magnus carlsen is considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time
and in this video i'm making the claim that i have found the greatest chess game he has ever
played the setting it's january 2015 we are at the waikanse chess tournament in the netherlands
it's round five and magnus has the white pieces against the armenian lion levon aronian i chose
this game because it shows magnus at the peak form of his career at a time when there are seven
players almost rated 2 800 and he glides through them like butter outclassing them from start to
finish on all the sides of the board we're about to get into this game and right before we do stick
around till the end because i'm going to share an insane fact about this game when it's over
alright here we go d4 from magnus knight f6 from lavon actually kind of standard we saw this when
uh anish geary beat magnus carlson in the other game for the best game get best game series knight
c3 and bishop b4 are ragosan defense very popular for many years now at the top level of chess
so magnus takes on d5 clarifying the situation in the center plays bishop to g5 pins the knight
to the queen one plays h6 targeting the bishop and here white can either back up or take magnus
decides to make this trade and now play the move queen to a4 check what this does is it
attacks the bishop and the king black has to play knight c6 and that move kind of hinders black's
queen side movement like as long as white is now going to be able to develop quickly this knight
is going to have to move at some point otherwise it's going to be kind of difficult to guard this
and this knight will become a target in the future when these pawns slowly make their way
up the board but for now magnus just plays e3 black castles and bishop e2 it's better to put
the bishop here than here because here it guards the knight and if black ever played bishop to g4
he would have been attacking the knight with two different pieces so the bishop is on e2 now
rather than being on d3 you still obviously cannot take this you're looking to castle
levon plays bishop e6 short castle a6 this move is intending this move
and stopping the knight from coming to b5 so we get rook c1 now why does magnus play rook
fc1 well this kind of shows his class uh both of these moves are possible rook a and rook
f but the point is that he understands there's really no danger of the rook leaving the king
and so what he'll do is he will bring his queen back and then use the queen side to expand
and it's better for him to have two rooks rather than than one if this rook stayed on f1
then it wouldn't take part in the queen side advancement so magnus is showing his first kind of
poke i'm gonna expand on the queen side so knight e7 obviously black wants to restructure with c6
and bring this knight over here magnus plays the move a3 this is a very i call them magnesian
wrinkles normally white just goes knight a4 to try to go knight c5 and create play on that side
of the board magnus plays a3 now here the theory move has always been g7 g5 so black basically says
all right man you put your rooks over there so i'm going to start attacking your king
and make you have to worry about the side of the board levon chooses not to do that in this game
opting for just putting a rook in the center and the game goes on magnus plays b4 why is he doing
this well you'll notice that magnus traded off his dark squared bishop look at how many pawns are on
the dark squares i talk about this a lot in a lot of my videos you need to replace the dark
squared complex with pawns right if you've traded off your dark square bishop negating the power
of the bishop on d6 lavon plays knight c8 that move potentially eyes this square actually because
he wants to play knight here and knight to c4 and so now magnus does go indeed for the move knight
a4 focusing on the c5 square oh sorry i drew the wrong arrow there focusing on the c5 square this
is how good magnus is first wave he's pressuring on the queen side b6 understandable move covering
the square for a guy like magnus the move b6 does a few things yes black gets control of this
but at what cost black has weakened the a6 pawn it is no longer protected by a pawn black has also
weakened the c6 square not a single piece in the black position now covers that square all right
magnus's work on the queen side is done he doesn't continue to focus with moves like b5
knight back to b2 what what what is this magnus is routing toward the center
so step one has been to weaken the queen side and now he transfers over
levon says all right i'm down for that i'm not gonna i'm not gonna get this plan all right
i'm gonna come here and fight for the e5 square knight d3 knight g6 now magnus says well now that
i've gotten your knight away from that side of the board whoever said i was done with the c5 square
a4 the knight defends the pawn on b4 and now this pawn can come forward when the knight was here it
wasn't protecting this that would have just been a free pawn yes you can take on c7 because the
bishop guards but magnus is doing this the right way he's prodding for this move a5 so for example
had black play in the game black played a5 himself and stopped it but if black plays you know for
example bishop f5 magnus goes a5 and nothing is good here for black like it's it's still in the
balance but it's really difficult here for levon to make a decision because if he takes magnus
first of all can take with a rook and pressure both these pawns he can also take with the pawn
this is a weakness he's now got a second file and that pawn is still in the line of sight of
the bishop if you just move this knight this rook will forever be glued to defending that pawn that
rook is never going to get into the game but if levon pushes b5 he's completely given this square
away i just plant my knight there and i'm gonna continue to expand on that side of the board so
for that reason lavon played a5 himself now magnus plays b5 locking out the queen side the square has
been grasped and he will never let go of it now the next stage of the game begins rookie 8 rook
c3 he doubles the rooks on the c file both guys in the game next piece comes so how does magnus begin
to make progress here he's looking around the board he's going which piece is the most integral
to the black position which piece is my biggest adversary right now that i would like to trade
knight d2 what on earth does that answer that moves another piece away where's this knight even
going it can't even go anywhere you're about to find out levon plays rook d7 potentially looking
to double stack double the rooks on this file also it's just not easy for black to make a move here
because he can't move a lot of pieces you know he could have played queen h4 but again you're
not gonna mate magnus he'll just play g3 and yes he's moving upon in front of his king but
look at again the dark squared complex of pawns like this is nothing this knight can't
come forward the queen can hang out here but we'll kick the queen out that's that's not
scary right so rook d7 from live on and now g3 this move just blocks out the bishop temporarily
and now on knight f8 we see the whole point of the move knight d2
magnus plays bishop g4 and by the way if magnus had tried to play bishop g4 in this position then
there maybe there are some tactics with the move queen h4 i don't think they quite work
i don't think they quite work um but magnus just cuts everything out of h4 you know for example if
queen h4 i think you can just call the bluff i don't actually think you're getting mated here
king comes and you're safe the knight can't check you because it's covered so it looks
like you're okay and if the queen comes back you just have g4 here and it hits and and it
protects as well so but he plays g3 to be extra solid and now the second levon goes back bishop
g4 that's the point of knight d2 he moved the knight out of the way of the bishop why is this
trade so important why is this trade so important because now the center is further destabilized
the only pawn on d5 sorry the i should say the only light squared pawn is on d5 for black right
all on this side of the board on that side of the board and by destabilizing the light squares
magnus now leaves himself with two knights which can fight on the light squares the dark squared
bishop cannot fight on the light squares so he's got a bit of an imbalance there and then he even
goes for a queen trade why because if you trade queens this pawn has no guard anymore it's gonna
be a lot harder to protect so queen g5 notice how we've done damage on the queen side we've tried to
fake toward the center now we're doing some work on the king side h4 that was the other idea of
g3 that was the other idea of g3 long term to hit the queen away from the center of the board
queen e7 now don't just go grabbing if you grab i come out with the bishop i hit your queen
and i hit your rook and you lose material you might still be okay but no need to do this magnus
stays patient and plays the move rook c6 what does this do it maintains a lock and a bind on
that side of the board the rook pressures in all the directions here here and once the bishop moves
uh it's just it's just like turning the screw deeper on pressure in the position lavon brings
the knight back to f6 and now it's time to play knight f4 with some pressure here if the bishop
were to take then we get queen f4 and we see the other weakness taking effect if rook c8 that
doesn't actually stop anything because of this the point of rook c6 the pressure on this pawn
takes and like this every move he plays ties together so levon plays g6 trying to maybe play h5
and magnus just doesn't even let him get there he plays h5 himself now if black takes he's opening
a position if he plays g5 now you can grab because after take queen takes if the move bishop a3 were
to happen queen f5 say levy what what's the big deal i just take rook takes h6 and you can't stop
mate if you play f6 i play check and i'm in there this this every move the man plays ties together
the move h5 enables taking as distant as it all seems this move allows you to take this
pawn in the future think about that three pieces have to move for this plan to work
and yet it works it all works king g7 a trade to destabilize further and now it's time to take
he does get this move with the discovered attack but magnus just backs up how do you
protect you've got to bring it back but now the night comes the night that hasn't been playing
the night comes again hits the rook which levon moved there ages ago and the pawn and after bishop
takes you don't take back it's not checkers queen takes g6 king h8 queen takes another pawn just not
even taking this bishop yet giving checks and in this position sorry in this position after king g8
d e5 magnus is only up one pawn but what's devastating here is the weakness of the king
and watch as he puts this away rook g6 check king f7 and now the only winning move you would think
looking at this it's queen h7 just hunt the king down brute force it no no rook c4
get another piece into the game there are two checks here for black which look very scary if
rook d won king g2 if queen d5 it looks like a fork but you just sacrifice the rook i mean it's
a sacrifice because then you have check here and then you hunt the king down like this
it's gonna take a little you know a little while after the black queen sacrifices you
can't go here because it's checkmate in one move but magnus sees all of that rook c4 is taking
give the rook it's fine because i have this rook f6 idea and in the game we did get a check i mean
it's called a spike check you know you know you're losing you just give a check king g2 rook to h8
and now the process rook f4 check king e8 rookie six rook has to block if the king continues to run
you don't make it very far i play the stylish move i can play rook f8 as well but i sack my
queen and you're just boxed in it's checkmate so you can't escape you have to block he trades which
doesn't even make sense when you first like think about it like why would you trade such an active
piece because it doesn't matter the king is so weak rookie for check and here levon resigned
he resigned because if he moves his king to f7 there is an amazing little sequence queen e6 czech
king g7 rook g4 to force the king to f8 to then give a check on the m-file to force the king back
to go here and it's ladder mate you basically just ladder the king little boomerang technique up up
force the king to the right boom rook f7 queen e8 and look at this if in the game king had gone to
the d-file again looking like you're escaping we can go this way this is the most kind of it's the
first thing that pops out at you and again let's not forget we we can't actually take the rook
because it's protected there's only one move here that wins and it's beautiful it's rook d4 it is
showing the fact that you can't take the rook and the queen is now disconnected from the defense
of the rook in the corner the way magnus is able to control the queenside center in kingside is
unbelievable absolutely unbelievable and for that reason lavon resigned when rookie 4 happened
just a brilliant game played on the on on one side down the middle the king side ultimately
combining all of these things into just a very convincing victory now i said at the end of this
game i would share something with you right this game was 47 moves okay 47 moves levon aronian
crossed the halfway point three times in reality he crossed the halfway point zero times
what does that mean let's go through this game just a little bit fast the halfway point for
black is here so how many times did levon play a move on magnus's side of the board
he played this but this is the opening this doesn't really count and we go a little bit
further it takes a very long time by the way for another move to be played that is considered to be
on magnus's side of the board takes a very very long time it doesn't happen it still hasn't
happened magnus meanwhile does have something here and he's making progress and he's doing his thing
it took from move four all the way until move 34. 34. it took 30 moves for lavon to cross the middle
and this is already losing it's already lost and then you know what the third move was it was
it was it was this but this is already this is a few moves before resigning levon aronian did
not play one meaningful move on the other side of the board that's what magnus did to his opponents
when he was at the peak of his abilities not one 47 moves played in this game and not a
single one of them technically served a purpose or put magnus in danger on his side of the board
before we finish i just want to show you the top player rankings during this era this is january
2015 when this game is played magnus carlson at the top karawana grisha look at the amount of
players close to 2 800. anish at this point had gained 15 points from the month before and was
2784 climbing to the 2800 ranks a year later he was ranked number three in the world this
was a brutal brutal period of competitive chess and magnus carlson was on top on top i hope you
enjoyed this video this is the case that i make that this is the greatest game that he's ever
played if you have some alternatives let me know them in the comments below and uh yeah let me know
some other players that you'd like me to feature in this series i'll see you in the next video