today we're gonna look at the games from day three in the magnus carlson tour finals obviously
yesterday magnus struck back against icaru to even the overall match at one to one and i also want
to welcome so many of you uh that discovered my channel after yesterday's video it got spread out
throughout youtube and i couldn't be more grateful so thank you today we're gonna look at six games
let's jump into it ikaro had the white pieces to start off and he got the game going with a spanish
magnus responded with knight f6 this is the berlin defense looking to take on e4
right away d3 bishop c5 this quick trade 92 castles and there's a lot of different setups here
uh sometimes white maneuvers the knight over to g3 sometimes white plays knight c4 and moves this
bishop out there's a lot of different positions where a4 and a5 happen by both sides as well
as the move h3 and we saw yesterday in the blitz game hikar and magnus both castled queen side now
in this game a lot of those things happened a4 a5 this is just sort of like the meta if you will of
the rue lopez the spanish positions bishop e3 ikaru offers a trade early b6 and now uh the
whole reason why the thumbnail is what it is and the name of the video up there is what it is h4
spoiler alert in every game that you're going to see today with the exception of like one real game
the move h4 happens on the board i don't know what is going on at the top level of chess this
revolution of computer influence but they are all playing this and so queenie8 to try to transfer
the queen to the light squares and hikaru plays g3 bishop goes back to e7 to try to clear out
this space and open up the light squared bishop we get 91 knight c5 and knight g2 and it looked
like hikaru in the game was rerouting his knight to push the f-pawn but he played too tentatively
it seemed after bishop e6 b3 magnus just got all his pieces into the game in their optimal setup
and this was the moment where hikaru could have played a bit more aggressively with f4 but shows
the move f3 and so magnus took on c4 normally the bishop for the knight is not a good trade
but now he transfers his queen in and it looks like he's about to do some serious damage to the
position but somehow kikaro is just on time for example if black were to play f5 here you would
be able to trap this queen there is one pretty cool variation that goes knight takes e4 check
you have to take the knight and then when black takes there is now a discovered check you move
your king and queen takes g3 this is something that could have happened it didn't happen but
the queen is not quite trapped and so magnus just didn't like that i guess and backed out
and now hikaru had to play the move g4 he had to shut down f5 and enter a funny tactical idea
h5 to try to break things up bishop c5 bishop c5 check and king g3 and somehow the king is
completely safe here because black is not able to break things open on this side of the board
but we got f5 takes takes and the queen came back to h3 and now this is a very big problem bishop
f2 bishop d6 and black's position with the threats on the open lines and the queen powerful the rook
powerful the knight powerful well it collapsed magnus doubled up on the f-file to put maximum
pressure did not trade the queen's instructive moment did not trade the queens because he's on
the attacking side if you're attacking you don't want to trade the queen and then just picked up a
couple of pawns here maybe the most instructive moment he focused on this pawn and he went on
to win the game hikaru played this out just for a little bit longer but there was nothing that could
be done magnus transformed the position into a rook end game and even though he lost one pawn
uh the rook and two versus just the lone king and the rook on that side of the board
was enough to get hikaru to resign and to get magnus a one point lead again not too much to
analyze here this is just completely winning you would bring the pawns together along the rook
and white is not equipped to stop this and so magnus takes a one nothing lead in the second game
uh it was magnus opening up with e4 e5 uh hikaru welcoming a rue lopez and also going for his own
berlin and now again these two are trolls because in the one game where we did not get a real h4
uh early on we got a berlin defense and i'm not even going to waste your time okay i'm going to
get right to the critical position if you'd like me to do a lesson on the berlin defense
i'm truly sorry i just want to do a full recap and well it was in this position
that ikara repeated moves and magnus allowed it and so both of them started laughing on camera
why is this funny because yesterday in the berlin defense hikaru repeated two times with the white
pieces so now magnus is returning the favor by also repeating with the white pieces we move on
to game number three hikaru is still facing a one and a half half deficit and another spanish again
i'm not spending too much time with the opening here this is everything we've seen so far now
is where things get interesting without castling no castling and no a4 hikaru busts out this move
h4 we get a5 we get h5 and this is the thumbnail of the entire video i mean what is this even
like this breaks all beginner principles i mean all the beginners watching are looking to these
grandmasters to be role models and these guys are playing h4 h5 so magnus plays b5 hikaru brings
the knight back to the center knight f8 trying to rout this guy to e6 bishop d2 developing and
now a nice move a4 a4 and h4 are not very very much the same the idea is that you're trying to
damage the structure and play rook takes a5 magnus thought for a very long time here and played b4
b3 bishop a6 and g3 from hikaru trying to prevent knight f4 and in the game we got takes takes and a
stunning move f5 the idea is that you are trying to give this pawn away jump into d4 and whatever
you take with you're gonna open up the e file for this rook and it is devastating actually f5 looks
like it's going to destroy this position because of also the bishop on this diagonal then you are
unable to recapture back and hikaru here played one of the most disrespectful but aesthetic moves
i've ever seen it's just it's disrespectful it's a joke it's not actually disrespecting his opponent
but it's just such a funny looking move and it is the best move and it's the only move and that move
is rook h4 which is just so funny if you don't see the humor in this movie i mean this is how
scholastic players play you know like this is how they get their uh their rooks out so we get pawn
takes e4 not not in the game but i'm saying this is uh a possibility rook takes e4 uh and there is
going to be some actual damage on on this square so magnus plays f4 bishop d2 jumps in with the
knight but here miss evaluates this end game magnus trades everything goes upon up but here
it's actually not so simple in in end games you can have a pawn advantage but it's about your
piece activity he's only got two rooks and a bishop and they can't really do much and not to
mention his pawns look at his pawns in opposite colored bishop end games you need your pawns
and bishop to kind of complement each other and magnus's pawns are just sitting targets for the
dark square bishop the base of the pawn chain is right here for white this bishop is never going to
get there and so watch as hikaru transfers his pieces to the king's side right plays rook f2
gets a trade and then out of nowhere magnus just blunders i guess i i don't know what happened here
but maybe he thought he was holding but he plays king f7 allows the trade of rooks
and bishop d8 gobble gobble gobble gobble and that's that's it hikaru picked up a couple of
pawns and brought his king and here was where magnus resigned and he resigned because it's a
relatively straightforward victory you move the bishop and because the threat of going to d8 is
always on the board the king cannot move from that square and then white is just going to walk in
with the king to either direction pick up material and win the game and so hikaru even the match
in the final rapid game magnus played a london which kind of was stunning actually and then uh
hikaru played an early queen b6 and i guess it's important to point out that magnus played this
tricky knight c3 move and you cannot take on b2 because of knight b5 it's a kind of a tricky you
know london sideline i played eric rosen in a lot of different londons it's also up on my channel uh
you can try to trick some opponents with early knight c3s i also have a london 10 minute video
so if you're a london player take a look at this but it was a relatively straightforward
opening and hikaru seemed to do a decent job of stabilizing trading the bishops trading the queens
playing his knight into f4 developing and then we got another h4 by the way uh in case
it wasn't obvious last game we got h4 this time magnus goes h4 here there's no i don't want to
i don't want to spend 15 minutes analyzing this game because it's not it's not super important
it's a it's a middle and end game with no queens but the objective of both players here is to keep
their kings safe bring their rooks to the open files which is what they do magnus trades off the
light squared bishop because his light squared bishop doesn't have any active square to go on
and perhaps the one moment of the game that's instructive is right here where hikaru put his b6
knight in front of the b7 pawn and magnus found a great move and i will point out that it is a
great move uh because i did receive some comments yesterday that were mike man they were they were
intense comments saying i really dislike magnus carlsen and i never say anything nice about him
i don't know where they come from but b4 was a great move he's trying to go knight c5 and then
hikaru had to stabilize with rook b8 knight c5 but then here magnus didn't play a great move he
sacrificed the a4 pawn uh takes takes and you know hikaru wins a pawn and i'm assuming that magnus
just thought that the rook excuse me the knight was going to be stuck and since it's stuck he'll
focus on the other side of the board and he'll be able to win you'll force black to play b5 and
that's it the knight is gone from the game but hikaru did well here he played rook a1 rook d8
knight c2 and opened up the position to transfer this rook into the game uh to try to create some
counter play while magnus put some pressure on the pawns with his knight now it was right here
where apparently magnus had a winning maneuver uh he had to play a rook e2 rookie five and
from there he would be the first one to tr to just basically get all of these pawns and that was the
big moment ceci exploded all everybody watching was panicking but magnus played rugby one and uh
while a few moves later the players just repeated moves because hikaru found a way to bring the
pawns forward and reactivate his knight i'll show that one more time the reason he can't play a5 b4
is because the rook maintains vision and so if you ever were to play a5 i would play rook takes
but the second the rook moves away now you are enabled to play a5 b4 and he takes advantage trade
happens magnus offers a trade of rooks and hikara doesn't want to trade his rook and so they repeat
and so we get bliss and on that note it is two to two hikara has the white pieces nothing that we
haven't seen before pretty much a berlin match at this point and some very small wrinkles but
now hikaru plays bishop d2 so again continuously throwing in uh you know little tricks and traps
and well the move that uh we're all waiting for h4 more trolling i mean what do you would like
just h4 it's just it just seems to be the golden rule what can i say 96 but here the difference
is that the e5 pawn isn't in fact tactically protected a couple games ago you'll remember
i think it was maybe the was it the first game or the third game where there was this knight takes
e5 but uh you he couldn't quite play it because uh magnus had sort had tricks here but this position
knight takes e5 as possible because if you play knight d4 equaling uh two threats onto my pieces
uh not equaling threatening my pieces two times i have the brilliant knight takes f7
which did not exist in the other position because the rook was on f8 i believe
and here if king f7 first of all if you take my queen and i take your queen and you take and i
take white is happy the other thing about knight takes f7 is that if you take my queen checks you
and i win the bishop and i defend my c2 pawn even more and i'm doing very well
and so magnus hung upon then hikaru played queen h5 not interested in gobbling he goes
for the checkmate g6 threatening another mate f6 and now we pick up the pawn and here you
can try to find the win for the white pieces as always i will wait take a sip of my lake rocks
and the move is relatively straightforward queen takes f6 you wreck the structure of
the black position if queen takes c6 bishop c3 with irresistible danger on this file
rook f8 queen h8 he picks up every single pawn magnus has to offer and king d7 finish it off
it's not all about checks when you are attacking the king you can also damage your opponent's
position based on how their pieces are set up checks captures attacks in this position the
only check is queen h7 and it doesn't do anything because we just came from there the only capture
is queen e6 and bishop a5 both of those moves are terrible attacks how do we create a threat
d4 actually if you look around d4 is the only move that creates a threat because everything
else is protected i mean okay you can say like i don't know bishop g7 you also have b4
but then i just take d4 wins because anything that takes you have constant pressure of long
castles and the rook opposite the king you always should try to open the position when
the opponent's king is in the center like this and after b4 dc5 magnus just resigned
literally just resigned in disgust ikaro went up and now the final blitz game magnus has the white
pieces will he win to force an armageddon c4 e5 and well this was spoiler alert one of the only
games where we did not get an h4 in fact it was the only game we didn't get an h4 the other game
being the repetition so i don't count that so this position i'm fast forwarding a little bit because
right before this move we've already seen this we saw this in yesterday's match this is an english
with an early d5 and a knight rotation to b6 and so we have d4 an aggressive central pawn sacrifice
where magnus tries to get a quick recapture because he's got a lead in development and he car
is not yet castled so hikaru sacrifices the pawn his intention being that if magnus were to take
then he blocks his own queen we actually also saw this yesterday bishop b2 f6 and now magnus just
gets a much better position hikaru mentioned in the interview afterwards not on chess24 but on his
own twitch channel where anna rudolph and i were doing commentary he joined us after and he said in
this position he was very worried about the move e4 and with a potential sacrificial idea uh where
if you play c5 to try to win this knight using this pin white has e5 a brilliant piece sacrifice
resulting in a position like this and he and he basically said he was terrified here uh and you
know a computer might be able to hold this but this is extremely dangerous because the bishop
is coming and white is extremely active but that did not happen instead magnus uh got it to this
position a queenless middle game where he's got bishop and knight pressure on hikaru's position
then we get king e6 e4 rook c8 and hikaru tries to solve his problems by throwing in c4 rook d1
g6 knight d4 and now it becomes painfully clear that the lack in development is going to cost
hikaru some headaches here right king f7 knight b5 it's really difficult to guard this and this
thread is looming so hikaru gives away a7 wins the a2 pawn but now bishop d4 and there's no
easy way to defend the knight so you have to bring it back and lose a pawn now at this point
the position is decisively better for magnus it is completely winning he's up a pawn he's about
to get the rook to c7 and black's pieces are extremely passive so what happens well magnus
thought for a while here and played knight c3 that is an inaccuracy because it allows the rook
access to the c2 square from which it puts some pressure and allows hikaru back into the game
and again hikaru in the match interview said that if magnus played just a very magnesian move you
know improving his king a little bit uh he didn't know what he was gonna do he didn't know what he
was gonna do he was looking around he was trying to find play uh and probably we would have uh uh
you know uh magnus would have kept up the pressure but as he did with knight c3 he then played like
this and traded the rook and he did it and then brought the knight back but this this got one
of his most important pieces out of the game and this still slowly started to allow hikar to create
counter play so first he played f5 because if you take you lose the knight uh then he played bishop
c5 because if you trade you simplify and black is getting closer to an end game where they can hold
and then hikaru started getting pawns off the board and this is how you get a draw you try to
cut the pawns down brook knight in two versus rook knight and three is holdable and that is exactly
what happened magnus then blundered a knight fork to lose the b3 pawn for the h7 pawn and two on one
is a draw even rook and knight versus rook is a draw i mean obviously some of us might be more
capable of losing it than others but the rest of the game is just some shuffling both players
had about 30 seconds here like i said not too much is happening but hikaru got activated with
his pieces here put the pressure put the pressure and he's just trying to hold a draw wins the mini
match and that is what happened with one minor headache of the king almost getting checkmated
on the side of the board but luckily he was able to escape and force the pieces off knight takes g4
pawn takes you just take this and it's over and here he played rook h3 getting his night off
and that was it a draw by force in the final blitz game a win for hikaru in the mini match
and he goes up 2-1 in the overall standings tomorrow coverage continues once again at 10
a.m eastern time myself and anna rudolph over on twitch if you're not there already there is a link
to my channel uh in the description below as well as other things like the discord close to 5000
members people come hang out great chess community as well as some openings courses you can check out
i have a course on e4 d4 aricon and the e6b6 setup i have nothing else to say listen your support on
yesterday's video was incredible if you've made it this far want more what more to ask of you
just keep being awesome keep being amazing and i'll see you in tomorrow's recap video