Caruana is in form

During the 2018 Olympiad I was only able to catch small glimpses of the action in the main hall, and so I missed one quite significant result. Fabiano Caruana scored an impressive 7/10 on Board 1 for the USA, with a TPR of 2859.
He played a number of the worlds leading GM's along the way, with wins over Anand and Mamedyarov being the standouts. This result is even more impressive, as it is quite possible that he 'held back' on some of his openings, keeping them up his sleeve for his match against Carlsen.
Looking at these results and games, I think the upcoming World Championship match is going to be a lot closer than I originally thought. Caruana has a real chance of taking the title now, and Carlsen may even be a slight underdog.
Carlsen is playing in the European Club Championship, and had a lucky escape in round 6 against Liren Ding. He missed a tactic against Ding, and only some resourceful defensive moves saved half a point. If he makes a similar mistake against Caruana, then he may not be so lucky.


Caruana,Fabiano (2827) - Anand,Viswanathan (2771) [E03]
43rd Olympiad 2018 Batumi GEO (4.1), 27.09.2018

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 dxc4 5. Qa4+ Nbd7 6. Qxc4 a6 7. Be3 Bd6 8. Qc2 O-O 9. Nh3 e5 10. O-O h6 11. dxe5 Nxe5 12. Nc3 Qe7 13. Rad1 Re8 14. Nf4 c6 15. Bd4 g5 16. Nd3 Nxd3 17. Rxd3 Be5 18. Qd2 Bf5 19. e4 Bg6 20. f4 gxf4 21. Bxe5 Qxe5 22. gxf4 Qc5+ 23. Kh1 Nxe4 24. Nxe4 Rxe4 25. Rg3 Rd4 26. Qe3 1-0