Firouzja Cooks Up a Saucy Italian Game

Hi everyone, it's Jerry. I have a sharp game to share with you from round seven of the FIDE Grand Swiss 2025. This was played September 11th. On the wide end, Ali Reza Firuja playing against no-tear-back Yakuboya. All right, both players clearly did their homework for this game. A very sharp start to this one. We are looking at the Italian game, Two Knights Defense. White goes right after the weakest point, f7, d5, pawn takes pawn, knight a5 is played here. If knight captures pawn, we would see the fry-deliver attack, kicking off with knight takes f7, queen f3 checked, double attack. All right, no fry-deliver attack in this one. We have knight a5, bishop checked, c6, pawn takes, pawn takes, queen f3. Now from here, there's a wide range of moves for black, among them bishop e7, rook b8, h6. None of the above in this game. We see here, pawn takes bishop, and queen captures rook. Now, let me back up for a moment. With this decision right here, according to the Lichess Masters database, it's not the greatest sample size, but there are 32 games with this decision, and black scores really well. White wins only 6% of the time, black 28%. So, let's see how black tries to stir up trouble in this exchange-down position. It continues here with queen c7, mission accomplished, swiping the rook. The queen now gets back to a far more active post. From here, we have a reroute for the knight. Knight c6, eyeing two jumps. If queen captures c2 in this position, the queen is in a spot to offset the black queen. Queen c3 is top. Getting the queen, knight, bishop, defending a bishop, and this will pull us into a queenless position, and give white an opportunity to repair the queenside structure. So, no queen exchange here. No queen takes pawn. Knight c6, c3, bishop g4 is played here. If knight d4, you can successfully take the knight, and meet. Queen captures bishop with queen d1. Alright, in this one, it's rapid development. Bishop g4, queen g3, knight d4 only now. The knight is poisoned. Pawn takes knight, queen takes bishop, would be mate. So, the move here is knight a3, covering c2 and c1. So, now this is a threat. No queen takes bishop in reply. Black's follow-up is knight e2. If bishop captures knight, there wouldn't be the recapture on a3. Instead, pawn captures knight. From here, it is knight e2. And, this was really the first moment that Feruja blinked. The first blink of this game is this moment here. He was clearly well-prepared for this line. He plays queen e3. Now, the other move he was almost certainly considering is the forceful knight captures b5. You are on the black queen there. Knight takes b5. If queen b8, there is queen d3 defending the knight, getting out of the knight's reach. Also, note after knight captures b5, this queen can't go too far. She does have responsibility. Feruja plays it with queen e3. Bishop captures knight, pawn captures bishop. And, from here, we have knight f4. Keeping up the initiative, knight f4 threatens a very serious fork. If black simply castles here, this gives white a moment to breathe and throw a punch with f3 targeting the bishop. And, that cuts off the defense of the knight. Castles f3, it still says you could go with knight f4 with the fork threat after castles. It does prefer white there. This is not the moment to castle. Black can still bug this queen. She gets kicked around a real lot in this game. Let's see what this looks like. Knight f4, castles to cover, g2, knight 6 to d5. Where is the safe square for the queen? Is it e4? It's not. Here comes f5. Now, note where the queen goes. The reaction here is not a strictly defensive one. She goes all the way back, has an eye on something. Queen takes b5 with check. This is very important. A follow-up h6 pop quiz. How would you respond? Feel free to pause the video. Alright, Firouzha's move is knight e6. This is going to soften up the d5 square. Knight e6, knight takes, the knight on d5 no longer defended. This knight really cannot afford to hit that reverse button. Going back here, your kingside is going to get smashed. Double isolated, isolated pawns. You're asking for this queen to eventually get to g6 and checkmate on g2. So, what is Firouzha's move here? We have knight e6. Now, the other move that you can play here is queen captures b5 with check, but after the king takes a step up, now what? Now you don't have this knight e6 move. Knight e6, you take with the king, d5 is secure. It says you could play this position, but you would have to find this only move playing f3 from here. Okay, now Firouzha plays it. The knight immediately hops to e6. Knight takes knight, there we go, d5 is vulnerable. Queen takes b5 only now with this fork. Black's response is king e7. Now, why not block with the queen? Blocking with the queen defends the knight. What would happen if black blocks with the queen here? We wouldn't see a queen exchange. Going for a queen exchange, it prefers black there. The two minor pieces outweighing the rook, white remains backward with development. White was prepared to meet queen d7 in this case with queen b8 check, and in the case of, let's say, a queen block, first of all, a king move that's going to hang the rook. In response to a queen block, there's queen captures e5, and that's going to be a fantastic piece right in the center. She could finally breathe for a move without being bugged. Okay, what we have here in response to takes a step up, white gets the piece back, but black is back on the offensive. Once more, an irritating knight arrives on f4 with tempo. The queen, yet again, needs to find a new home, and there isn't a great pick. b5, b3 is all the white queen has. This is very scary for white. Having these two minor pieces nearby the king, white does not have great defense for the king's side. You have to be very accurate here. Alright, the decision, pick two, pick from these two, queen b3 it is, immediately questioned with rook b8, queen c2, and now this sharp follow-up, bishop f3, another pop quiz. What's your move here? Feel free to pause the video. Okay, there's only one way to continue here, to keep white in the game. He finds it, we see here d4, challenging this knight. What's the story if the bishop is captured? The queen is going to target this g6 square. There's three options to i, g6, and coordinate next with the knight, but only one of the three would work. To be precise here is black. In the case of the capture on f3, the idea would be to continue with queen c6. g6 and f3, this is a very important detail. If the queen went to one of these two, there's queen captures f5, holding up queen g6. You have to generate two threats with the queen move, and queen c6 does just that. This would be winning for black. Queen takes f5 in this position, queen takes f3, there's no holding up the eventual mate. Well, you would have to give up the queen for the knight eventually. Queen takes pawn, king moves, the checks are going to run out, the king will slip away one way or another, this is winning for black. So my point is that after bishop f3, this is a poison bishop. d4 is the only way. Knight under fire, and no, it's two squares with the pawn. The queen's eyes remain open to f5. From here, we have knight e2 check, this is another only move for black. If bishop captures pawn, there's bishop captures knight. This is winning for white. Also, if knight captures on g2, there's queen captures f5. There isn't a good follow-up. They look a little scary, but they're not so well coordinated with this arrangement. Bishop is hit, e5 is hit, there's ready to be a queen exchange. So the only way is to continue with this forceful knight e2 check, only two legal moves, certainly not queen captures knight here. So king in the corner it is. And you might as well consider this as an only move situation for black. Similar story, queen b7 or c6 need to be played. Black here choosing c6. If you react to this threat at this stage, just back off with the bishop. There's queen captures pawn, and there's just no attack here. You have to keep the foot on the gas, and queen c6 is the way to do it. The bishop, yet again, would be poisoned in this position. Queen recaptures checkmate. So white's play here, you have to cover g2. Rook g1 is the way to do it. One more pop quiz. What's your move here? Feel free to pause the video. Okay, up until this point, both players have been playing a pretty much flawless game. Move 26 here for black, a big blunder. We have rook f8. Now, this covers f5 and also has an idea of rook f6 to g6 in some cases, but it turns out to be too slow of an approach. What the computer is drawn to here is a rook lift or even the capture on g1. Now this rook lift, there are some lines where the rook on b8 can be exploited. It is unprotected. b6 protected. There may be some lines where a four can be landed. Rook is picked up. I'll just touch on one of these two. In the case of knight captures rook, it points out queen captures f5 is there. Bishop takes pawn, king takes knight. It's drawn to this line here, a queenless ending, opposite color bishop ending, and even though white is up a few pawns, they're not the healthiest. It says black can hold this. Evaluation is plus 0.4. Okay, how it's playing out in this one, we do not see. Knight captures rook or rook b6. It's rook f8. Follow-up now is a4. This is a one of two winning moves. a4 and d5 are winning. I'll touch on this evil d5 move soon enough, but first, why not maybe collect the bishop at this stage? If you take the bishop, there's queen takes pawn. You do have this block in this case, but you're in this pin, and now how do you challenge this queen? What do you do about this idea to pile up on the pinned rook? It says that white would now have to make a draw. Queen a4, rook g6, there's some perpetual check from here available to white. Okay, there is not a way to challenge the queen in this situation. Very strong post on f3. This was the other win that's available to white. Rather than the move in the game a4, just setting up bishop development with the skewer, d5 is a winner. Now this was a head scratcher for me that confused what, I mean, why is it important to sacrifice this pawn? Let's see. This here is the point. After queen takes pawn, you can now advance c4 with tempo, and this clears the third rank a little bit. Let me elaborate. After queen c6, now you can take the bishop. Queen takes pawn, rook g2, and if black tries this rook lift, now there's a way to challenge the queen. Queen b3 is there. That's the point of d5 and c4, so that you could one day challenge the strong post on f3. After the queen moves, you could play f3 in some cases, and just break the pin on the rook. Okay, Berugia's move here, much more human, easier to calculate as well. a4, let's get ready to go. Finally, develop that dark square bishop. From here, we have rook f6, bishop a3 check, king e8, d5, queen takes d5, you're pitching a pawn in this case so that you can now activate a rook with tempo on the queen. And careful what rook you move to the d file. We have here the correct rook, rook a to d1. This one here still has a responsibility. Rook g to d1 and bishop captures pawn is checkmate, so it's rook a to d1, queen c6, and after move 31, queen b3, black resigns. White has successfully defended the kingside, g2 is secure, and white is now ready to have all the fun going on the offensive with these three very active pieces. Look what they're doing. There is not a single safe square available for the king. The queen's ready to enter on b8 and g8, and you cannot hold up both. So I tested out some moves trying to interfere with queen g8. If you play rook f7, there's a checkmate in two, queen b8, queen takes queen. If you play queen e6, queen b8 yet again is very good, or you could also simply exchange queens and then take the bishop and win the piece up endgame. And finally, this is a cute continuation, in the case of rook e6, there's a check, another check, and another, in this case, discovered check. Completely winning position for white. All right, only a 31 mover here out of this Italian game. Very sharp Italian game, I gotta say. Anyhow, your thoughts with this one. Feel free, as usual, to leave any feedback to this video in the comment section below. I hope you enjoyed it, maybe took a thing or two away. That's all for now, take care, bye.