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Clutch-ch June · Lichess.org INT · 14 June 2020

Caruana, Fabiano vs Carlsen, Magnus, Clutch-ch June

Caruana, Fabiano 0–1 Carlsen, Magnus
Caruana, Fabiano vs Carlsen, Magnus
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Clutch-ch June, 14 June 2020

Round 3.7 of the June 2020 Clutch Championship was won by Carlsen as Black against Caruana. The opening was a Petroff Defense, a Caruana-influenced choice that Carlsen had adopted during this period.

Carlsen’s win was through patient defensive technique. Caruana as White built a small structural edge in the middlegame; Carlsen’s defence absorbed the pressure; the endgame eventually favoured Black through small precise moves. The conversion took 60 moves.

The Petroff Defense in the 2020 era was treated as one of the most-prepared openings in elite chess. Caruana had brought it to prominence in his 2018 World Championship match; Carlsen had absorbed the lessons and used the same opening to neutralise Caruana’s own white repertoire. By 2020 the Petroff had become a primary battleground at the very top of elite chess.

The opening’s theoretical state in 2020 was that Black achieved comfortable equality with accurate play. Most Petroff games at the elite level ended drawn. The few decisive Petroff games tended to favour the side with more time on the clock — a function of the near-perfect theoretical state of the opening rather than any imbalance in chances.