Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura

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baseball2427

What places Fabiano Caruana above all chess players except Magnus Carlsen? I believe it's how well balanced his chess skills are, his youth, and his psychological strength.

Compare him to Nakamura. Nakamura seems to be unable to "wait" in a chess came. He will play moves that weaken his position just to make the game more dynamic. This is his style. But the chess players at the pinnacle will exploit the slightest "second best" move. Believe it or not, Nakamura is already getting "old." His chance to become world champion (if he ever realistically had one considering his playing style) is probably over.

Nakamura is also not psychologically strong. You can tell that he plays "the opponent" more than he plays "the board." This is a psychological weakness.

Caruana is also getting world-class coaching from Alexander Chernin. Fabiano has always taken his training very seriously (moving to Europe at age twelve).

Nakamura does not seem to be utilizing a coach(s) as much. 

I would like to see Nakamura become world champion, but I believe his chances are extremely low now. And if he did become world champion, he would almost certainly lose the title on his first defense like Tal did. Their styles make for exciting chess but that type of play will always be defeated in the long run by a more solid style like Carlsen's and Caruana's.

 

 

 

baseball2427
chessmicky wrote:

And yet your deep psychological and technical analysis doen't seem to explain Nakamura's excellent head-to-head results against Caruana

Yes, Caruana lost those games when he was younger (obviously) and still getting stronger (which he is obviously still doing). Caruana won their last game using his superior skills mentioned in the OP.

I found it amusing that a couple of years ago Nakamura complained that Caruana was gaining rating points because he was playing in "weaker tournaments." This shows Nakamura's psychological weakness. He should be working on improving is chess rather than making excuses about why other players are gaining rating points. I think Nakamura should now think about why Caruana is 5-0 in the strongest tournament EVER and Nakamura is in LAST PLACE. Again, I like Nakamura but he obviously needs to fix some holes in his game.

JGambit

Hikaru has all the talent he needs but he seems to play to much bullet and blitz and I feel like it causes him to play ever so slightly looser in classical chess.

minor7b5

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/help-support/bughouse-and-live-960

baseball2427
minor7b5 wrote:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/help-support/bughouse-and-live-960

"Seems polite enough, no? I will keep posting this until, at some point, someone gives me an idea of what the state of all this is. It's a reasonable question, and I do pay for my membership."

If you want to be polite, then don't post a link to your question that has nothing to do with this thread. You are wasting people's time.

shell_knight
baseball2427 wrote:

What places Fabiano Caruana above all chess players except Magnus Carlsen?

Not much until this tournament and people are freaking out... until the next few tournaments of course, when they'll forget.

baseball2427 wrote:

His chance to become world champion (if he ever realistically had one)

Probably not considering Carlsen is his Kryptonite, is slightly younger, ~100 points stronger, and as you said psychologically more stable.

trotters64
chessmicky wrote:

Bottvinik's solid style may have helped, but his refusal to allow Tal to delay the start of their second match, when Tal was suffering from acute kidney disease didn't hurt him either!

There is not much humanity in elite chess.

shell_knight
Brazil_World wrote:

Nakamura may or may not ever be world champion, but his age is irrelevant to the discussion. He is not "old" as he is only 27, and only 3 years older than Carlsen. Aronian is 5 years older than Nakamura and 8 years older than Carlsen, and yet Aronian could have won the last Candidates tournament to challenge Carlsen in the next world championship match. Anand was 38 when he beat Kramnik in the 2008 match. Caruana is relatively young but only 2 years younger than Carlsen -- hardly a huge deal. The issue is not age, it is chess skills and mentality.

There were a few who became WC in their 30s.  I think Fischer was 29 or 30.

But in Anand's case it seemed to be a small window between Kasparov's retirement and the next generation's arrival at the very top.  When a still improving player takes the WC in their early 20s, they tend to hold onto it... e.g. Kasparov.  I don't think 10 years later suddenly Naka will be better than Carlsen, although I guess anything is possible.

MVL and Caruana are still improving though.  I think they're the ones to keep an eye on.

baseball2427
chessmicky wrote:

Of course Lasker was also so psychologically weak that he "played the man" throughout his 27 year reign as world champion. 

From Wikipedia, the foremost authority on all subjects ;-)

"His contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents. Recent analysis, however, indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified many of them. Lasker knew contemporary analyses of openings well but disagreed with many of them."

---

There is a much greater understanding of chess now than in Lasker's day. Lasker understood chess better than anyone else in his day and that's why he was world champion for 27 years.

This article is worth reading even if some people have a knee-jerk negative reaction for ANYTHING on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Lasker

baseball2427

Caruana 6 - 0  DOMINATION

netzach

It's settled then.

baseball2427

From Chessbase News – September 3, 2014

"Namamura repeated a line he tried against Carlsen last year, but he obtained next to nothing then and he obtained next to nothing now (Against Aronian). Aronian tried to spice up the game after his opponent wasted two moves without any real purpose.

However the Armenian might have over-pressed and his passed d-pawn was weaker than it seemed. Nakamura missed his chance to play around the pawn and capture it later, and instead attacked it too quickly. This let Aronian counter-attack the weak c4 pawn and after the trade of pawns the draw became very likely."

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Kasparov TweetDid Nakamura really play Q from e1 to a5 & back to e1? Too subtle for this old retiree!

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During yesterday’s commentary of Caruan’s game, both Yasser Seirawan and Maurice Ashley pointed out that Caruana was being patient, building up his position, and not attacking too early.

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Nakamura's and Caruana's play directly follows my comments made in the OP -

 “What places Fabiano Caruana above all chess players except Magnus Carlsen? I believe it's how well balanced his chess skills are, his youth, and his psychological strength.

Compare him to Nakamura. Nakamura seems to be unable to "wait" in a chess came. He will play moves that weaken his position just to make the game more dynamic. This is his style. But the chess players at the pinnacle will exploit the slightest "second best" move.


Let's hope Caruana wins again today!

 

 

 

 

 

baseball2427

TheOldReb

Botvinnik was a communist , I dont think commies are known much for their " humanity " .  

TheGreatOogieBoogie
Reb wrote:

Botvinnik was a communist , I dont think commies are known much for their " humanity " .  

Of course he was, he thrived and succeeded in one and it recognized and supported him with advancing chess. 

I'm not saying communism is good bad or otherwise but why wouldn't he be if the Soviet Union benefitted him?

In America you have people who either like capitalism for what it does for them or hate it because of what it does to them.

If I had cancer I'd rather die and give my stuff to the next of kin than go broke and homeless getting it cured (considering how in demand and needed such a medicine would be you'd bet they'd mark it the hell up at maybe $500 per pill) since that's no way to live life, that's an extreme example of the problems of capitalism.

DrCheckevertim

Believe it or not, you can actually have beliefs based on how a system affects your community, not just yourself.

baseball2427
Reb wrote:

Botvinnik was a communist , I dont think commies are known much for their " humanity " .  

Why are you posting this on this thread? This had nothing to do with the thread's subject. You are wasting people's time. Go start your own thread if you want to talk about Botvinnik and communism.

baseball2427

7 - 0 ??

baseball2427

Round 7 - After 12 moves Nakamura is almost lost.

baseball2427

Nakamura loses again.