while many of you have probably been enjoying the plethora of online events
classical chess over the board is back with norway chess it's a field of six due to coronavirus
travel restrictions and norway chess is pretty unique because both players get two hours
with no bonus time and also if the game ends in a draw they have to play armageddon the way that
works is you get ten minutes versus seven white with ten black with seven a draw results and win
for black and the scoring system is three one and a half one and zero let's jump into today's games
we have levon aronian and magnus carlson to kick things off uh because well i'm not gonna spoil it
uh the players began with a queen's gambit declined very standard magnus carlsen with
the black pieces opts for the ragosan defense this is a uh variation which is extremely popular
extremely theoretical there's a lot of different variations here with cd5
bishop g5 i like queen a4 check a lot forcing black to play knight c6 to defend the bishop
but levon goes for this and we get kind of like a nimso early capture rook c1 rookie 8 and this kind
of unique trait of the light squared bishops with bishop a6 so takes takes castles and now
bishop f8 now during the live stream i had said that i don't recommend beginners play like this
and just so you guys know on youtube i'm recording this live right now my my twitch chat is laughing
at me and it's really distracting and i said if you're a beginner don't play like this
don't put pieces back on their home squares but he does this because there's no place
that you can put the bishop and he wants to play c5 but he doesn't want to trade so for now he puts
his bishop back here and the bishop might come out this way with g6 and bishop g7 and so on
and we get 92 this is a reroute maneuver for lavon he wants to play queen a4 as well now the bishop
is open on this side of the board now queen c8 from magnus and that move looks like it doesn't
make any sense but magnus is a beast at optimizing his position at putting at seeing long term
what he wants his position to look like and magnus wants to put the queen on b7 from where it will be
the only defender of the d5 pawn and then play c5 rook c8 and rook d8 and he has no way other
way to do that if he puts his queen here or here it's in the way of the rook and watch
c5 knight g3 queen b7 takes knight takes queen b5 rook c8 everything as i said this knight is going
to come to the middle maybe this knight comes this way that's exactly what he does levon tucks
his queen back on f1 e2 also very natural uh but knight e2 is actually the move that
um he wants to play if he put his queen on e2 he would still have a perfectly good position
and the per and basically this position is equal but to talk a little bit more about
it most importantly there's an isolated pawn on d5 for black and an isolated pawn wants friends
around like pieces knights bishop so that you can use the pawn to lock in a certain square what what
lavon does the way you're supposed to play against an isolated pawn position trade pieces get it to
an end game you don't have to trade every piece you have but that pawn's going to be a target
especially if you can secure the square in front of it uh and then trade trade down some pieces
we get 94 bishop e1 this looks really silly but again maintaining vision
and lavon was very passive he was under some pressure but magnus never really got anywhere
um and lavon just kind of shuffled they traded a piece lavon kicked out uh well he was going
to kick out the knight by playing queen d3 and f3 and instead here magnus carlson offered a
repetition of moves and he accepted now at this point the scoring is still zero
the players leave the room they come back into the room one guy has seven minutes that's magnus
carlsen no bonus time levon has 10 minutes if you win in armageddon you get one and a half points
if you lose the armageddon you get one point all right no bonus time until move 40 at the 40th move
you get one bonus second so let's see what happens
d4 knight f6 and now the difference is a6 at this point by the way the two other guys are still
playing this is something that i'll talk about a little bit later but we'll see so cd5 ed5 captures
plays like this and queen b3 so levon plays aggressively hits both pawns and at this point he
doesn't take this uh because this is actually just not good uh if you were to take this i would play
queen d8 e4 and c6 i would be hitting your knight uh and there's just nothing you can do to move it
uh you're just gonna lose material so magnus plays queen d8 uh levon goes g3 and then here plays h4
because you can't be a super gm nowadays uh again you are contractually obligated to play
at least one random completely nonsensical h4 in the middle of a game um but actually this does
make sense because he wants to play knight g5 and take this bishop so we get bishop e7 this trade
and then long castle now one thing about the time situation at this point levon has nine minutes
and magnus has four and a half i'm not kidding i don't know why he has four and a half but he has
four and a half so he's four and a half minutes take take c6 solid e4 breaking early since you're
playing against the guy that has no bonus time what i would say here is you wanna you wanna kinda
slow things out a little bit i mean wait wait wait to make a decision like that because what happens
is that now magnus is extremely solid and he's able to trade some pieces and the rest of the game
is kind of easy for him even with the time situation where he's down like
you know down to two minutes for his remaining 20 moves which is crazy by the way two minutes
20 moves maybe i underestimate how fast some of you play but that's
that's not a lot of time and taking this is too dangerous because you're just gonna pin yourself
and so you know magnus is baiting that move but it's not gonna happen
g4 and then g5 and then we got this position and so here lavon basically has like
a minute and a half a minute 45 versus one minute and he just kept taking his time
like in this position levon spent like 30 seconds i i don't understand why because just play a move
like here or just play a move just play a move like because again it's the time so he spent
like 30 seconds then this and then he spent like another 30 seconds and then played this
and then after c5 lavon had 30 seconds or so for about 12 moves and magnus just moved his pieces
around took upon an h4 and you know shuffled his queen and played a move and i mean lavon
just played king a3 because it was the fastest move that he could play and then hung a rook and
and lost he actually lost on time i think i'm not even sure he had enough time to resign
so to me it's absolutely and again this is move 37 so he never got his one second of bonus time so
how do you start a game with three minutes extra but you lose the game on time i mean of course he
was gonna lose on time even with losing the rook so that to me was so surprising and another thing
that was really surprising to me is think about this they're in the same room as the other guys
right the other guys are playing their games can you imagine you're sitting there thinking and
i mean i made the same joke on livestream so sorry if you saw it in the same place
but the dudes are making them you know slamming the clock i'm like three feet away from you
i just i mean at least put them in another room or something like you know noisy toddlers
so yeah this format is really interesting but the games they don't wait they just come back and they
just play their game so anyway magnus wins the magnus is one and a half now
uh lavon has won for making it and let's take a look at the last two games of the round
uh the first one that we'll start with uh is young shisht of duda versus ali reza farouja
kara khan yank shishtov is like top 15 in the world i believe and ali raza is ali raza
no more introduction necessary a classical kara khan very surprising again i'm going to say this
time and time again you want to beat the karo khan you got to play three e5 or i don't know
king e2 those are the only two ways the classical kara khan is completely fine
for black uh the position that the players reach with h4 h6 the point is that you're
trying to trap the bishop this is all theory this is all theory and i i hate to just just
you know dispose it like that but it's the classical kara khan main line with bishop f5
the move played on the fourth move this has been seen tens of thousands of times and really
the only interesting break in the position began right here so here black usually either takes the
knight or plays the move c5 and black played c5 now they have two hours per player right
duda spends 40 minutes on his next move like 35 40 minutes and plays a non-standard
move i'll move that sub part uh really here white is either supposed to take the knight
take the pawn or play g4 and the point of g4 is that it takes i go rook g1 and that's you
know you're sacrificing a pawn for an open line on the enemy king i personally like g4 the most but i
think g4 has been worked out black is completely fine i play this position a lot with black
so knight g4 was not played in the game instead g4 wasn't played in the game we got bishop to e3
knight takes e4 and farouja gives away the b7 pawn and he does that for good reason
plays the move knight d5 the same thing really if rook b8 taking this pawn is way too dangerous
because now after rook a8 i'm gonna bring my queen and uh yeah this is not worth two pawns definitely
not worth two pawns you're going to get absolutely steamrolled here this is not going to go very well
okay i think the way i played this maybe white can take on e7 but it's probably too dangerous
i think taking on e7 just loses there's probably some decisive attack on a2 so instead in the game
due to play queen a6 very important move rook b8 takes takes and bishop to f6 now uh the bishop
and the knight line up this way rook is down pressuring and remember this whole time that
ferocious spending his time just as equally as uh as jan
knight comes back to b3 and the players have lined up all their pieces we've got two rooks queen's
staring down bishop staring down knight staring down and now lereza finds a beautiful idea here
very nice idea you can pause if you want if you're watching on twitch as i'm recording this i'm sorry
you guys are just gonna have to pretend to pause just like hit your monitor with your
finger or something a great move here ferrous just maximize this position to its fullest extent
and there is nothing that can be done to go forward so ferrule goes backwards
two then come forward and the knight on c4 will put pressure on d2 b2 and so duda finds a very
creative idea rook to e4 and the whole point is that now i have a threat of bishop f4 and
at some point in the future my rook will take on c4 and that's exactly what happens knight
c4 bishop f4 queen b6 takes takes duda is up a pawn but about to get steamrolled with the a pawn
so bishop e3 rook comes to b4 lining up the rook to the rook and now knight a3 check is a threat
to potentially do something like this f3 and duda sacrifices the rook and begins his process
of consolidation now this is a truly fascinating endgame um
three past pawns on the queen side for duda four on two for ali reza and two rooks and let's not
forget it's move 38 duda has three minutes to go to make the time control and ali reza has
like 12 i believe um and duda just consolidates brilliantly brings his king brings back his
knight and begins to push his pawns begins to push his pawns but farrugia is also pushing his pawns
but but dude is pushing his pawns but ferrous is pushing his pawns and then they trade bishops
that's just a little interlude good idea from farrugia because otherwise his bishop was
terrible and this bishop was going to monitor these pawns now rook h1 to stop this pawn from
getting captured rook h5 you cannot take because even though that would work i would play here this
but apparently here the position's equal king c3 i'm gonna push my pawn you're gonna push your pawn
i'm gonna push my pawn you're gonna push your pawn and now we see the power of the four versus two
this is not frozen and in this position there is the move h5 uh h3 h3 excuse me uh getting rid of
this pawn and after takes this is called another pawn breakthrough e4 a stunning move and in this
position duda has like 30 seconds on the clock he does have a 10 second bonus now that they made it
to the 40th move but he fails to find the only defense the only defense in this position was
the move rook f1 i think rook f1 because if g2 you play rook f2 and you can't promote and i'm gonna
win this pawn and if pawn takes f3 the absolutely ridiculous and astounding knight g1 and the pawns
have been frozen but black is still doing fine black is not lost but you know black will try to
come down here and you know get get in with the rook but a ridiculous defensive sequence here
and uh he wasn't able to see that he just wasn't able to see that uh and due to yeah what to do
unfortunate um instead duda played f takes e4 and alireza stormed in with the pawns
and in this position it was decisive f2 you take i promote if you take the rook hoping to get this
i laugh in your face and i play f1 queen and that's guarded and it's over your pawns are
too slow against the queen and a rook so ollie russell wins and alireza gets to three points
the kid is back hey look that's right above me alyrez has been struggling these past few months
uh he's not been doing so well online not not not potentially living up to the expectations
the really the mammoth expectations that people have of him so it's good to see him back nice win
convincing win you know back and forth battle dudeo was very creative with his defense but
not good enough at the end and ali reza gets the win the other game of the round was between tari
and fabiano caruana you might say how can fabiano caruana an american citizen right because with all
the coveted restrictions make it to norway chess live tournament by the way not online in case that
wasn't clear yet uh he's a dual citizen of italy and that's what makes this possible this was a
really interesting game it was a sicilian a timeon of sicilian and i'm curious how much fabiano can
disclose considering he's going to play in the candidates so he can't show his full preparation
so he plays this g3 from tari very solid system uh trying to castle quickly uh and fabiano goes
for a setup where early on you sacrifice your d6 pawn atari damages his own structure and
the players end up trading their queens and knight back to d7 so a really interesting setup for fabi
who's down upon traded the queens but watch him play this game first h4 to prevent h4 and g5
he plays king e7 rook comes back to d2 knight b6 trying to threaten this threaten this obviously
you cannot play b3 because the knight is hanging and after the sequence knight d5 takes takes
knight came here rookie 2 was played in the game also rook d3 was possible because if knight b2
there is this move working fabiano plays oops sorry fabiano plays like this so he's down a pawn
however because white has a light squared bishop staring into a light squared pawn fabiano creates
a dark squared blockade basically negating this bishop out of the game and fabiano also
controls the only open file so what do you do protect your center with f6 make sure this pawn
is not a weakness and then double your rooks and start doing damage and that is exactly
what he did e4 from from atari a5 dark squared blockade stopping the pawn mobilizing on the c
file solidifying the center and doubling and then pressure here pressure here pressure here and g5
pressure on that side now he plays g4 shuts out the bishop combines the dark squared blockade with
this light squared blockade of the bishop so the pawns can't move anywhere and this pawn can be a
target in the future he breaks with f5 completely locks down white's position and breaks with f5
but doesn't even take it plays this one obviously if knight f5 there was rook takes e5 the rook
d3 not afraid of a trait of rooks and e4 takes back his pawn and brings his king to the party
right rook d1 rook c7 it's the 40th move but it's a lost position for white he can't defend his
pawns here are too big of a weakness and soon black will come in with the pawn in the rook
and okay just one final touch on the position the b-pawn gets involved in the game
b6 every piece that fabiano had got to play the same cannot be said for this pawn yet
bishop a6 rook f7 rook f8 knight f5 trying to come in this way and that's exactly what he does
knight d5 both weaknesses passive rook staring into the defense of the pawn
again the dark squares the light squared bishop for white is not a factor and this end game is
simply lost this is our end game where black will play rookie 2 d2 and so on and convert
this game shows the difference uh between a super grand master and r and and and arientari
i mean ari antare is a fantastic player i've done commentary with him he's exceptionally
strong norwegian number two and fabiano caruana slid through this game like you know like a knife
through soft butter i mean not not the butter you just like take out from the fridge because that
one's terrible not like restaurant butter you know that they give you in those little containers that
like you can't even not that one like the much better kind in case anybody needed explaining
incredible game and there's no it's no surprise that fabiano caruana
is the second best uh classical chess player in the world um outstanding outstanding play
from him and i look forward to seeing whether he can fight against magnus
uh in this event obviously i want to see faruja do well i want to see duda do well but at some
point in one of these events someone has to not do well that's the reality of the situation let me
know who you are your top three in the comments below and i'll see you in the recap tomorrow