NY Times: Caruana awaiting his turn on bigger stage

An American Chess Master, Age 23, Awaits His Turn on a Bigger Stage

By James Barron Nov. 11, 2015

JERSEY CITY — There was trouble after only six moves, and everyone in the room knew it. “I think he’s going to try to beat us in the most painful way possible,” a quiet voice in the back row said.

A dozen elementary school students were playing Fabiano Caruana, who at 23 is the No. 2 chess player in the United States. No doubt they had been hoping to scoop up Mr. Caruana’s kings and queens like a vacuum cleaner, but things did not look good for them.

As its newest elite player, Fabiano Caruana is making the rounds in the US

“Unfortunately,” said Lawrence Trent, Mr. Caruana’s manager, who was watching from the sidelines, “they’ve fallen into a trap. Fabiano is completely winning.”

Mr. Caruana — who was already the top-ranked player in the country when he was the age of the students he was beating at the Liberty Science Center here — moved his knight. “That’s almost it,” Mr. Trent said, sounding like a broadcast commentator doing the play-by-play at a tournament. “They’re thinking about resigning already.”

The students had a brief but raucous debate among themselves and did the best they could to counter Mr. Caruana by moving a pawn. The outsize chessboard they were using had squares big enough to stand on and chess pieces that were somewhat less than chest high. They were barely knee high on the students and calf high on Mr. Caruana, a trim man whose expression said little about what he was planning as his next move.

The media such as the New York Times, is ready to help put him in the limelight as he does his
best to help promote chess

It involved his queen. “I smell checkmate,” Mr. Trent said.

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