Fabiano Caruana Height, Weight, Age, Facts, Biography

Fabiano Caruana is an American-born Italian chess grandmaster who has been the reigning US Chess Champion. He became the 3rd-highest-rated player in history with a peak rating of 2844.

Born Name

Fabiano Luigi Caruana

Nick Name

The Machine

Sun Sign

Leo

Born Place

Miami, Florida, United States

Nationality

Education

Fabiano Caruana studied at Berkeley Carroll School, a coed independent college prep school in New York City.

Occupation

Chess Player

Family

• Father – Lou Caruana
• Mother – Santina Caruana

Build

Slim

Height

5 ft 6 in or 167.5 cm

Weight

60 kg or 132 lbs

Race / Ethnicity

White

Fabiano Caruana is of Italian descent.

Hair Color

Dark Brown

Eye Color

Dark Brown

Sexual Orientation

Straight

Distinctive Features

• Thin lips
• Curly hair
• Wears glasses

Fabiano Caruana Facts

1. His family shifted from Miami to the neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn when he was 4 years old.
2. His skills in chess were discovered in an after-school chess program at Congregation Beth Elohim (a reform Jewish congregation in Park Slope) when he was 5 years of age. He went on to play his first tournament at the Polgar Chess Center in Queens, New York City the same year.
3. Fabiano Caruana lived and played in the United States until he was 12 and used to occasionally travel to Europe and South America to participate in tournaments.
4. His first chess coach, from age 6 to 8, was National Master (NM) Bruce Pandolfini. His next coach, from age 8 to 12, was Grandmaster (GM) Miron Sher.
5. Alongside his family, he moved from Brooklyn to Madrid, Spain in 2004 in order to pursue a professional chess career. He played for Italy from 2005 to 2015 and trained with International Master (IM) Boris Zlotnik in Madrid.
6. He shifted base to Budapest in 2007 in order to train with Grandmaster (GM) Alexander Chernin. In 2010, he relocated to Lugano, Switzerland, and trained with Grandmaster (GM) Vladimir Chuchelov.
7. Fabiano emerged as the winner of the “First Saturday” GM tournament in Budapest with 7 points out of 9 games in July 2007.
8. In 2014, he shifted to St. Louis, Missouri.
9. At the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands in 2014, he finished 4th with 6 points out of 11 games.
10. He participated in the 2015 Tata Steel Chess Tournament and finished 7th, with 7 points out of 13 games, behind the winner Magnus Carlsen.
11. Along with Hikaru Nakamura and Dmitry Jakovenko, he won the FIDE Grand Prix Khanty-Mansiysk 2015, a 12-player round-robin, with 6½ points out of 11 games.
12. He participated in the Candidates Tournament 2016 held in Moscow, Russia, from March 10–30 and the lineup of the tournament included Viswanathan Anand, Hikaru Nakamura, Sergey Karjakin, Peter Svidler, Veselin Topalov, Anish Giri, and Levon Aronian.
13. After beating IM Akshat Chandra in the last round of the US Chess Championship, Fabiano became the US Chess Champion for the first time on April 25, 2016.
14. He went on to play first board of the US Team at the 42nd Chess Olympiad in September 2016.
15. He was one of the 12 regular participants competing in the Grand Chess Tour from May to November 2019 and finished in joint-10th place after the first 7 events. Thus, he failed to qualify for the finals at the London Chess Classic.
16. Fabiano Caruana won the Category 20 2020 Tata Steel Masters with a round to spare, scoring 10/13 (+7–0=6), two points ahead of second-placed Magnus Carlsen, in January 2020. With this, he reached a rating of 2842 on the February FIDE rating list and this was his highest since October 2014.
17. He subsequently qualified for the 2020 Candidates Tournament as the runner-up of the 2018 World Championship but the tournament was suspended halfway through due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
18. He participated in the Superbet Chess Classic held in Bucharest from May 6 to May 15, 2023.
19. He is a dual citizen of Italy and the United States and has the option of FIDE affiliation with either the Italian Chess Federation or the United States Chess Federation.

Featured Image by Frans Peeters / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0