A game so complex that your head will spin | Nepo vs Naka | FIDE Candidates 2024

welcome everyone to the clash between two heavyweights of the freeay candidates 2024 it's Hikaru Nakamura with the white pieces against Yan neishi the winner of two candidates before this one games are about to begin they shake hands and off we go this is the seventh round of the event and let's see what Hikaru has up his sleeve he opens the game with 1 E4 and well when you play E4 against Yan you have to be ready for his pet roll he plays E5 there you can see Hikaru shaking his head he's looking at one of the games and maybe he's smiling that prananda played the French defense against Fabiano Karana nepo also is very interested in what has just happened and well they have to focus on their game Knight comes out to F3 will Neo continue with the Petro or will he show faith in some other opening no Knight F6 he is continuing with his main opening and while nepo is a target you know when he keeps playing the pet rock on the other hand it's very difficult to outplay him because he's so well prepared in the pet he revises his lines regularly his seconds are working on the material so all in all it's like he's created a bulletproof opening repertoar and he's telling his opponents that I'm going to come with this you can shoot your bullets at me and I am ready to take them all in and this is really an amazing um strategy that nepo has um maybe it also helps him to be more secure before the game because then he knows that he only has to work on one opening rather than many uh and right now Nakamura has chosen the main line here he plays Bishop to D3 this was also what prananda had played against he Bishop D6 comes out and now Castles by both sides seems logical yes White Castles and now black will also Castle so the reason why white can even claim to fight for an edge here is the slightly shaky position of the Knight on e4 here nepo continues with C6 in the game with prananda it had continue with Knight C3 take take take and this is how it went but this time you can see Hikaru has deviated with Rook E1 nepo plays his Bishop to F5 and now the queen comes out to B3 this has been played before in fact Magnus Carson himself has played this against Yan nepom Nishi so now what do you do with black I think you have to protect your B7 Pawn he moves his Queen up to D7 defending the pawn there and now Hikaru pushes his Pawn to C5 now if you play a bishop here then Knight E5 and you are lost so you have to play your Bishop to C7 notice taking this Pawn is suicidal because of Bishop H2 check and you lose the queen so that's the reason why Hikaru plays G3 and tells Yan that this is hanging here you know this is falling what are you going to do B6 is one move Queen C8 is another move but nepo plays the move A5 and a question does remain here what is A5 can we simply not snatch the pawn on B7 you can see nepo made this move he has 1 hour 53 minutes Nakamura has 1 hour 58 minutes can he simply not snatch the pawn I think he can no he goes Knight D2 well the point is if he would have taken here then Knight A6 followed by r B8 would have led to a very quick uh sort of the queen getting trapped here rook fb8 and the queen is trapped so that's the reason why Hikaru goes Knight D2 and here Yan neum Nishi now plays Bishop to E6 very interesting move because if you take Here pawn takes and then the queen is attacked and the pieces are also attacked here so Hikaru now has to decide what what is his move going to be here and you can see Nan was getting up Hikaru was about to make his move then Yan sat down again Hikaru still did not make his move now he does he snatches the pawn and this time Knight A6 is a little less uh strong because after take take there is Bishop takes and this is hanging and if you play here Rook fb8 then Queen takes C7 Knight takes C7 and Knight KN E5 leads to a very good position so here nepo knew that he must take here and after Bishop H7 he takes here now imagine if you had taken this Knight check and you would lose the queen so he's taken here taken this and Hikaru has chopped off The Rook so completely insane position nepo now plays Knight H3 check he's simply well prepared wow this is amazing A5 never has been played before and yet in this line both both the players have prepared because it's the top choice of the engine this is what modern chess is all about you prepare well and then you come out all guns blazing Bishop G4 now you have to take care of your queen that it doesn't get trapped here and at some point you also want to bring your queen back into the game Hikaru has 1 hour 56 minutes this time when he makes his move nepo does not sit back he goes away and comes back in a bit Hikaru has 1 hour 55 minutes nepo has 1 hour 43 minutes and now he plays his Rook to E8 what a nice move the point is Queen goes back if you had taken taken and taken here Queen E2 is just game over it's a mate so that's the reason why he comes back with his Queen and if you count the material you will see that black has Five Pawns white has six but black also is an exchange down so black is not just exchange down but also a pawn down so that's a total of three pawns down that's how insane complicated this position is you really have to understand the complications here and understand what is White's compensation White's compensation lies in the fact or that the light squares around the white king are weak so that's the reason why nepo by the way nepo should go King G8 here and that would give him a good position because then later Bishop F5 Bishop E4 can be played but he plays directly Bishop F5 and this is perhaps not the most accurate move both players are out of the board Hikaru comes back sits down and he has to move his Queen away and he plays Queen to F1 that's the move that is the best move there he still has 1 hour 54 minutes which means that he is in his preparation the engine is giving an advantage to White which means things are not looking great for Yan nepom Nishi because now a check here can be simply met with taking it so nepo goes for the move Knight D7 he develops his Knight wres down Hikaru comes in and one of the main plan here which Hikaru knows very well is to play A4 and Rook A3 and activate the Rook this way without having to disturb this formation let's see if Hikaru plays A4 Rook A3 here no he goes Knight E F3 which is also a fine move and now NE 4 plays his Knight to F6 so the reason why this position is fine for white of course we talked about the light squares but also White's pieces are not coming into the game and black has such great pieces so Black's position is fine that that way and maybe Hikaru wants to play Knight G1 or maybe A4 you know these are the moves that he has he goes Knight G1 he offers the trade of knights but this Knight cannot be taken because after takes Bishop takes its trouble there you're going to lose material so he goes King G8 and now maybe the best idea is Knight Knight F3 opening up the bishop if Hikaru can play that I think he would be doing very very well in this position he sits down he has actually outplayed Yan in the opening he is better prepared Yan maybe forgot his opening ideas what is hearu going to play now he plays Queen E2 maybe not the best move here because Knight F3 was a great move but it's been played and if if you trade the Queens white is simply winning like there's no no doubt about it so you can't trade the Queens which is why you have to play your knight to E4 now if you trade here then after Bishop E4 King F1 Queen F5 this is over like there's no way that you can save such a position you are lost so that's the reason why now after Queen E2 Knight E4 Hikaru is thinking about what is the move that he want wants to play and he goes A4 he wants to bring his Rook from A3 right in the center of the board Yan comes on comes in and now he takes Bishop takes G3 wow what a move Yan is in a complete sacrificial mode today he first took on F2 then he took then he gave up an exchange you know like on A8 then now he's taking on G3 and Hikaru actually you know he's shaking his head because he knows he's missed his chance to get an advantage but he's still safe it feels like you're thinking twice you're double checking your lines you have 50 minutes on the clock and after taking this he has 46 minutes Yan neom Nishi has 27 minutes the only move here is a check Pawn takes and now at this point Yan is a rook and a piece down wow insane completely insane but this is an important moment because he couldn't go to H2 that would have led to a big attack made so that's the reason why he went to F1 Knight came came to G3 giving a fork so you going to win back the queen but in return for the queen you will have a rook and two minor pieces which is quite a lot of material that white has ikaru goes King E1 and now Yan takes on E2 Knight takes on E2 black plays the bishop to G4 attacking the Knight and now Rook A3 The Rook will actually swing over here Hikaru is activating his Rook but in this position a queen is very very powerful very when it is compared to other pieces because after take here by y you will see that there are a lot of weak pawns that white has and the queen is like a missile which will go and attack F4 and D4 and all these pawns here so right now Hikaru seems to be ahead on material but positionally he is not doing so well because you can see how Yan makes his queen move and attacks the D4 pawn it has to be defended Knight to B3 defends the D4 pawn and also the C1 Bishop which was also tra attacked here so now Yan gives a check Naru is thinking where to move his King it's not so easy he plays King D1 well check King C2 check here now the king moves to C3 somehow the checks keep on coming and there's no no effective way to block it please Queen F3 check King C2 and I guess the players are going to soon agree to a draw because there's just no way to keep the game going King C3 check King C2 and check and I think the players will agree to a draw yes a dra is let's hear what they have to too yeah maybe it's like there there is a drop by first but I couldn't remember yeah yeah I okay position should BEP here is Bishop d8 not 197 so TR figure out what the thank you thanks [Music] on he your mind [Music]

Channel: ChessBase India

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Id: V2_Gb6DQ9SI

Length: 16min 59sec (1019 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2024