Personal life and chess beginnings
Fabiano Luigi Caruana was born on July 30, 1992, in Miami, United States, to Italian-American parents Lou and Santina Caruana.[1][2] He is a dual citizen of Italy and the US.[3]
At the age of four, his family relocated from Miami to the neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York. At the age of five, his chess talent was discovered in an after-school chess program at Congregation Beth Elohim, a Reform Jewish congregation in Park Slope. The same year he played his first tournament at the Polgar Chess Center in Queens, New York.[3]
Until the age of twelve, he lived and played in the United States, occasionally traveling to Europe and South America to participate in tournaments. His first chess coach, from age six to eight, was National Master (NM) Bruce Pandolfini, and from age eight to twelve he studied with GM Miron Sher.
In 2004 at age twelve, he relocated with his family from Brooklyn to Madrid to pursue a professional chess career, playing for Italy from 2005 to 2015. He trained with International Master (IM) Boris Zlotnik in Madrid,[4] and in 2007 he moved to Budapest to train with grandmaster Alexander Chernin.[3] In 2010 Caruana moved to Lugano, Switzerland, and, at the end of that year, started to train with grandmaster Vladimir Chuchelov.[5] He moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in 2014.[6]