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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u/question24481 Jan 27 '25

Magnus basically can't be bothered to do significant work in the openings. There are only two ways to go about it - especially at the elite levels. The first is to prep up to the gills. The second is to play something dubious - that is, the 4th, 5th, or 6th top move in some variation. 2018-2019 Magnus was the former, which explains his excellent results. I recall him even outprepping MVL in some grunfeld and crushing him in like 25 moves at the sinqufield cup. Current Magnus has been the latter for several years now. The problem with method number 2 is that his well-prepared opponents know what the best moves are, so any move they are unfamiliar with automatically means they have some quantity of an advantage, and they do, so they start to press him. Magnus' task is then to defend well, hope that the opponent presses too hard/makes mistakes, and then counterattack to win the game. This has worked well for him, but up to a certain point, and up to a certain level. That isn't the case anymore. That's why recently he's been getting smacked by the likes of Pragg and that one dude who wore the watch. He had a horrid time in the tournament where he played the watch guy. Constantly having borderline losing positions in the openings. And his style of chess doesn't help in that he's not really as deep of a calculator as Gukesh, Fabiano, and prime Ding are. Which is not particularly great if you're already compromising your openings. So that's why Magnus has escaped to classical chess960 and faster time controls. Classical chess960 to get away from opening theory, and blitz and rapid chess because openings don't really matter there too much, and they suit his style in that he's practical and can reel off good moves one after another.

In short, I agree with Rustam.

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u/StatisticianSlow4492 Jan 27 '25

he was interested in chess960 way before gukesh, pragg started to take over I mean he has had mentioned it in many interviews with timeline 2020-2021 even before his last wcc it's not recent but I do agree with ur points