10 yo Prodigy HUMILIATES Magnus Carlsen GM At Age 12 What s NEXT

In today's video, we're going to be taking a look at some very compelling evidence that this kid right here, the 12-year-old chess sensation from Argentina, Faustino Oro, just might be the most talented chess prodigy of all time. I really think he could be the next Bobby Fischer, or the next Magnus Carlsen, or whoever you think the greatest of all time is. He just received his Grandmaster Norm No. 3, qualifying him for the GM title. He's the do so, coming in just a bit behind Abhimanyu Mishra, who only beat him by a couple of months. But you know what he didn't beat him by? Total time it took him to achieve the title, from the time he first learned how to play. Since Mishra started playing at the age of 2, whereas Faustino Oro didn't learn how to play chess until he was 6, making him the youngest, and maybe the only player, ever to become a Grandmaster after only 6 years of playing. Just take a moment to let that sink in. There are people who study chess their whole lives, very intelligent people, who never even come close to the GM level. It's really hard to fathom, but in case you're new to chess and the whole GM thing doesn't really mean much to you, just consider this. Faustino Oro was able to beat the world's number one player, Magnus Carlsen, at the age of 10, when he was only 4 years into his chess journey. Now it was only an online bullet game, but still. Just still. It's almost unbelievable. So we're going to be taking a look at that game, but first I want to show you one of his most brilliant victories from this year's Sardinia International Chess Festival in Italy, where he earned that 3rd GM norm. The sacrificial brilliance with which he utterly annihilates his opponent, International Master Gerhard Lorscheit, in this 21 move encounter, is highly reminiscent of Fischer or Tal, or really any of the greatest sacrificers. So strap yourself down, tell someone where you are, because this one's about to get wild. Faustino Oro has team white, and he opens with e4. Gerhard responds d6, the Pirz defense. We have d4, setting up the ideal dynamic duo. Always something you should never not do if you can't not help it. Knight to f6 is next, attacking e4. Knight to c3 defends. We have e5 per the opening theory, allowing white to force the trade of queens if he wants to after a capture on e5, thus depriving black the right to castle, but without the queens on the board, the black king would be reasonably safe. So instead we have a couple of top book moves, knight to f3, knight b to d7, and now Faustino plays a move that is not the top book move, but it has been growing in popularity and is fully engine approved, rook to g1. This is of course the modern alpha zero way to attack. You don't worry about castling your king, you just start attacking on the wing, as Faustino proceeds to do after g6 with his next move, g4, defended by the rook. Not the kind of thing you want to try at home unless you really know what you're doing. Beginners are of course advised to get their king castled first, but Faustino knows that in this particular opening he's not going to have any problems getting his king to safety on the queenside when it becomes necessary before continuing with his kingside conquest. Gerhardt is unperturbed by this early aggression though. He plays the top engine move, e takes d4, when after the recapture he puts his bishop on g7. Now g5 might look tempting to some here, but for 250 points, see if you can determine exactly what's wrong with it. Well, Faustino can see that after g5, black does not need to make the losing retreat of his knight to g8 or to h5, but can rather capture on e4. When after knight takes e4, there comes queen to e7, attacking and pinning the knight, when after something like f3, you got d5 winning the piece back with a dead equal position. So we instead have bishop to e3, maintaining the four-tenths of a pawn advantage that the engine thinks white has here. Now a good move for black in this position would be to just castle, or you can even sack a pawn on d5 in order to open things up and try to exploit the fact that white's king is two moves away from castling, as opposed to black's, who is ready to go on his next move. What's tried in the game is knight to c5, which I gotta say looks pretty reasonable. I mean you're hitting e4 with the second piece, as well as uncovering a double attack on g4, but after f3 defending both, the engine is now giving white a near winning advantage. Why? Well, after Gerhardt castles, if Faustino were to play his best move in the position, care to guess what it is? It's queen to e2, allowing him to castle next, then his storming of the black king's castle, with h4 and h5 coming next, is going to be coming way more quickly than any kind of counterplay black is able to drum up on the queen side. He can't immediately push b5, lest he lose a pawn, and with his knight no longer on d7, countering in the center with d5 is no longer going to be working, since if nothing else, white can just push his pawn without losing it to knight takes e5, and then he can just back it up with f4 and continue on his merry pawn storming way. But Faustino does not find his strongest move queen to e2, but rather opts for the much inferior, though very natural looking, queen to d2, gifting unto black a tactical opportunity. Pause the video if you so desire, and see if you can spot the equalizing move now missed by Gerhardt Lorscheidt. What black needs to play is bishop takes g4. When after white's best recapture, rook takes g4, a trade on that square, and then queen to h4 check, picking up the pawn on g4, black emerges with two pawns and the exchange for his sacrificed piece, and according to the engine, a roughly equal position. But what about f takes g4? Well here, black is able to grab the pawn on e4, like so, with tempo on the white queen. Very important. And this is why queen to e2 was better, since after the engine's recommended continuation, knight takes e4, knight takes e4, and queen to g2, black is now able to deliver check from h4, which white had no way to prevent. If he now blocks with his bishop, then after a trade down on f2, he's going to lose his knight on d4. So the king really must move, d1 is best, and after the rook comes to the open file, black's got the two pawns for the sacrificed piece, the much safer king, the better attacking chances, and according to Stockfish, a non-trivial advantage. So a missed opportunity there for team black. What's played instead is the highly dubious rook to e8. When after Faustino castles and bishop to d7, white already has a winning sacrificial move. Faustino doesn't play it just yet though, instead opting for the general purpose king to b1, just getting off the open diagonal, as one does in positions such as this, when there isn't anything better to do, which in this position there is, but white is still totally winning here, nothing's been spoiled. The engine's recommending queen to e7, or even b5 now for black, just sacking a pawn in order to open up a file to the white king, but instead we have a bit of an odd looking move, knight to a4, in flagrant violation of a chess principle that I've found to be true, which is that if a move looks really weird, there's a good chance that it's really bad. Faustino replies with his strongest move, knight takes a4, when after the recapture, one can't help but wonder what exactly black thought was going to happen next. His bishop's on kind of a weird square now, but he does have d7 available for his knight, whatever that's worth. Maybe he's got d5 on the brain? I don't really know. But here, Faustino does now spot that aforementioned tactical shot, never will you see a brighter lightning bolt from a bluer sky, I don't think I would ever find this move, but if you want to pause the video and have a crack at it, go right ahead, and while you're at it, if you're enjoying this video, consider a quick subscription to the channel, as well as a smashing of that like button and the hype button if you really want to show your support, it's always appreciated. But anyway, the devastating move, now uncorked by the maschina from Argentina, is knight to f5. What the actual H? Well, first things first, if black doesn't take the knight and allows it to capture his bishop on g7, then he's going to be left with the chronic Swiss cheese around his king, never a good thing. He really needs to keep that dark squared defender around if he's going to prolong his misery as long as possible, but trying to preserve the bishop doesn't work out very well either. If you put it on h8, then you got knight to h6 check, went after either king to g7 or king to f8. Queen to d4 is going to be the simplest way to win material, attacking the bishop on a4, and after it moves, you got g5, attacking the knight, which is pinned to the bishop, or to the king if king to g7 had been played. If instead, black tries bishop to f8, well again, white can play knight to h6 check, among his many other winning options, when if black still tries to hang on to his bishop with king to g7, seeing that king to h8 would run into a fork on f7, well here, after g5, if the attack knight moves from f6, like so, then again, we have queen to d4 check, picking up the loose bishop on a4. So, no good way for black to hang on to his dark squared bishop. So, what's tried in the game is the most obvious move, and probably the best practical try, g takes f5. When in doubt, make him prove it. It's just good advice in general. Faustino, of course, recaptures with his g-pawn, which was the whole point of the sacrifice, as he's now got a wide open file to black's trembling monarch, pinning the bishop, threatening bishop to h6, so king to h8 is really necessary. And what do you think Faustino plays next? He's got a multitude of winning moves here, but he finds the most forcing and beautiful among them. It is a sacrifice, this time of a whole rook in exchange for a whole bishop on g7, which, if you want to be technical about it, is really like sacrificing two-fifths of a rook, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it. The king, of course, recaptures, there was nothing better, and now comes bishop to d4, pinning knight to king, and with it, the threat of queen to g5 check, forcing the king to either h8 or g8, removing defense from the knight on f6, which white will then win. So queen to g5 should really be stopped, h6 is the only way to do it, but the threats just keep coming, with bishop to c4, now threatening rook to g1 check, but if the king were to move this away, then the pawn on f7 would fall, with bishop to g6 coming next, that would pretty much be curtains, and if the king goes this away, well, then the queen grabs on h6, and everything falls apart. Now the engine's favorite way to lose here is with rook to g8, and that transposes into something pretty similar to what we see in the game, so I'll go ahead and press on. What's played is queen to e7, just defending f7, ready to meet a now dubious rook to g1 check with king to h7, but after queen to c3, king to h7 is no longer any good, as that would simply lose the now twice-attacked knight on f6, which black doesn't seem to have any way to save, in view of rook to g1 next. But that's not even white's biggest threat in the position, it's actually bishop takes f6 check, with the fork, winning black's queen, since after queen takes f6, and then rook to g1, black's king will be forced to abandon the defense of his better half, which will then be picked up. So what to do here? Well, Gerhardt is able to muster up a little last-minute trickery with rook to g8, seeing that if Faustino were to try to cash in with bishop takes f6 check, queen takes f6, and rook to g1 check, well here, after king to h7, there is no winning the queen on f6, like so, unless of course you're partial to getting forcibly checkmated against your will, if such a thing's even possible, with rook takes g1 check, forcing mate on the next move. But Faustino can easily see through this, and in the game, he finds a very nice move, b3, both attacking the bishop on a4, and giving his king a square on b2, thus threatening that bishop takes f6 check, followed by rook to g1, winning the black queen, seeing that rook takes rook on g1 would no longer force mate. Of course, if black were to go down that road with something like bishop to c6, then he would end up with the two rooks and bishop, versus white's queen and bishop, but with white's extra pawn, and the fact that he's going to end up winning the one on f7 with his bishop, which can then go to g6, black's really got no hope of survival. So what's tried is c5, just attacking the bishop on d4, which suggests to me that Gerhardt may have not even considered the move Faustino plays next, which is of course bishop takes f6 check, unless he was just testing him, really hard to say, as that was white's only winning move in the position. Whatever the case may be, after seeing this move on the board, Gerhardt does now make the very timely decision to resign the game. If the queen were to recapture, then after rook to g1 check, the mandatory moving of black's king, the queen winning capture on f6, rook takes rook on g1 with check and king to b2, then after black moves his attacked bishop somewhere, white will have his choice of taking the pawn on f7 and or the one on d6, giving him a two-pawn surplus in addition to his still raging attack on the black king, i.e. black is shafted. So what a poop hurricane that was, as a g-rated Jim Leahy might say. The power of this young prodigy is really undeniable, but moving right along to our game number two, this one we're going to go through fairly quickly. It was played in early 2024 on chess.com, just a shade under four years from the time Faustino Oro learned how to play chess. Again, he has the white pieces in this one-minute bullet encounter. He's up against the world's number one woodwielder Sven Magnus Carlsen, and he opens with d4. Magnus responds g6, and within a few moves we end up transposing into an Alekhine's defense, with black's knight getting kicked around a bit. We have your thematic d6, a trade of pawns on that square, and I should probably mention that we do already have some inaccuracies being committed by both sides. Bishop to g5 was apparently winning, but I'm not going to nitpick. This is only bullet, and I just want to get you to the point where Faustino does end up with the winning advantage. We have back-to-back castling, bishop to g4, which is fine, b3 solidifying c4. Some more equality maintaining development, rook to e8, a not good move according to the Infallible Fish. Went after h3, putting the question to the bishop, a trade on f3, and rook to b8, defending b7 in preparation for Magnus's next move, which after queen to d2 is knight to e7, looking for the reroute to f5. Here, bishop to g5 would again give white a winning advantage, pinning knight to queen. Now, if black had played knight to e7 a bit earlier, like he should have, before white had the chance to play queen to d2, then he could push his pawn to h6 without losing it, and then to g5 if necessary, breaking the pin. f6 would of course be inferior, as that would block the dark-squared bishop's diagonal while opening a light-squared one to the king, but what's played is rook a to d1, allowing the knight into f5. We have rook f to e1, ready to meet knight takes e3 with a recapture by the rook. Magnus initiates another trade, and after the queen recaptures, he makes the very interesting decision to put his queen on e8, a losing blunder. Apparently, he doesn't want Faustino taking full control of the e-file with rook to e1, and thinks that contesting it while he can is going to be worth sacrificing a pawn for, since after queen takes e8 check and rook takes e8, Faustino is now able to grab on b7. He was banking on his next move, c5, attacking the pawn on d4, which is currently pinned to the undefended knight on c3. And this would indeed win back the pawn, if not for the move Faustino plays next, knight to b5, defending while hitting black's pawns on d6 and a7. So maybe this is the move Magnus missed. Who knows? Or maybe he had foreseen his follow-up, rook to e7, attacking the bishop, which Faustino now drops back to f3. It's really hard to say in these bullet games where the conscious thinking ends and the muscle memory begins, but what is clear is that white's pawn on d4 is no longer pinned, white's a pawn up, and threatening to grab another one on d6. So Magnus can see that he is going to end up a pawn down here, so he plays a6, probably anticipating knight takes d6, removing the defense from the pawn on d4, which he could then grab with his but Faustino decides to take on c5 instead, with a counterattack on Magnus' knight. Magnus makes the recapture, at which point Faustino misses his most decisive move, which is rook to d8 check, forcing black to block with the self-pinning bishop to f8, instead opting for knight to d6, which may still be winning, though after rook to d7, white's going to have to proceed with precision. Apparently best is bishop to c6, ready to meet rook to d8 with bishop to d5, doubling up on f7, while rendering rook takes knight totally unplayable, in view of bishop takes f7 check, winning the rook. Not a simple position by any stretch, the engines recommending bishop to f8, to which white should respond knight to b7, whatever that's worth to you. I'm not going to delve into it, but I will do my best to overgeneralize by saying that white's a pawn up, he's still got plenty of firepower, black's queenside pawns are split and weak, all of which undoubtedly contributes to the engine's evaluation of over two pawns in white's favor, if you can believe that. But after what's played in the game, which is knight to e4, and the subsequent trade on d1, after Magnus posts his bishop on d4, he's now pretty much back in the game. His bishop's on a beautiful square, defending c5, he's just one knight trade away from achieving that notoriously drawish opposite colored bishop ending. Faustino can see that his queenside pawn majority is going to need some serious support, if he's ever going to make anything of it, so he starts moving his king in that direction, as does Magnus. We have a couple of pawn pushes, knight to f2, a5, just clamping down on b4. Next we get a bit of repositioning of the knights, e4 is a very nice square, dead equality now according to Stockfish, but not to worry, I rarely lie, Faustino is about to win this game, as promised, where after a bit more shuffling we come to this position, where Faustino has just dropped his knight back to c1, to which Magnus responds with a very unfortunate knight to a2, just losing his knight to knight takes a2, which I don't really have a great explanation for. It didn't seem to be the result of a pre-move, and I don't know what kind of mouse slip would have been responsible, but probably had something to do with the fact that Magnus was a bit down on time, having 25 seconds left on his clock versus Faustino's 30 seconds, so maybe he was trying to catch up and his moves just got away from him. What we can say is that if it weren't for Faustino's ability to play such a high caliber game at such a ridiculous pace, this certainly wouldn't have happened. Averaging less than one second per move against the likes of Magnus without just getting totally blown off the board, well that's something that very few people are able to do, and to do it at the age of 10, well that's just insane. The rest of the game doesn't require too much commentary, Magnus drags it out for a handful of moves, maybe hoping he can catch up on time and try to flag this obnoxious young genius, but Faustino continues to play quickly, and it's at this point that we do finally have a resignation from Magnus Carlsen, as he is still a piece and a pawn down, and still behind on the clock. So a huge milestone for Faustino Oro here, his very first time beating the world's number one, bullet though it may be, and it certainly won't be his last, and it wasn't his last, he actually beat Magnus in two more bullet games in the following year, one of which you can watch here. So I do encourage you to stick around for that, and I will see you next time.