Tired and without energy, Caruana won another super-tournament, the Grenke Chess Classic, a full point ahead of the World Champion. The good form continued after Berlin, an important factor was that there was no pause between the tournaments to break his rhythm.

What is notable is that out of his 4 victories 3 were with Black. Plus the Petroff scored another last-round win.

The difference with Berlin was that here he had the World Champion as the main competitor. But even Carlsen couldn’t match the consistency of Caruana’s play. The World Champion had a typical tournament when not in very good form – sole second with 5.5/9 and no losses.

A few words about the other players: Anand had a very bad tournament and dropped way below the Top 10 on the rating list. Next for him is Norway Chess. Can he bounce back? He’s taught us never to write him off, but each time it’s more and more difficult to come back!

Aronian is probably still in shock after Berlin, his +1 score is probably good enough for wound-licking but nothing more. He’s also out of the Top 10.

Vitiugov was the surprise of the tournament. He was invited because he earned it – he won the open last year and was guaranteed a place. He led for most of the tournament with a solid +2 (starting 2/2) and only his last round loss to Caruana spoilt his result somewhat, delegating him to shared 3rd place with Aronian and Vachier.

The Frenchman has had better tournaments, Hou Yifan was winning against Caruana, while the locals did what the locals usually do. The exception was Bluebaum, who beat Anand and scored more than respectable 50%.

Back to Caruana and his 3 wins with Black. Winning with Black is a sign of White overpressing or messing up his preparation badly. Caruana didn’t expect to win these games, but he was ready to take his chances when they were presented. Take the following game as a typical example.

His last-round win against Vitiugov has been compared to his last-round win against Grischuk in Berlin: again the Petroff, again the fxe6 structure, again in a situation when a draw would have sufficed. In fact, the difference is huge in the actual importance of the game – in Berlin what was at stake was a career-changing achievement; in Grenke, a win in a tournament. Consequently, the pressure was incomparably bigger in Berlin.

The novelty 5…Qd7 Caruana introduced against Vitiugov was a result of an engine being left to work and reaching depth that normal laptops cannot reach. This information was confirmed by Leko, who also discovered the move on his own. These guys are not just the best players, they also have the best hardware.

Winning the Candidates is a huge confidence booster. Caruana has always been confident in his own ability and with the victories in Berlin and Karlsruhe he is definitely the best player in the world at the moment. There is a lot of time until November, but this time I think we definitely have the best two players in the world playing a match for the title.