David and the Giants

The overall scores of the exceedingly strong combined rapid and blitz tournaments in St Louis were as follows: 1. Aronian 24½;
 
2= Karjakin and Nakamura 21½; 4. Nepomniachtchi 20; 5= Dominguez, Caruana and Le 16½; 8. Kasparov 16; 9. Anand 14; 10. Navara 13. As an indication of the elite nature of this competition, the bottom-placed contestant, David Navara from the Czech Republic, succeeded in defeating former world champion Garry Kasparov and Sergei Karjakin, the outright winner of the blitz section.
 
Karjakin-Navara; St Louis Blitz 2017;
Caro-Kann Defence
 
1 e4 c6 2 Nf3 More usual is 2 d4. 2 … d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Nf6 Against the variation chosen by White this knight challenge is eminently feasible. In the variations emanating from 2 d4, some doubt can be cast upon Black’s willingness to disrupt his own pawn formation by developing the white king’s knight on e2. Here, of course, that option is no longer available.