the magnus carlson chess tour final series really cannot get any better and whether
you have been following every single recap video or if this is your first one
welcome to the show it's two to two between magnus and hicaro it is the best of seven
and today's match as you can see from there the thumbnail and the title went to armageddon which
is a slight spoiler but the games are just so exciting it's not a spoiler at all hicoro had
the white pieces and started out with another berlin defense kind of predictable at this point
but these guys and hopefully my recap videos make the berlin more exciting
rookie one night d6 and basically all you have to know is that this is the first theoretical break
uh it was actually c3 that is the overwhelming main line uh hikaru goes for knight c3 and kind
of in a funny way he goes for knight c3 because he caro himself has had this with the black
pieces many times here magnus plays bishop b4 looking to trade the bishop for the night
and hikaru says yes please why not magnus rotates this knight back to d6 for two reasons number one
stop c4 number two put the bishop on f5 and that's exactly what he did and just traded off a couple
of pieces and stabilized his position ikaru got the bishop pair by playing f3 bishop came back
to g6 takes takes and developed his light squad bishop but now magnus found a way here to transfer
the knights to a very nice bind knight a5 try to play knight c4 where they would defend each other
and put some pressure on hikaru so higaru was having none of that and just got rid of this guy
doubling these pawns but magnus jumps into c4 and hikaru takes a slow start to game one and
very quickly we got a queen end game where magnus has a little bit of a a little bit of pressure
which actually began to become very significant i'm fast forwarding a little bit as the player
shuffled around magnus walked his king from g8 to b7 to potentially safeguard itself away from
the queen now in the end game when you have a queen and some pawns or a rook in some pawns
the safety of your king and your pawn weaknesses super important as well as
the activity of whatever piece it is that you have whether it's a queen or a rook
here magnus lashes out with f5 hikaru's pawn weaknesses are right here and that will become
very prevalent very soon in this position hikaru was playing braveheart with his king defending his
pawns but suddenly magnus played the stunning move g5 which sort of comes out of nowhere
because if you take with the king i have check queen f5 and g6 which wins the queen and when you
take with the pawn my queen hops in and starts to do some damage to your structure but hikaru
here finds a very uh well brave idea i don't want to say i don't say outstanding it was actually
the only thing that he could have done because otherwise he was just completely busted running
his king to the center of the board to take the d5 pawn now beginners here would be scared of
getting mated beginners here would be correct of being scared of getting mated but queen f5 and now
anytime you check my king i am moving with a check so after a little bit more shuffling it was here
that the players repeated moves since magnus is under threat of queen b6 queen b5 and queen b4
and there is nothing that you can do to force this king away draw agreed game one but a pretty
exciting berlin nonetheless in the second game we also have e4 e5 this is where chess is a little
bit more boring uh we had an italian yesterday between the players and we got 17 moves of theory
and today we have an italian between the players and once again we get 17 moves of theory this
position is all theoretical right up until this moment uh last time hikaru went for an apon push
today he goes bishop g4 and lashes out with c5 here trying to destabilize the center and activate
his bishop and he got a very promising position from the opening uh bringing his rook to the c
file bringing his rook even further up the c file forcing a trade here and just playing on activity
and again if you want to take one instructional thing away from this is that black has a little
bit better because of his control of the open file and so what he does is he trades
a couple of pieces and gets it into a rook and knight versus rook and knight end game
now when you look at this real quick i guess i should also point out that's not a free
pawn because of 97 checks or little things but as some of you have noticed i prefer
to look at the most exciting moments of each game and maybe give you one or two bits of information
and summarize you up to speed if you want me to go deep diving game by game
this is definitely not going to be the place i would much rather do this in recap fashion
and so that is why i'm doing it in this manner you keep everything protected with f4 and when when
uh this happens with knight d6 hitting the knight and the rook at the pawn and the rook it's hikaru
playing rook c2 so he's giving away a pawn and counter-attacking magnus and when magnus plays a4
getting his pawn out of danger ikaru does not respond with b6 b6 does get the pawn out of danger
but here there's a very nice way to activate this rook which sounds kind of insane because it can't
go like this the rook is right there so we get b4 that is the problem the problem is the move
b3 b4 which would activate the rook whether or not black likes it uh get the rook into the game
and uh for that reason hikari does not play b6 but rather plays aggressive defense which is d4
and now if you go gobbling everything i'm going to play d3 d2 and rook c1 and actually
it is black who is winning because this is very powerful the magnus dials back his initiative
and the players get into a rook end game and very quickly agreed to a draw a lot of end games today
game two is a draw we move on to game number three another berlin rapid games today weren't
terribly exciting but this one had a little bit of pressure we have the exact same position as
we had in the first game but here hikaru plays bishop g5 attacking the queen on d8 magnus blocks
he car backs up to c1 because he anticipates that this capture will occur and his bishop will come
out this way or this pawn just blocks black's development knight ce7 rotating and trying to
play c6 and knight d6 and that's exactly what we get in the next few moves this position
did occur between grishok and geary two top 10 gm's and now a4 so a couple of ideas bishop a3
but watch magnus's structure and watch how none of his pieces move but nothing happens
so watch rookie 8 knight f7 queen d7 so far everything on the seventh or eighth rank
okay this is the first aggressive move attacking the bishop on f4
bishop here excuse me rook takes rook takes bishop g3 and now well it wouldn't be a super
gm game unless we saw h5 h4 hikaru doesn't take the pawn on h5 because then you would get hit
with bishop g4 takes and you would have to repeat moves and if you go here your queen gets trapped
so he plays h4 himself bishop g4 and magnus just doesn't do anything his pieces just kind of hang
out no weaknesses and the players repeat and that's that game number four we get d4 from magnus
now you know we have an armageddon so you know that this one was a draw because obviously we
had to play blitz that is the format four rapid games two blitz one armageddon but that's okay
because this game was also pretty exciting we got to london best way to play against london early c5
e3 queen b6 and an early c4 that's not always the best way to play against london and so the players
get out to a queenless middle game position and the other thing that you should know here is that
white has an isolated pawn an isolated pawn is uh a lot better when you can push it through
and surround it with pieces it becomes a weakness the more pieces get traded and if you can blockade
the square in front of it and so hicario tries to blockade the square in front of it
now magnus plays his best version of a delayed bomb cloud king to e2 bishop b4 and the players
bring out all their pieces ikaru gives away the light squad bishop as it was already a
pretty passive situation anyway and magnus tries to instigate a little bit here with
the move knight a4 this move looking for a trade and activating the light squad bishop takes takes
and if you play rook d8 i bring my rook to c7 and i destroy everything and so for that reason
hikaru lashes out with b5 it's a nice idea looks at first glance like you are giving away the pawn
but you're not because that gives b7 with this pressure and if you play a4 which is
what happened in the game we get a6 and again you are not going to win my rooks since rook
takes b2 comes with check but magnus saw this and basically said that his end game here is better
except hikaru was on par with his defense question that i ask of you is when you are under such
pressure you should look to trade off pieces and so how does black offer a trade of pieces here
very good the move knight to h5 and when you get knight to h5 you get an opposite colored bishop
end game you should put this pawn on a5 from where it will not be captured and then even though you
lose a pawn this opposite colored bishop end game is a draw since the d-pawn cannot get through the
dark-squared blockade and even though magnus does bring his king to a very aggressive square
over on g6 ikaru goes back to f8 a few more moves are made and for the respect of both the players i
will play it out to the final position but as long as this pawn is not getting through and black is
not losing any of those pawns we have a draw we have a blitz game obviously hicaro with the white
pieces plays e4 obviously magnus with the black pieces plays the woods the alekhine's defense
okay now it's now it's really a match we get a four pawn attack from hikaru c4 d4 e5 f4 but
magnus plays this in very good fashion he brings out the bishop to the nice square e6 and bishop
b4 and tries to chip away at the center with c5 icaru trades that bishop off castles and brings
the knight back to d2 to stabilize it was at this point that magnus played bishop g6 and hikaro
played queenie 1 with the intention of potentially going out this way but the queen used to cover
this diagonal and so magnus takes advantage and plays the move knight a4 knight a4 hits the c3
pawn and also will jump into b2 to pressure like this and it got very bad very quickly for hikaru
magnus took the c4 pawn and the only way that you're going to survive this with white is if
you start a big king side attack and that's what hikaru tried to do with the move h4 the problem is
magnus just plays h5 and he just kicks out the queen and there is no attack at all so you play
queen g3 knight a3 and if you play bishop f6 which was a very very nice idea from hikaru
magnus just wasn't having any of it i mean he just doesn't take sometimes your opponents uh
in desperate measures will go on some crazy counter attacks and uh bishop d3 is an idea
not quite here because f5 would block it out but e takes f6 followed by bishop d3 but you can stop
bishop d3 by playing rogue c3 keep rook c3 in mind because it's going to happen bishop f6 knights c2
and we get here and now rook c3 but still bishop takes g6 here and this is craziness okay there's
two bishops on your doorstep and black has to defend himself but it was at this point that
hikaru played rook e3 and this nice idea from magnus now nice idea just stabilizing and this
is how you're going to win this game you're not going to take the rook for free and hang checkmate
in one move you stabilize the knight you bring the queen you bring the bishop and slowly but surely
he'd chipped away at the defenses there's a lot of moves yet to be played i will scroll through them
slowly but magnus did a nice job simplifying it down to a queen and five pawn versus queen in one
pawn end game brought his pawns with his queen gave a check hid his king from a perpetual and
got his king to safety and it was a resignation here from hikaru so magnus took a 3-2 lead going
into the final blitz game he's got the white pieces he goes for d4 and it is hikaru nakamura in
vintage style with a king's indian defense but a classical king's indian defense has e5 and hikaru
didn't want to play that because then magnus would take and trade the queens so instead what do you
do when you have to win a game with the black pieces you keep your position as closed and as
many pieces on the board as you can as possible that's exactly what he does c6 queen e7 finally
magnus goes for something on the queen side sacrifices a pawn for a positional bind and with
the queen on a4 you are pressuring c6 a7 but rook b4 and all of a sudden someone is fighting here
bishop b7 and rook f7 very nice idea not trading and allowing the rook in but rather playing rook
f7 attacking the queen and stabilizing and then it was all the kikaru show from here
up upon rook d4 f3 nice idea here from magnus playing bishop f2 but hikaru finds a nice idea
himself to sacrifice the rook activate the dark squared bishop and have a big end game advantage
even though he is down a rook for a night these pawns are dominant and the activity of these two
pieces with h4 locking down the pawn structure gives him the winning chances get rook d1 check
some more shuffling and there we go magnus carlson on the offensive on the queen side
and bringing in his rook and offering a trade icaru took a long thing here
and transformed the position into this where his knight and bishop absolutely dominate but it's
not so clear how he's going to break through and win this game but he was able to do so by playing
in the following fashion allowing magnus to create the pawn on a6 defended with the bishop but since
he's always guarding the a7 pawn this rook on d7 cannot take it you cannot sacrifice because
obviously i will just take and getting it to an end game which after a series of big exchanges
transformed into this and this is winning and hikaru after some maneuvering was able
to get this king away from this back rank and also shielded like this and now magnus is out of moves
in this position because now he's got to move his king this way you move your rook anywhere i just
take your pawn and i win so he brings his king and uses the principle here of the three files as long
as the king is three files away from the past pawn you will win a rook end game and it is cut
off completely hikaru marches the pawn forward and at a confident moment offers the trade of rooks
magnus cannot accept and it doesn't matter because the king is too slow to get back and
something like this could have happened f2 f1 and both players winning with the black pieces vintage
ikaro playing the king's indian we have armageddon and armageddon if anybody doesn't know is how they
break ties in chess the person with the higher seating in this event chooses what color they play
magnus chose white which means he gets five minutes hikaru with the black pieces gets
four minutes there is no bonus time however if black draws black wins so you sacrifice
one minute for a result we have a d4 c4 nimso indian defense one of the best defenses in chess
but hikaru has to stabilize and play quickly and that's what he does we get a3 takes takes
and in this position black likes to throw the pawn into the center like this and taking it is
too stupid because you triple your pawns let's be serious that's not going to happen
and hikaru plays in positional fashion he brings the knight back and the pressure on the center
makes these bishops difficult to use since these pawns are just in the way also you're going to see
bishop a6 from hikaru targeting the c4 pawn as a weakness now we got f4 from magnus trying to
go f5 so we got f5 from hikaru trying to not allow f5 this transformation of the pawn structure that
magnus chose perplexed me i i actually told anna rudolph during our live coverage that i didn't
like this at all it seems like you basically wall in your bishops completely and this is not really
what you want hikaru's play was a little bit too easy here with moves like queen d7 and knight a5
i mean he doesn't have to do a whole lot and i should say that at this point the time situation
was nearing each other magnus had almost spent two minutes so he had three minutes on the clock
and hikaru had three minutes on the clock the problem is that two results benefit one player
so once that advantage is gone the rest of the game was relatively straightforward
and it was hikaru here who started stabilizing magnus kept being 20 30 seconds behind
this pawn collapsed and magnus tried to create counter play on the queen side with queen b7
but hikaru voluntarily tucked his king to h6 from where it would be shielded from the rook
and the queen is too far and this is the only weakness that exists in the position for black
excuse me that would have been a very nice move but that's not what happened
uh and and you just cannot move this knight the knight on c4 dominates the queen protects
the knight from a distance we get queen e6 and a nice move knight d2 looking to simplify you
cannot take this knight i mean you can but queen e3 would happen so we get rook d8 takes takes and
check and now rookie four the king is completely safe from all checks f4 is collapsing and hikaru
transformed this with about a minute on the clock versus 30 seconds into a rook end game we've had a
lot of those today but this one is a little bit different because it's basically winner go home
from magnus carlsen and by scooping up the three pawns and bringing the rook to the outside flank
it was uh magnus going for this rook blockade but just count the promotion squares both pawns are
arriving at the same time and you're not going to win this with the white pieces and after queen d5
block with the queen queen d2 check the final move of the day queen to f4 cross checking and that is
it magnus carlsen resigned in this position to give hikaru a three to two lead in the best of
seven the first armageddon between the two of them it took five mini matches but we got there crazy
that magnus wins with black in the first blitz game in the second game ikaro wins with
black in a king's indian defense and then goes on to win the armageddon let me know
what you think was the turning point of the match obviously it came in the blitz what shocked you
most about day five was it that magnus chose white in the armageddon and didn't choose black was it
that magnus didn't play a bit more aggressively in the king's indian let me know two videos are going
to appear on that side the latest upload as well as something that might get recommended for you
listen i truly truly truly appreciate all of your support i read as many comments as i can
uh yesterday's video didn't have a lot of pinnable comments honestly so a lot of you are being very
nice very wholesome check out some of my tutorials on uh openings and chess tips and rating climb
tactics puzzle solving guide and i will see you in a recap video tomorrow for day six
and if you want to catch live coverage on twitch i've been streaming every day alongside anna
rudolph on hikaru's twitch channel so do say hi if you jump in and i'll see you tomorrow