Caurana on fire this year!!!
All right, Fabiano, this is just getting out of hand now.
5/5? With three blacks? Against a field with an average rating of 2800? That’s just sick. He leads by 2.5 over Carlsen and Topalov.
I’m struggling to think of a historical performance match for either half of a Category 20+ event. I’m also struggling to think how he could possibly be caught at this point. In NASCAR terms, the rest of the field is basically a lap down with 10 laps to go.
From what I’m told, Aronian has physical issues (just had an operation). I hope he’s able to rest and recover for the second half.
Nakamura’s -2 is, IMO, a bit misleading. He probably should’ve beaten Topalov, and certainly didn’t have to lose to Caruana today.
Reuben Fine at Avro 1938 had an incredible start, too, before fading with a bunch of draws and was caught by Paul Keres to tie for first place. IIRC, Karpov also had an incredible tournament where he scored 11.5/13 against a very strong field and topped Kasparov. That said, this is an incredible start to a world top tournament. BTW, Fischer’s 11-0 in a US ch, while very good, was not against an elite field.
Don’t look now…but Caruana is already much better, IMO, against Topalov less than 20 moves into their round 6 game.
6-0 in this field? The mind boggles (well, this mind does, anyway).
The other comparable tournament performance was Topalov’s 6.5/7 in the first half of San Luis 2006. It’s cool that Caruana is not taking his foot off the accelerator even though he’s virtually clinched first place.
I still like Karpov’s 11/13 (not 11.5) at Linares 1994 as the best tournament performance ever. But if Caruana scores 8/10 or above, he’s definitely in the discussion.
Best tournament performance in recent history was Carlsen’s 8.0/10 at Nanjing 2009, against five of the top 15 players.
According to Jeff Sonas, this merited a 2850 “Chessmetrics” performance rating, the highest since 1999 and tied for 13th-16th all-time. (the aforementioned 11.0/13 by Karpov at the 1994 Linares tournament is the highest at 2899)
Fine opened 5.5/6 at AVRO 1938.
Korchnoi opened 8/8 at Wijk aan Zee 1968.
Kasparov finished 12/14 at Tilburg 1989.
Karpov opened 6/6 and finished 11/13 at Linares 1994.
Carlsen finished 8/10 at Nanjing 2009.
If one was making a list of the best top-tier tournament starts and/or performances ever, this isn’t a bad start (though certainly not at all conclusive.)
IMO, Caruana’s 6/6 start at this event may already be the best-ever start at a top-flight tournament. (Fine played a similarly elite field, but did give up a draw, while Wijk aan Zee was not the event in 1968 that it would become later.)
As for comparisons to Karpov’s white-hot start at Linares 1994, he played Lautier, Bareev, Illescas, Topalov, Ivanchuk and Polgar for his six wins. Caruana played Topalov (twice), Carlsen, Nakamura, Vachier-Lagrave and Aronian for his six wins. With all due respect to the field at Linares, I would have to give a bit more weight to Caruana’s start (four of Karpov’s six opponents were <2650 FIDE, while Karpov was 2740 and was never the lower-rated player; Caruana’s six opponents were all >2760 FIDE, while Caruana was 2800 and was the lower-rated player in two games).
Also IMO, Kasparov’s result, while massive, was in a Category 15 event. Karpov’s result, which I think most people consider superior to Kasparov’s, was in a Category 18 event.
Probably the best comparison over the last 15 years might end up being Carlsen in 2009. Well, Caruana has already won as many games in St. Louis as Carlsen did in Nanjing, and has done it against a Category 23 field, as compared to the patzer-filled 
Category 21 field in Nanjing. Looked at another way: Caruana is 3 points up with 4 rounds to go, which means the race for first is over. (I’m accepting wagers to the contrary; PM me if interested. 
)
I’m not a great chess historian by any means, but if Caruana goes an undefeated 8/10, given the unrelenting strength of this field (MVL is the “weakie”, by rating), I’d have to call that the greatest elite tournament result ever. (Debating this, BTW, is part of the fun we get to have as chess fans.)
Yes, it is fun to argue which tournament was strongest. Let’s take AVRO 1938, for example. If they had a rating system back then, the 8 invited players would have been the top 8 in the world, playing in a double round robin. Look at the roster of world champions - Alekhine, Capablanca, Euwe, and soon to be world champion, Botvinnik. Half of the field. Reshevsky and Fine, the very top of US chess, were considered strong contenders for the crown. Paul Keres is always recognized as the strongest player never to have competed for the world championship. Salo Flohr was considered one of the best in Europe, played a tied match with Botvinnik, and rarely lost a game. These were titans. One can argue that some of the players were not at their peak, but these were considered by all to be the very best.
Karpov’s result at Linares was incredible. The names listed above were “only” in the 2600’s, but that was before the rating inflation that took place in FIDE. The Linares tournaments invited the very best, including not only the world champion, but most of the players who were in candidates series. The mixed tournaments of GMs, IMs, and local players had given way to all elite supertournaments. Linares ushered in an era where the best competed among themselves, pushing their ratings ever higher. The only knock I have ever heard about Karpov’s performance was that he played and won against opponents just after they had played against Kasparov. The shock and fatigue of playing one K had a bad effect leading to a weaker effort against the other K. Karpov’s performance, though against an elite field is stunning.
Another tournament with an elite field was Santa Monica, 1966, for the Piatagorsky Cup. 10 players, double round robin against a murderer’s row of talent of the time. Spassky, Fischer, Petrosian, Larsen, Portisch, Unzicker, Reshevsky, Najdorf, Ivkov, and Donner. Not the strongest tournament, but the one that was most talked about in that era. The present and the future world champions dueling with each other and top rivals. Ratings were just starting to be used in FIDE events.
Oops, I forgot to mention St. Petersburg, 1914. In the finals, a five player double round robin, consisted of the present world champion, Lasker, two future world champions, Capablanca and Alekhine, and Tarrasch and Marshall. All superb players of their time. The list of players who missed making the final included Rubinstein, Nimzovich, Bernstein, Janowsky, Blackburne, and Gunsberg, all players who usually were in the prize money of the strong tournaments they played in. This was the tournament that began applying the term “Grandmaster” to the very best players. Funny that these five were the first GMs, but FIDE does not recognize several of them officially with the title.
Two distinctions between Fine’s start at AVRO and Caruana’s start in St. Louis. First, 6 > 5.5. Second, I’m not familiar with a player in St. Louis who isn’t considered one of the world’s very best players, right now. Of the field in St. Louis, the only player who one might be able to say was not at his peak coming in is Topalov. Everyone else is either at their peak rating or just a few points away.
As for Linares 1994…the January 1994 FRL shows that four of the 14 players (Lautier, Polgar, Topalov and Illescas) were not in the world’s top 20, and Illescas was actually 68th. Of course, he was Spain’s top player, and Linares has traditionally had the top Spanish player in the field. The relative “weakness” of the bottom of the field is certainly forgivable, but IMHO, not unfair to use as a distinguishing criterion for a discussion like this. OTOH, Kasparov’s famous pre-tournament declaration that the winner of this event could be called the “world champion of tournament chess” carries a lot of weight.
As for arguments re: rating inflation, that’s a natural consequence of the game spreading to more places, and more information being made available faster than ever before. That’s one reason why a measuring stick people often use in the “best player ever” argument is the distance between the #1 player and the rest of the world at their peak (and why Fischer and Kasparov often end up as #1/#2 - or #2/#1 - in those arguments).
St. Petersburg 1914, while clearly one of the strongest tournaments ever, doesn’t really belong in this discussion, because the operative question is “best performance ever in a major event”. This tournament had two parts, and both counted toward the final result. While Lasker was a most deserving winner, he certainly was not the best player in the preliminaries by a long shot, as Capablanca pretty much towered over the field. That said, there isn’t much debate that Lasker’s showing in the final (+7 -0 =2 against Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall) was historically powerful.
Again, I would say Karpov’s 1994 result still stands as the best top-level tournament performance ever - for now. 
For a real marathon, see Vienna 1898. 19 players in a double round robin. Of the top players, only world champion Lasker was missing, probably working on his doctoral degree. Tarrasch and Pillsbury tied for first, each with 27.5 points. Pillsbury won 24 games. The two had a playoff which Tarrasch won. Imagine the iron will and stamina you would have to have to compete in a tournament with 36 games and a playoff.
With Black against Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana just munched a pawn and gave no discernible compensation. 7/7 seems likely to this lowly C player.
I see no mention of Fisher’s US 11-0 (Yes there was some lessers thrown in there.) and His candidates 6-0 matches…I think these are the most dominant displays but we might have a new king in the making!
There is no mention of Fischer’s 11-0 because all the tournaments under discussion had exponentially stronger fields than the 1964 US Championship.
There is no mention of Fischer’s 6-0 matches over Taimanov and Larsen because those are matches, not tournaments.
Caruana’s performance rating fell below 3200 with his last two wins against the two players in the tournament below 2800.
7-0 the man is on fire. And this is the HIGHEST RATED tournament of all time. He is now guaranteed at minimum a tie for first and of course only needs a draw for solo first place, but I would love to see him finish 10-0 and go down as an immortal of chess.
Have any preliminary calculations been done of what Caruana’s rating might be after the tournament if he scores 8 or better?
Looks like an all or nothing game for Nakamura vs. Topalov in Round 8. He needs to climb out of last place and stop the hemorrhaging of rating points. Otherwise, he may be out of the elite tournaments. Lots of pressure.
Based on the ratings from the August FIDE rating list (FRL), in effect when the tournament started, Caruana’s win expectency (We) is exactly 5.00. His rating is 2801, and the average rating of his opponents is Rc = 2801.8, which rounds to 2802.
Depending on his final score, his performance rating (Rp) and rating change would be as follows.
score Rp change
7.0 2950 20
7.5 2994 25
8.0 3041 30
8.5 3097 35
9.0 3167 40
9.5 3271 45
10.0 3601 50The estimates could be done a (tiny) bit more accurately using the live rating estimates at 2700chess.com, which I have found to be very accurate. Specifically, I might use the ratings for Caruana and his last three scheduled opponents (Carlsen, Nakamura and Aronian).
My mental math says that Caruana would end up losing about 5 points from his current live rating if he goes 1/3 (which would yield 8/10 for this event). That would still mean a gain of ~29 points for the event.
I’m way too lazy to calculate all possible outcomes, make tables, put them in neat code output and such.