Caruana Neutralizes Carlsen's English Opening as Tension Builds

Fabiano Caruana in round eight press conference, Photo Eric Rosen

Fabiano Caruana, Photo Eric Rosen

Tension continues to build at the World Chess Championship (November 9-29, London) with the fourth straight draw. In game two, Caruana got the upper hand vs. 1.d4, in a well prepared line with 10...Rd8 in the Queen's Gambit Declined. Not wanting to repeat that, Carlsen tried 1.c4, and got a reversed Dragon that held some bite for White.

On Today In Chess, with Yasser Seirawan, Yaz, demonstrated in variations how to squeeze the edge into a huge advantage, as the minority attack was Seirawan's famed bread and butter. Garry Kasparov also contributed on twitter.

After 15. Re1 instead and a subsequent vacuuming of pieces, Caruana defended and we saw the shortest draw of the match so far.

[pgn] [Event "Carlsen-Caruana FIDE World Chess Champio"] [Date "2018.11.13"] [White "Carlsen, Magnus"] [Black "Caruana, Fabiano"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "A29"] [WhiteElo "2835"] [BlackElo "2832"] [PlyCount "67"] [EventDate "2018.??.??"] [WhiteTeam "Norway"] [BlackTeam "United States"] [WhiteTeamCountry "NOR"] [BlackTeamCountry "USA"] 1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. g3 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Bg2 Bc5 7. O-O O-O 8. d3 Re8 9. Bd2 Nxc3 10. Bxc3 Nd4 11. b4 Bd6 12. Rb1 Nxf3+ 13. Bxf3 a6 14. a4 c6 15. Re1 Bd7 16. e3 Qf6 17. Be4 Bf5 18. Qf3 Bxe4 19. Qxf6 gxf6 20. dxe4 b5 21. Red1 Bf8 22. axb5 axb5 23. Kg2 Red8 24. Rdc1 Kg7 25. Be1 Rdc8 26. Rc2 Ra4 27. Kf3 h5 28. Ke2 Kg6 29. h3 f5 30. exf5+ Kxf5 31. f3 Be7 32. e4+ Ke6 33. Bd2 Bd6 34. Rbc1 1/2-1/2 [/pgn]

Press and social media discussion in this game was hyper-focused on a video posted briefly to the Saint Louis Chess Club channel. This video showed a team Caruana training session in rural Missouri. The video included a close-up of a Chessbase index file with potentially pertinent opening information, and was quickly removed from the channel.

IM Eric Rosen again took over the US Chess twitter and instagram live feeds, including his most popular from the match so far. Don't worry- that's how a lot of us feel right now Magnus.

Interact with Eric Rosen on twitter @USChess and use the hashtag #CarlsenCaruana. Find out Eric’s philosophy on tweeting and match predictions in our earlier interview. Worldchess.com is the tournament website. The Today in Chess broadcast daily with a new start time of 10 AM ET will feature a star-studded schedule of interviews. Full list of viewing options in our Couch Potato guide. Find our media kit and mainstream media round-up here.