
Everything You Need To Know About Candidates Tournament 2024
Jan 09th, 2025
Fabiano Caruana
Strength/Form
I hope Fabiano Caruana doesn’t need a particular introduction. For more than a decade, he has been considered to be one of the strongest chess players in the world. Many regard him as the 2nd best player of our generation. He came close to rivaling Magnus Carlsen on several occasions – most notably in 2018, just before their World Championship Match, when the difference between the two consisted of just a few rating points. No other player in the tournament came even remotely close to Caruana’s peak rating of 2844 ELO.
Caruana has not only historically been the 2nd best player in the world. But he is also entering the Candidates tournament as such. He is currently the only person – apart from Magnus Carlsen – to belong to the exclusive 2800+ ELO Club, with his rating sitting comfortably at 2803,2.
Such a high rating is the consequence of the fantastic form Caruana has been for the larger part of 2023. He won several elite events in which he participated (Superbet Chess Classic 2023, US Chess Championship 2023, Sinquefield Cup 2023) and had a very good performance in the World Cup 2023 (3rd place, securing the qualification spot) and Norway Chess 2023 (2nd place) and reasonable performance in FIDE Grand Swiss (+4-1=6, 7/11) and American Cup (3rd place).

Chess Time Controls: Which is Best Suited to You?
Jan 09th, 2025
What about playing bullet (1+0)?
It’s really fun playing chess with this crazy time control.
Lots of emotions, lots of adrenaline…
But if you talk to any experienced Grandmaster or a coach, they’ll tell you that if you want to destroy your chess, playing bullet games systematically can be the fastest way.
You may have already had an experience when you started playing 1+0 games, and after you came to your normal time controls, you felt how badly you started to play chess.
My advice – unless you’ve bought a new mouse that you want to test, don’t play bullet games.
My favorite time control
When I played professional chess, I used to play lots of friendly matches and I almost always played 5+3.
I recommend playing this time control to all of my students too, when they play online chess or when they have a friendly match.
5+3 is a time control between blitz and rapid.
You have time to think during the game. But at the same time, you don’t have enough time to sleep over the board.
Also, it helps to develop your intuition, ability to make fast and practical decisions, and many other important skills for becoming a better chess player.