3 min readMar 29, 2026 12:50 PM IST
Fabiano Caruana is yet to win the Candidates in three outings, but recalled the nightmare of logistics at the last one in Toronto in 2024, speaking to C-Squared podcast on the eve of the Cyprus tournament.
Attempting to secure his first spot in the World Championships, the American was cautious in speaking about Cyprus as a venue. “If she (Koneru Humpy )doesn’t feel safe she shouldn’t play. It’s a personal decision. I thought about it, didn’t see a great deal of danger. Geographically we are very close to action zone, the shaky situation. But Cyprus itself is neutral. We are not playing in a war zone. It feels rather calm,” the American reckoned.
He liked it even, he told C-SQ. “It’s a nice location… All things considered. Weather’s good. It’s a resort. It is very isolated. That’s obviously not an issue. A good thing.”
His pet peeve the last time around when D Gukesh won Candidates and went on to win the World’s, was the commute logistics at Toronto in 2024. “Cyprus in comparison is isolated in the sense it’s a 20 minute drive to get to the nearest town but we’re not leaving too many times,” he told the podcast. “Much nicer hotel from previous ones. There’s no transportation involved between hotel and playing hall which was an issue in Toronto,” he recalled.
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Getting stuck in traffic had ended up annoying Caruana. “We had to take a taxi before the game and it was very full of traffic, sometimes we were cutting it close . Because we would get stuck in traffic, or sometimes road would be closed,” Caruana recalled on the eve of the Cyprus event.
On real dire days, parking problems saw Caruana run to the playing hall – or walk, which is mighty mentally exerting for chess players. “We were very often rushing to the game and we couldn’t get parking sometimes so we would run out and then walk like three blocks from wherever we were stopped,” he recalled.
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One tiny bit of Magnus Carlsen’s genius is he can take off on bike rides, reach venues late, strap on helmet to crossbar, and saunter in to play opponents. No fuss. Caruana ofcourse didn’t like Toronto traffic much.
“Here we play in hotel which makes things logistically much more convenient. Weather is nice, there’s bunch of places to walk around the resort. We missed this in Toronto because of weather. But also because construction was on,” he recalled of the dust and grime.
Chess players wear formal suits too before sitting down to play. Getting stuck in traffic is not pleasant for them. Last year when English cricketers were stuck in traffic, they biked to the cricket stadium. England lost the Ashes however. Caruana is favourite to win Candidates, and likes no hassles in the commute.
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