https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GARJIWCO5l8

Hello everyone and welcome to another amazing game from the FIDE World Rapid Steam Championship. It is Jordan Pamparest versus Nodir Bekabdusatorov. The championship is already over. Dink's team, Dragon Chilling, has won the event. And while that is very impressive, there are still a couple of games I would really like to show. Starting with this one. This one is an absolute masterclass. You will love it and it features everything you want to see in a chess game. Plus, you know, these two players, they're amazing. They always play incredible chess. So what more could we ask for? Let's check it out. Jordan has the white pieces and he opens with e4. Nodir Bek strikes with pawn to c5. This is the Sicilian defense and it can be met many different ways. Usually you will see a knight f3 and d4, but sometimes you'll see a knight f3 and bishop to b5. Here we have knight to c3, the close Sicilian. We have pawn to d6 and knight g to e2. Again, it could transpose into pawn to d4. But after knight f6, we have pawn to g3. And this is now officially the close Sicilian. We have g6, bishop to g2, bishop to g7, and pawn to d3. This is all standard theory. They're not really doing anything here. Nodir Bek did burn a minute here. I have no idea why. Probably to decide what to play. But he's definitely still in theory. We have h3, rook to b8 by Nodir Bek, and now f4 is usually played. a4 is what's played if you don't play f4. So yeah, they either play f4 or a4, but mostly they play both. So a6, now preparing pawn to b5, and we have pawn to f4. Knight to d7. We have knight to d5, as the d5 square has now been weakened with the knight vacating the f6 square. And pawn to b5. We have captress, and knight e3. Interestingly, all been seen before, and now pawn to b4. So what can white do here? There's a game. It was played in 2019. Frederik Svane played it against Philip Olsen, and pawn to c3 was played. But here we have pawn to g4 by Jordan, and it is now, as of move 14, that we have a completely new game. And this is where our story begins. So Nodir Bek starts by claiming the d4 square. And okay, it definitely makes sense. It seems like the knight can be kicked away with pawn to c3, but you can simply capture on e2, or you can even capture here and then capture on e2 with check, and after queen captures, you lose the pawn on c3. So tactically, you cannot get rid of the knight on d4 just yet. So pawn to g5. We have e6 and pawn to h4. So just advancing the pawns in front of the white king. Bishop to b7, and now knight to g3. We have pawn to f5. And again, a position where you could play many ideas, like king to h2, you could strike with pawn to h5, you could go rook to a7 right away. Jordan goes, g captures on f6, en passant. And this gives us the game that we really want to see. Queen captures on f6, and now queen to g4, putting pressure on the e6 pawn, preparing pawn to h5. So this is a very nice position. But Noderbeck strikes with pawn to h5, queen to h3, and now bishop to h6. And it doesn't seem like you can defend the f4 pawn. But then again, there's a queen on f6, so maybe black shouldn't really capture that pawn. We have rook to a7 by Jordan. Knight c4 going after the d6 pawn would be the precise way to play it. But after rook to a7, which is also fine, now someone who doesn't feel like, or maybe someone who's not in a creative mode, or you know, if you didn't wake up nicely, you might just go back. Queen e7, you have everything defended, you're going to move the knight, the bishop is defended, and that's perfectly fine. But Noderbeck decided he wants blood, and he played bishop captures on f4. Okay, we have knight to c4, now threatening to win the bishop here, but Noderbeck captures the bishop on c1, and he sacrifices the queen. And you can't really decline that, because even if you try and play it down in exchange, there's queen f2 check, and after king h2, you can just play knight f6, knight to g4, and this is a dead loss for white. So after bishop captures on c1, we have rook captures on f6, Jordan captures the queen, and knight captures on f6. And this is still playable, but you have to be engine-precise to play it. And the correct way to do it is to kick away the bishop with rook to a1. Jordan did not find it. Point being that after the bishop moves, now you kick away the knight, and after, let's say, captures and captures, it's a really fun line. You have to play knight g4. That's the way to do it. And now if c captures on d4, you can play d5. And this is just very, very hard for white to survive, but it still can be done. For example, captures, captures, and now you have to play rook to f1. This knight can never move due to bishop e3 check, so you have to play rook to f1, and maybe you survive. But if you move the knight, let's say you go knight to d6, then bishop to e3 check, and this is kind of the main theme of Noderbeck's queen sacrifice. He wants to be able to pull off this bishop to e3 check, and then King h1, I have to check. However white plays it, you're just going to lose. So after knight captures on f6, Jordan did not kick away the bishop. He played pawn to c3 first, and now look at this. Bishop captures on b2. Beautifully played. And the knight, of course, cannot be captured. If you capture the knight, then bishop captures with check, and we've delivered the check without actually using the e3 square. King h1, knight g4, and knight f2 being the threat, not a lot you can do here. If rook a2, or any silly move, because there are no good moves here, you can just play b3, rook d2, you can play whatever. Rook a8, you want to go after. Rook d1, you can bring the other rook into the game. Pretty much anything, but it's a dead loss. So after bishop captures on b2, we have c captures on b4. Jordan realizes that the knight cannot be captured, and now we have bishop to c1. Now Noderbeck is preparing to kick away the knight with d5, and then use the e3 square. So pawn to e5, challenging the knight, and now opening up the light square bishop, and here Noderbeck actually misplays it. He plays bishop captures on g2, but you have to play knight to g4. And it seems like you lose a piece here, but it doesn't matter, because once you play d5, the game is over. You win the e3 square, and that's it. The only way for white to continue is maybe to try and activate the queen, but you still just capture the knight, and after d captures on c4, or whatever, you still get this check, and after king h1, rook to f2, with rook to h2, checkmate, or you have to give up the queen. So that's the problem. So bishop captures on g2 actually brings Jordan back in the game, and now Jordan plays queen captures on g2 and knight to g4, while still a very interesting position, and it still seems like black is doing perfectly fine. It's not winning, but you have to figure out why. And we know which move Noderbeck will use to win. He needs d5. d5 is the move that wins the game. So Jordan should just play captures on d6, e captures on d6, and that's it. Now you can play some knight f3, check king h1, c captures on b4, but all of a sudden, it's a game. And yes, there's a scary pass b-pawn, but there's also a scary pass d-pawn. So it could be played. But queen to e4 by Jordan, and now it's completely winning. We have knight to g2, knight captures on h4 with check king g1, and now the move that probably even your uncle already spotted, pawn to d5. You don't really care about the queen. You wanted the knight on c4 to move. We have queen to h1 going after the knight, but just to rook captures on b4. Noderbeck says, I don't even need the knight. I mean, this game is just beautiful. So many sacrifices. Queen captures on h4 was played, and now Noderbeck strikes with rook to b1, and that's it. Here, Jordan could have lost on time. He picked up the rook. He didn't know what to do with it. He put it on b7, but it was also in this position. On move 33, that Jordan Pampares resigned the game, as there is nothing more to be done here. He didn't even wait for Noderbeck's move, because Noderbeck, of course, would not capture the rook. He would just go bishop to e3 with check, as that's kind of the theme of this entire game. Here, it would be a double check. So, only move, king g2, rook to f2, check, king to h3, only move, and the rook to h2 would be checkmate. So, yeah, really crazy game. Sicilian defense, and I mean, we had everything, and especially this moment where the position opened up. It could have, you know, you could have played it any other way, but after allowing the f-file to open up, and Noderbeck to capture on f4, yes, this looks like it's very tricky, but, I mean, because of the d5 move, it all works out. And it's kind of what we say, every time you play the Sicilian, if black can play d5, black will, you know, black is either perfectly fine, or maybe even already winning. So, yeah, brilliant stuff by Noderbeck. If you guys have any other games that you would like to see, use that hashtag suggestion, and I will happily cover them, you know, hopefully more games like this one. I would like to thank Gerhard Henkelman, Nelson Donovan, Jonah Kaplan, Vinyash Hazel Vanan, and Martin Waller for a contribution to my channel. Thank you a lot, I really appreciate it. As usual, you can check two of my previous videos here. Thank you for watching, and I will see you soon, continuing to check up on your wonderful suggestions, and whatever else happens in the chess world. Thank you all, I will see you soon, and have an excellent rest of your day.