MAGNUS CARLSEN WINS THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

Ladies and gentlemen, the man has done it again. I stand before you, or rather sit before you today, with yet another breakdown of how a random Norwegian dude with a mustache, the mustache is only a recent phenomenon, has once again shocked all of us, absolutely all of us, a world championship match between himself and Fabiano Caruana, the first of which took place so many moons ago in 2018. Some of you were not even born yet. Some of you behave like you weren't born then. Folks, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, freestyle world championship. That's what I'm showing you today. For those of you that have been following closely, you know that this is a new phenomenon organized by the folks over at Freestyle Chess, and essentially all it is is the back row of pieces shuffled, and as you all like to point out in the comments, Levi, you also say that these are shuffled as well. It's just a little bit harder to see that. Eight players met up in Germany about 90 minutes north of Hamburg, or one of the directions somewhere up there, very close to Denmark, which I just learned recently, and they all played a knockout format. Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana were the two finalists. It's a best of four. For the third and fourth place match, we have the young stars Keimer and Abdusutorov, number four and five in the world, approximately. If not, then very, very close. For fifth and six, we have Niemann Eregeisi, and for seventh and eighth, we have Levon Aronian and Javahir Sundarov, but all eyes are here because that is what we are here to see. This is the match of all matches, clearly the first and, to many, the second best player in the world. You can debate whether that's him or Hikaru or anybody else that you like. D4. Positions are randomly selected. Now, in this one, we actually do have some overlap with a regular starting position. The problem is everything in the middle. D4, D5, E3, E6, and actually in this position, Fambi plays what's called a Queen's Gambit Accepted. That's kind of what it looks like, except this is kind of a King's Gambit because the kings are here. Also, if you're watching this and confused, you should know that they do this because chess relies a lot on memorization, and in this particular setting, since the pieces are always randomized in the beginning, there is no memorization. Now, from the opening, Magnus gets a position where the D and C pawns are off the board, and since the D and C pawns are off the board, the position will often resemble an actual Queen's Gambit, like white will move the knight, will move the bishop, will castle, black will move the knight, move the bishop and castle, and you try to exploit the position on the symmetrical pawn structure, okay? And Magnus has made a career of beating people in embarrassing fashion from positions that it doesn't look like he has any business winning, and so in this game, you kind of thought the same thing was going to happen. Now, plus his queen is on a strangely effective square on this diagonal, but it's not really doing too much. By the way, look at this. He understands that if he gives up the bishop, normally you don't want to give up a bishop for a knight, like for no reason, but in this case, he would have gotten a reason. The queen would maybe join the attack, potentially. Fabi, very astute defending here, voluntarily goes a pawn down, but the point is that the queen is too powerful. It forms a battery with that bishop, and then it also pressures this pawn, and Magnus is not going to get anything in this first game. Fabi will very quickly win his pawn back, defend the position, we have a queen endgame, but Fabiano is an excellent endgame player, and also not a moron, and that's what... I mean, here you have to be more of a moron than a bad player to lose this position with black, although many of you watching could definitely lose it to Magnus with both colors. To Magnus, maybe not at your own level, but here everything is defended, like you just have to shuffle around, and that's what they do for some 48 moves, and the first game ends in a draw, ends peacefully, which means we go to the second game, all right? Now, in this second game, Fabiano Caruana, with the white pieces, is going to try to put some pressure. Again, everything shuffled, the bishops are now in the corners, this is always very fun, like they crisscross applesauce the entire board, you try to open them up very quickly, so we're going to see that, there we go, so now these bishops are probably going to be traded for each other, except maybe not, Carlsen blocks the trade, and then, you know, Fabiano tries to open up the diagonal, you try to play into the diagonal of your pieces, see where you're a little bit better, Fabi trades like this, now his queen opens up against the b-pawn, the structures are super weird, Magnus relies on peace activity here, gives up a pawn, targets this, targets this, targets this, and ultimately will try to win a pawn back, the king has to move now, so that's where the king is going to stay for the remainder of the game, castling is still an option for white, pawn takes 97, and now here Fabi could have taken with the bishop, but he opts to trade the queen, instead of taking with the bishop, Magnus gets a nice bit of activity here, bishop takes d4, and actually for a brief moment, Caruana's up two pawns, but it doesn't feel that way, he's going to lose this pawn, he has no way to defend it, that's what Magnus was relying on, although Magnus was playing a little bit slower in this game, and now Magnus is simply relying on the opposite colored bishops, and the poor pawn structure, white does have an extra pawn, but it will be difficult to convert the advantage, and that is what, you know, Magnus thinks will ultimately happen, although Fabi finds a nice way here, into the position, here he was apparently crushing with g5, if he just played this move, to try to target this pawn, and if the pawn took, he would have went rook f7, but I think he saw g5 f5, and he didn't see a way forward, but that release of the defense of the bishop would have been enough, to reposition his rook to e1, target the bishop, try to get rid of this knight, and win, he didn't see that, because he only has like a minute on the clock, but he actually is still much better if he plays g5, but he doesn't play g5, and now Magnus shuts it down forever, he escapes with the king, g5 is stopped, and the game settles into a position, where again, despite white having an extra pawn, black has immense activity, activity meaning controlling squares on your opponent's side of the board, and obviously this is a draw, now if you're wondering why this is a draw, opposite colored bishops with very few pieces remaining, they don't interact, this bishop is never going to get this pawn, it's never going to get that pawn, and white is not promoting these two pawns again, unless your opponent is an idiot, so even though Fabi had a bit of a chance, and actually at a high depth, the computer thought that he was completely winning, completely winning with this move g5, not an easy move, because after this, you have to realize just how strong the idea of rook e1 is, it's not easy for black to defend the position at all, after bishop b5, you remove the defender, knight f5 comes in, and apparently he's just winning, okay, two games down, two draws, but Fabi putting pressure, now when you watch Fabiano versus Magnus, they have met in many finals, many semi-finals, you know, it's like, you know what I would say as a Magnus fan, I feel like rooting for Magnus is kind of like rooting for Real Madrid, although that's not really accurate, because there they at least have a challenge in Barcelona, right, and Barcelona now is probably a better team, if I'm not mistaken, but, or Albacete, it's a current events joke, Magnus doesn't really have, like, there's no Barcelona to his Real Madrid, so you kind of watch, and you kind of root for the other team, sort of, and when you root for Fabi, he gets really close really often, watch this game, so in this game, everything is totally different, right, everything is completely scrambled, the only piece on its home square is this rook, and I guess this knight, the bishops are not supposed to be in the center, very different things will now happen, that they're not at the corners, and the players don't really interact so much in the first stage of this game, Fabi goes for full maximum approach, with g4 taking as much space as possible, actually, that's kind of a pawn sacrifice, because after this, he just loses a pawn, but like I said, that's why I said kind of, because you take this pawn on h7, and he's going to take on g7 as well, actually, it just looks like black's position completely collapses, like, it gets completely eviscerated, but bishop f6 holds everything, and now queen d3, and white is just much better, white is much better, because the space is really nice, black has not won any equity whatsoever, if you play bishop f5, then e4 comes in, white just dominates the center, bishops will come out, not like that, that would be very impressive, but very illegal, and then you would castle, and so now d5, Magnus trying to win a little bit of space back, Fabi doesn't take the right approach here, but this idea, bishop d1, the idea was to take with the king, he voluntarily plants the king in the center, remember, king move, you will not be able to castle, and suddenly there is a massive threat of rook to c1 check, or rook to c1 winning the queen, black has to castle, he has to castle, which looks completely insane, because white would play rook g1, knight g6, and not checkmate you through the knight, but, you know, threaten mate, but that's the only move, this is not the only move, because after bishop takes h4, Fabi gives a check, and queen b5, and you are looking at the evaluation correctly, it is plus 4.1, Fabiano is completely winning versus Magnus Carlsen, completely winning, with only one game to go after this, now how does white actually win this position, get the pawns away from the king, and that's it, I mean, Magnus' three most important pieces are on the back rank, he cannot defend this position, he goes rook c8, and now, of course you can take, but you're not really worried about him taking, f5 now, threatening bishop to g3, that's what, okay, king d2 is also okay, but f5 is a little bit more emphatic, but king d2 played, and now the boys don't have a whole lot of time remaining, queen a7 stops the white queen from giving checks, and f5 here is completely crushing, and he plays it, and now black is going to lose this defender, which means only one pawn will protect the king, as the king is collapsing on the center, the right side, and the left side of the board, it is, it is over, it is simply over, Magnus plays queen to a6, he has to threaten a trade, threaten a trade is a real term, he backs up with the queen, and he plays rook c4, because he just has to keep the game going, pawn takes e6, king takes e6, now the winning idea here from my, from white is queen d1 and queen g4, that is just, that is a very, very nice idea, if you play queen d1 literally right now, you, you in all likelihood just win the game, although you can also play it after rook takes c4, both are possible, also queen d3, but you still have to be accurate, you do have to finish the game, he takes, and plays queen d1, queen d1 right away was a little bit better, because then at least instead of doing this, you would have kept the pawn there, but fine, now Magnus plays a very creative attempt to get out of the position, pawn to c3 check, that just loses a pawn, but it does two things, number one, it opens up this diagonal for the queen in the future, number two, maybe the king could use the getaway, it's actually just a nice move, it unclogs black, black's position, and these two squares could be utilized in the future, and also it gives you a ain't nobody playing king e1, king e1, you pee in, you pee in a cup at the board, the c3 looks desperate, you take the pawn, now you are at least up a pawn in every end game, and Magnus plays the move knight d6, and after queen g4, king d5, if Fabiano Caruana had watched enough Gotham Chess content, a move would have appeared in his mind here, and I think all of you are looking at this move as well, he would have sacrificed the rook, which I'm actually wearing, look at that, shout out to all of you who got the merch over the last few months, rook f5, or on tour last year, rook f5 wins the game, but it's not exactly obvious why, it wins the game, because it doesn't look like you can play it, and then you have to calculate the queen and bishop checks, so the king would run to d6, right, and then you would continue to hunt this king, you would continue to hunt this king with various moves, you can play, actually I think the best move here is queen f7, but you would give some check on g3, and then the king would run, you know, backwards, and then, but it's not exactly so straightforward, it's not super, super, super easy, it's not super easy, and Fabi goes here, and Magnus plays queen c4, and Fabi starts giving checks, and at this point, the only other option he has is to put his queen on f3, like he could have played queen f3, and then he has to sacrifice the rook again, if he doesn't find the sacrificial idea, he's going to play a more passive move, and suddenly Magnus is going to get back into the game, and not only is Magnus going to get back into the game, Magnus is suddenly creating threats, rook g5, he's got rook f3, and here, with seconds ticking off his clock, Fabiano Corowana offers a queen trade, but the problem with this queen trade is that the first rank is now empty, and it's not just empty, it's over, the black knight is the hero, guarding every square near the king, and rook f1, queen g2, rook f3, knight c4, knight e4, all of it is there, and within two moves, Fabiano Corowana is checkmated basically, and loses, and Magnus Carlsen pulls off the most Houdini escape we have ever seen, to get a position like this, Fabi did absolutely everything, had he gone queen d1 in this position, the game is over, it's actually just finished, because you will win the knight, the knight cannot go to d6, he doesn't have time, making this breathing room for the king was the game, like it was over on the spot, queen d1, queen g4, gg, gg, if you run away, I take on f7, if you play, I don't know, queen c6, I play queen g4 check, king d6, and at least now I can take it, but also I can just play rook f7, I can just play rook f7, and bishop g3 is made, Fabiano Corowana was a queen move away, but instead he traded and did this, gave him just enough breathing room, and it is also crazy how Magnus manages to pull this off, but this is not the end of the world championship, there is one more game, so Fabi has to gather himself now, for another game against Magnus, I don't know how Magnus survived that, Fabiano Corowana should be the world champion, as we make this right now, obviously it's not guaranteed, he could have lost the next game, but maybe he'll win this game, and force a tiebreak, I don't know, maybe I do know, maybe it's the title, you know I always AB test the titles, and a lot of you are like, stop spoiling the result, and yet that one gets clicked on more, it's the data, what do you want me, I mean, what do you, stop spoiling the result, it's 2026, it's kind of hard to, you know, somehow you guys don't mind, you still watch, now in this game, look, totally scrambled position, right, the only piece on a correct square is that rook, Fabi in this game really just like, he was standing back, look at, Fabi plays in a really weird way here, plays kind of scattered all over the board, you know, Magnus tries to hunt him down with f5, remember, Fabi has to win with black, to win with black, think of it like a boxing match, how do you win a boxing match, you try to counterpunch, if you start engaging first, that could be something, but you're not in a position to engage first right now, the other guy has way more space, so you kind of hang, you kind of hang back, right, knight f7, knight e5, Magnus starts doing Magnus things, he's just pushing the pieces around, he's making beautiful improvements to his position, stops Fabi on the queen side, repositions, knight b4, apparently not the best, but it doesn't particularly matter, it really felt like Magnus was in total control, and then the players got to a minute on the clock, and nothing good happens in chess when there's a minute on the clock, nothing, and before you knew it, the position was not just equal, Fabiano had jumped into Magnus' position, and was threatening to trap his queen, this queen has nowhere safe to go, the only safe spot for the queen is directly in the line of sight of this bishop, and if you do that, the move knight f2 d2 wins for black, what am I talking about, well that's what Magnus played, and in this position, knight f2 d2, defended by the knight, hitting the queen, now you might be asking, Levi, what, I don't get it, isn't this hanging, yes, but after knight f1, if knight f1, this looks possible, but first, you have to play knight back to f6, attacking the queen, defending this, and there is no way to defend g1, that is probably what Fabi missed, Fabi was like, wait a minute, this doesn't work, because queen g1, queen e8, and actually it's white who is crashing through this position, but that is actually wrong, knight fd2 is the chance that he has a chance to win with black on demand, but he misses it, and Magnus with 14 seconds on the clock, plays this move in one second, and sends the game spiraling into an endgame, and even though the starting position was shuffled, he is still the best endgame player in the world, in this position, all he has to do is not lose, it's a best of four, and he has a two to one lead, Fabiano Caruana has to beat him with the black pieces, and you're not going to beat Magnus Carlsen in an endgame with equal pawns, up a pawn sometimes, and certainly not down a pawn, and my friends, after 46 moves, friends, friends, friends, no, I'm just kidding, Fabiano Caruana and Magnus Carlsen agree to a draw after 47, 46 moves, and that means that Magnus Carlsen is the 2026 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion, defeating Nojebek Abdusatorov, and defeating Fabiano Caruana, I, you know, I, I, I, I, watching Fabiano play, somebody write in the comments what it's like, it's like watching your favorite English football club, it's like, maybe it's like watching England in the World Cup, I don't, I don't know, there are so many comparisons, he is so close, he was like three moves away from winning the last game, maybe he would have lost after that, but at least he would have won that game, I cannot believe he didn't win a game in this match, I'm gutted, I'm, not just as an American, that's not what it is, I just want him to be a champion, and it's heartbreaking, like, Magnus wins his 21st title, and I'm like, I'm not even hyped anymore, dude, like, it's absurd, oh, no, I mean, of course I'm hyped, and massive congratulations to him, uh, let's take a look at the other matches, although, you know, that was obviously completely epic, uh, Khymer Abdusatorov was a, was a very confrontational match, combative match, creative match, uh, but the thing is, in this format, like, when you don't play for the championship, and you've kind of already just finished third and fourth, these guys, it's not that they don't care, it's that, like, it's almost a free roll, you know, if somebody, like, buys your way into a poker tournament, you're not gonna stress, if you pay for your own entry into the World Series of Poker, well, then, you might be stressed, you know what I mean, or you sell your action, or whatever that thing they do is, when you, you know, are responsible for other people's money, uh, yeah, that's not, uh, that's not, these guys play a completely ridiculous game, uh, Noadzierbek, uh, engages in the, in the shenanigans quite, quite well, and the last, like, five, six moves of this game, the white king just straight up did a little dance, he was like, ah, I'm going to e3, and then the queen was like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, and then, then, then the king was just made in the center, uh, with rook d2, yeah, this was, this was insane, uh, I don't know what, I don't know, I don't know what was going on here, uh, Keimer played very aggressively, Noadzierbek chopped down the center early, got the bishops into the game, and honestly, he just, he just, uh, developed a bit better, and also, he castled his king, so when a king is, you know how I sometimes joke that a king in the center is, like, running around, like, without wearing clothes, I mean, this is quite literally what that means, like, when you dream about chess, and you are having a nightmare, this is what it looks like, uh, so Keimer loses this game, uh, and then in this game, in, in the next game against Noadzierbek, obviously, the opening looks similar to the one that they had in the Fabi Magnus game, except there, uh, the move g4 was played, here, Vincent just built up a huge space advantage, this position feels very Vincent-esque, excellent technical player, very good positionally, uh, Noadzierbek is just trying to do something, otherwise, he's going to get smushed, uh, and he does do a little bit of something, and then the something is completely extinguished, as he just doesn't have any play whatsoever, Vincent now will try to massage this advantage, g4 is actually not the best move, queen g, queen h3, rotating the queen was better, none of that really matters, uh, Vincent sort of has the momentum this entire game, uh, and even though Noadzierbek actually finds his way back into the game, he manages to screw it up again, uh, and then we get an endgame time scramble, and Vincent Keimer is completely winning, I think this was the last moment he needed to put his king on f5, bishop on b7, uh, and, uh, and, like, move the, like, king here, okay, bishop b7 is the move that is, like, winning, because if black plays something like bishop to b8, then you play f5, and the king can just not come close, so it just can't ever move, uh, he does this, that was the wrong space to put the bishop, because now the bishop goes this way, and, uh, that, and now black is holding, and black is somehow just in time to coordinate his counterplay, uh, and, uh, Vincent doesn't win the game, and that's, I mean, like, I feel like if this was the, a major elite tournament, Vincent would have won the game, but somehow this happens, like, especially in this format, uh, anything goes, and ultimately, uh, in their last game, you know, Noderbeck built up a completely monstrous position, I think it took him, like, 20 moves, you know, Vincent tried his best to attack Noderbeck, but Noderbeck was very accurate, and, uh, just got a totally winning position, there was no attack to be had, sacrificed his queen, very nice way to end the match, Noderbeck also really fast, he plays faster than I think anybody, except maybe Hans Niemann, who plays even faster, and in this position, it's a totally crushing advantage, rookie four, knight h5, knight e6, rookie seven, rookie eight, just totally winning, uh, but Noderbeck forces the repetition of moves, because that would just be a draw, and he would win third place. In the world championships, Noderbeck has had a pretty good run, man, he's had a really pretty good run the last three months, ever since Sindarov qualified to the candidates and won the world cup, Noderbeck was like, hold up, bro, I'm what are we talking about here? Sindarov will go to the candidates tournament, uh, but Noderbeck since then has won, like, multiple tournaments, he finished silver medal in the world blitz championship, he lost to Magnus, obviously, he finished third in this tournament, he lost to Magnus, obviously, you know, he won the third place match, um, I don't know how he would do versus Fabi, it's a shame we don't have, you know, that, but it is what it is, and now I will show you who finished in fifth, and who finished in seventh, and then, of course, who finished in sixth, and also in eighth. Like I said, these guys, uh, who are playing for fifth and everything, they, they want to play well, but they take way more risk because they don't have that much at stake, um, and in this game, uh, Niemann-Eregeisi, uh, Niemann was putting pressure from the opening, Eregeisi managed to equalize with some nifty tactics, queen takes, there's a check here, and the knight c5, and here, actually, black is up a pawn, but, of course, his bishop is bad, and his rook is kind of stuck, and he still has the castle, and so Hans built up another wave of initiative, Eregeisi very intelligently, uh, defended himself, and the position was tense for quite some time, Eregeisi then, uh, almost completely neutralized here, and had a chance to be better with the move c5, it's an amazing move, rook takes f5, and then you play knight to d4 check, and there is no en passant, by the way, because c5, they, you need to stand side by side, right, so c5, there is no en passant, uh, on c6, or on c7, Eregeisi misses this move, and straight up blunders, he plays king takes d6, and loses the game on the spot to knight b4 check, he just forgot about this move, and the point is that now, if the king goes there or there, this is a fork, and the only alternative you have is to put something on d4, and, uh, it's over, knight c6 check, and that's it, and that's the world championships right here, I'm not even joking, that was the fifth and sixth place match, it ended with a fork, uh, I think, I don't know if this was their first or second game, but yeah, that happens, uh, like I said, uh, I think, you know, the other games almost felt like a little bit of a free roll, players were sort of being creative, taking, uh, you know, creative liberties, uh, Levon Aronian versus Sindarov, this is the battle for seventh and eighth, uh, Aronian had a difficult time in the round robin, the very first day of the, of the event, yeah, and in this game, I mean, Sindarov, uh, played very risky, he gave Aronian a lot of chances to just kind of blow him off the board, and that's what Aronian did, you're talking about one of the most creative, fearsome attacking players of the last 30 years, and it doesn't matter if he's like 42, or however old he is, he's gonna wallop you, bro, he's gonna be the old man in the gym, in the basketball, who has a surprisingly powerful pick, and is good on defense, but fouls the, you know, the shite out of you, and also nails all his three pointers, I am kind of talking from experience, playing, playing pickup basketball in New York City is probably the worst city to play in, like, I'm not gonna lie, I mean, the people, they come to the park ready to fight, that's, that's the best way I can describe it, you gotta find a nice, tight-knit, uh, tight-knit group of people, and you gotta, you gotta ball out with them, otherwise you're just gonna get injured, that's what happened to me, not that you have to know that, but, you know, since you're 26 minutes into the video, I might as well give you a little bit of, you know, info about myself, okay, Bishop c4, uh, doesn't particularly matter, Levon just played, I mean, just look at this game by Levon, just amazing game, um, here he has a sick win, which is Bishop d2, like, if in the middle of this position, you can just take a little chill pill, and go Bishop d2, Bishop g5, that's really awesome, uh, but he goes here, because he expects those pawns to promote, also knight c6 is mate, it's just mate, literally, because the king is pinned with the, like, this, and, yeah, it's just over, um, and, uh, Javakir had a chance to survive, but Levon continued the attack, the b-pawn ultimately will prove decisive, because rook a7 is just incredible, I think Levon just played creative moves on purpose in this game, supported by his pawn, uh, very, very messy game, very chaotic, Sindarov actually got back into it, but not back enough, uh, and, uh, well, Levon is able to win an endgame up a knight, in a shocking turn of events, Sindarov finishes in last place in the World Championships, I don't think that matters whatsoever, I feel like this was a nice little vacation for him, he picks up, like, $20,000, uh, Levon had a good time as well, although I think he probably had higher expectations, he gets 7th, uh, Aragicy c6, Niemann 5, Keimer 4, Abdisar 3, Karwana 2, and the guy from Norway, man, he wins another World Championship, that's 21 now, uh, and what have you done so far in the, in this year, you know, uh, he, he just finished winning two tournaments at the end of 2025, he just won another one, next month we have the candidates, he's not playing, but it is what it is, that's all I have for you today, if you made it this far in the video, How to Win at Chess, the original book I wrote, it's an amazing book, New York Times bestseller, it says right there, uh, available in paperback starting the 3rd of March, and so is this amazing thing, Chess for Babies, so you can now raise your next, uh, prodigy, if you have a baby, expecting a baby, know somebody expecting a baby, or who has a baby, if you're a baby, if you just want to give it to a random baby, all good with me, that's all, get out of here.