El Classico - Hikaru Nakamura vs Magnus Carlsen

Welcome back everyone for today's video we are going to be taking a look at the 8th round of the Global Chess League which is being held here in London. Now before we get into the video there are a couple things that I want to point out. First of all one of the great things about being a content creator is that you're on the fly you're having to go place to place setups can be different so this might look a little bit different because I have actually stacked some books and some other things underneath my computer so it's a little bit lifted and I think the angle for the camera should be better. So that's the first thing I wanted to say. Now the second thing that I want to say before we get going into this video is a big shout out to all the great fans all the people who've watched my live streams my YouTube videos who have shown up at the friend's house here in London to watch this event live. So a big shout out to all you guys the fans you do make everything worth it. If I was not able to give you a selfie or do an autograph I do apologize but hopefully you guys have been enjoying everything going on. So I wanted to give a big shout out to the fans here in London before we get into it but now let's jump right into the action. So today is the 8th we're in the second half of the tournament everybody has played each other at least once already and we have the second matchup between myself and of course the icon the five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen. Now in our first game Magnus playing with the white pieces and I had the black piece it was a very exciting thriller in Manila the game or thriller in London I should say the game ended in a draw but the fans definitely got to see some exciting action. So second time we're playing here this time I have the white pieces and I decide to play the move 1 b3. Now those of you guys who have watched me play over the years you're probably familiar with the fact that b3 is one of the openings that I played when I first started out streaming frankly it's an opening that I've played a lot over my career. Now unfortunately due to changes in chess with more technology more opening courses these days 1 b3 and 1 knight f3 are simply not the surprises that they once were. That being said the other day when I had the white piece against Ali Reza there was a ceremonial first move and in that game the player played the move b3 so I thought why not let's go for it let's try to surprise Magnus and let's have some fun. Additionally because there's no increment in these games you can play these openings develop very easily and therefore you won't have to spend a lot of time. So Magnus goes e5 now I play the move bishop b2 we get knight c6 developing the knight and guarding the pawn on e5 and now I go at e3 with the idea of playing bishop b5. Now here Magnus plays the move g6 it's a little bit of a surprise to me it's not the move that I expect him to play normally black plays move d5 building a big black center with d5 and bishop d6 here black can also go a6 to stop bishop b5 or even simply a move like knight f6 here all these ideas are possible but Magnus goes for the move g6 trying to fianchito the bishop to g7. Here I play the move d4 now one of the things I was thinking about during the game is do I want to play d4 or knight f3 now I can play knight f3 bishop g7 and d4 but I was actually a little bit concerned that Magnus here would play the move e4 closing down the diagonal for the two after knight d2 and f5 I think black is actually a little bit better so I go d4 in one go Magnus takes of course he cannot play e4 here because there's no knight on f3 to attack but additionally I can play d5 opening up the scope for the bishop to hit the rook in the corner but also the horse on c6 is under attack and black will lose some material so Magnus decides to take I play knight f3 and now Magnus goes for the very enterprising move bishop b4 check now this is what we like to call new age hippie chess computers have taught us that you can play moves like g6 with the intention of fianchitoing a bishop and then randomly put a bishop on a different diagonal now 20-30 years ago players like Garry Kasparov or Mikhail Botvinnik one of the founders of the Russian school of chess they would be rolling in their grave if they saw such moves because it violates the fundamental principles but at the end of the day chess computers are simply better than humans I would also like to point out that a lot of credit goes to people like Demis Hassabis from London who created AlphaZero the great computer program that sort of pushed chess very far ahead who also today was announced as receiving the Nobel Prize for I believe chemistry so we get the move bishop b4 now I play knight bd2 the computer actually likes to move c3 I did consider this move but in order to play this move I better be a 3500 computer or I better be perfectly prepared now the reason I say that is when I did consider c3 after takes takes or you might notice bishop can't get to the g7 square so black will play knight f6 here and after a3 trying to break the pin I saw bishop f8 knight to d5 attacking the horse and opening up the diagonal and after bishop g7 I thought Magnus would be okay here bishop guards knight black is going to castle and I simply didn't see an idea now in typical 3500 computer fashion white is actually better here because a very obvious move rook to a2 what an obvious move right you move the rook to a2 doing nothing however there is one very specific concrete idea behind this move which is that now you want to play the move queen to a1 lining up the double a battery on this diagonal now black were to play with like castles for example after queen to a1 suddenly there's a massive pressure on this diagonal let's just say black goes knight h5 takes takes now I can go knight f6 king h8 and after knight to g5 look at these knights here they're super active all kinds of pressure on the king side and white is actually much better now if I prepare this for the game I probably can find it in a rapid game let alone even a classical game I frankly think this is simply beyond the level of humans it's just too ridiculous to come up with these concepts but of course it is better for white so instead like a normal human I play the move knight bd2 instead and my idea is that down the road I'm simply going to capture the pawn on d4 and material will be balanced if black were to take the pawn on e3 here I can play queen to e2 pinning the pawn and now after queen to e7 takes takes a knight d2 I thought I was actually simply better here because black has sacked the rook on the h8 square but in return I have a rook for a knight and queens are coming off the board and we're going into an endgame now apparently black is better after the move f6 cutting off the return of the bishop on the diagonal but this is again something that I think is well outside the realm of human play and frankly especially rapid play where you don't have an increment so I play knight bd2 magnus decides to play the move knight to f6 here I play knight takes pawn and now we get knight to e4 now what magnus is aiming for here is he's immediately putting a lot of pressure on this diagonal so I have to retreat with the knight to guard my horse on d2 but now threaten to capture the rook on h8 here magnus castles and this is probably a moment where I spent quite a bit of time and I was very unhappy with my decision now it's ironic that the elisa engine on my computer says queen c1 is best but during the game I thought I should have played this move c4 here and the reasoning is quite simple it makes it so it's very hard for black to play d5 without me being able to play something like a3 let's just say takes takes bishop e7 takes takes and now after queen c2 I'm threatening to line up the battery again I have bishop c4 and with the bees and the queen here it looks very dangerous for black so I thought about c4 very briefly but then I just figured well there's probably something like maybe a d5 takes and bishop g4 something like this and it could be very scary so I didn't spend a lot of time now again in a classical game maybe I can spend the time but when you're playing a rapid game you're already down a minute on the clock you just have to pick your moments and this is a moment where I probably should have used more time but instead I decide to go for the move queen c1 magnus now plays move d5 and here the big issue for me is that if I try to play c4 here now after move like d4 there's massive pressure on the diagonal if I take after rookie suddenly everything here is collapsing in the middle of the board and I'm simply getting crushed so at this point it's very tricky to figure out what to do and this is also why when magnus was thinking he did use a bit of time before playing move d5 I was very unhappy because I thought that I had missed an opportunity to be better with the move c4 so magnus goes d5 here I play the move c3 trying to slam the door shut on the diagonal and now magnus goes bishop e7 here I play the move c4 trying to reopen the long diagonal for the scope bishop and I'm hoping that because magnus is a bad b on e7 and the bishop is not properly fiancito I can line up the double a battering checkmate as king so magnus trades knights here I take with the current queen a rather regrettable decision I'd much rather take with the knight but now after d4 let's just say e4 and black plays rookie eight black is actually quite a bit better in this position primarily because my b has no scope on this diagonal so I take with the queen magnus takes I take and now he plays move bishop b4 pinning the queen on d2 and the knight guards the bishop however here I have the move bishop c3 breaking the pin and now magnus trades the queens and goes bishop g4 now magnus spent a lot of time here if you look at the time situation here he effectively spent six minutes before calculating the sequence and what that told me during the game is that he was looking for something where he might be better but he was unable to find it and so he had to make a practical decision at the end of the day so we get to this position after takes takes bishop g4 now we're in an end game fortunately for me this is a pretty simplified end game here so even though magnus carlson is considered to be the wizard of end games and he swindles so many of these I wasn't really all that concerned so I decided to play a3 magnus trades and now he goes for the move knight to a5 trying to attack the bishop now this move caught me by surprise I actually thought magnus would trade the bishop for the knight creating the double pawns on f2 and f3 and after knight e5 bishop e2 let's just say rook d8 king c3 and rook d6 I figure I'm okay here after f4 but again it feels like with a knight versus a bishop there are chances to keep the game going magnus goes knight a5 instead now I play knight to e5 attacking the b he trades knight I take and now he goes bishop f5 here I play the move king c3 and at this point I felt that the danger was gone there's no chance of me ever losing it's really only a question of whether I can potentially create some chances to win the game primarily because with a knight versus a b here all my pawns are pretty secure bishop can't target anything and the knight can start hopping all over the board so magnus goes f6 I go back he plays c5 worth noting knight d3 was also possible but I figured after takes takes rook d8 king c3 and rook d6 there simply are no chances for me to win the game and based on some of the other games I saw in the match I thought I should try to keep all the pieces on the board so I go knight f3 we get c5 here an excellent move from magnus as it takes away the square from the horse on d4 I go rook d1 rook d8 and here I play the move knight to e1 now in another world I probably would have played this move rook to d5 here it's a very committal move but after bishop e4 and rook takes c5 rook d3 I assumed that magnus would be getting a kebab let's say king b4 takes takes and rook d2 I simply did not see how to prove that I was better now rook f1 rook d8 and apparently rook c7 is better for white again simply a judgment call could I have found this absolutely on the other hand I simply thought that this was a little bit dangerous as well so I go over knight e1 instead and this this has a very simple idea behind it I want to play the move f3 followed by e4 and then bringing my knight to either d3 or c2 we have b6 f3 king f7 e4 bishop e6 and now I go knight c2 now in this position magnus plays move f5 and this is a very important move here because in this position if I am able to get my knight to e3 and or d5 say we get something like this you'll notice I have the classic connect four but after takes takes now I also can potentially create pass pawns in the center of the board and black actually has to be extremely careful to not lose the game here but when magnus goes f5 he's chipping away at my pawn so if I take on f5 like in the game now you'll notice the knight doesn't get the extra protection on d5 say we just put a random position like this after b5 now the knight is weak on the square and I don't have this extra support point with the pawn to guard the knight but as much as I'd like to keep the pawn at e4 if I play knight to e3 I think after takes takes and king f6 with ideas like king to e5 computer says it's still okay for white but it's getting kind of dangerous the pawn on e4 is weak there's an open f file for black to put the rooks on and it's starting to spin a little bit out of control so I take magnus takes and now I play the move f4 an important move here to fix the pawn on also down the road after takes and let's get this position with g3 now all these pawns in the king side are on the opposite color of the bishop so the bishop can't touch anything additionally I can potentially create a bastion if I can get the knight to f3 to either e5 or g5 here so after g3 magnus goes rook h8 and here I play the move knight to e1 and he goes king e7 now magnus could have tried h4 here but after knight f3 takes takes king e7 rook e3 and king f6 probably after knight e5 bishop c8 and now rook d3 I have ideas like rook d6 and the game should end in a draw by repetition after black cuts me off each time from entering so instead magnus goes king e7 I play knight f3 he goes rook d8 here and now I play the move rook e3 now at this point already I could have traded the rooks to make a draw but I decide let's keep it going a bit more so I go rook e3 he goes king f6 and now I realize that at this point rook d3 is probably the best decision I could play rook e1 here to stop any infiltration on the file but even here after bishop f7 I simply have no way to make any progress so I go rook d3 and now magnus trades the rooks and I think it was at this point after king d3 that I actually offered magnus a draw because I simply thought there was no way to make progress but true to magnus's style he keeps playing because there also is no risk of him losing the game so he goes here I go king c3 a6 a4 trying to stop b5 king d6 and now I play a very very important move here which is knight to h4 now it's a very tricky position because for example if I play knight g5 after bishop d7 king b3 black can now go b5 and after takes takes takes suddenly the king is infiltrating d5 d4 e4 let's say we get this position maybe it's still a draw after knight to h7 but it's very very tricky here and if anybody can win it will be black so I play knight h4 instead and the idea is quite simple I want to so if black goes bishop d7 and I go king b3 here b5 is never an option here because now I can trade all the pawns off and take the pawn on f5 and now I probably win the game so if black can't use the bishop to play b5 then I'll have to bring the king over and if black tries to bring bring the king over just to illustrate the point I guess it's going to transpose the game anyway he goes king e6 here to guard the pawn still trying to go to d5 now I can play knight g2 and the idea is simply that I want to put the knight on e3 where we'll always pressure the pawn f5 but it'll also cover this entry square on d5 as well Magnus goes back I play knight e3 and at this point the game is basically a draw here black cannot make progress to set up one more point in this position after king c6 I play the move h3 here and the reasoning behind this move is that now black goes b5 I'll trade off all the pawns and after takes I think g4 is enough to draw the game I actually consider this during the game I saw this line with takes f5 attacking the bishop here if black moves the bishop back I can simply trade all the pawns off and sooner or later I'm going to be able to sack this knight for the pawn and the game is going to be a draw but after g4 takes f5 there is one cool line that I saw which is black and sack the bishop but after takes takes knight g3 h2 I can go king b3 h4 knight here and after c4 king c3 king c5 knight f2 king b5 knight to h1 the game effectively is going to end in a draw here because if black leaves the king guarding the pawn I always do the dance with the knight and when black tries to enter with king e4 I can take and after king f3 king d3 king g2 king e2 black sooner or later is going to have to take the horse and then I go king to f1 and it's a stalemate even though black has two extra juicers on the king side so after h3 Magnus instead plays king d6 now I go king b2 the one last little wrinkle that I don't play king b3 because then black does have b5 due to the pin of the pawn on c4 I go king b2 Magnus goes back and here we end up making a draw by repetition and the game ends peacefully so not the most exciting game I will give you that but at the end of the day the game is a draw which is fine for the team or so I thought based on our positions unfortunately things would not get better for the team as we would lose a couple of games we would go on to lose the match and that all but eliminates us from finishing in the top two and having a chance to win the event so a little bit disappointing for me certainly to be in such a situation I'm not super happy about it but it is what it is and it's not you know my fault and there's nothing I really could do about it all right so let's move on to the next game so next game we have Vichy Anon playing against the superstar of the event Grandmaster Alireza Frugia from Iran who now is representing France now Alireza suffered a very difficult loss to me in the previous game I realized that the board is apparently off why is the board off let me double check it sorry you guys I made a mistake that's great fantastic so you don't even see my name on the game fantastic let me adjust my scene in OBS and I do apologize for that let me adjust it for this one at least so we get it correct all right let me pull this down a little bit and there we go a little bit embarrassing to have not noticed this but that is it is what it is all right so here we go we have the game between Vichy Anon with the white pieces Alireza with the black piece now Alireza on five and a half out of seven he suffered a tough loss against me yesterday but he's been dominating the event Vichy Anon however is a five-time world champion but someone who's been struggling mightily he's lost four of his seven games and he's had three draws so he's really hoping to get it done with the white pieces today so Vichy starts with the move e4 we get c6 d4 and now Alireza plays d6 now this is a classic disrespect from Alireza here he is playing complete nonsense this is not an opening you play against top level players but Alireza's mind he's probably figuring Vichy is well past his prime he's not super young and if Vichy has to spend time thinking at the get-go Vichy will probably get into trouble on the clock which means that the quality of his moves will deteriorate and he'll end up in trouble so we get knight c3 queen c7 played by Alireza and now we get the move f4 now what Vichy is going for is a classic Austrian attack bringing the knight out combined with this big white center of the three pawns on f4 e4 and d4 we got e5 here Vichy plays knight f3 and now we get the move knight d7 here Vichy plays bishop d3 we get knight f6 castles and the move bishop e7 now white is much better as you can see from the evaluation bar but that being said you have to come up with a plan and Vichy does not get to rattle off 20 moves to reach a position that he's very familiar with in terms of pawn structures also he's going to have to really try to think and he can't force so we get king h1 Alireza castles we get queen e1 and now we have the move e takes d4 Alireza plays knight takes pawn and now we get to move rook e8 and here Vichy plays queen g3 trying to pressure the pawn on g7 Alireza goes bishop f8 guarding the pawn on g7 and opening up the e file so he can attack the pawn on e4 Vichy goes bishop d2 we get g6 and now we have the move knight to f3 now it's worth pointing out here that f5 is a very very strong move for white here after f5 trying to open up this file let's just say bishop g7 and queen h4 white can go g4 g5 there's bishop h6 as well and white is simply much better if not outright winning from a technical standpoint so we get knight to f3 Alireza plays bishop g7 and now we get the move rook a e1 and here we have the move b5 now Alireza is a little bit behind in development here you see the bishop on c8 the rook on a8 which are underdeveloped Vichy has perfect development rooks on e1 and f1 looking to push p in the center of the board here and Alireza is trying to generate some counterplay with b5 to maybe fianchito the bishop or distract this knight on c3 which guards the pawn on e4 we get to move a3 here from Vichy Alireza goes a5 and now we get to move queen h4 Alireza plays b4 we get takes takes knight to d1 and now the move bishop a6 now you'll notice here that Vichy has been a little bit too slow he's been trying to improve his position instead of just going all in and I frankly think this is simply a symptom of Vichy trying to trying to avoid going to complications if he can help it because once Alireza gets this open a file and now the white square b's are coming off the board black is actually completely fine and on top of that Alireza is slowly but surely building a time advantage so Vichy trades we get to move e5 here trying to open up the center of the board and from Vichy's standpoint he's trying to create some clarity and see if he can play moves quickly unfortunately after pawn takes pawn here white has no attack on the king side and if anybody is better here it's going to be black we get takes takes now we have takes takes and here Vichy trades and goes for queen takes b4 now is white losing or anything no material is still even however black has a slightly better pawn structure on the king side there's also ideas like rook a1 or knight to e4 and again Vichy will have to show great defense if he is going to save this game Alireza goes rook a1 and on top of that actually I should add look at the time situation Alireza's moves are simply way too easy here and Vichy is in a lot of trouble so we get the move rook to e1 Alireza goes queen h5 pressuring the horse on d1 and now we get this move knight to f2 which is simply a blunder that being said as you'll notice if you look at this time usage let's just go back for a second 858 here when Vichy plays e5 all the way down now to 2 minutes and 41 seconds and Alireza's moves have basically been played instantly and it's clear that this is going horribly horribly wrong for or not so we get queen h5 knight f2 is played here computer actually wants knight c3 and after takes takes at least in this position black cannot infiltrate with the queen to e2 or d1 as the knight covers the two squares however after knight to f2 Alireza trades and now after queen to e2 suddenly there are all kinds of threats there's the obvious threat of queen to f1 creating a classic ice skater checkmate the king cannot move forward and the game ends on the spot the bishop and the knight are also in a very precarious situation both of them are being targeted this of course is also a classic mini right triangle so what Vichy should have played here was a move h3 or maybe even h4 and after queen takes c2 here black is simply up a pawn on the king's side white's king is very weak here whereas black's fiancito bishop right around the king simply provides a perfect shelter so Alireza probably wins this game anyway but when Vichy plays move knight to h3 the game is simply ending instantly as Alireza plays bishop to f8 attacking the queen on b4 queen is stuck having to guard this bishop on e1 we get to move queen to d2 and now after queen to f1 check knight g1 and bishop c5 Vichy Anand resigns the game here as he's going to lose this knight on g1 i guess you can probably save it for a few more moves without getting mated although uh if you play a move like h3 queen g1 is simply a checkmate if you play a move like bishop f2 i take and again queen g1 is unstoppable unless you do a botez gambit but here black is an extra queen and the game will end in a couple of moves so a very very disheartening game for Vichy Anand Alireza plays a disrespectful opening but it is rapid now i think in classical Vichy at the level he's at probably still could have punished this opening but in rapid or blitz if you don't find a killer blow immediately you spend a little bit of time and you don't find it things start can go downhill very quickly so a very difficult loss for Anand he now has one and a half points out of eight i believe with three draws and five losses which is simply a devastating result um for him obviously he's not a professional player anymore he just plays events here and there but it's still sad to see one of the great legends of the game suffering so many defeats in this event for Alireza on the other hand he continues to steamroll everybody he now has six and a half points out of eight other than his one loss to me he has simply been playing sublime chess tomorrow i believe is the big matchup that everybody's been waiting for the rematch between Magnus and Alireza we'll see if Magnus can turn it around and finally beat Alireza and shut him down um but it's been a phenomenal result for Alireza and his team in this event and he just keeps on rolling a lot and it really is great to see a junior see the juniors coming up in both rapid and blitz but also in classical now one last point that i want to make is that it appears to me right now at least in my opinion Alireza is clearly the best of the juniors in rapid and blitz but i would say that in classical i think Arjun and Gukesh are better than he is so he could have the schism if you look five six years down the road where you've one player or some of the indians dominating classical and Alireza dominating rapid and blitz but it's going to be a very exciting future nonetheless all right so on that note i apologize for a little bit of scuffness at the start not having the name displaying correctly i do apologize for that but i think you guys still understood the analysis uh or at least as much as you can and i hope you guys enjoyed this video if you're not already subscribed to the channel make sure that you smash that subscribe button below and we'll be back with a recap after i plan the ninth round of the global chess league tomorrow so i hope you guys enjoy it have a great rest of your evening last but not least big shout to all the fans here in london i'll see you guys very soon have a good one bye