today we're going to be taking a look at all the games in the fourth mini match between
magnus carlson and dingley ren to see who would qualify to join hikaru nakamura in the finals of
the magnus carlson chess tour a lot of you have been requesting and i do read your comments that
i could start games from the very beginning rather than jumping in to a random position
and that's what we're going to try today and then you'll let me know in the comments below if you
think it goes too long or if you like the new format so in the first game of the mini match
magnus carlsen started out with d4 and we have a semi-slot position very very popular opening very
solid not something i recommend for beginners because the lack of space can sometimes be very
difficult for black to navigate like normally i would recommend a reverse london uh or a queen's
gambit either decline variation with bishop e7 bishop b4 ragozan just to be a little bit more
active but nonetheless uh it's a very aggressive system where black sacrifices excuse me white
sacrifices upon on c4 to take full control of the center and basically just try to poke holes in
black's position with moves like a4 h4 sometimes e5 here magnus plays bishop e2 and the move which
is played over 4 000 times bishop b7 uh dingley ren doesn't play instead he plays b4 knight a4
and knight takes e4 getting a second pawn but obviously completely negating his development so
uh all the pieces on the back rank absolutely no progress to be made by any of them and if he does
excuse me if he does make a trade night for bishop he's not going to have any more active pieces
so ikaru actually he had joined the comments area with myself as well as my good friend alex
ostrovsky hikaru predicted that dingley wren is only playing this because he had already prepared
it he musta for something really important like the candidates because it's too dangerous of a
position to enter otherwise so bishop b5 knight back to f6 and now knight c5 and here dingley ren
kind of transforms the position uh into this and plays bishop g7 and is ready to castle
and here magnus decides not to take the pawn on c3 uh opting instead to delay his opponent's castling
by playing the move queen a3 at this point dingley ran had 16 minutes on the clock which means that
he had gained a full minute of time from the original 15 and he was very well prepared but
uh now he started spending a lot of time and not really figuring out the best way to handle the
position so ding sacrifices back the c5 pawn and the c3 pawn in order to stabilize the position
potentially put his bishop on c6 but now he's up no pawns his his king side is overextended
and magnus plays a very very nice idea in a couple of moves after uh uh transferring the knight from
e1 to c2 maybe out to d4 here magnus plays a a a very refined idea and he's already maximized
the bishop in the knight and the rook and the queen uh pawn break for magnus super instructive
f3 because normally you don't want to play this move if you're subscribed to the school of thought
of a grandmaster we might all know ben feingold you're never going to play the move f3 because
he told you not to do it but actually in this position f3 is the best move because if you take
i'm actually going to throw in this capture so that the bishop stops guarding the pawn
and okay you can check me but i take you cannot take because i will take your queen
knight takes and rook here and white is completely winning why is white completely
winning because you don't have any defense for the king i'm going to bring my second rook
bring this rook here maybe drop my bishop back to cover this diagonal and let's not forget that
my queen can also join the party so look for pawn breaks especially if you have peace superiority on
one side of the board and here another instructive move from dingle ren g3 now it looks like a mouse
slip but it's actually designed to give back the pawn but not open this side of the board material
matters less in this position than activating white's pieces rook d8 a quick trade in queen e3
centralizing the queen knight d4 and now another excellent pawn break to open up the position
move g4 fantastic move and after rook c8 g5 queen f5 it's a very nice little tactical motif looks
like this knight is simply lost but after rook d4 queen c5 there's two things in danger now here
you can consolidate like this but then uh if if i play rook fd1
it looks like you're out of the woods but then all of a sudden e5 comes out of nowhere
and there's no way for you to defend everything i mean if you drop the rook back i take the queen
you take and i take this guy and then i probably take this guy unless you find the move bishop
f1 but at that point i'm not really trusting that you're gonna find anything and even if you do find
bishop f1 the second rook comes and you're just gonna lose uh so here magnus has to find a very
nice counter shot bishop takes e6 and now black can't just take the rook because after the trade
uh i'm going to win your rook and i'm going to be up a piece ding found the nice move rook c6
and after rookie 4 a simplification happens and magnus transfer his rook to the outpost on e5 to
defend the g5 pawn block e6 and always have access like this magnus won this pretty effortlessly he
brought up all his pieces pawns king and didn't play the move h4 but it simply doesn't work you
take it g6 rook d8 and now you use the boxing out of the king to force this king to the e file and
king g5 e5 and g7 and the king the pawn and this rook coming down are way too advanced if rook g8
just king king rook fate etc black does not have enough counter play and magnus carlsen struck
first in the second game well magnus carlson had the black pieces and uh well what do you
do when you're up 2-1 in a mini match and you're up 1-0 correct you play the king's indian defense
no you really shouldn't be playing the king's indian defense because at this level the super
gm level we know that white gets pretty good winning chances agnes plays a very uh flexible
setup but a sub-par setup dingley wren plays very very actively he plays a3 and b4 or i guess always
creating the threat of a3 uh trying to not allow something to go to c5 magnus plays the
thematic move f5 but ding takes and plays queen c2 and and with the knight out flanking on h4
hitting these squares not allowing this knight to get here not allowing the queen any access white
is just crushing here knight f6 now he plays b4 again playing on both sides of the board and finds
a very thematic king's indian breakthrough if you're looking how to shatter the king's indian c5
uh this breaks the structure because if all this happens you're gonna take on e5 at the end of it
just to show you what that looks like there's certain tactics with this bishop but it just
doesn't matter this is not what a king's indian player wants a king's indian player
only wants one thing you know they only want one thing that's to attack the king
uh and so after c5 well magnus unfortunately had to allow this c6 and now the thumbnail of
the entire video arrives remember that really good pawn break last game the same pawn break
that exists in this position f3 you activate all of white's pieces which is one of the reasons you
can never say something like never play f3 it's good good rule for beginners but for intermediate
players they do have to look for pawn breaks f3 played and now pandemonium breaks loose on
the board it looks like black is going to win material but let me tell you something about
this rook on b1 this rook is damn brave because that rook survives on b1 for the next 10 moves
bishop takes h6 a thunderbolt move bishop takes h6 and you cannot take that bishop back for free
because i'm going to play queen takes knight and i'm going to be threading all sorts of
nasty stuff on these diagonals the magnus plays queen f6 and now dingley wren finds a glorious
combination i can pause here and think if you'd like i'm gonna give you five seconds four seconds
three two and one and before everybody starts accusing me of copying a god mature just know
that uh he's awesome and uh we're friends we've actually played four player chess just
thought i'd throw that nugget of information in there so hopefully that's not going to be one
of these stupid comments that gets pinned this video bishop h7 check king h8 and now
the only move that wins you need to enable the move knight g6 you can't because the bishop is
there so just take it one of those rare cases where you literally get rid of your problems by
bulldozing them you have a house that needs to be demolished you can play rook takes bishop how does
that move make sense well now you play knight g6 and you're like yeah but levy what about this king
could just take the bishop i know and for a moment magnus has a four point advantage double check the
most forcing move in the game knight fa check king takes and magnus carlsen i think voluntarily here
for the beauty of the game walks into checkmate he said in the post-match interview that he missed it
i you know check king g5 and now a beautiful mating sequence queen h4 check
king f5 and checkmate on the board the knight from f8 covers both squares and the kings got no escape
and the match is level at one to one in the third game magnus decided to stabilize it was not much
of an exciting game actually this is one of the games that i'm not gonna feature a lot uh of uh it
was a queenless middle game so pretty boring pawn structure you know very stable uh i'm actually
going to skip a lot of the middle game i'm sorry you can re-watch the game elsewhere it wasn't
particularly exciting uh but it did end up in an end game where dingley wren was the one pushing
he had the knight versus the bishop and and in end games where you have knight versus bishop
you need peace activity and here we actually see a very thematic concept since white has the light
squared bishop white is more dominant on the light squares so if black just makes a dark squared bind
all these pieces are on the dark square of that row then white is going to struggle white can't
get in with the king and this knight in this pawn create a barrier of entry on this side of the
board so very very uh interesting end game that took place but ultimately resulted uh in in this
and this is simply a draw so i think magnus just wanted to stabilize in game three uh and uh you
know relax for a second uh in game four uh dingley ran had the white pieces and was immediately
pressuring magnus played a very early c5 trying to make the game a benoni dc5 queen a5 check
already the game is basically out of theory after this move uh dingley wren sacrifices the c4 pawn
and magnus just doesn't take it he plays queen a5 uh if you're a beginner watching and you see the
world champion playing like this don't play like this right when you know all the rules you know
how to break all the rules and a very weird middle game happened but it kind of became and i'm just
playing through the moves here quickly because they're not extremely important uh the middle game
became like a moroxy bind because think about it black played uh the c pawn right so the c pawn is
gone and white's d-pawn is gone and all white has to do is play e4 and it's kind of like a sicilian
if that doesn't make sense you e4 c5 normally in the open sicilian you trade the d for the c pawn
and so that's why it's good to have information about pawn structures because maybe you don't
know the opening but the pawn structure overlaps opening to opening anyway over the course of the
middle game magnus was under a lot of pressure he had certain weaknesses to deal with but he
simplified and he stabilized and he ended up drawing this game spoiler alert by trading
white's active pieces and cocooning which is a very legitimate defensive strategy look at this
the cocoon queen and rook like this just covering up like you know arasanya ul romero not to bring
a bad memories for mma fans a lot of references in this video uh and then again creating a very
nice defensive fortress bringing the king the knight and the rook another very instructive game
uh because it's playing against the light squared bishop now the situation is flipped
and here it looks like uh this pawn is going to be lost after king d6 but because of rook d1 check
always on the board king has to go back to guard the knight the players just repeated and we go to
a blitz first game of the blitz magnus with the white pieces busts out the london which is weird
considering the armageddon did not go so well for him but it is what it is uh and then as early as
move eight we already have some sort of theory very very aggressive line ding loren goes for
bishop g7 uh it's theory that's almost never been played so very cool to see the super gm's kind of
paving the path of london theory did play a match recently against eric rosen uh in london so we
will be taking notes and around here like around move 17 magnus carlson sacrificed an exchange he
did not blunder in exchange he actually sacrificed an exchange uh and he did that because his knights
provide a a really really powerful blockade and black's got very passive pieces but
ding consolidated beautifully he found a way to activate his rook he found a way to activate his
bishop and his king and then he tried to trade off magnus carlson's rook he was successful in
doing so because now magnus only has two knights you're never going to beat a guy with just two
knights like this uh just because two knights are powerful but rook and bishop are more powerful
but magnus did find a way to bring all those pawns forward but yeah once uh you know the initiative
ran out the players were low on time they just repeated which i guess is what happens at super
gm level you play an opening that doesn't really win by force like the london system
it takes us to the final game of the blitz where dingley ren had the white pieces
and the game began with again something relatively boring and straightforward which is a catalan
and if anybody wants to know about the catalan actually recently made a video on the catalan
system this kind of system with white d4 c4 and then the king side fiance but relatively
straightforward relatively boring system and i'm actually going to jump as far as move 25.
again you might not like it but i cannot take you move my move through the entire game i don't
want to make this video 30 minutes for no reason instead we'll just do 15. so magnus played queen
b7 here which is simply a blunder i'm going to give you five seconds to pause it and think about
it so that you know i don't spoil your answer nobody goes levy you're going too fast you need
to slow down i do read your comments so i try to implement your criticism and feedback except those
of you that just insult me those comments are just pin the bishop takes a5 is the move because if
knight takes a5 oh that wasn't the most played in the game but if knight takes a5 now white jumps in
with rook c7 destroying everything winning back the bishop and the past apon will be decisive
so bishop g5 played bishop b6 bishop c1 bishop c5 rook shuffles a trade and a capture on c1 and
at this point if you plug it into the engine and saying that white is completely winning
dingley ren looked like he was going to win the game win the second blitz game win the match
and make it a bet and make it a a five-round endeavor and then here ding blundered horribly
by playing the move knight c3 excuse me not not here all that suspense here ting blundered
horribly pause take two hear ding blunder horribly thinking that he was going to escape with this
king out to h2 and blundering a gorgeous geometric motif again you can pause it here
okay i'm going to show you the move queen a8 and there is no way to stop rook a1 look at how big
the board is this is the biggest triangle tactic on the entire board it's the fact that you cannot
prevent rook a1 and you cannot prevent damage on h1 from happening and so here ding had to
scramble essentially had to give away his knight or his bishop he chose to give away his bishop
magnus went back but here ding did have a chance to stabilize i mean if you get an end game that's
knight in three versus rook and three you can draw it it's not the end of the world especially if the
pawns are all on the same side fgh versus fgh black has a pass they pawn it's just
92 rook d8 knight f4 but then disaster struck again for dingley ren and uh even though magnus
lost the battle of game two by checkmate he won the battle of game six by checkmate queen
e4 king h3 too many light squared weaknesses rugby one threatening this and dingley wren
tragically walks into checkmate by playing the move king g4 like to move checkmate in two
pawn f5 check and that well that's actually it because if you play king h4 this is still mate
knight cannot block because of the pin and if you play king h3
that's mate and that's made what ding should have played was queen c8 followed by king g4
and the difference being that here f5 is impossible this is why you should always
look at least to potentially throw in a check because you never know it might actually save you
that's the difference is that the queen from c8 actually covers the f5 square
i'm not saying that i would have found it but what i am saying is that as far as this game goes
maybe that's what he had overlooked it was a move order thing and he had to put his king on g4 and
magnus carlson wins this match and sets up a final the final that we all expected i'm not sure we all
deserved it magnus carlsen versus hikaru nakamura the winner of which will get 140 000 uh the loser
of which will still be guaranteed 80. but this is the matchup that we all want i mean they they
played a playoff in the world blitz championship uh when it comes to rapid and blitz i'm not sure
there is a bigger challenger to magnus carlsen uh than hikaru this is a rivalry we all want
to see and in my opinion uh these two are the biggest global ambassadors of the game of chess
the world champion himself and everything that hikaru is doing uh but i actually don't know who
is third fourth and fifth on that list a lot of you obviously uh those watching from india big
fans of vishyanand he is a generational uh talent and he has pushed the game in in directions you
would not imagine in a country like india but on a global level who may be besides those three
is it kasparov is it is it uh well who is it let me know in the comments below uh give the video
a like if you haven't already maybe share it with a friend and there's a lot of useful links in the
description as always like the discord almost have 5 000 members i keep plugging it because
so many people keep joining as well as some of my openings courses all right take a look at
some of the other videos on the left side that side sorry and i'll see you in the next video