today i'm excited to share with all of you a new video series idea where i'll be featuring
the best chess game that a certain player ever played obviously the selection criteria for that
is kind of difficult so this will be more of a conversation starter let me know your thoughts
ultimately in the comments below and if you have a better suggestion feel free to drop
it there as well the person we're kicking the series off with is none other than anish giri
obviously a fantastic chess player he was ranked number three in the world in january 2016 behind
magnus carlsen vladimir kramnik but he's also a husband he's also a father a family man a social
media savant so i figured we would start with him and his game is with the black pieces in the
magnus carlson chess tour he was playing against the one the only magnus carlsen and i chose this
game for a few reasons the chess was spectacular but at the time of this match up aneesh had went
0 and 4 in his first four rounds and magnus had went 4-0 so undefeated magnus no wins anish and
watch what happens in the game and watch how anish responds to the pressure that he's under and rises
to the occasion so d4 from magnus knight f6 c4 e6 knight f3 d5 a standard queen's gambit declined
and knight c3 now here black can play a variety of different things uh black can go bishop to e7
black can go bishop to b4 there is the dc4 lines the c5 lines in this game and very trendy right
now at the top level is um this thing this thing with uh bishop b4 known as the rogozin defense now
white can again do a million different things here bishop g5 is a line queen a4 czech doesn't win the
bishop by the way otherwise this wouldn't be a very you know impressive game because knight c6
but this is a line i actually like this line quite uh quite a lot with white in this game magnus took
on d5 take take and the bishop came out to a four now here's already where where i like this right
this it's hard to choose the best game a person has ever played but it needs to be exciting right
so anish doesn't play your standard what you would think is this he goes straight for it knight to e4
immediately adding pressure to this knight threatening to win some material um breaking
kind of the beginner's principles of the game that you're supposed to not move a piece two times and
get more pieces out rook c1 knight to c6 again pressuring the center i did talk about this move
with queen a4 but here it also makes sense the bishop can come out and at the same time if the
knight is to ever move the rook blocks the knights uh the knight blocks the rook's vision down to c7
so knight d2 this is a theoretical move uh blocking this bishop and just trying to trade off
the knight on e4 knight back to d2 if you take it then white i mean white's very happy he'd get rid
of your act of knight and then white moves on with life and this is where a niche geary throws i mean
it's a theoretical move but it's a kind of a first punch and that move is g5 okay very spicy bishop
to e3 already the position doesn't make any sense if you're looking at this as a beginner it just
doesn't make any sense why are they doing this well knight c3 bc3 the bishop is now under attack
and the bishop moves to a3 so rook obviously has to move otherwise the rook will be lost rook
to b1 so why can you play like this you can play like this because despite seemingly overextending
for example the next move is f5 despite seemingly overextending and pushing all these pawns forward
your king is actually completely safe and the main reason is white's pieces are in front of his own
pawns think about that conceptually if the pawns don't move forward you don't gain any space and
because white has just this bishop out here in the knight that's sort of back okay there's an active
rook but it's it can't do anything there's no real danger to anish over extending like this in fact
he is just very confidently threatening to win magnus's bishop so magnus plays the move g3 now
in this event magnus actually faced castles here from fiorugia uh and then threatening the move
f4 he was victorious in that game and actually about two months ago this game took place in april
2020 as you can tell uh two months ago he played this against greece sugan grishok also castle
in this game anish uncorked bishop to d6 which at the time was perhaps not a novelty but a deviation
um and the threat is again to go f4 and of course magnus carlson completely disregards
it and plays the move rook to g1 a move that literally looks like a mouse slip the move
pawn to f4 traps the bishop and it turns out that rook g1 is an engine move it's preparation
and well it's time for a niche geary 2 to think so anish out to this point hasn't won a match uh
you know battling all these top guys and now magnus plays a move which is outside of his
preparation so anish spends half his time here this is a 15 minute game aneesh spends about
seven of his 15 minutes um and he comes up with an interesting idea and the idea is castles had
he played f4 this is what would have happened this is what would have happened take take take
looks like the guy just hung a piece but no because now e3 comes hits the bishop and the
doors open so if you take on h2 attacking the rook i'm gonna check you and then i'm going to win your
bishop and your king is extremely weak now before it was saved because i didn't have any openings in
the position now it's very weak um and then here the best thing that you can do is queen e7 and
something like this where black has a pawn up it's like piece for two pawns but white has a massive
center uh open rooks staring down both sides of the board very difficult position so anish decides
to do um what he considers to be much more pragmatic which is castles now magnus throws a
punch h4 uh and if you take on h4 um well this is bad news because there there is an opening of the
h file uh the pieces can begin to transfer to this side of the board king hate the bishop comes the
pawn comes the queen comes etc etc i mean maybe even bishop comes like this and anish here under
the pressure of the clock and the position finds a beautiful idea after h4 he finds a very nice idea
he plays f4 anyway and after takes two pawns hit this guy pinned to the king he plays g4
just gluing it shut protected and now the queen has vision here and he will also play h5
and look at magnus's bishop over here just a tall pawn at a pawn with a little
pointy hat bishop literally has no moves completely entombed by its own pieces right
so the next thing anish is going to do is try to improve his position to the maximum capacity again
by closing this maybe rook comes and this knight is going to rear out to f5 from where it can
take this bishop and then obviously with the rook coming down the file it's bad news also
h4 you know etc etc so here magnus plays rook b5 like i said it's a crazy crazy game threatening
the pawn here okay well this is more or less straightforward he goes here and and here again
magnus plays a move which i mean it looks simply brilliant i mean for these guys it might be uh
you know it might be another you know another day in the office but but this
no no i mean expert i don't even think a master level player would play this move f5 like your
position looks terribly lagging in development but you have a moment here you can play the move
f5 let me let me tell you about this move so if rook takes for example now your bishop no longer
protects your pawn so rook g4 and and and life is good okay if knight takes same story rook takes
g4 and at the same time there's also bishop to g5 uh and also in the future maybe d5 is hanging yeah
and now okay well last but not least what about this yeah here's the problem bishop to h6
you solved the problem of this guy but now the rook is hanging if you play rook f6 well then i
i drop back and and i put some pressure let's say you do nothing let's say you play rook f7
well now i play e4 i use the fact that you've brought this bishop out against you
okay let's say you take the pawn and say so what well then bishop c4 is coming so i've
sacrificed the pawn to activate all of my pieces actually in this case i've sacrificed two pawns
to activate both my bishops and uh surround your king and you're in grave danger and simply lost
e4 very nice tempo winning move not this e3 c4 if he takes then i take no we go straight we
forcing move make the opponent react the move e4 does exactly that okay this is not where the game
ends because anish stays calm he doesn't take the pawn he can take it three different ways he
realizes it's all garbage and he keeps his pawn protect okay now we get bishop g5 as planned and
the niche just glues okay a nice move attacking the rook protects the center rook comes back
and this is where uh i mean this is where anish goes just genius mode absolute
genius mode rather than just sidestepping this annoying pin and then moving on with his life
he plays rook takes f5 but didn't we say that if something ends up on f5 you get hit with e4
and obviously taking this is just too dangerous because knight e4 bishop c4 all of white's pieces
get activated yeah yeah yeah anish knows that he knows that's why he's ready to sacrifice his rook
takes okay well so um why'd he do that this is why because the relative value of this bishop is not
three points this is why it's most powerful most active piece by getting rid of it you have now
negated your opponent's activity right there's just five pieces there but they're all stuck
behind they will need at least a few turns to come forward how will the niche come forward he's gonna
play knight g6 now this pawn is hanging then this bishop will come slowly the rook will come slowly
whose king is actually weaker it's definitely not this king for example if white plays ed5
just trying to trade everything you just take who's gonna attack you okay let's say bishop
comes right i want to take with check oh so scary knight f4 i'm counter-attacking you i'm defending
your king is the one that's open be very careful here and of course knight to d3 so it's it's
really a complicated position so magnus decides e5 attacking this bishop and anisha has time here
to just come back despite sacrificing a rook for a bishop he has enough time to just retreat and say
what are you gonna do about it you know like what really what are you gonna do to me you have a free
move dude do something magnus can't do anything you know if magnus tries to play something like f3
ma'am just trying to like you know maybe bring this rook queen g5 is a serious problem queen
h4 is no joke again it's the piece activity not all pieces value stay the same throughout a game
of chess that's a complicated concept to understand for a beginning player
but in this case it's a niche who's playing with more active pieces
okay so magnus plays bishop d3 of course we get knight of four and knight to f1
magnus very happily inviting this trade of course anish doesn't take place queen g5 now
in this position magnus plays the move f3 very logical right looks logical looks logical logical
if you take it you know the rook can come and also join the attack well try to find how anish
giri won this game yum try to find how a niche gear won this game in this position
knight takes d3 because it's not a trade anymore because when queen d3 queen c1 oh
magnus blunders it happens and this is the part where you guys go oh well he blundered in one move
you know it's not the best game no i do think it's the best game because it shows an adaptability
right overcoming a time deficit overcoming a novelty in the opening and overcoming a disastrous
event up to this point he overcame a lot to get to this position and i will show you how he won it
then i will show you what maybe could have happened if magnus didn't make this blunder
and then we'll look at anisha's celebration so king f2 queen takes b to check knight to d2 okay
but a lot of you have this question levi look you get me good oh you get me good positions in
the opening sometimes how do i win this game when you are up material the second you know in chess
is two most important things material in king safety we gotta make sure our king is guarded
we gotta protect against this but before we do that we need to look at the most forcing
moves we have checks captures attacks we can go here but that's idiotic because they taken
we can take but again you're not do not but what about an attacking move here
well that doesn't work because oh but it does because the queen's guarding the knight
and that's why that's why anish did it take take now this is a very different story king to g3
the king has to get in front of the rook so we have an opportunity to take a pawn because if
queen comes to g6 with check well in this position very simple and straightforward just block
okay levy but what about check okay any more checks
yeah but levy then they're gonna go queen g6 and take my pawn it's gonna be check again yeah
but whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa they're not the only ones that get to move
forcing moves in converting a winning position are super important because yeah i can say okay
anish won this game no problem bang bang bang easy but not a lot of us feel very confident with this
queen attacking our king and finding the right move make sure there are no more checks right
in the game king h4 happened trying to get this rogue kind of activated again and the niche played
queen takes d4 again correctly realizing that his king is safe as long as this move happens
so the game magnus played rook g3 for example had he played fg4 you cannot
take this don't just lazily take back because this comes and you lose and we don't want that
so when this happens please notice that there is a hanging rook on the corner of the board yeah
again a lot of people they auto recapture they just bang bang okay i'll figure it out later no
no it's not checkers we don't need to take on g4 take the rook or bishop to e7 go for the check
you don't need to take just because they took you rook g3 okay bishop b7 obviously looks interesting
but maybe then king takes pawn and rook is coming so when he finishes it off in very
nice style bishop g7 safeguard the king and bring the only piece that hasn't taken part in the game
rook here if magnus had given him a check he would have played king 2h8 and it's over
these pawns are staged shot if king takes h5 you could probably win in a variety of ways like this
it's the rook if rook takes g4 probably there is a win here trying to look queen h2 rook h4 ah rook
f5 easy peasy rook f5 yeah if king mate and well i mean i i trust that you guys will win a game up
a queen and a bishop for rook but you don't even have to do that you have mate here as well
a very nice game a very very nice game from anish giri uh fighting against the world champion with
the ragozan playing this crazy kingside attack in the beginning of the game you know launching the
pawns forward it just shows you know high level of class overcoming a bad start to a tournament
to then defeat magnus and then celebrating i did promise i would show you the video right
well here it is the video heard around the world
anish does this and then hops around excitedly it's so great anyway that brings me to the
conclusion of the first video in the best games ever played by certain players series
if you have some recommendations by certain you know you want a player in a game share it in
the comments below let me know your thoughts on this game in particular how i did how you
enjoyed and uh yeah what's your favorite thing to eat for breakfast i'll see you in the next video