and so chess fans we have our first day of the magnus carlson chess tour finals hikaru
nakamura versus magnus carlsen ikaru starts out the entire thing with the white pieces
it is a best of seven the same exact format four rapid games two blitz and an armageddon if needed
i don't really have to say much cells much else other than the fact that this is everything we
want from rapid and blitz the two best in the world in this format going at it let's jump in
we get a sicilian defense and hikaru plays into the open sicilian and a
naidorf a6 magnus has been playing this with white and with black if you haven't seen my uh sicilian
master class video he defeated dingley ren both on the white and the black side of this opening
and so hikaru actually enters the same territory he plays this move uh f3 and the game flows into
more or less of a middle game that we have seen already before after e5 knight b3 bishops out
queen out and this move h5 stopping the move g4 again also seen in that match with dingley ren
tarou plays knight d5 immediately rather than bishop e2 and here magnus takes and
plays bishop f5 relatively straightforward uh the d5 square has to do a lot uh with these
you know blockades in the sicilian and black will try to play things like knight d7 and figure out
what to do over here so we get bishop e2 and now magnus throws in this check which
normally looks like it does nothing but actually in this position accomplishes the simple thing of
making the pawn move forward and now this pawn will always be a target and this will be weak
so we get c4 a5 from magnus bishop d3 looking to trade off his only active piece bishop h3
preventing us from castling so kikaru castles the other way now this move looks a little bit strange
because here there is this move a4 and if you play a4 the board goes uh you know very strangely
colored there for a second but actually after the knight routes back to a1 it looks strange but the
knight does get out and you're actually more than okay and so for that reason oops sorry i can't
say sorry about that because you know a very famous content maker says this i'll just say sorry
king b1 played a4 and knight c1 so magnus doesn't really care about the knight going to a1
he would rather send it this way between to a5 and hikaru chooses to trade the queen he could
have not chosen to trade the queen but now we have a middle game kind of on the border of an endgame
right on the borders there's still a lot of pieces left you have to start looking for the threads
that the opponent can play magnus does have the sneaky bishop g2 and so for that reason he carries
plays rogue g1 and now f5 now again it's a closed position so in a closed position you'd like to
find either the pawn breaks or a way to maneuver some of your more passive pieces into the game
if you'd like to try to solve how you would trap this bishop with this knight again i can pause
here just wait uh wait a second uh give you a chance to think i take a sip of my lake rocks
and the maneuver is actually bishop c2 the idea of bishop c2 being that you will play
knight d3 knight f2 and this bishop is looking a little bit precarious on the side of the board
in the game hukari just played knight to e2 and after castle's knight c3 magnus finds a pawn break
a very nice idea e4 stirring the pot creating some chaos after he took this new sacrifice
well i should say this sacrifice gives this new square on e5 and now the bishop comes back and
also attacks the rook whenever it wants to we have knight to e5 bishop b6 hitting the rook
and now a very very very advanced tactical sequence breaks out we have bishop to b6 rook back
to a6 and the bishop retreats to d4 but that looks like it allows a fork except for the fact
that hiro hikaru has a counter attack waiting c5 he's got a bishop under attack a rook under
attack but now magnus also has a rook under attack now we have takes on c5 but you can't
just go take the rook because if you do that i'm going to take your bishop and now you have this
bishop under attack and you have this knight under attack if you were to take on a6 and so
instead hikora just slides back and again he can't really take here because then bishop takes a6
you'll simply take the knight and then your second pawn is going to start marching down the board
you're going to get connected past pawns we get rook f6 rook h1 and hikaru sacrifices the rook
just want to show that again the rook was trapped didn't have any sort of square so hikaru takes
the pawn gives away the rook and has a pawn compensation for it magnus plays a3 very nice
idea trying to damage the structure hikaru doesn't want his structure damaged and plays b3 now knight
to d4 rook f1 they giving away the pawn on f5 but playing bishop g bishop g5 and here magnus just
says i'm not going to hang around much more take my rook and the players simplified into an endgame
i know sometimes you guys say i go too fast but nothing really happened there uh magnus sacrificed
back the exchange and he car offers a trade and a few more moves played pawns were traded but the
nature of this end game is a draw because of the opposite colored bishops you have opposite-colored
bishops these pawns will never make it through as they're blockaded this will never make it through
four on four and game one is a draw and so we move to game two now we have magnus carlsen
with the white pieces and i wonder what magnus is going to play magnus plays into the queen's gambit
and anticipating i would likely think uh excuse me bishop b7 which shikaru has played a lot of in the
magnus magnus tour but hikaru please d takes c4 the vienna system not to be confused with
the other vienna system which can be played e4 e5 knight c3 and here magnus plays the aggressive e4
normally in this position black plays bishop b4 and tries to win back this pawn uh or
not win back rather just win it but he he plays b5 which has been played a lot it has been played
a lot uh there are a lot of theoretical games and the players got out to a mainline position
you uh the whole point being that you can't take because i would take this so you attack then you
take and this knight rotates to b6 you cover this pawn and you try to protect the bishop
stop the bishop i should say from developing now here magnus plays a3 in this position in about 100
games in my database this is played 95 of the time magnus carlsen plays a novelty and i'm assuming
that this was not some sort of home preparation i actually think that he his goal was just to get
hikaru out of his comfort zone so knight c6 bishop e3 knight a5 trying to defend this and bring this
here between c2 a6 knight comes back in bishop e7 he carriage is looking to develop his pieces rook
d1 bishop b7 just looking to develop his pieces and even the move queen d7 is just trying to
develop his pieces he's not sure which way he's going to castle yet and magnus carlsen plays h4
when in doubt you can always trust that a super grand master will play the move h4
and that's what magnus does bishop bishop is a c6 and rook up so now the combined ideas of marching
the h pawn forward uh and then also playing rook g3 to hit g7 uh this this is how super gm's and
also how computers are playing nowadays and hikaru plays rook b8 he understands that there's going
to be some counter play to be had on this side of the board while magnus tries to storm his king we
get rook g3 and now a counter shot danger levels ikaro notices this is hanging but plays bishop a4
magnus takes and hikaro offers a queen trade we saw this in the first game as well a trade
of queens to try to kill the initiative if you take this queen then i take and this knight and
this rook will both open up on b2 and that's not what you want so magnus tries to play it this way
and reinforce knight b3 and he gives away the rook rook takes you yes not the rook not the full
rook but he gives away the rook for the knight in this in this fashion now icaru has extra material
but his king safety is very dire stuck in the center this rook is out of the game so he plays
a very aggressive approach c3 magnus must react he cannot take with the pawn why because that
would create a weakness on a3 and also when the knight moves the rook has an open file
so queen takes c3 knight d5 hits the queen and the bishop and trades because that bishop is an
extremely powerful attacking piece and king f8 trying to kick the rook away brook drops back
and now kikaro is on the counter attack using the side of the board where he is stronger it
is the end game it's it's nearing the end game so pawns are important we get queen takes c7
queen b2 uh king goes to f2 and the queen tries to stabilize now the post-mortem of this game
saw an absolutely astounding move here you could play the move d5 and the idea of that
move is that if black takes you sacrifice another pawn with e6 and line up the rook with the king
and hear the super computer ceci was showing that magnus was winning some of you might have done
your own analysis uh but in the game he already had about two minutes and so he just played
king f2 removing his king from the back row and stabilizing the bishop and the pawn ikaro played
queen b7 because again it's the most powerful attacking piece try to trade it no queen trade
and now he tries to trade the rook agnes does not want to rook trade so hikaru plays c6 now the rook
is going to come down and it's not clear who is attacking who so we get queen d2 h6 queen d3
rogue g7 h6 was played to prevent the knight from coming and ruchi 7 was played to prevent the queen
from coming so defensive queen takes a6 and magnus opts for a trade of queens saying that you cannot
beat me because most of the game is going to be played in this rectangle i know that the rook
and bishop are out here but they are pressuring this side and so with everything here he assumed
that it would be stable so he just played g4 and hikaru started creating winning chances bishop e7
rookie iv rook g8 and all of a sudden the king's coming rook is out rook is down and the rook bros
together here they come so magnus gets a little bit angsty and starts to trade some pieces
forgetting that that activates the rook in the other direction rook h8 and all of a sudden the
house of cards collapses because after king f3 rook h3 you do not take the bishop because you
would lose your rook but instead you lose this pawn and after you lose that pawn you lose the
next pawn and once you lose that pawn you will also lose the next pawn and for anybody confused
why magnus played this move it was because hikaru was just going to bring the rook around
that's all he was just going to win the pawn in that way the way you win this
with black is you really should try to keep your rooks on the board as long as possible
unless you make it into a rook and pawn versus one bishop not bishop and pawn you want to try
to win upon rather than trade all the pawns and well a few moves later hikaru brought
his king out of the corner and traded the rooks simplifying and magnus pushed the pawn to the end
and resigned the game and hikaru took a one and a half to half lead going into game three hikaru
now has the white pieces so let's see what happens another night or sicilian just like the first game
very similar position except here icaru pops the knight out to a5 immediately knight a5 knight d7
uh magnus giving this pawn because if you do there's counter play to be hot on the queen
side a4 knight takes b7 and queen takes b2 with rook c1 rook c8 but now we see the whole point
of putting the knight in the pawn like this is you get your knight to a gorgeous square and c4
a very difficult decision here for magnus this is his only active piece if he trades it he goes here
then we will trade off this bishop and then we will put the rook on the open file this night a
beauty a chef's kiss of a knight and so magnus does not want a trade but from here on out it
was all hikaru short castle and g4 attacking on the same side of the board because the queen is
out of the game it has no way back and so after this shooting down to g5 and a5
g5 a5 boxing in the bishop on both diagonals this bishop stuck rook c8 bishop d3 trying to
once again trade off the only active piece that exists knight f8 and this is just a very nice
move again looking for something like this but then magnus started creating counterplay with
the few pieces that he had left on the board queen h3 bishop h5 and here hikaru blundered
he played bishop b6 looking to trade the bishop and take with the rook or the pawn and forgot
that this does not trap the queen because here magnus has bishop g6 and all of a sudden he's
getting counter play he's getting counter play but here a beautiful move bishop e3 and if you take i
drop in with my knight to the fork this forces magnus to retreat rook c1 and again if you take
i take and i bring in my rook and i crush you so magnus played e4 missing rook b3
the rook is no longer in danger and if you take that's it but then pandemonium happened here
the supercomputer was showing that if you just shred open the position with c5 rather than uh
or or block it up with f4 you're still winning but hikaru traded and then magnus got some counter
play magnus played knight f3 and won the pawn played knight g4 check and traded off the only
piece remaining that stops the spawn from coming forward and that's how he got his counter play
yes hikaru does have a pass pawn but this pawn is faster and so all the pieces slowly got traded
and magnus stabilized the pawn promotes and this is a draw because this pawn is too much
of a distraction for the bishop and well i'm gonna just slowly fast forward here we get this position
but again that pawn serves as a decoy knight f7 will come and you can't take it and the players
surviving was magnus carlsen getting right into this position saving the draw not losing the
match and 2-1 going into the final game and in the final game not much happened really not that much
uh it was in english and it was a four nights english with a very early d5 and here hikaru
played a move in this position with hundreds of games the move queen f6 only ever played two times
you know what's interesting about the move queen f6 it was once played by uh ganguly i think uh
surya ganguly against uh none other than hikaru himself so hikaru has actually had this position
with white he won that game in 2018 but i guess he liked it and he took it from magnus's playbook
and the middle game became an opposite colored bishop game with queens and rooks and after f3 f5
there was just no way to make any sort of forward progress uh rookie one rook b8 magnus tried for a
long time to get a position where he was going to have some sort of material edge and hikaru just
gave away the pawn here as you'll see in a few moves we get this position with bishop take c7
now the reason hikaru was so confident that this is a draw is because of the opposite colored
bishops and preserving the structure of the pawns had hikaru lost the a pawn then the past pawn
here would have been a serious problem but because the pawn structure is identical a and c versus a
and c the fact that you're down upon on this side of the board doesn't really mean a whole lot and
so there was some maneuvering magnus jumped in and hikaru created a light squared fortress where all
his pieces cover and very masterful technique honestly very passive but when you need a draw
to win the match this is what you do and then here magnus opened up his king too much that's
literally all that happened he was trying to give away this pawn and opened up hikaru's king but
the counter play that hikaru got with the queen coming to the back rank and the pawn promoting
was a little bit scary but not scary enough this end game that happened on the board has equal
material but because magnus is pushing with three versus one there are very serious winning chances
not to mention that his pawns all promote on the diagonal that the bishop controls which kind of
means that hikaru is sort of playing without these pawns however this pawn is extremely important
so the progress that magnus makes here is very straightforward he brings the king to its most
active square ikaru does not allow the king to get over here because you'll just take so the pawns
get traded now how does black defend this position i can actually flip it for you so that you see it
from black's perspective how do you prevent these pawns from showing up at your doorstep well the
way you got to think about it is the only scary thing to you since you have the light squared
bishop is that this pawn is not going to be the one coming forward because then you'll create a
light squared blockade and this pawn will never come forward so you're you're looking out for when
this is going to come here and in a perfect world you sacrifice the bishop for both pawns so how do
you make sure that happens because white is going to try to bring the king right there and promote
so basically hikaru hung around with his bishop and any time the king is going to try to get over
here you're going to cut the king off and if the king goes to e4 you will check and win the pawn if
the king goes to f5 you will check and threaten to win the win the pawn so since you cannot go
to those two squares you need to try to go around like this well watch that's exactly what happens
right and now in this position even again this pawn not not not the biggest deal in the world
okay so the king is going to a three and when the king is going to a3 you want to play bishop e4
to force this pawn to go forward to get your light squad blockade but if you play bishop e4
then there is going to be f7 check so bishop b4 f7 you have to go here and then i go here and i kick
your king out and i promote and i win but what if this bishop doesn't have access to this diagonal
ah well in this position or as it happened a few moves later we promote the queen
and now when the bishop takes we do this and there is no bishop to go here and there is no
check to go here right so once f7 is out of the question and this bishop is off of this diagonal
it is simply a draw now you can do it with the king on f8 or the king on g8
had you promoted in this position it's still a draw so it would have been something like takes
bishop f5 f7 and king f8 and this is still a draw because the bishop cannot kick you out from
the f8 square either one was good and ultimately hikaru sealed the draw with his passive defense
uh but very very very strong defense and the motto of the story of the first day was that
hikora was up on time a lot in the opening he played into magnus as night or he was
really unafraid and he was pressing in a lot of the games and we were saying with anna rudolf
during the live commentary uh that it seemed to be impressive because magnus usually is the
guy that's pressing from the opening and hitting his opponents with surprises but after four days
in the uh four games in the book on day one well ikaro has a one-nothing lead in the best of seven
you guys as always if you've made it this far let me know your thoughts in the comments below what
do you think is going to be the final score uh and well i will be making daily recap videos of these
games hope you're enjoying check out a few of my other videos and i will catch you in the next one