in just about every single live stream that i do i get asked a very popular question gotham
why are you so trash at chess and the second most popular question that i get is have you ever
played magnus carlson and that's what this video is all about i have once it was 2018 and i wasn't
even gotham just yet the first username that i had ever come up with was crew 64 because i thought my
friends and i were going to be streaming together we were going to be a crew playing on 64 squares
it's a terrible name uh and we're not here to make fun of it but i did get a chance to play against
magnus and it was in the leaches titled arena it's a bullet tournament uh and i played against him in
a one plus zero format obviously given the fact that it's bullet it's not going to be the most
perfect game ever played but it's close okay let's look magnus started out with knight to f3 by the
way he's on his fabled dr drunkenstein account i played f5 um i enjoyed the dutch defense and
i really enjoyed the setups after f5 knight f6 g6 bishop g7 and castles like you'll see in this game
now the the good thing about this setup for white is here white doesn't have to go for d4
white can play d3 and e4 even going for an e4 right away this is called listen gambit that's
why i like making these videos because even though we're looking at a game against magnus i can still
give you nuggets of information here and there f5 is a very dangerous move magnus plays e3 and
we just get a very normal developing position the reason one would play the dutch defense against d4
is that it's kind of like a king's indian and your f-pawn is very advanced so you kind of have wing
control of the center and if this pawn ever moves you'll have an open f file which will be useful
for an attack so c4 i do my thing i played e6 play e6 to be a little bit more flexible uh it's a bit
of an offbeat move maybe queen e7 slowly building for the center magnus doesn't let me do that and
he plays the very principled move e4 i take on e4 knight takes e4 take take and i strike back in the
center with d5 so here you know if magnus takes which is what he did in the game uh the the pawn
structure is completely fine for me and my center is actually very solid magnus shouldn't take
retroactively looking at this game um i'm kind of surprised that he did of course his best
move is probably just to move the bishop back and that's his best move because he's not opening up
my diagonal for my bishop the way he played it in the game he actually helped me develop my pieces
had he played bishop back it's a lot harder for me to move it's a lot harder for me to push and
i'm not really sure what i would have done i mean i'm not losing i would probably go knight c6 and
try to build for this but uh he decided to take and then bishop back to d3 and of course i played
the very natural move now bishop g4 pinning his knight and i'm threatening to take it and damage
his structure so magnus played bishop e2 he didn't let me do that and knight c6 just finishing my
development kind of a cool positional idea here for you um you guys often ask me like when to
trade bishops for nights and these kinds of things and it's tough to always know the answer to that
in this particular position had i taken on f3 and he taken back there is one and only one
move in this position which is like very good for black and it's in response to this it's basically
negating the effect of the bishop and it's pawn c6 this is the best move for black because you build
this light squared pawn chain into this light squared bishop and this is sometimes called to
biting on granite for a bishop because the bishop now can't break through this pawn meanwhile is
isolated and i can play queen b6 for example and it will be difficult it'll be just tough
to defend that pawn this knight will go like this it will slowly get its way into the game i didn't
do that i played knight c6 magnus played bishop e3 i played like this and connected my rooks put them
both facing his position i played queen b3 this is a good move he's attacking d5 he's attacking b7
um and i realized here that if i take his knight and take on d4 that i'm doing pretty well bishop
f3 bishop f3 and knight takes d4 if he takes with check that's not really scary i mean he's
the world champion but i'm i think i'm capable of finding king to h8 um same if with if queen d5 but
one thing that i had missed during the game which i realized actually he missed the two is that
even though he's looking straight at this it's it's a lot better for him not to take that pawn
actually it's much better for him to take this one because he still maintains pressure on this and
it's incredibly challenging for me to guard my d5 pawn i can't go c6 because he'll take my queen um
and then if i play something completely ridiculous but rookie five for example defending this
he comes in and and and i'm gonna die uh it's it's not gonna be very good he's just going to
destroy me here um so queen d7 would have been very good he would have just won a pawn
uh but in the game he took on d5 and of course i was like okay well i'll take this position
i know i have vision on f2 with my bishop very equal game so far what's magnus gonna play
which one which one of my pawns are gonna take magnus took on c7 and here i realized something
i realized something yes i can take on b2 right i can take on b2 and i can also take on f2 actually
why well if bishop takes f2 he cannot take with the rook because rookie won't check and it's going
to be mate does that mean i play bishop takes f2 no because if bishop takes f2 does he have to take
no he'll just go king h1 game goes on i mean it's not a bad move but the game goes on
a much more forcing move something that i found in the game was the reverse move order rook takes f2
which i think magnus overlooked well i mean i'm assuming he overlooked it and wouldn't just let
me play it if he saw it now the situation is very different because after rook takes
that's maiden one and king h1 here is met with rook takes rook mate and any rook move
is a discovered attack on the king it was at this point that i realized i am beating magnus carlsen
i'm winning i have 30 seconds on the clock and he is like 37 but i'm winning this game
so naturally i started panicking because that's what happens when you play against really good
players at least for me i started panicking magnus played rook c4 hitting my bishop
now here i played rook f4 check hitting his king if he goes here i go here he obviously cannot take
and i made him sacrifice the material however a better move and actually a nice lesson here
which i would have never seen in the game is staying patient he attacks my bishop so
i can actually move my bishop back to b6 and this is still a devastating threat if magnus
plays rook to b4 here trying to attack my bishop again with the same idea looking to sacrifice
rook e f 8 is so brutal so brutal so if he takes the point is if rook takes b6 now i take there
and it's mate but if this look at this bishop takes f2 if king f1 of course we move the bishop
to attack the rook and its discovered attack on the king and we win material but even if king 2h1
there is bishop e1 or bishop c5 hitting the rook and backrank mate i'm not showing this because
i should have seen it i'm showing it because it shows you the beauty of the game sometimes it's
worth staying patient sometimes it's worth staying patient in the game i was like a kid in an arcade
i like found a bunch of tickets and i was like yes yes yes oh my god i'm winning
so rook b4 going here and now keep in mind that the rest of the game i have about 25 seconds and
my heart rate is probably like 170. so magnus goes bishop d5 defending his a2 pawn and here um after
he plays h3 i play a move which in astounding fashion completely gives away my advantage
i play rookie 2 which is a move that literally does nothing because that's protected and that's
protected my rook is attacking nothing and now magnus defends by going check check defended by
the bishop and winning my a7 pawn now my winning chances have dropped significantly because despite
having two rooks this is not a really winning endgame everything is well protected and he
can just put his bishop back to one of those squares so what i should have done instead
which again there was no way i would have seen this rook d8 and the bishop has to make a choice
which pawn will it guard so if he goes like bishop c4 for example now i play rook d2
and it's a very different story so kind of an interesting idea there rook d8 and the bishop
cannot stay on the square if it tries to stay on the square with rook d1 i can play rook to b5 i
can also actually just take because then i would be winning the rook and rook and pass pawn versus
bishop is always gonna be a win you will just push the pun so i didn't see that and that's why i'm
showing you this game i played rookie two he won my pawn and again i'm low on time so what did i
start doing i started just shuffling pieces back and forth because i didn't really know what to do
then my brain reactivated a few moves down the line around here and i realized that
i could actually still play for a win if i play aggressively with my pawns if i somehow
push these pawns into his king with my two rooks monitoring on this side of the board and actually
immediately as i did that magnus blundered it is bullet but it is a blunder and what i should have
played here rather than going back and being safe as i actually should have went forward so
now i'm threatening something i'm not threatening this but i'm actually threatening rook takes h3
because he can't take me and if he plays something like bishop d7 maintaining well then i play rook
g3 you see activity of the king in these end games is super important as long as the king is safe
so this would have been completely winning for me but i didn't see that um and you know if he again
if he like goes this way i would push my pawn down and try to lock his king on the back rank i played
king h6 and then uh we shuffled and well i went king f4 and my logic with king f4 i set a trap
for magnus bishop takes g6 i go rook a a2 and he cannot protect the pawn that was my trap but uh
he's he's the world champ so he said a counter trap he played bishop f3
and i was like oh magnus carlson hung a bishop and as i played that move thinking this
i realized always look for checks and rook f6 check comes and all of a sudden i'm down upon
it's still a draw because i'm actually going to win this pawn but the rest of the game is kind of
a tragedy as magnus slowly runs my clock to zero we're shuffling we're shuffling he hangs upon
i hang upon and i'm desperately looking not to lose on time but on this tragic tragic move rook
a6 my clock ran out to zero and magnus carlson defeated me in the only game we ever played
this end game is still a draw because after rook a3 check king g2 his king can never
cross this area if his king walks all the way over here i will just win his pawn and my king
meanwhile just kind of hangs out so this is just this is for example if like i don't know
king f7 for example um he will push his pawn and he's able to create winning chances for himself
um but if i bring my rook back like let's say rook c3 he'll play a5 for example uh i can give
a check come back rook here and just annoy his king forever um and i should have enough i should
have enough opportunity to draw the game because his rook has to stay guarding this pawn from the
other side um but there is there there is still a ways to go i mean there's a lot of ways to still
lose this endgame because again his plan is going to be put this rook on a8 and push this pawn all
the way down make sure that his king can then walk over etc etc but um you know in a classical game
i can't promise i would have drawn it but just so you guys understand that that is
this is how you would play this end game i did say at the beginning that we were going to analyze a
bullet game potentially beyond any level that it ever has to be analyzed it is bullet after all but
well i can safely say that in the one game i ever played against magnus carlsen he never actually
had a winning position against me so yeah i haven't had a chance to play him since ever since
then um i mostly started when i was streaming i started streaming on leeches because they
they they have a home page embed for streamers um but i partnered with chess.com because long term
they have a much bigger streamer program it's a important question i get asked this a lot like why
don't you play i'm i'm perfectly okay with with both websites um i just play on shells.com because
that's you know that's what you do you you sign an agreement and
you exchange benefits so they have a much bigger streamer program they've given me opportunities
to do like commentary on events and so on and when i'm streaming you get embed and things
of that nature i've made a course on chess.com so hopefully that answers some questions that you may
or may not have had and hopefully you enjoyed this video um maybe i'll make some more like this in
the future if i ever get a chance to play magnus again but for now i will see you in the next one