Hi all! Let's look at another amazing game from the Grand Chess Tour in Paris the
rapid section of the event magnus carlsen was playing white against Étienne
Bacrot so one the top French players e4 e5 from Bacrot Nf3 Knight
c6 we have Giuoco Piano territory. White castles Nf6 looks pretty standard so
far. c3 a6 giving the bishop a retreat square a4 to stop any b5 later
black castles.Rook e1. h6 stopping with what could be an annoying pin and so
does white mirrors that Bishop e6 from Bacrot so sometimes black wants to
just play with that F file and in fact Magnus encouraged it why would he do
this Bxa6 - maybe a lot of Club
players would steer away from this move because it potentially generates some
counter place black along that F file. we've already got this bishop already
menacingly on f2 so why would White be interested in doing this?! we can see a
few things though that might be pros for white in doing this - the doubled pawns
clearly but how to actually exploit those doubled pawns?! maybe actually first
white would want to undouble them and then weaken e5 then we'd have this pawn
island an island of two there so you can see we could have three pawn Islands
there if white plays - to undouble the pawns later but otherwise it looks pretty
scary and you'd have to sort of make sure you can neutralize the f-file pressure
here so let's see how the game evolves ... b4 Ba7 Nbd2 Ne7
and this Knight looks to be heading for that key attacking square as well so it
looks very logical Knight f1 Ng6 Ra2 and this is the first sign
that white is kind of creating a defensive posture but I think while he's
doing this he wants to inflict fundamentally further structural damage
on black but he has to neutralized the dynamic player of black and it does
seem to be coordinated pressure here and pretty scary but here Bishop e3 the
knight is also well-equipped to neutralize this bishop
so the sting is kind of being taken out gradually of blacks pressure as long as
there is no Nxh3 - the rook is supporting f3 now
so d4 finally it seems paradoxical to want to undoubled the pawns but it's trying to
create I think in my view a more exploitable type of weakness so actually
by .. well in fact if black doesn't take yeah then there's still doubled pawns after
d takes potentially but black has the option of either taking or allowing
d5 and this becomes even more subtle actually if it's not about the
structural change I mentioned about then what what is it actually about ?! and we
see after Queen f6 the move King h2 is played and in fact black doesn't hang
about here for the possibility of d takes it seems he does actually play e
takes so he's undoubling the pawns. It seems as though blacks getting all he
wants he's not only got this kind of F file Semi-open F file to play with and the
outpost square - hes undoubling his pawns so what is the method in White's
apparent slight madness here after C takes ?! well white does a more
aggressive set of pawns here - these two pawns are more aggressive than blacks
right now and in fact there is something very specific about this position
revealed here. First of all if black does d5 then e5 might be good and that's
a nice kind of bind potentially but also maybe even e-takes. Let's have a quick
look at d5 just just to be sure from a more technical respective yeah
I would of thought e5 looks quite nice to play e5 here and technically yeah it
seems an advantage here so if d5 is out of the question we have then e5 and
you might feel this this is the kind of thing where why would White allow this?! Isn't
he passive but the thing is now after d5 that the knight is actually stranded on
f4 - near stranded it's only got h5 this knight with the space advantage does two
things: first of all tactically that knight is a bit more vulnerable and
second of all if you look at what's happened on the C file here now there is
a target on c7 so yeah by black you know taking he's actually unveiled the C file
pressure so that's interesting black tries to sort of get rid of the target now on
that C file immediately but then we're left with this issue and in fact Magnus
taps into that with g3 and it's interesting here that this knight is kind
of stranded because if the knight goes back then there's Ne1 here which
is playable because the rooks holding f2 the Queen's on h5 and how does black
hold the knight?! You might say Queen g5 yes d-takes and Queen takes though yeah
that's at a cost and look at these pawns yeah - White is just better here just to
show example so that there are some issues to handle - this knight is kind of a
little bit stranded it's funny because you wouldn't really think of playing
this way with Bishop takes e6 so that's why I find the whole game kind of
fascinating that an issue is actually made of the knight on f4 in these
variations at least. Black did something incredibly radical here actually he
just sacked the light on its square with with C takes d5
so we have here a very exciting continuation. Now d4 - these pawns
look a bit menacing has black really got enough?! this looks like a key defensive
move though so both the second and the third ranks
are more solid in a way with these rooks kind of defending them but also
now after Ne1 there's the possibility of rook to g3 swinging in for some
attacking potential but in fact now after d5
yeah blacks trying to liberate his pawn Center to get them really aggressive but
we have the g3 square is actually used by the knight here
okay rook a-c2 and the other knight joins it so we've got two knights joining
each other here and two rooks joining each other here it's in a way yeah it's
aesthetically amusing position if you look at this - it's strange and blacks trying
to liberate his center and both his rooks are actually quite aggressive in
fact all of blacks pieces are quite aggressive here but he is a piece down
so King h8 Queen g4 and now further aggression in the center - d3 but are
these pawns slightly vulnerable?! We have Knight takes f4 e-takes - now
Knight h5 Queen g5 black is content to be playing a piece down here but in this
position white is grabbing that pawn D takes now perhaps the most
scientifically correct move is Rd7 so this might not be as smooth as Maurice
Ashley might have said to Magnus Carlsen based on this game.Rd6
might not be as accurate as Rd7 I'll give you an example Rd7 yeah
it's going for g7. If Queen takes here g6 Ng7 yeah you'd have to factor in this
idea is it's looking a little bit computer-generated now because it's it's
some weird moves you can have difficulty finding in blitz but white can end up
being much better for sure so yeah maybe from a scientific perspective rook d7 is
the way to go here but we have Magnus playing Rd6 which is great as well
actually Queen takes because the rook is simply going behind that pawn.The Tarrasch Rule
is kind of invoked - that pawn is kind of loose here. Black last chance
reallyto put up resistance maybe was Rc4 and here this continuation is
still a a clear advantage for white though - he is a piece up so yeah- Magnus's continuation
is fairly clear and logical really so we have Rcf8 Rd2 and now the
rooks actually prevent now with the doubling they prevent actually any g5
from black later so we have e3 and also support Knight f6 of course here
so if black plays g6 with Knight f6 as well to consider we have F takes f3
and a point here now Knight f4 blunting the pawn to the King can handle this
pawn and any g5 is punished by rook takes h6 then so in other words this pawn is
about to go and black resigned here. I will give you an example continuation : f2 King
G2 and say black tries to support the pawn - then we have the punishment rook
takes h6 rook hg6 and rook takes g5 simply
eliminating those two as well and the pawn is doomed or blockaded here with King
f1 if rook takes yeah we can just do anything here - we can just blockade
so yeah the game ended on Nf4. It seems you know to me that Magnus
had control of the game - there wasn't too many issues - he was always a
little bit better in this game and played very logically - that's really you
know in rapid chess - yeah what does one they expect?! So I hope you enjoyed this
got something out of it. I found it slightly fascinating allowing the f-file
counterplay so if I thought I would go over this particular game there are some really
subtle downsides being picked on - you know allowing Black's
potentially aggressive knight that the knight itself could you know - that duality
it could actually be a tactical liability - but also this c-file.
There's some subtle stuff going on. It's not as clear-cut as black just having a
fantastic fun game as it seems. Comments, questions, likes, shares appreciated
Thanks very much