Praggnanandhaa stuns Magnus Carlsen First win in Classical Chess Norway Chess 2024

Welcome everyone to this all-important clash in round three of Norway chess. We have Pragnananda making his way to the game. He is taking on world number one Magnus Carlsen today. It's classical chess in Norway. I'll be telling you more about the time control but first let's welcome Magnus Carlsen, one of the greatest players in the history of chess, clearly the greatest in the current era of chess. And we have the guest who makes the first move on the board, the symbolic first move. Prag has beaten Magnus previously in rapid play but never in classical chess. The time control here is two hours for the entire game but after 40 moves you have 10 second increment. Until then there's no increment as well. So they have to speed up Sicilian. He wants to play some aggressive chess today and beat Prag. By the way, Magnus is the sole leader in the open section with three points. Prag is on two and a half. Prag brings his knight out to f3 and will Magnus play knight c6 which is very common at top level and then we have the No, he goes e6. This is relatively lesser played these days. e6 is lesser played but Prag quickly plays d4. Pawn takes. We have the open Sicilian and this is such a dream opening because you have two fighters on the board, Prag and Magnus and a fighting opening. What more can you ask for? This is known as the Sicilian Khan variation. It's supposed to be very very safe and positional in a way because you are kind of putting your pawns on light squares, controlling these light squares over here but Prag puts his bishop out to d3 and queen comes to c7. Now the queen is excellently placed here but on the other hand you will see that what Prag has done is that he's not developed his knight on b1. This means that he can at some point push his pawn to c4 and create a moroxy bind setup. Knight comes out to f6 putting pressure on the center. You will see that e5 is not possible because the queen controls that square. So Prag needs to now reinforce that square. He goes queen e2. He's threatening e5. So maybe it's time for Magnus to stop it with his pawn moving to d6. He does that. He plays d6. Magnus has 1 hour 54 minutes which means that he's still quite well prepared. Pragnananda has 1 hour 46 minutes. So he's been taking his time in the opening and now comes the move c4. As we said the moroxy bind is on the board. White is trying to sort of get more space. Magnus is happy there. He plays knight d7. He's going for this hedgehog like setup. Bishop e7, b6, bishop b7, castle and where black is quite solid. Knight comes out to c3. There was also another possibility to play f4 here which scores very well stopping knight e5 but Prag says let me just go safe. Knight c3 on the board and Magnus taking advantage of this fact plays knight e5 because now the bishop cannot move away. You lose your c4 pawn. So although he's moved his same piece twice in the opening, he wants to win the d3 bishop. That's his main plan. Prag there completely focused. He plays pawn to h3. Maybe he wants to play f4 and not allow the knight to settle down on the g4 square or in general doesn't want any knight coming to g4 and plays h3. Magnus goes b6. Perhaps not the most accurate way to play because he wants to put his bishop here on b7 and that takes a bit of time but it's so logical. You want to put your bishop on the b7 square and now maybe for Prag, it's time to push the knight away. f4 is on the board. Magnus must take the bishop on d3. After all that's what the knight came in for. Yes, he takes on d3 and now Prag takes it back. Let's take stock of the situation. White has space. Black has the bishop pair and I think the position is slightly more pleasant for white but definitely everything to play for. Bishop b7 is played on the board and now Prag Nananda, what is he going to do? Is he going to bring his bishop out from b2 and then centralize his rooks? No, he goes right in there. f5 striking here and black is put into trouble. Now black must go e5. This is important and after knight c2, play rook c8 so that bishop g5, knight e3 is not possible. This ideal setup but Magnus blunders. Well, you can say blunder is a little too strong but it's definitely an inaccuracy. He goes queen d7 and you will understand why Magnus wanted to keep his pawns here so that all the squares are controlled. However, the problem with this is that now Prag can get real active play. Bishop g5, I love this move by Prag Nananda. He gets his bishop out to g5. He's developing quickly. There were also other tempting options by the way. One very nice variation was to take bishop h6 but what Prag has selected is the best. Bishop e7 played and now you know an amazing move here is rook a d1 putting the rook opposite the queen but it's not so easy to understand because you can play your rook to e1 also. Wow, Prag finds it. What a fantastic move. The reason why this move is so strong is because the queen is threatening to move away and push the pawn to e5. Magnus says to the queen you can't move away here because then I would chop off the c4 pawn and then you know this is an instructive line. Takes e5, there is rook takes c3 and knight e4. That's the reason why Prag finds another amazing move. He plays queen e2 clearing the d-file but keeping the c4 pawn protected. This is phenomenal play by Prag and look at how Magnus is tied up. His queen has to defend e6, cannot move away and e5 was a threat so he's forced to make this positional concession of e5 and now a square has been weakened considerably. Prag first takes on f6. This is a good move because now he's removed one of the defenders of the d5 square. Magnus takes it back and what's the move now? Just focus all your attention on this square d5. Yes, knight c2. The knight wants to come to e3 to d5 and this is fantastic chess here by Prag. The two bishops are completely blocked. We have Le Thingy in our screen right now blocking the view. Queen c6 played putting pressure on c4 and e4, two pawns but of course the knight is going here and Prag is going to get his knight into the center. Yes, knight e3 on the board. Magnus is struggling big time here. It's not often that Magnus gets positionally outplayed in 19 moves out of the opening. This is what Prag has managed to do today. Bishop g5 played. What Magnus wants to do is he wants to take here but Prag can be brave and actually sack a pawn and go queen g4. Will Prag do that because that I'm sure he sees there's compensation but he goes king h1 and maybe this allows Magnus a little bit of stability. The reason being that now he can take, take. Yes, he does and Magnus is an amazing defender. So Prag has to be careful. Bishop e3 and now after queen e3, Magnus of course he's not going to go and chop this pawn because of f6, g6 and take this. This is weak. King is weak but what he can do now Magnus is play f6 and stop white's f6. That's the main move. Yes, he plays it and now the c4 pawn is under pressure. So Prag, well in a way you can say he can even give it up because b6 and d6 are weak. b3 played here by Pragnananda. He wants to just solidify his position but can Magnus create play with b5. He does that, he does that. All of a sudden black's position is not counter play less. You know there is counter play in the position and now how does Prag continue? He plays his knight to the center of the board. Fantastic move but the knight is not threatening much for the time being. It's well placed but not threatening much. So queen c5 offering a trade. Maybe better was to just take this pawn but I think Magnus wanted to trade the queens but now the queen can go to f3 or g3. Both moves very strong. He goes f3. He's threatening to give a check. Well you want to take out this knight but if you take it out, Rook d5 attacks the queen. Not so simple. For Magnus, there are many many problems. bxc4 played and Prag can now give a check and force the black king to lose his castling rights. He does it. Queen h4 check. Now one thing that Prag has to be careful is his time. He has 19 minutes left and he has 15 more moves to make to reach move 40. Magnus meanwhile has 44 minutes. So while Magnus has been worse. Plays his king to f8. His rook is not going to come into the game very soon. He's worse. He's played quickly and he's putting the pressure on Pragnananda. How is Prag continuing now? Let's see. Prag taking his time and plays another beautiful move. Rook f3. This is such a great move because now this rook can swing over here. Also if you take, I can take back with the rook. It's time to get rid of the knight on d5. Magnus plays. Bishop takes d5. Prag comes in and of course going to take with the rook. You can't take with the pawn. Yes, rook takes. Now the queen is attacked. The d6 pawn is weak but the queen can move away. Where exactly? Do you want to go to b4? That looks like a safe square or b6 is one option. He goes queen b6 defending the d6 pawn but I think it's time for Prag to take the pawn back on c4. He's taking his time here. Prag takes on c4. He's down to 14 minutes and we are on move 28. Now if Magnus comes in and gives a check, king h2 and tries to take here. This is already bad because of rook d6. The king is too weak and also you will realize that one of the things that is not happening for black is his rook on h8 completely out of the game. Rook b3 played by Pragnananda. He's bringing his rook from the other side. He wants to get in here. Magnus can give a check here in this position but then just rook comes back. So it's not so dangerous. Magnus now needs to play something that blocks the attack and he plays rook b4. The attack to the queen is blocked and now there's this insane move, very tough move to bring the rook back so that you can take back with the rook. Prag finds this move as well. Unbelievable accuracy shown by Prag. The level of play by Pragnananda has been very high. He's been kind of finding almost the best moves on nearly every turn. Rook d3 played. Now Magnus must try to bring his king out and bring the rook somehow although it's not at all easy but he takes. He takes on b3 and now Prag is of course going to take back with the rook. Yes, rook takes b3 attacking the queen. The queen has to move away but where? Queen c5 that is rook b8 check and you can resign. So maybe queen c7 is one idea. He plays his queen back and he's threatening some kind of perpetual checks here on c1 and f4. Pragnananda needs to bring his queen back to d1 which is again a difficult move, a backward move but Prag is now used to making difficult moves in this game. Finds queen d1. Fantastic move once again just shoring things up and g6 played. The thing is if you try to bring your king into the game, this queen b1 and I mean rook into the game and it's game over. So queen d1 is such a powerful move because you want to get queen b1. You want to get your queen behind the rook and Prag finds once again this idea. Look at Magnus. He's like my god what is Prag playing here. He's not just letting me escape with my king and rook. Insane play by Pragnananda. Now the queen needs to move away otherwise would just get lost. So queen c5 and now very important not to let the king escape from here. You need to cut the king off. Pragnananda is 11 minutes now. He plays rook b7 another fine move. You know just completely cutting the king off. The king cannot move up and although Magnus is a pawn up. He's kind of another pawn bites the dust. It's kind of a rook down there. Okay gf5 and now you know you want to get queen b3 and try to checkmate him but there's this check check unnecessarily coming in. So Prag plays another brilliant prophylactic move king h2. He just moves his king up so that there are no checks later. If Magnus gets greedy then queen f1 is already game over. There's no way to protect f6. Magnus now plays rook g8 finally. He's like I've got my rook into the game but look at his expressions. He knows that it's all over. Prag plays queen b3 threatening nothing short of mate and d5 played here by Magnus and how do you finish him off is the question. How do you finish your opponent? He takes on h7 threatening a check here and if the queen goes back there is a check from a3 and mate. I think there's just no way to stop the mate. If you play rook g7 I have check and another check and you lose the rook. Magnus is now lost completely. He stretches his hand in resignation. First classical win for Pragnananda against Magnus Carlsen. What a play by Magnus and what I love is the kind of camaraderie that they both share with each other in spite of losing this game in brutal fashion. Magnus is analyzing with Prag telling him that you know I maybe missed something and also for Prag there's absolutely no emotions on his face. It's just another day at work for him beating world number one beating the player who's just absolutely phenomenal. 28 30 is his rating. Pragnananda manages to outwit him right from the opening and you know it's one thing to get an advantage against Magnus in the opening but quite another to convert it because he's an absolutely brilliant defender but today Prag dominated the game right from start until finish and now takes the lead in the tournament. He has five and a half points because a win in classical gets you three points. He's half a point ahead of Fabiano Caruana and what an amazing thing. Not only does Prag lead in the open, Vaishali leads in the women which means the siblings are in the lead in Norway. An amazing day for Indian chess.