How Wei Yi makes us feel better about chess

GM Wei Yi earned his place in this year's Candidates Tournament through strong, world-class play. But as this round 3 game against GM Fabiano Caruana demonstrates, even world-class players can blunder. In this case, why did it happen? Evidently GM Yi missed the combination of a backwards knight move unveiling a lateral, long-distance queen attack on his trapped bishop. It is this sort of difficult, non-automatic visualization challenge that can more often derail Class players, so it is at least somewhat comforting to know that chess can be hard for everyone.

[Event "FIDE Candidates Tournament 2026"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2026.03.31"] [Round "3"] [White "Caruana, Fabiano"] [Black "Wei, Yi"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "A34"] [WhiteElo "2795"] [BlackElo "2754"] [WhiteFideId "-1"] [BlackFideId "-1"] [PlyCount "37"] [GameId "2294223087464466"] [EventDate "2026.??.??"] 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. g3 g6 4. Nc3 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Bg2 Bg7 7. Qa4+ Nc6 8. Ng5 Nb6 9. Bxc6+ bxc6 10. Qxc6+ Bd7 11. Qxc5 h6 12. Nf3 Rc8 13. Qa5 Bh3 14. Qb5+ Nd7 15. Rg1 {this looks strange, but the point comes on the next move.} O-O 16. g4 {now the Bh3 is trapped, but White is not close to being able to exploit that...but it turns out, not too far from it, either.} Rc5 17. Qb3 {lining up the queen on the 3rd rank. Still no danger yet, with two pieces in between the Qb3 and Bh3. However, this changes immediately after} Ne5 $2 18. Nxe5 Rxe5 19. Nd1 {a backwards knight move unveiling a lateral, long-distance discovered attack wins for Caruana.} 1-0