close to Carlsen's at this point. The last year has been very impressive, and it cannot be said that he has reached his first plateau. Fabiano is the youngest player in the Top 15, by about a couple of years. (Giri just cracked the Top 20, at 2730).
Not so bold prediction: Caruana will break 2800 within the next 12 Months.
Anonymous2
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Caruana is a boss. :D
Anonymous
7 months 3 weeks ago
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So what really happened in the Carlsen - Aronian game? Did Aronian really have the game after 27 Bf4?
Anonymous
7 months 3 weeks ago
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yes
Anonymous
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Its a forced mate
Eirik
7 months 3 weeks ago
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It's a forced mate only if Carlsen recaptures on f4. Otherwise it drops a bishop. But it loses on the spot, yes.
S3
7 months 3 weeks ago
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So Aronian will beat Caruana I suppose.
Anonymous
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Wanna bet ?
Thomas
7 months 3 weeks ago
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On Caruana-Vallejo: This time Caruana went all in against the French, against Carlsen he had stopped halfway. But now he had no choice - I wonder if 12.Nc3!? (rather than first 12.0-0) was an oversight or a deliberate double pawn sacrifice.
Later Vallejo blundered badly: what on earth was the idea behind 20.-Qd8? rather than 20.-Qc7 when engines see nothing better than perpetual check for white? So far Carlsen and Caruana won against Vallejo, Anand and Aronian didn't - but I think this can at least in part attributed to which Vallejo was showing up ... .
Anonymous
7 months 3 weeks ago
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I don't understand why they let Vallejo play in this tournament in the first place. There should be a sixth top (ten) player. No disrespect towards Vallejo but this is not his league.
Anonymous
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Local players have a two-fold function, the first is obvious. The second reason is that it is good to help separate the top players whom otherwise may draw against each other for every round which would be pretty boring chess tournament and no one would fund it in the future.
AK
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Add Kramnik instead of Vallejo and this becomes one of the greatest tournaments of all time.
Anonymous
7 months 3 weeks ago
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With Kramnik in the field, it sure would be ... So i can only imagine the amount of money involved in this tournament
giovlinn
7 months 3 weeks ago
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Carlsen seems a bit rusty to me. He hasn't played much lately.
Sun Tsu
7 months 3 weeks ago
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GM Bobby Fischer was the last real champion. Not Kasparov, Anand or Carlsen.
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