10-year-old Faustino Oro's BRILLIANT tactic

Hi everyone, it's Jerry. I have an excellent game to share with you from the 2023 FIDE World Rapid Chess Championship on the wide end Radek Makarian playing against Faustino Oro, a 10-year-old Faustino for this game. This was played about 6 months before he became the world's youngest international master. We have a Queen's Gambit decline, 3 knights, and with the D takes c4, this is the Vienna variation, e4 follows, and now b5. Follow-up here is e5. If knight takes b5, knight takes e4. Nice exchange of pawns for black, giving up the knight pawn, having a center pawn in return. It's e5 here, knight d5, and now white regains the material. In the end, the queenside pawns for black are all isolated. Any good news here for black? Yes. By playing this b5 line, e5 has been provoked, d5 as a result is now a hole. Black pieces can now pivot about on that square. And also, this pawn here, one of the double isolated pawns, it's invasive in some way. It influences the light square bishop in particular, cannot easily be deployed on this diagonal. So, we hang on to the c4 pawn, some more development for each side, and some time here is taken out to cover b4. This paves the way for a stable queen post. Castles, queen c2 sure enough, more pressure on c2, so more defense, and now that the knight is on a5, this pawn break, c5, may be nearby, it can now move at least. White says, not so fast, no castles here, opposite the queen, makes c5 a bit trickier to get in. Bishop b7, knight c3, back to a healthier square, possibly eyeing up knight to e4, at the same time there is not as much pressure now on c4, so the knight improves, hunting for the dark square bishop, it's preserved. Notice d file has a bit more traffic on it now. Black now goes for the c5 break, not going to be as dangerous a pin with the bishop on d2, d takes, c5 follows. And from here, we have the simple recapture. Computer doesn't see that as best, there is a way white could provoke some weaknesses after this capture. Computer has its eye on rook c8, and then rook takes c5 instead. If white tries to put up a fight, playing knight to e4, hanging onto that pawn, it's looking at knight b3 to collect the pawn. That line runs much deeper, pretty complicated, with some knight diving into d6, but just giving you a feel for what this best play looks like. Rook c8, knight b3 from here. In this one, it's the simple recapture. And now that the bishop is no longer on this diagonal, g5 is up for grabs, the knight dives in here straight away, and there's a mate threat on the spot. Even better, apparently, for white, is to play knight e4, and then follow up with h4, maybe later looking at a piece jump into g5. All right, in this one, it's knight g5 straight away. How to parry the mate threat, only one move here, g6. Not ideal to have to create these two dark square weaknesses when there's still all this material still on board, not a single piece exchange yet. From here, we have h4. Even better, the computer's pointing out bishop to h6, and that's a way to immediately take advantage of these weakened dark squares, occupying h6 with the bishop, eyeing up f6 with the knight. All right, in this one, it is h4. Aggressive play nearby, and given some time, h5, and then a capture, maybe a sacrifice on e6, queen smashing through on g6. What do you do about this? Well, one of the pieces that could really take advantage of these weakened dark squares is, unsurprisingly, this dark square bishop. So, tries to track that piece down, and will be successful. These knights on light are covering all of the bishop's squares. The same time, this pawn is now up for grabs, swiped, but dangerous dark square bishop is down for the count. Now what do we do? We're in this pin. Get out of it. In this game, queen b8 is played. Why not go to c7 and stay developed and keep some squares open for the rook, c8, d8? Well, if you have the queen here on c7, there is the following. White could continue with bishop takes knight, and then knight to a4. This is pretty irritating. Bit of an issue here on the c-file. No time here for black, keep in mind, to take on e5 with check. White would punch back. There would be a problem with the black queen, and still this issue here on c5. So, some precision here. Queen b8. Rook doesn't have a move, but at least this queen is secure. In the game, it is knight takes knight. If bishop captures knight, well, this is in fact the top move. It wants to go for bishop takes, and then defend e5. Notice, in this scenario, with the queen on b8 rather than c7, knight a4 is no problem. The bishop can fall back. No issue on the c-file. All right, in this game, after queen b8, it is knight takes knight, pawn takes knight, and queen takes e5, check. What is white supposed to do here? If you move the king, that hangs the bishop, and notice there is no time. There would be no time to regain it. Queen takes bishop, there would be bishop takes g2, check, and then queen takes queen. So, white therefore must now block this check. Rook e2, not going to cut it. Queen takes bishop follows. You have to block on e4. You have to go with either the knight or the queen, it is saying in this position, and both read about the same evaluation-wise, but each has a much different feel. In this game, it is knight to e4. You are blocking with the queen. You are looking to resolve this pin. In this one, knight to e4, very sharp tactically, off of the g5 square. This may now pave the way for the pawn to advance, white to justify the earlier h4 advance. Get in h5, you are engaging, the rook will spring to life soon enough. This knight post on e4 is also there, indirectly defending the d5 square. In this position, rook c8 is played. If black takes on d5, the rook will recapture. Queen takes rook, there we go. Knight f6, taking advantage of one of those weak squares. So, sharp move here, knight to e4. Follow-up, rook to c8. Bishop takes bishop. Why wasn't that played? Well, we got some tricks here on f2. In this game, queen to b3 is played. If bishop takes bishop, this is how it would look in the end. Black swipes the queen. This would not be a winning position here for black, but it's calling it minus .7. If I had to pick a side, I'm leaning more towards black. White still has some work to do, and by that I mean some coordination. White has to find coordination here. There's disconnect between the rooks, unprotected bishop. All right, white does not want to allow the queen to be won. So, after rook c8, it is queen b3, and now bishop a6, another top move here. Look at these monster bishops. No castles for white. You're stuck in the center with this guy around. White's reply here is queen g3. The top two moves, there's only two moves here in the computer's eyes. It's pointing out king d1, getting out of the pin. And it's saying the other move is to play like an animal. Just go ahead and play h5. Keep yourself in this pin and try and open up the h-file. Try and do something here towards the black king. In this one, very sensible looking at least, queen g3. By this point, with the bishops bearing down, it's pretty clear the white king is not really standing so well. Black has the much safer king in this situation. Pop quiz here. How would you continue? Feel free to pause the video. Okay, a bolt from the blue here. Top move, bishop to b4. How many of you spotted that one? The queen is poison. Queen takes queen, and it would be mate on the spot. You got a pinned rook. So what is white playing? Captures the bishop in this game. Rook c1 to follow. You got a block. Rook takes rook check. Queen takes rook. And queen takes bishop. So what has happened with that sequence? Black has given up the dark square bishop. Got the light square bishop in return. What's really happening here is that the white king is now stuck in the center. No castling. The knight now has to go into a pin. Even though white is up a pawn here, the bigger problem here remains the king positions. White king running for his life. Beautiful queen post. We're not even done yet with this follow-up forceful move. Rook d8. You have to defend the knight and in the process give up the g2 pawn. Queen goes to c3 here. Cuts into black's camp. Maybe you could dream of something like this and checkmate on g7. But black is there first. Dictating play. Swiping the g pawn. You're on the rook. You're on the f pawn. There goes the f pawn. This one's ready to fall next. It advances. Queen f4. Perfect move. Keep pressure on that pin's knight. Keep a restriction on the queen and some defensive role as well. If ever h6, queen takes pawn right away. In this game, queen e3? No. Let's keep the queens on. I have the safer king. Follow-up bishop d3. Rook c8 right around the corner. Black is taking away all the squares. What a pest. This light square bishop was cutting off the king from castles. And now it's cutting off the king from trying to maybe sneak away over here. A square opens up here with b3. Queen takes h5. Three connected. Passers nice and central here. This pawn is picked up. These guys are passed, but they're going nowhere. Bishop f5 follows. And what do you do now? The knight is hit. In the game, second rank defense with rook e2. If the knight moves here, let's say it goes to c4. Check out this move. Queen g2 check. And look at how the queen coordinates perfectly with the bishop. Or would coordinate perfectly with the bishop and rook on c2 and a8. Let's see why these two squares play a big role in this situation. What would white's options be? Forget about all the blocks. We just take those three pieces. The only other options are king moves. And these are the king's moves. If you go to these two, mate. And if you go to these two, we would have rook a8 pinning the queen. All right, in this game, no knight block. Second rank defense. But now the queen slips in here on the light squares with tempo. Rook f2. Queen c2 check. King a3. You could take the knight here. But you also would have to calculate, is there some perpetual check? Queen b8 check. Queen e5 follow-up check. That's unnecessary. What would be better? Track this knight with check. Queen c1 check played here. Two options for the king. You go to a4, you're going to lose the queen. It's king a2 in this game. And now we collect the knight with check. And that is enough to force white's resignation. If the game continued, we would actually have a checkmate in four. Black could do without. Tracking the rook here. You could just work with the bishop and queen. Familiar pattern. Check on b1. Discovered check. Check. And checkmate on b3. You go to a1 as well in this case. But just working with that familiar queen-bishop pattern, we could easily see this here as mate. All right, but in this one, we only go as far as rook captures knight check. And white resigns. So what did you think of this one? Any of you spot this star move here? Bishop to b4. Feel free, as usual, to leave any feedback to this video in the comment section below. I hope you enjoyed it. And maybe took a thing or two away. That's all for now. Take care. Bye.