in this video we're taking a look at one of the greatest attacking chess games played by hikaru
nakamura as part of our best game series here on youtube the game was played in 2010 and hikaru's
opponent was grand master boris girlfriend from israel boris competed for the world championship
two years later after this game in 2012 so he was an exceptionally strong player his whole career
but in particular around now he was at the peak of his powers as they say so in this game
hikaru's got the black pieces it's the world team championship it's the fifth round and we begin
with a king's indian defense so a setup that if you've watched my channel for a long time you've
known you know i did a rating climb with the black pieces uh this is one of the most uh active and
dynamic systems for black it's a setup based position and you can play it with these moves
against anything that white does and normally you get castles bishop e2 and black plays the move e5
which at an elementary level looks like you lose the pawn but you don't quite lose the pawn because
what happens is the position opens up and this bishop if the center is open has a long-range
laser beam across the entire board and there's all sorts of ways to win the pawn back and equalize
it's considered best for white to actually castle black for to go knight c6 and then d5 knight e7
and the knight rotates voluntarily back to this square because the center is now
locked it's kind of like uh when fighters get into the cage right the door closes that's it they're
gonna go to battle and black is gonna create an attack with the pawns on this side of the board
and white is gonna create an attack with the pawns on this side of the board this is where it's going
to get extremely epic and exciting so knight d2 back now the main line is considered 91 to rotate
the knight out here to use it as the propeller of these pawns gelfin plays a move that's not the
most popular the point of which will be justified in about three or four moves uh now hikaru drops
his knight back and is ready to play the move f5 we get b4 which is obviously part of the plan
uh f5 and c5 so both sides are trying to take uh the fight to the other essentially it's going
to be an absolute battle to the death it's like when two heavyweights step in to punch each other
it's not going to a decision someone's gonna get knocked out uh knight f6 the knight comes back
now that the pawn has been activated and golfing stabilizes the structure with f3 this looks kind
of strange but i promise you there have been hundreds of games here and this is usually how
it goes so hikaru now closes the door and is ready to propel the other pawns with the knights gelfin
now justifies the move knight d2 by slotting the knight in to c4 this is the difference
of putting the knight to e1 and d3 is that the knights here support the pawns and add pressure
to the side of the board the thing is in all of this if i ask you a question what is black's most
powerful and important piece for the kingside attack to succeed it's difficult if you don't
know it offhand it's actually this bishop why is it this bishop because if you're going to close
the gates on the dark squares you need a wild card right you need someone who counter balances
the dark square closure and can fight on the other color complex the knights can fight on
light and dark but this dark squared bishop is not going to be super useful with this here it will
get involved a little bit later in the game but for now in many of these positions if white can
get this bishop off the board the attack on the king side will run out of steam so what happens
g5 as promised a4 knight to g6 hikaru is bringing the knights to that side of the board
bishop comes out to a3 laser beam is ready to go if all of this opens up now a calm move a
genius attacking player doesn't just go crazy and throw punches they know when to set back get a
little bit more energy and be ready for the next push rook f7 you go the slightest of rook moves
stabilizes the position and gets the rook out of the way of any danger not to mention this bishop
can always draw back to fight against the bishop on a3 the subtlety just one square so we get b5
gelfin keeps pushing and here again hikaru seeing that the bishop has been activated with the knight
chops on c5 and you would say why did he do that i mean he broke his structure now white can push in
this basically stops the pawns at the gate i mean if hikaru here had played something like bishop f8
which also doesn't look too bad you gotta realize that just one move passively and
and and white is basically he's he's arrived he's arrived he's going to start knocking on the door
hello i'm going to take this then i'm going to take this then i'm going to bring my knight so
just one move in these positions can make all the difference in the attack so what hikaru does is he
takes and now he plays h5 the bishop is not going to be the one doing the damage here the pawns have
to arrive first so gelfin plays a5 now to try to maybe get in with b6 hikaru continues to play g4
and now b6 right exactly as we've planned rather than taking and rather than taking
hikaru plays a move which at first glance doesn't look like it makes any sense if you are trying
to attack somebody's king what should you do shred it open right so then why would hikaru
play the move g3 if white can just play h3 and and seemingly shut it all down because in
the king's indian there is a dynamite factor it's the fact that your pawn is not actually guarded
bishop takes h3 and if you take me back i play the slightest of queen moves who is going to
protect this pawn certainly it's not going to be the king who is going to get pulled out from
g2 by the knight and now forced to defend a position where you are simply getting mated
and you have no defense this is why the king's indian in its purest form is unleashed beautiful
violence is what it is and white is so close to getting completely obliterated but here gelfand
very calmly plays king to h1 what this is doing is trying to get hikaru to take or play the move h4
which would which would be a tragic error because now white plays h3 say what's the difference levy
what about this here's the difference one square makes the difference you can't put your knight
there anymore and now you lose you've closed the door on your own attack you have no entrance
points the game of chess comes down to just one square so it's all subtle right and if you take
i'm very happy because i don't have to do anything anymore either what one pawn doesn't scare me now
i'm gonna shred open this side of the board so hikaru now finds the moment to play bishop f8
trade off this bishop and use the rook on these files the slightest of moves opens the door
so gelfin plays the move d6 here the point of this move is that if hikaru just lazily takes uh he can
just jump in with the knight now he's hitting the rook bishop c4 and it's and it's hikaru once again
who's answering the threats of boris right again this whole game comes like hinges on one move
um so high replace a takes b6 and his point was that if boris takes back like this he's gonna
trade the rook and that will lose a defender of this pawn so then he is able to make this capture
so rather than taking back boris plays a move that to the uninitiated looks very strange he plays the
move bishop back to g1 but now we see his point his point is that we're in a state of like uh
like it's like a static moment it it like the like you have one second in this in a in a movie before
something explodes right and you just anticipate it the point is that it looks like he's completely
defended his king and in a few moves the house of cards is going to completely collapse looks like
hikaru can't take anything so what is hikaru do we run straight into the fire and he plays the move
knight to h4 and again it's like but everything is covered what are you gonna do here
right gelfand here plays the move rookie one intending to then close it all shut bishop
slides back the bishops guard the king fantastic gelfin is going to win the game
except when he played the move rookie one gelfin must have not anticipated that hikaru was going
straight for the kill he wasn't gonna wait for the bishop to arrive and defend the king he was going
to throw a haymaker and sacrifice the knight on g2 okay now in hindsight apparently in this position
gelfin should have taken on g3 and then popped the bishop out to e3 this is what the engine
gives here it'll give you one insane engine line where the engine goes full cocoon mode like this
hikaru here has bishop h3 which again savagery if take you have pawn push so now the computer likes
rook g1 and if queen c8 threatening check and then the queen gets in bishop f1 so just hanging on for
dear life here with these pieces but still it's it's it's hardly over uh if the move h takes g3
had been played i mean there are still so many deep wild engine lines that have been analyzed
but gelfand just said okay take on g2 i'm going to take on c7 now your queen's hit you got to
do something about your queen and now we begin the sequence of moves where hikaru sacrifices
his queen leaving it in the face of danger for six straight moves are you ready remember danger
levels what's worth more than a queen in a game of chess the king so hikaru plays knight takes rook
you cannot take the queen because g2 check okay actually you cannot take the queen
because it's g2 check and mate right the knight is protecting and the king is stuck in the corner
um so we get queen takes e1 now the queen is still under fire but we have g2 check
forcing the king out of the corner with rook g7 so the queen is under fire for a third move
and the king is hit right of course it's sacrificing the queen because it can't
actually be taken but it's very aesthetic that the queen just laughs in the face of danger
so king to h1 and how does hikaru here create another threat based on this king bishop h3
the silent killer the the the bishop that doesn't move for the duration of the game but finally gets
summoned and now probably the most beautiful move of the entire game bishop f1 not that one that's
the only move that stops checkmate and oh my oh my lands uh hikaru here plays an astounding move
genuinely laughing in the face of danger queen to d3 and the queen cannot be taken because of mate
bishop cannot be taken because of check and mate on g2 on the very next move and now boris gelfin
has to play knight takes e5 which defends mate and attacks the queen and hikaru one last time
leaves his queen to be captured because if you take it you have bishop back to g2 with a mate
on this poor king in the corner after bishop takes f1 gelfin plays queen takes f1 and the queen after
escaping death takes a free knight on c3 the queen is also hitting this and the count of material
here is that hikaru is up basically a full rook golfing plays rook c1 the queen takes he promotes
a new queen but after take take and a very calm queen back to e6 attacking the rook and this pawn
will be captured on the next turn boris gelfand resigned the game and hikaru was the winner
wow this entire after knight h4 and the detonation of a sacrifice and the queen dancing dancing out
of danger with queen to d3 at the very end constantly creating a threat of mate on g2
incredible absolutely incredible i highly recommend the chess enthusiasts that don't
just you know watch the video and enjoy it and just go okay that was great and actually want
to mess around a little bit you know get their hands dirty analyze some of the crazy stuff put
this into a super computer uh or any computer for that matter it will it will show you some
some truly truly wild stuff after knight h4 and h takes g3 um there there is some
wild stuff here another critical moment came here because gelfand did not take the knight
what if he had taken the knight with king takes g2 well then hikaru's idea was to play rook to g7
and this is a problem right because the king is going to be opened up so in this position if white
plays a move like h3 right we don't have a knight to go there anymore well now again silent death
how do you threaten checkmate in one move here how do you threaten checkmate in one move queen to d7
and how do you protect this
you can't so the queen and the bishop just have a direct line of attack to the h3 pawn which shows
you how powerful some of these king's indian lines truly are and really make you question
why would anybody volunteer themselves for such an attack from the white side
it's a good question but for now i hope you enjoyed the video
please let me know who else you want to be featured in the best game series i have a
few fun grandmasters coming up including our very favorite uh vivid gujarati but let me
know if there are others i hope you enjoyed the game and i'll catch you in the next one