it's day two in the magnus carlson chess tour finals yesterday hikaru struck first winning two
and a half to one and a half in the first four rapid games to take a one nothing lead given
that this is a best of seven series the players go at it again today magnus has white not much more
to say and we have a queen's gambit declined with knight c3 we've seen this throughout
before hikaro was playing bishop to e7 and yesterday he played this dc4 e4 b5 system
there was a crazy game that ensued so magnus must have thought that his preparation was up
to the task and he had the best winning chances white goes e5 knight d5 and here yesterday magnus
played a3 bishop e2 is the main line here he plays a4 now from this point forward there's a few games
in the bass but after hikaru plays queen d7 there are no longer any games in the bass the the idea
of queen d7 is to keep an eye on this knight so that white cannot just play a5 hitting this knight
uh because if you push that knight is simply lost it's simply a free knight and you do get a knight
back for it but that's not what magnus wants bishop b2 knight c6 castles knight a5 we saw
this yesterday hikaru pops the knight out to a5 so that it continuously guards this pawn and enables
this knight to move to the center we get knight g5 and knight e4 very common maneuver for this system
now that magnus has castled he is able to move pieces multiple times which is normally not
recommended in the beginning of the game bishop b7 and now knight c5 making this trade is pretty good
for magnus because he gets the bishop pair which is known to give a decent position and now here
magnus shows you the real hidden idea of the move a4 and it's quite funny it's rook a3 now again
this looks like a beginning player who just wants to show you that they know that the rook goes
up and over but this is actually kind of annoying for for hikaru i mean this rook is about to arrive
and attack the king side so hikaru kicks the knight out and then plays knight e7
so far this has been all computer preparation i'm assuming that because at the time of the game they
played these first 16 moves almost instantly very little thought so i'm assuming that they
were both prepared agnes plays queen d2 now the thing about queen d2 is it's actually a bit of
a fake threat yes you're attacking the knight but your knight is also being protected by the
queen and so hicaro here plays the move queen d5 and he uses a concept known as danger levels
danger levels meaning that you don't need to stop the threat of the opponent if you can make
an even stronger threat and so he makes a threat down to g2 now here a move like bishop f3 looks
logical because it hits the queen and the bishop it doesn't really do anything because the queen
takes the pawn guards the knight and this is all guarded so white actually doesn't win anything
at this moment magnus that thought for 11 minutes and he played rook g3 after queen c5
yes g7 is hanging but then there is the brilliant move long castles and all of a sudden it is white
who is losing material so magnus played b4 and here a little rule called on pissant
happened and then magnus played bishop a3 which looks like it just loses a full piece but the idea
is that you're going to win the pawn on the knight on a5 and you're going to be hitting the pawn on
c7 at the same time you're going to be hitting the pawn on b3 which of those two pawns for black
is more important it's actually tough to tell especially if you're if you're a beginner because
you want to keep this pawn because it makes a queen but you also want to keep this pawn because
it's near your king and maybe your king needs to be covered no it is for sure the pawn on b3 so
hikaru gives away the c7 pawn and guards the b3 pawn but magnus doesn't even take it and instead
goes this way now we get c5 hitting the knight and this is where the thumbnail comes into play
magnus plays bishop h5 and says take my knight i don't give a damn rook takes f7 and hikaru says
all right well the only way to get out of this discovered attack is to play my only legal king
move king d7 ironically moving the king keeps it safer because there's no checks magnus plays
bishop g4 this move looks like it has no threat because that's all guarded except that actually
the threat is queen takes bishop because this is pinned to the king and this is pinned to the
king so no one is guarding the bishop so the only way to guard the bishop is to activate the king
the brave king runs to the defense of his army and you can't play rook c oh rugby one would
not be good but you can't play rook c1 because the queen so magnus sacrifices a second piece because
why not you know why not he still can't take the knight because of defense of uh the queen on a3 so
he plays rook f6 back queen b6 queen and bishop uh queen and rook excuse me hitting the bishop bishop
d5 rook czech and now hikara had to put the icing on the cake in this position and he had to find
the move king to c8 the idea being that after rook takes d5 which again you're sacrificing another
piece and if you play something like queen e6 the king goes to b8 and now you don't have a check
and as long as black escapes the checks here black should be winning black will bring the rogues and
win the game instead hikara played king e8 and in this position magnus is not trying to take
the knight he's actually trying to give checks forcing the king out this way a repetition and
we thought that this was it we thought we were going to get a draw until hikaro played the move
king f5 with a minute on the clock completely insane game and magnus takes the knight on d5
super computer here was showing some ridiculous forcing draw variations i'm not even gonna
kill your time getting into them uh but ceci obviously is the engine that everybody watches
uh was saying that if you take the knight in this position you can somehow take the pawn and bring
the rook and between the combination of those two moves this king will never find shelter because
the king needs to really hide in the corner and it can't and in the game itself magnus didn't
take or play rookie one he played a check because that seems natural the queen attacking the king
but ikaru found a way to hide the king behind the pieces activate both rooks and it was in this
position that's magnus carlson resigned because he's simply out of resources once the rook is
activated along with the connected uh with the pawn on b2 things are looking good for magnus and
an easy win for kikaro taking a one-nothing lead again winning with the black pieces it seemed like
he was on top of the world and he was cruising to a victory in the second game nothing happened
literally nothing happened it was a spanish by hikaru magnus switching it up yesterday from a
sicilian going for a berlin defense now here you can play the anti-berlin with d3 a lot of
the beginning spanish players you can also just play knight c3 you can just play the four knights
uh but hikaru enters the berlin and here the main line berlin defense is dc6 uh bishop c6 dc6
and and this position so this is the mainline berlin defense surveyed many times originally
really between kasparov and kramnik in the world championship match but recently with everybody i
mean everybody's playing these systems and there's different setups instead hikaru plays de5 and for
a temporary sacrifice of the bishop yes a4 and this is a pretty well known draw uh knight d4
d5 on passant knight takes d4 and i know some of these moves are weird like levy why don't they
play rookie one check while this knight goes back so this is actually a very common repetition of
moves very common repetition of moves and hikaru played it instantly whether or not he was prepared
for the berlin defense doesn't really matter i hypothesized this during the live commentary
i said that he seems very confident with his black repertoire he doesn't have any problems with the
black pieces and if he gets draws with white good positions with black where he's playing for a win
let it be so in the third game hikaru has the black pieces and now magnus tries in english so
a very early central strike on d5 very common two pawns and i mean players developing their pieces
right here we already have our first interesting moment queen c2 rather than moving a knight or
a bishop magnus wants to put the rook on d1 line it up to this queen and play the move d4
and early d4 that's exactly what he does uh hikaru sets up and magnus plays the move d4
car it takes and it looks like he has very good control of the position here now here the engine
was suggesting bishop e3 walking into this fork uh lining up the rook and potentially knight d4
there was one variation that could happen with pawn takes bishop actually take queen
check king f2 and rook d7 so black gets a rook a dark squared bishop and one pawn for a queen
and the position is kind of in the balance very very interesting position black has more pieces
white has the queen but that is something that could have happened instead magnus played bishop
b2 and here hikaru found a beautiful idea first things first hits the queen queen backs up and now
not allowing his opponent to take on his terms magnus wants to make this trade at some point
and have the open rook so hikaru gives the pawn back forcing this capture and now the rook is
blocked so he's making magnus take the pawn back on a different term and plays bishop h3 bishop
h1 now at this point apparently because of the opposite side castling and the good positioning
of the bishop it was necessary to begin active operations with the h-pawn launching some sort
of attack before magnus gets settled because in a perfect world magnus gets rid of both of these
pieces uses his open c file his d-file and his bishop on the diagonal and gets a good position
well that's kind of what happens bishop g4 d4 bishop b4 and a capture on c3 followed by knight
takes d5 so magnus gives away his d-pawn but he does it to have bishops very very powerful bishops
and the d and the c files to operate on and so we get queen c4 bishop e6 and knight d4 now at
this point if you weren't following either of the broadcasts uh you would you wouldn't
know this so i'm going to tell it to you right now at this point something was going on with
hikaru's webcam uh it was flickering on and off uh and there was a penalty a substantial fine
uh according to the contract that he could be paid for getting off his webcam and so he was
they were they were prompting him to find a way to turn the webcam back on
uh and obviously that is you know at the critical moment of the game uh when things are heating up
and getting intense that kind of sucks to have it happen uh and actually right around here
uh the only blunder of hikaru's first six or seven games occurs and it is bishop to
f7 and so after knight c6 queen c6 queen g4 check this little geometric motif hitting the pawn and
the king and now magnus doesn't even take the extra pawn because that would open up the h file
magnus gets back consolidates and i think right here is the next instructive moment he trades both
rooks he just gets the rooks off the board and he's got queen two bishops versus queen bishop
knight but the big thing is this broken pawn structure if you can win one of these pawns
with this open king and yours is very safe you're gonna be happy and you're going to win a nice game
and that's exactly what happens so watch as he keeps up the pressure bishop back constant
looming threat of the queen not to mention bishop takes f6 could be a threat in the future with the
queen coming in on the fork right now it does not work but that is something to keep an eye on
and actually right after a few more moves not trading the queens here it happens bishop takes f6
and now if you take i've got queen f4 check and i'm going to regain the piece that was
just sacrificed with a winning position here hikaru went for an another king run it was it
was a day of king runs for hikaru as he gets the king to a4 but unfortunately it was not enough
magnus gives away the pawn on a3 consolidating the queen side he's not letting hikaru take
and the decisive factor here is going to be the three on one which very quickly became a three on
none as uh magnus picked up the pawn and the three versus the b-pawn very easily winning by playing
in such a fashion that the queen comes back to a square where it covers the only pawn that is weak
and this pawn has a golden ticket to promote queen e2 stops and no it does not queen on c5 covers
h6 h7 and for a moment you stop this pawn but after the check there is nothing and
hikaru resigned because after king b2 queen a8 you cannot stop the pawn and you cannot give
a check on this diagonal so that is the end of the game not the end of the match it is one and
a half one and a half but in the fourth game also nothing happened we got the exact same repetition
literally and at this point hikaru had mentioned that he was obviously pretty frustrated with
what had happened with the webcam issue at the same time he needed that time to just kind of
recover from all of it two to two let's play a blitz game and in the first blitz game
it was magnus with the white pieces and another queen's gambit declined with bishop g5
uh things kind of slowed down early on a lot of pieces were traded very quickly so i think
i'll pick things up right around here black has an extra pawn but he also has a pawn on
e5 which controls some squares but could be a weakness in the future if you're not careful
and so magnus tries to play around this pawn for a while not winning it back right away hikaru trades
off this bishop very instructive just trying to solidify the position and magnus finally takes
but hikaru has a super solid structure and a nice knight on d6 now if you're looking to put some
pressure on your opponent here you should look at the space advantage on the king side and start
some sort of attack and that's exactly what magnus does so he plays f4 takes and plays f5 but here
hikaru finds a gorgeous resource that makes the game a dead draw queen c5 takes on e6 takes on e6
rook c1 it looks like you are winning because the queen is hit if you move the queen here
there is a fork excuse me there is a fork and if you move the queen to e7 there is also a fork
so you can pause here take a look at the position i'll take a sip of water how does
hikaru stabilize the position use the concept that i mentioned earlier danger levels you don't
need to stop the threat on your queen if you can provide equal or higher danger to your opponent
correct that move is knight to f6 a gorgeous move because even though you can take i
will then take your knight i now have two attacks if you take me here i take you here
this is under attack this is under attack not a good situation and so the players traded off into
an endgame hikaru found another very accurate move not just taking back and giving this pawn
away but rather moving the rook out of danger to defend and even though magnus gets to hang
on to that g7 pawn the rook jumps in and the end game transforms into one that features this
two on one i know i went through that very quickly but the moves are not super important what's
important is that you understand that king and one and a rook versus king and two and a rook on the
same side especially when the defensive side is so active and cutting off the king is a draw the
rest of the game was about 30 moves long but this is not a separate endgame video maybe i will make
that later but this game was drawn and so hikaru had the white pieces in the final round and it was
another berlin defense but this time hikaru took on c6 and in trading off his light squad bishop
restructures his pawn structure in such a way that he's got a bunch of pawns on the light squares
okay so trade off your light squad bishop pawns on the light squares
excuse me and both players castle queen side pretty stable position now both players follow
the rule of tucking their king over one square when you castle queen side and here hikaru tries
to open the position and go for something so far the position is in the balance a big pawn trade
and now he gets his rook once he gets the rook here the rook doesn't just have pressure on
this file he also has pressure on potentially swinging over this way and hitting the a7 pawn
but magnus immediately trades off the active knight and trades off a pawn opens up a file for
his rook and this game did not go that much longer actually he plays queen e7 sidestepping the pin
ikaro plays a devilish move queen a4 which sets up a potential discovered attack in just a few turns
this rook can go to e4 or even take on d6 in devastating fashion so magnus plays b6
to block out this bishop ikaro jumps into c6 and magnus plays a very straightforward move bishop e5
and here during the broadcast i was very perplexed because i just thought you go
captures captures captures captures and then it's just equal i mean maybe you play king c2 i don't
know like it's the queen does not have an entrance point and the players just shake hands and we go
to armageddon but then hikora played rook d7 which i like for a second i thought was a mouse slip
uh because after rook takes rook takes it looks like you're pressuring but the black queen jumps
out to b4 and there's a maid and there is this and even though you can't go rook h1 because of
the queen all of this is a is a possibility and not to mention these two moves and actually the
defense fell apart very quickly here hikaru played bishop d4 and if you take of course
you are the one to get mated because again this bishop is covering c7 but magnus played bishop d6
hikaru backed up to e4 to cover queenie one and here there's a gorgeous move that ends that ends
the mini match you can try to pause and find it five four three two one and that move is queen a4
and after queen a4 with the threat of the rook and d1 checkmate yukari resigned and it was
magnus carlsen who struck back today to even the match at one to one now it is the best of five
hopefully this catches you up to date uh with all of uh all of the the drama and the games
and all this exciting stuff this is the this is a heavyweight clash that we've all anticipated
if you've made it this far as always drop me a comment uh give the video a thumbs up
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just keeps on growing two videos are gonna appear over there and that's it tomorrow 10am
eastern as always myself and anna rudolph over on twitch for the live broadcast take care everybody