2 min readMar 17, 2026 09:58 PM IST
American World No 3 Fabiano Caruana, who is favourite to win the upcoming Candidates at Cyprus, might have revealed a weakness pattern in his play, as the chess whiz prepared at two events at his home St Louis, the Guardian reported.
He is tipped at 5-2 favourite, the publication said.
With less than a fortnight to go, Caruana competed at the Saint Louis Masters and the American Cup. While he stayed undefeated 7/9 at the former, the double elimination knockout format of the second tournament did him in. Guardian reported he lost to Wesley So and Levon Aronian in similar fashion, winning the first classical game with White, losing the second with Black, then losing the speed tie-break 1.5-2.5.
Both defeats, it was reported, followed a pattern.
Guardian noted that Caruana was gradually ground down in middle games and endgames without queens, a “weakness” – that might be exploited at the Candidates due to take place at the Cap St Georges Resort, Pegeia, Cyprus, from 29 March to 16 April.
While safety concerns loom large on the event, the little stutter of the pre tournament favourite will not go unnoticed by preparing teams. Caruana list to So in 68 moves, while Aronian won in 40, with a decisive advantage at Move 21 Guardian added of the warmup meets for Caruana.
The next favourites are fellow American Hikaru Nakamura, the world No 2 and Uzbek Javokhir Sindarov.
Others to disappear into preparation huddles to seek the right to play defending champion D Gukesh are
China’s Wei Yi, India’s Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Anish Giri from the Netherlands, Germany’s Matthias Blübaum, and Russia’s Andrey Esipenko.
Also involved in serious sparring at St Louis, was Nakamura who was defeated 6–4 by Awonder Liang in his three-day training match, as per Chessbase.com.
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“After two drawn classical games, all eight encounters in the rapid and blitz sessions ended decisively, with Liang ultimately prevailing,” Chessbase wrote.
