March Yahoos

In last month's February Yahoos, I noted, 'This post marks five straight months of this blog ending the month with a Yahoo title.' Thanks to Fabiano Caruana's convincing victory in the 2018 Berlin Candidates tournament (which I documented on my World Chess Championship blog in yesterday's post Berlin Candidates - Third Week), we can now make that six straight months. Unlike all chess stories that I can remember, the first story recorded below was at the top of the Yahoo news feed. It's also unusual to have no photo attached to either headline.

2018-03-28: Fabiano Caruana Wins The Candidates Tournament, Becomes First American to Challenge for World Chess Championship Title Since Bobby Fischer in 1972 (yahoo.com)

The Candidates Tournament held in Berlin, Germany, has come to a conclusion and, at the end of a grueling 18 days of chess, American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana has emerged victorious and will be the next Challenger for the World Championship title. The Candidates brought together the best players in the world to determine the next Challenger, and it was an incredibly tight race. A crucial victory by Caruana against Armenia'sLevon Aronian in the penultimate round put him half a point ahead of his closest rivals - he even increased his lead in the final round with a victory with the black pieces against Russia's Alexander Grischuk. This is a historic result for American chess.

That Yahoo stub led to a story with the same title, Fabiano Caruana Wins The Candidates Tournament... (businessinsider.com), which was marked 'PRESS RELEASE PR Newswire'. The source of the stories was Fabiano Caruana Wins The Candidates Tournament... (prnewswire.com). Since it's not good journalistic practice to copy a press release verbatim, the chess story must have caught the mainstream press unprepared. The source of the press release was the Saint Louis Chess Club.

2018-03-28: US chess grandmaster Caruana wins shot at world title match (yahoo.com; Associated Press)

American chess grandmaster Fabiano Caruana has won the candidates tournament for the right to take on world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway for his title in November. The 25-year-old Caruana is the first American to challenge for the world title since Bobby Fischer in 1972. Caruana beat Russia's Alexander Grischuk in the candidates' last game on Tuesday to bring his points total to 9.0 after 14 rounds.

Comparisons between Bobby Fischer in 1972 and Fabiano Caruana in 2018 are inevitable. They aren't particularly helpful and I'll try to avoid doing the same.