i recently was on semi reina stream along with eric rosen where i lost to him in some competitive
chess variants and so have to make this video about the best chess game he has ever played
and so i'm going to do just that and tell you about how great eric rosen is but before we do
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anyway let's jump into the greatest chess game that eric rosen has ever played
this was a game against the world chess champion magnus carlson yes the world chess champion magnus
carlson this was a chess 960 game and what that means is uh the back row of pieces is shuffled
it is identical but it is shuffled and there is 960 ways to do this because the bishops have to
be on opposite color and the king wherever it ends up needs to be between the rooks now why is that
because you have to have flexibility of which side of the board you're going to castle on okay so you
will learn about the castling rule basically you know you've got to end up on these two squares
if you're going to castle king side and you've got to end up on these two squares with the king
and the rook on this side of the board but let's let's let's just skip the rules for a second let's
jump into the game it's two minutes per player with a one second bonus so no dirty flagging
eric begins the game with d4 magnus carlsen goes for some sort of f5 maybe he's gonna play
knight f6 and knight to g6 knight have 3 knight to f6 and bishop f4 eric rosen
has a fetish my friends eric rosen has a fetish and it is the london system even here
now here it's not very good because magnus can immediately play the move knight to g6
hitting this bishop and if you try to run the bishop back to g3 i will play the pawn
to f4 and i will try to trap your bishop cervix says all right magnus you're the world champion
but i don't even care if i give you the bishop pair he trades off his dark scored bishop
doubling his pawns in the process but he does open up his rook his rook now sees the entire board
let's see what magnus does b6 knight to g3 pawn to e6 protecting the pawn and eric plays a4
a4 is a really interesting move so this is kind of an admission of the fact that you're not going
to castle queenside and to castle queen side he would have had to move his bishop king comes here
and the rook would jump right there giving you a queen side kind of castle of the king he doesn't
do that instead he's going directly for this pawn trying to just instigate on that side of the board
he might have anticipated that magnus wants bishop to b7 and that will allow you to go and
target that bishop magnus plays a5 now eric puts his knight on e5 this is a really interesting move
as well because if magnus just plays something like d6 d6 is no good in my opinion uh because
what it does is it grants you the access to c6 with the knight and for that reason magnus plays
bishop b7 now he's ready to play the move d6 but eric correctly plays bishop f3 it's a good move
and what it does is it makes magnus trade his good bishop that was
you know that bishop was going to stand on b7 with long-range activity and now he's left magnus
with a bishop that it doesn't really strike a good impression and what eric is going to do
is replace all his pawns on dark squares to negate the effect of the only bishop on the board
okay so c6 but when you push c6 you do weaken your pawns a little bit now eric puts the knight
back to e5 bishop c7 and queen d3 playing very magnesian style chess against magnus
carlsen himself so we get queen to d6 from magnus you see that you see how we did that
so the king and the rook on that side go over there if he had wanted to castle queen side
he would have played like this the king would have ended up there and the rook would have
ended up there okay boom and magnus does the very same now here eric in my opinion has a
tiny bit tiny bit better position he's a little bit better and he's a little bit better because
his knight is very strong and frankly speaking magnus's pawn structure isn't that good and his
bishop isn't great either there's a little little advantage if i'm looking at this position i'm like
okay well how do i make progress with my pawns you're not going to make progress with your pieces
in positions that have eight pawns per side it means the position is a lot more closed
so you've got to look at the correct trades to open up advantageously
you're going to see that in a second magnus plays rook b8 and b5 so literally magnus says okay
now i'm going to take with the rook creating an imbalance magnus could have just taken with
the pawn which would have created an imbalance in and of itself you know leaving two pawns together
maybe expanding on the side of the board but he plays with the rook because he likes the open file
he likes that weakness makes eric back up now he brings the second rook now here um eric just plays
i mean i would never play this move i'm not saying it's bad it's just not my style uh i would have
definitely played something like rook a2 which you know defends the pawn laterally maintains pressure
here eric plays the best move actually the best move here is to play the move knight back to d3
because long term defending this pawn like this and allowing this knight to come to c5 instead
of e5 is actually even better magnus says okay there's nothing on that side i'm gonna back my
queen up to f8 now this bishop has vision of this pawn and again eric plays the best move literally
you plug this computer you plug this position into a computer eric finds the best move knight f1 it's
the best move why is it the best move position is closed so if you can't find an advantageous
exchange you have to improve the position to its maximum capacity so eric realizes this knight's
not doing a damn thing on g3 it's got vision on three useless squares so now he transfers it
to the other side of the board where it will be more useful literally the next three moves look at
what magnus is doing though magnus realizing that a piece has departed the protection of the king
launches a same-side kingside attack eric now does not have a single piece
like knight or rook defending his king it's just pawns and magnus correctly
realizes that if he opens this bishop he's gonna have some serious attacking chances
and eric correctly sacrifices upon notice that eric doesn't take
if eric had taken this would be very ugly the queen comes the king comes up the rook comes
behind the queen it's not losing for white in fact it's literally zero zero zero but
you don't want to play this position against the world champion so he plays knight c4 gf4 knight
e5 queen g7 and king to h1 so magnus is lining up here eric has completed the night's journey
now potentially the most impressive thing about this game is that from about this point forward
eric rosen had less than 10 seconds on the clock remember he gets one second at it every
time he makes a move magnus had 35 seconds at this point eric has 10 seconds on the clock
versus arguably the greatest player of all time in magnus carls i know the title is misleading but
bear with me anyway king h7 magnus continues with his plan eric plays rook b1 now again i don't like
that move i i i would have preferred rook a2 i feel like when you play move like rook a b-1 i
mean it's just too solid like your rook is just unhappy you know rook a2 at least you maintain
some vision of the pun but eric is still in the game this game is on magnus to win you know eric
can play nice and solid moves magnus takes on e5 it's a big decision okay obviously eric takes back
with the knight although it was actually better to take with the pawn uh because then you kind of
like lock the pawn into the center hits the knight makes it move and this structure becomes very
difficult to mobilize this one pawn like you know obviously there is the end peasant
rule that pawn controls three pawns so he takes with the knight um and knight takes e5 rook g8
at this point eric plays not not this move but the next move he plays his most professional move of
the game f3 why is that move so good it stops the black pawns it glues the position shut and
now you just have to do battle with these three pieces because the only way really to destroy
a king protected like this is by sacrificing pawns just throwing pawns forward but now that
you froze the pawns the only way to do it would be to sacrifice pieces to open the position now
magnus carlsen can do that in a way and by the way that's not checkmate because the queen protects
for example if magnus plays knight g3 check that looks like mate it's not because you can take
and now for example if like queen takes g3 that's checkmate the problem is the rook just moves and
all you get is a check and and i'm safe i mean it it doesn't look very pleasant but i'm safe
i just move my rook i give the king some breathing room but that is constantly what eric has to
monitor here with less than five seconds on the clock okay so he forces the knight back now here
the computer is a is a real is a real gangster the computer says you know it's it's like that meme
you guys know that chess meme the old man reaching into the the you know the car and he's like
somebody call an ambulance but not for me that that is what this position is here there's an
amazing move by white g4 lashing out the queen is pinning the pawn to the king so the pawn cannot
take and if you i mean i'm threatening to take you because i will open up an attack on your queen if
you unposant me here now my rook gets into the game and it's not so clear who is attacking who
let's make this very clear it's really not obvious because black's rook on b5 is so out of the game
you can now start creating your own attack look with five seconds on the clock i'm not
faulting eric but this is the cool thing about analyzing chess games these things are possible
eric plays queen f2 very solid at this point the onus is on magnus his time is ticking down also
he needs to find a way to win knight h5 very creative idea to go here eric plays rookie one
rook b7 by magnus he drops the rook back to defend this pawn so he can bring the queen forward very
logical look at brilliant coordination of his pieces that's exactly what happens with queen g5
and eric again just shuffling he's just waiting for his moment magnus plays rook g7 now the idea
of this move is to bring this guy and get triple reinforcement on this file eric plays back to e5
and rook b8 rook a1 he goes for this pawn and here there is the fatal blow there is the fatal blow
that could have been delivered knight g3 check so of course if you don't take if you just play
king ju1 then i take your rook and you will lose this game because i now triple stack and etc etc
but look at this incredible look at this if takes takes right so the queen's under
attack obviously you go here because you want to trade the queen so here now black plays
f4 the queen has to protect g1 because if the queen goes here for example check here check hear
mate king is blocked in by his own pieces that is why the queen needs to maintain control of g1
so it can slide back and protect the king at the right moment but you can't do that because if you
go to g1 i mate you so okay we give a check to the black king okay the black king moves
white has a free move here and cannot stop the checkmating attack look even if you play something
like knight to g4 with the intention of going here here and protecting this i just sacrificed my rook
you can check me again you can have both of my rooks hanging but because you cannot protect
against this attack you lose you simply lose the game rook d2 queen h2 here here here here here and
i just hunt your king down you know like this this is the best position that you can get and
here magnus carlsen is up four pawns here can you save you're down four pounds though you're gonna
lose okay so knight g3 again with with multiple was like four or five seconds on the clock
magnus misses it he misses this idea and that gives eric all the breathing room that he needs
suddenly he takes on a five and he's back in the game now this doesn't work
because for example if you get all the way down here there is the amazing resource knight f7 check
say levy what's up the rook the rook it's a discovered attack on the queen the rook
from the other side of the board comes in you're saved it's incredible you're saved and look
if instead you play queen h4 check kings you won and then you play this then check king back and
rook comes back to e1 and now you can run away that's the difference that's the difference is
that now you can run away when this rook was on b8 and not on g8 it would come in and take the pawn
when your king made it here but the difference is that since magnus now moved his rook to g8
from up from a couple moves ago right like for example when he played rook to g8 that's the
difference is that he his rook needed to maintain vision of the pawn for this whole attack to work
since he didn't now all of a sudden it's eric it's eric pushing eric's equal material rook a7 good
move and magnus blunders d6 take the rook take the takes back knight takes pawn eric misses it
playing a little bit too calm but he doesn't need a second chance eric plays knight b4
e5 from magnus eric takes on c6 free pawn magnus just going all in take take take here i thought
d5 worked because you attacked the rook and you attacked the knight but then we would have gotten
check and he is able to escape in the game we got queen to g6 hoping the rook moves and hoping for
back rank rook e2 back and queen b1 block and back and now eric could have won the game with a fork
but very nervously gives another check forces the king back and comes back once again listen
with two seconds on the clock i would also be panicking against magnus carlsen yeah and magnus
just he breaks he he just goes in all he just goes all in eric takes calls the bluff stops the only
check that magnus has magnus comes forward looking for another check eric anticipates it queen comes
rook to e4 queen check and the king is safe almost like the the beth harmon final scene
hope i didn't just spoil the queen's gambit queen b1 queen f6 now here if you'd like to
improve on mr eric rosen's play you can find the checkmate in three you can pause if you'd like
i'm gonna wait just jazz hands for a second the checkmate in three here is queen check if rook
block this is mate and so is this so check uh sorry that's not a check king escapes the check
check here and this is checkmate but eric rosen sees the maiden three but says i'm gonna drag it
out a little bit longer i'm gonna play rook to e7 you know savor the moment of beating magnus
carlsen queen takes b2 check and here magnus could have continued the checks like this
and the king would have ran to safety it would have been crazy but magnus uh went for a bullet
trick you guys can try to do this by the way queen f1 check it's a horrible move because
it blunders the queen but in low time situations a person might be so focused on just moving the king
that they see a check and then they just move it now if you lose your queen which is what happened
in the game and magnus resigned you you were gonna lose anyway right but this is a bullet trick it's
not the most ethical but magnus goes for it i mean any bullet player i'm recommending that you play
you know things like this um and eric actually saw that in his live stream played like this
uh and won magnus carlsen resigned eric rosen's head-to-head score lifetime against magnus carlsen
is two wins and one loss there's another win against him not on this account not on dr uh
uh neither scene but on um on another one when magnus played anonymously on man with a van
uh that was that was another account so so eric has this uh has this head-to-head advantage over
magnus carlsen arguably making him the greatest of all time although i don't believe they've
played in like a year and a half uh unless they have and i don't know about it anyway my friends
that concludes my analysis of why eric rosen is the greatest player of all time
and uh i look forward to competing with him on semi stream in the future i look forward
to playing him head to head in our in our blitz matches and i hope you enjoyed the
video and also make sure to uh check these guys out if you'd like i'll see you in the next one