Fabiano Caruana Attempts the “DrLupo Challenge”

DrLupo’s expulsion from PogChamps6 was hardly the end of the discourse in the chess community. Even some top players have continued on the subject, including Aman Hambleton of Chessbrah performing the “DrLupo Challenge” this week: give up your queen in the opening, and then attempt to play 26 straight best moves. The video on Chessbrah is here — the game lasted 32 moves after the queen ‘blunder’, and Hambleton put up a very respectable 25/32 score against a 1375-rated player.

Fabiano Caruana mimicked the challenge today, with the tweaks that he was playing someone lower rated – 800 instead of 1400 – and he only got one piece for the queen instead of two, though his opponent kindly gave him a second almost immediately. Alongside co-judge Cristian Chirila, Caruana claimed a 26.5/30 score, with only one obvious miss when ‘knight takes rook’ was clearly outside the top moves.

Caruana’s attempt is on the C-Squared channel.