The reigning world champion, Magnus Carlsen, is blond and square-jawed,
has modeled for a clothing label abd has 85,000 Twitter followers. And,
now, in Fabiano Caruana, he has the kind of foil that chess fans think could
make their sport electric again. The Miami-born, Brooklyn-raised Caruana
has, according to the NYT, become an overnight sensation online. Caruana
is young, like Mr. Carlsen. He is immensely talented. He projects a certain
image – bookish rather than fashionable, though his adherents say
that doesn’t pose a problem.
On the surface, a rivalry between Mr. Caruana and Mr. Carlsen, the Norwegian,
seems to set up perfectly. They have opposed styles: Mr. Caruana is affable
and approachable, while Mr. Carlsen affects a certain coolness. It makes
sense on the board, too. Mr. Caruana has a reputation for establishing himself
early in a game; the chess writer Leonard Barden has referred to his openings
as “Caruana bombs.” Mr. Carlsen is renowned for his end game,
his ability to extract victories from situations that look like certain
draws. And while Mr. Carlsen employs a highly complex positional style,
Mr. Caruana is a master of simplicity.
With chess thriving in the classroom but failing to capture the attention
of the American public on the professional level, do the players themselves
think a sustained Carlsen-Caruana rivalry would help? Caruana thinks it
would, and Carlsen admits that Caruana has established himself as the world
No. 2 now. He represents an exciting group of new, promising players.
Chart of the rating development of Carlsen
and Caruana from an article on fivethirtyeight.com,
which
(irrelevant factoid) has just published irrefutable
proof that Michael Jordan was way better than Kobe Bryant
Some chess observers feel that while social media can help to increase
Mr. Caruana’s visibility, the prospect of a rivalry depends on whether
or not Caruana returns to play for America. “I think chess needs that,
in the sense that chess needs America,” Harvard economics professor
and grandmaster Kenneth Rogoff said to the NYT. “It would certainly
help professional chess if it became more visible in the States, if there
were clearly defined personalities.”
Read
the full very interesting article in the New York Times here.
