Chess - The Scotsman 02/10/2012

The Grand Slam Masters Final in São Paulo, Brazil, was the fabulous Fabiano Caruana show, as the American-born Italian unexpectedly outscored the elite field – including World Champion Vishy Anand, world No 1 Magnus Carlsen and world No 2 Levon Aronian – to take the surprise lead at the end of the first leg.

After beating Francisco Vallejo and holding on for an epic draw with Aronian in the final two rounds in Sao Paulo, Caruana, 20, with three wins and two draws, holds a 4-point lead (3 points win, 1 point draw) over Aronian and Carlsen in the six player double round-robin. The circus, including the glass cube, now moves to Bilbao, Spain, with the second leg resuming Saturday.

Caruana’s performance has also seen him rapidly rise to world No 5 in the live ratings and (with dual citizenship) set to be anointed as the first American to better Bobby Fischer’s rating high of 2785. But Aronian could well have been the one with the first half lead – and with it, to be within just a few points of replacing Carlsen as No 1.

He blew a winning position against Caruana, who then determinedly hung on to hold the draw after 73 moves and over six hours of play. But even worse was the oversight of a sensational queen sacrifice against rating rival Carlsen. In today’s diagram moment, he played 27 ...Bc3? and the game soon petered out to a draw, missing the pretty coup d’état of 27 ..R8xf4! 28 gxf4 Nxf4 29 Rg1 Qxh2+!! followed by 30 ...Rh3 checkmate.

Leaderboard: 1. Caruana, 11/15; 2. Aronian, 7; 3. Carlsen, 6;

4. Anand, 5; 5-6. Vallejo Pons and Karjakin, 3.

F Caruana - F Vallejo Pons

5th Grand Slam Masters, (4)

French Defence, Advance variation

1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 c5 4 c3 Nc6 5 Nf3 Qb6 6 a3 Nh6 7 b4 cxd4 8 cxd4 Nf5 9 Be3 Bd7 10 Bd3 Nxe3 11 fxe3 g6 12 Nc3 Nxb4 13 axb4 Bxb4 14 0–0 Bxc3 15 Rc1 Rc8 16 Ng5 0–0 17 Qg4 Bd2 18 Qh3 h5 19 Rxc8 Bxc8 20 Qf3 Qd8 21 Nxf7 Bxe3+ 22 Kh1 Qh4 23 Bxg6 Bg5 24 Bh7+ 1–0