The World Chess Championship match between the defending World Champion Magnus Carlsen and former World Champion Vishy Anand should take place later this year in Russia.

Few people doubt that the young Norwegian champion will keep the title. But this simply raises the question - who will be the next Challenger?

It is possible that it will be Levon Aronian of Armenia, who is currently No 2 on the rating list. Or maybe it will be Alexander Grischuk of Russia, Hikaru Nakamura of the USA or Sergey Karjakin , again of Russia. But my money is on the young Italian chess star Fabiano Caruana, who is making steady progress through the ranks.

A week ago, Caruana won a super-tournament in Dortmund, scoring 5.5 points in 7 games. GMs Leko (Hungary) and Meier (Germany) tied for second place with 4 points. After this tournament Caruana has moved to third place on the rating list, breaking the magic 2800 barrier for the first time.

I would like to show a brilliant finish of one of Caruana's games in Dortmund:

Caruana - Ponomariov

White to play

The pawn structure is symmetrical and one might think that the game should be drawn. However, upon closer inspection White's advantage is very considerable as every one of his pieces is better placed than its counterpart. Caruana finished the game with a clever double sacrifice:

39.Re7!! Qxe7 40.Ba6 Kxa6

41.Qa8#