This opening keeps popping up everywhere at the highest levels these days! Ever since Ding Liren essayed it with a lot of success against Gukesh in their World Championship match, it seems to me like this old opening has featured in many key match-ups across different tournaments in 2025.
Caruana steps his knight out, defending the pawn.
Aronian adds to the pressure against the center, forcing Caruana to make a decision.
Caruana grabs space, the only real ambitious path available to the White side.
Aronian drops his knight back. While it looks to get in the way of his other pieces, from here it does support an eventual pawn break in the center.
Caruana overprotects his advanced pawn, anticipating that Aronian will soon try to undermine it.
Chipping away at the center.
Caruana continues to bring piece support to the pawn that is being heavily targeted by Aronian.
The players continue to blitz out their moves, as this is all well-studied theory that both are likely to be familiar with for quite some moves to come!
Aronian continues his very aggressive approach. Now he's got a lot of pressure against the central knight, but also a strike on the undefended pawn on the left hand side!
Caruana has certainly not forgotten about his hanging pawn! Instead, he continues with what is considered theoretically best, and offers Aronian the chance to go up a pawn but at the cost of a lot of time moving his queen around!
Aronian 'takes the bait'
In reality, he was already committed to this. Otherwise, his queen is an easy target and he would have to just drop her back a square or two. But that would mean a lot of time wasting, and would hand Caruana a big advantage straight away.
Aronian has escaped with the extra pawn, but now it's time for Caruana to start to use his development lead to apply pressure on his opponent's position.
Aronian has to react to the pressure against his knight, so he goes for the speediest solution and trades knights.
Looking to break the pin against his knight, and also strip Caruana of the bishop pair.
Caruana does indeed give up the 'bishop pair', but he does so with the goal of getting back his pawn in the near future, since now Aronian's pawn along the file is hanging.
Caruana first lifts his rook, in order to force the queen away from her advanced post. Otherwise, Aronian was going to step forward with his bishop and combine with the queen to put a lot of pressure on Caruana's vulnerable knight.
Caruana gets his pawn back, keeping a slight edge due to his more active pieces and greater space advantage.
Bringing the rook to a strong file immediately. In the future, Aronian might seek to plant it on the advanced outpost.
Caruana completes this development
He's now got a couple of interesting options available to him to make progress. One would be to double up rooks on the queenside, while another interesting idea would be to go for a pawn break on the kingside instead.
Aronian looks to finish his own development
He drops the queen back, as from this square she was obstructing the path of the bishop. He'll be looking to develop this piece soon, in order to be able to castle.
With this move, Caruana effectively invites a big theoretical sequence that will lead to a very slightly better endgame for him.
Aronian does not hesitate, clearly familiar with the key idea available to the Black side. The point is that this sacrifice is just temporary, as we will soon see.
Caruana takes back.
Aronian targets both of Caruana's undefended pieces.
Forced, in order to avoid losing a piece.
This is the key idea. The rook has nowhere to turn, and so Aronian immediately wins back the sacrificed exchange.
Caruana removes his bishop from the enemy queen's sight, anticipating that after bishop takes rook, it would be hanging.
The benefit for Caruana in agreeing to this operation, is that his queenside pawns are now no longer isolated.
For Aronian, he's also going to be quite happy to have got this position. It's true that it's a little better for Fabiano, but ultimately the reduced material means that Levon has good chances of making a draw from here.
I didn't expect Caruana to offer up more material reduction so early into the game. This move feels like it could be a sign that Fabiano is happy to not take any undue risk in this game, and doesn't too much mind if the end result is a somewhat uneventful draw.
Aronian has to react immediately, since both his queen and pawn are under fire.
Aronian quickly castles
He doesn't hesitate too much in making his decision, and it's a strong move. Could it be that Caruana has underestimated the strength of this move? Objectively speaking, Aronian has complete equality in an endgame after just 30 minutes of play. It's unlike Fabiano to not fight hard for an edge when he has the White pieces...
Caruana continues his unambitious play, eliminating the queens from the board.
Aronian targets the undefended pawn.
Caruana covers against the threat.
More simplifications on the way
When it's not Caruana initiating piece or pawn trades, it's Aronian! To me this move feels close to 'end of game' territory. Not in the sense that the players won't continue to play for some time, but rather because once that strong central pawn that Caruana has had since the beginning comes off the board, it feels like there's not going to be too much life in the resulting rook and pawn endgame.
Okay, looks like we're going to be wrapping up pretty soon here! Pure rook and pawn endgame on the board.
Caruana does not make any attempt at pressuring here, and just goes for further liquidations.
Now the queenside pawns will come off the board for both sides.
An eye for an eye. And even if Caruana were to somehow win Aronian's isolated pawn in the center, that endgame would still remain theoretically drawn.
Caruana locks down the enemy king along the first rank.
Aronian begins harassing Caruana's king.
The only legal move.
Aronian will continue to give checks here, and if Caruana lifts his king up too quickly, then he will capture the then undefended pawns.
Caruana recognizes this, and so drops his king back. But now it looks like we're entering the final stages of the game as a draw by repetition is highly likely.
Looks like the draw is about to be agreed, as neither player has any hope of (or interest in) pushing for a win from here.
The fastest game of the tournament?!
I would be surprised if any other game ends up finishing in a shorter space of time than this one, in the 2025 Sinquefield Cup.
What can be said about today's game? Well, not too much at all to be honest.
Usually, Fabiano Caruana is the kind of player who really tests his opponents, especially from the White side. But today was an off day for him. He didn't create any sort of trouble for Aronian in a fairly topical line of the French Defense. In fact, what was quite unusual was that even though the line is heavily forcing and Caruana went into it willingly, it didn't seem like he had any sort of preparation that was truly threatening.
Instead, he went for an early kingside pawn break and forced a heavy liquidation of material very early into the middlegame. And at no point did that pattern change. Caruana traded one piece after another, and when he wasn't busy doing so, Aronian was the one to invite simplications himself!
In the end, Aronian could not have asked for an easier day at the office. But then again, for Caruana, he might just not have been feeling 100% today, and saw the possibility of making a very quick draw and conserving energy for the crucial final two rounds, as an offer too tempting to refuse?!
Caruana looking to extend his lead!
After six rounds in St.Louis, it's a familiar face that sits atop the current tournament standings. The American grandmaster is one of the most accomplished players of the modern era, and with his class and experience comes consistency. It seems that wherever Fabiano plays, he is never too far from striking distance of tournament victory.
If he wishes to extend his tournament lead today though, he's going to have to get through the in-form Levon Aronian. Prior to Fabiano Caruana's long stint as world no.2, it was the Armenian-born grandmaster who held this prestigious spot. Indeed, while Fabiano holds the 3rd highest peak rating ever achieved (behind only Magnus and Kasparov), Levon does not lag far behind. His peak rating of 2830 puts him 4th on the all-time highest list, just behind Caruana.
And as for this tournament, Levon is also within striking distance of Fabiano. A win today would see him leapfrog his way to =1st, and perhaps even sole first depending on the other results of the round.
High stakes, as the players continue to do battle not only for the prize money here in St.Louis, but also to secure one of the four spots available for September's GCT Finals!