Fabiano Caruana analyses Game One in depth

by Albert Silver
11/26/2024 – It's safe to say that a *lot* of digital ink has been spilt on Game One, and deservedly so. A casual scan of YouTube alone will turn up summaries and game analysis by every amateur and professional streamer under the sun. But in that tsunami of content some pearls really stand out, and one of those is the C-Squared video with incredibly insightful commentary by Fabiano Caruana.
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Perusing the ocean of online material on that shockwave of a game, completely upending every major prediction and pundit, you will find opinions by all from Joe Shmo to Magnus Carlsen, to the no.1 streamer GothamChess or the Bullet King himself, Hikaru Nakamura (who affects a rather strange voice for these non-improvised videos). All are worthy of your attention, no arguments, but one that really stood out was the exceptionally long video from C-Squared with GM Cristian Chirila and Fabiano Caruana. As a rule, C-Squared focuses on issues of the day, debates, and interviews, so when a video on Game One came out exceeding well over an hour, it warranted a bit of curiosity. After all, was there even enough game to keep your attention for that long?

It was interesting to see that even Caruana did not buy the 'Ding will roll over and die' (in terms of chess), and states early on that while checking up on the game, the online chat immediately began to annoy the heck out of him with that talk.

While I replayed through the official broadcast, I immediately got annoyed, because while Ding is thinking all the chat comments are saying he is going to flag, or he's going to lose like a little baby.

Caruana delves into the psychological impact of playing the World Championship, and notes rather sheepishly that, for reasons he cannot himself explain, it is the first ten minutes of the very first game of his match in 2018 that he remembers the most. He is aware of the irony, as they are literally the 10 least important minutes in terms of the actual match itself.

However, the exceptionally deep commentary examines the state of theory of the French, an opening he notes is enjoying its best moment ever in terms of overall theoretical evaluation, and one he does not just consider viable, but good. Even Chirila adds, after listening to Caruana's compelling explanation (at 11:13) of why he feels it is such a good opening, "I like it. Even though I am a big French hater, I like the way you explain it."

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Topics: analysis, c-squared, Fabiano Caruana, podcast, Psychology, World Championship, World Championship 2018, World Championship 2024
Born in the US, he grew up in Paris, France, and after college moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He had a peak rating of 2240 FIDE, and was a key designer of Chess Assistant 6. In 2010 he joined the ChessBase family as an editor and writer at ChessBase News. He is also a passionate photographer with work appearing in numerous publications, and the content creator of the YouTube channel, Chess & Tech as well as the author of Typing Tomes, a powerful typing program.