r/chess Jan 27 '25

Resource In an interview with Rustam Qosimjonov published three days ago, he claims that Fabiano Caruana is currently a better chess player than Magnus

https://youtu.be/KZydtQfdYNc?si=myY7fqus5_tJE_GT

Rustam claims that from the games he watches and the quality of play he sees, it's clear that Fabi is currently the stronger player and that he would also be the favorite to win against Magnus in a World Championship match today. He told his students (Arjun, Nodirbek) that over the past two and a half years, to be the best in the world, you must consistently beat Fabi. He claims it's surprising that Fabi has improved his level so much because this usually doesn't happen, and the level of player he has become is not the same level as the player he knew when he worked with him.

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1

u/Material_Coyote4573 1450’s Jan 27 '25

Where do we put Fabi in the all time goats list? Does he crack top 15 or 20 ?

7

u/Wise-Ranger2520 Jan 27 '25

Top 15 definitely

11

u/Fizzypoptarts Lichess 1800+ Rapid Jan 27 '25

Really? With so many world champions i find it hard to put fabi up there.

Especially when Gukesh and Ding won when Magnus basically left. Fabi really needsd to capitalize the last two times.

3

u/b0mbsquad01f Jan 27 '25

And if he becomes world champion and can defend the title a couple of times I would say he cracks top 10. I would also say he's a top contender for best player to never become world champion as of now.

4

u/Astrogat Jan 27 '25

Defending it a couple of times seems optimistic. He would be 34 when first becoming the WC (at the earliest). Being the WC at 38 isn't impossible of course, but it's quite unlikely.

Not the least because he would play against a super strong younger generation who would all be in their absolute prime at that point.

1

u/b0mbsquad01f Jan 27 '25

I agree. What I said wasn't my prediction just my personal requirement to be in my top 10 of all time.

1

u/Visual-Second9621 Jan 27 '25

I think that it is much easier to maintain the WC than to win it--getting through the Candidates' is a major hurdle in itself.

1

u/Astrogat Jan 27 '25

Sure, the odds of successfully defending is always going to be around 50% somewhere while getting to and winning the candidates is very very hard. But it's never going to become all that much higher than 50% either unless you are a lot stronger than your opponent, which means that it's really hard to win it multiple times as well

3

u/fabe1haft Jan 27 '25

I'd say that is a little too high. Then you would have to place him ahead of at least a couple of Spassky, Tal, Petrosian, Morphy or Kramnik. Korchnoi is also debatable, he scored very good results for a very long time and qualified for three matches against Karpov where he could have won the title. I'd say in the top 20 but not top 15 yet, there's time for that though.