Fabiano Caruana got off to a fine start this week at the Norway Chess elite event in Stavanger, where the US champion defeated Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, in the opening round and was a clear leader after three of the nine rounds.
Carlsen, in contrast, trails in eighth place, despite scoring after replays in his next two games against Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura.
The Norwegian has won Stavanger for four years in a row, so it is too early to discount his recovery chances, but with only six rounds left his task is already difficult.
It was Carlsen’s first classical defeat against Caruana since 2015, a period which included their 2018 world title match in London where all 12 classical games were drawn.
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