Sinquefield Cup 2014

The greatest tournament performance in chess history. Caruana started 7-0 against an all-top-10 field, finishing with a 3103 performance rating that may never be surpassed.

Seven Wins, Zero Seconds

The 2014 Sinquefield Cup featured just six players, but they included World Champion Magnus Carlsen, #2 Levon Aronian, #5 Veselin Topalov, #8 Hikaru Nakamura, #9 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Fabiano Caruana. It was one of the strongest fields ever assembled for a tournament.

What happened next defied belief. Caruana won the first seven games. Against the strongest players in the world. Seven wins in a row. No draws. No losses. He beat Carlsen with black in Round 2. He beat Aronian with black in Round 3. He beat Nakamura, Topalov, Vachier-Lagrave, then beat them all again.

He eventually drew the last three games to finish 8.5/10, three points clear of Carlsen. His performance rating of 3103 is the highest ever recorded in a significant tournament, surpassing Karpov's 2985 from Linares 1994.

Caruana's performance at the 2014 Sinquefield Cup is, by most measures, the single greatest tournament performance in chess history. It announced him as a legitimate challenger to Carlsen and set the stage for their 2018 World Championship match.