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Chessable Masters Final · chess24.com INT · 27 June 2020

Fabiano Caruana vs Magnus Carlsen, Chessable Masters Final, R1.23

Caruana, Fabiano 0–1 Carlsen, Magnus
Caruana, Fabiano vs Carlsen, Magnus
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Chessable Masters Final, 27 June 2020

Game 1.23 of the 2020 Chessable Masters Final (June 27) was won by Carlsen as Black. The match was nearly decided by this point; Carlsen’s win in this game effectively ended the contest with Carlsen as the Chessable Masters champion.

The opening was a Petroff Defense — Caruana as White had chosen a quiet system, Carlsen defended actively, and the resulting endgame favoured Carlsen by a small margin. The conversion took 40 moves.

The Petroff Defense had been a Caruana specialty himself during 2018; he had used it to neutralise Carlsen in their classical World Championship match. By 2020 Carlsen had adopted Petroff ideas in his own Black repertoire and used them with Caruana’s own technique against Caruana. The role-reversal was characteristic of how opening theory propagated between rivals at the very top.

The Chessable Masters Final result confirmed Carlsen’s online dominance. Caruana finished as runner-up — a consistent pattern through the pandemic era. The Champions Chess Tour that followed in 2021 continued the same pattern: Carlsen won most events, Caruana was a regular finalist, the head-to-head record was heavily Carlsen’s.

Game record

This game between Caruana, Fabiano and Carlsen, Magnus was played at the Chessable Masters Final in chess24.com INT in 2020. Played in round 1.23. At the time of the game, the players were rated 2835 (White) and 2863 (Black). The game lasted 50 moves, ending with Black winning. It is part of the modern AI-era of elite chess.

Opening context

The opening sequence runs 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. f3 d5, after which the players entered the middlegame proper.

See also

For more on this game’s protagonists and theory, see Caruana, Fabiano and Carlsen, Magnus.

Match notes

This Chessable Masters Final game sits in post-Carlsen and new generation era. Master-level chess of the period was published in tournament bulletins, magazine annotations, and — for the most-studied games — in published opening monographs by the participants and their successors. This game is preserved in the open historical record and can be replayed in full above.