What s Going On With Magnus Carlsen

This game is wild. If I didn't know it was Magnus Carlsen, I wouldn't even believe it. This is how he opens the game. He plays the King's Indian attack. His king, safe as houses, move four. That's how to make your chess coach proud. His opponent is the super strong grandmaster, Zhu Xinye. Can't say the name quite properly, apologies. She's incredible and this game is a fight. Malmo, Sweden. Classical time control. Round five here. King's Indian met with King's Indian. If it's good enough for Magnus, it's good enough for me. Knight bd2. This one springs into the game and Magnus takes some central space. Castles. Chewbacca's favourite move, the wookiee one. Centre closed here and now pawn e5. And there's a really important question. What if you go Knight g4 saying, hey, the pawn's overextended. I'm going to win it. There's no push. You know, Bishop takes. Well, here's the point. You defend with a third piece and if black chases you away, you just drop back because now the pawn can't be won or else you've got problems down this diagonal here. That's the theme, right? Now the line go on and on, but that's the general. It's the reason the pawn's not the overextended there and it's why Knight d5 was played instead. Now Magnus secures the outpost for his pony. h6 prepares to develop the bishop. Here it comes. Magnus finally gets his bits out and now some of the top moves are just finishing the development or hopping the knight here and opening the bishop. This one's not quite as strong. The first question mark of many in this game from Magnus too. You could actually take here, but Magnus cementos the knight saying, please take. I'm happy with that pawn structure. Xu says no sorry. Jumps right back to the square from whence it came, eyeing these dark squared weaknesses now and Magnus' best is Qc1. Form the battery, force Kh7, then go Nh4, but he does it straight away as we can see. This is the first of four question mark moves. You just wouldn't think this game was Magnus if you didn't know he was playing it. Wait till you see the drama unfolding. g5 is now played. Now if you'd inserted Qc1, Kh7, you can actually sack the bishop in this position because the queen runs in and you land a check on this diagonal. It's actually a huge attack facilitated largely by this thorn pawn on e5, really cutting the position. I mean maybe not a thorn pawn actually, but you get the idea. It's a real bone in the throat, restricting black, but with this way of playing, no Qc1, no Kh7, Magnus gets forced back and now he pushes over here. He doesn't want this one to come in, sit on the head of the structure, then in comes the queen. So he pushes, black pushes right back and this knight is relegated, stinky, to a horrible square. Dad's ashamed, what are you doing back here? It's an awful position for white, what a bad piece. f6 is actually a great move in this position, liberating, opening the rook down here. This is unpleasant for white. Magnus goes Bh6, wants to fight back against the king, but he's only attacking with a couple pieces. We now see Rf7 and another questionable move, f3. Now the idea is logical right, but timing is everything and here it's not quite on the money. You can actually go f5, glide on past and it's a great structure for black. This knight's woeful and with the pawn on f5, you also cover the critical e4 square, but not played. We see this bishop dropping back, preserving itself. Magnus can now take and the best is actually pawn recaptures, maybe to take some extra control of e5, but looks weird to kill your own bishop. This was played, now Magnus takes. Can his knight liberate in this direction? Well not just yet right, the pawn's still well guarded. Magnus drops back with the bishop, insistent upon an exchange. Xu says no, jumps all the way to the corner there and Magnus now goes on an epic pony manoeuvre, knight f1, but not overly epic in the good way as we can see. Engine not loving it. Now to be fair, the idea is very logical, you're swinging round to here, but all this takes a lot of time. These squares are really weak, this pawn is weak. Against a stronger player, there's no way you're getting away with this you feel, but Magnus is just clinging on. He hops with that knight, he hits the c-pawn and this is a critical moment. Xu has to find the move, rook f3. You offer an exchange here, but you'd be unwise to capture it because after pawn captures, the queen's headed in. If king h2, then there's ideas like knight e2, supported by the pawn. And long story short, this powerful knight with the pawn, the light squared grip here, it's worth an exchange. Very dangerous for white. Xu misses the move, she takes on e4. Magnus recaptures, now doubles the rooks, but it's white now back ahead because Magnus hits this one and you don't want to move it away. You know, say you come here, the queen then streams in. You can block, sure, but the second bishop joins the party, white is winning this position. And if just backing up, you don't move the rook, you block with the bishop, similar kind of problems. Similar kind of issues on the light squares. None of this stuff works. Here's a way to not just win the queen, but actually get checkmated in just a few. So no block was played, or rook move let's say. We saw queen c7, saying fine, take my rook, I'm going to crash through to your king. Magnus says okay, but does it on his terms. Flicks in this check, blocking with the rook is actually best played, because otherwise you had issues like we saw in the other lines, checkmating attacks and things. This was on the board, and it allows black to take with check. Thank goodness Magnus has a bishop. From his perspective, he can block. Now we see bishop takes, king h1 sidesteps that pin here, and after rook f2, it looks like you are dead in the water, getting checkmated, but there is one move to stave it off. Magnus plays it, and he sets up a counter shot. Bishop d5, check, discovered check, win the queen. King f8 the best response actually, though that's kind of counterintuitive to step onto this file, but this was played in the game, not the best. It does cover the d5 square, by the way they're crazy low on time right now of course, but it allows Magnus to fight for the f-file, use his extra rook here, knight e2 was played, Magnus takes, and black has a choice of which rook. This one wasn't taken. If you do that, you are solidly losing, getting smashed, white's an entire rook ahead now, and it's just too much. So this one was captured. At least then you retain your knight, and of course you keep open the idea of knight g3 check. It's why you can't go rook f1 now, which feels really natural off the hand. Rook a1 was therefore selected, and Xu goes decisively wrong now. What should she do? King f8 is apparently best, although it looks super weird because you walk into the f-file, but there's knight g3 check. White still winning, game rumbles on, but this check was played. Magnus steps up the board, the knight rotates back to f5. If you could just get one more move, you'd be right in it, but no time. Magnus eats this pawn, queen takes on c2, and now he brings all the pieces to the party. The exchange is being felt, the king's under fire. Imagine if the pawn pushed one day, the bishop joins the party. This is what we see after the knight steps back to cover the pawn. Rook e2 hits the queen, supported by this one. Fear not, Magnus didn't just blunder a whole rook. Queen takes played, and bishop e4 was actually the final move of the game. Xu resigned, because if you move that queen, you know where to go. Let's say you take a pawn, preparing to eat here, then white can take on f5. If you read capture, natural of course, then this is how you get mated. King here, there's different ways to do it. You could also take here, but the knight hop is important. If king here, then you check like this. Bishop blocks, but you still shut the trap. Using the epic power of queen and rook, you can take, or you can rookiate it. That's mate. Magnus gets it done, but boy was that a shaky game. Four questionable moves in a row, very dodgy opening, but he scraped through. He created chaos, came out the other side. Hope you enjoyed, have a look at the video on screen in case you missed one of the most shocking events of 2026, played yesterday, and I hope to see you again soon. Cheers.