Magnus Carlsen vs 2500 GM: The Difference

ladies and gentlemen the highest title that you can achieve in the world of Chess is most subscribed chess YouTuber the second highest title that you can achieve in the world of Chess is Grandmaster everybody tries to become a Grandmaster when they start out on their chess Journey but very few are able to truly accomplish it now there is some debate should there be an even higher title of course you can argue that becoming the world champion of Chess is a title on its Zone but should there be a title separating Grand masters from Super Grand Masters to become a Grandmaster you have to fulfill a couple of norms three to be exact and then you need to get a rating of 2500 but that means that a 2500 rated player and Magnus Carlson who was up here have the same exact title and that's the purpose of today's video yesterday Magnus on October the 2nd 2023 began a tournament called the European Club cup it's basically a glorified fraternity hangout where a bunch of dudes who are represented by some sort of Team sponsor play chess against each other and drink alcohol and Magnus was playing in the first round against another team and he was playing a normal person he was playing Grandmaster Ravi Haria who is 24 years of age from England and a 2522 rated player and these types of matchups are always fascinating to me because you get to see a level difference you get to see Magnus play certain openings that he has never played before which he did you get to learn a few things and you get to enjoy this along with me these two players both have The Grandmaster title but it ain't close and that has I'm not trying to demean Ravi Hari he's got an he's incredible player I could only dream to be rated 2522 on ch.com you know any day but uh over the board Che chess 90-minute chess no chance um so I'd like to show you this game and I'd like to show you the level difference between a Grandmaster and the world champion or former world champion but best player in the world Magnus plays E4 um and something very interesting happens on move one which uh which perhaps could surprise you Ravi Hara plays E6 he goes for the French defense okay to try to play D5 now Magnus car does not face the French defense very often because chess tournaments generally don't pair people this far apart chess is like a bubble most top level chess is a Invitational and it always has been so Magnus plays Fabiano Carana Hikaru Nakamura Wesley so Anish giri Leana aronian and the same top 10 or 20 players all the time but his opponent now plays the the French against him normally his opponents play the Sicilian and they play E5 that is what Magnus has to play look at any of magnus's World Championships where he plays E4 his opponents probably play E5 or C5 so D4 D5 and now already something interesting on the third move in this position Magnus has played Knight C3 and Knight D2 which are two of the most popular moves the last time that Magnus Carlson played E5 the Advanced French in a classical game in a 90minut or longer type of game was in 2004 against uh Simon agdestein who is a uh Norwegian Grandmaster and he lost that game that was 19 years ago I wasn't even born that no I I was but some of how many of you were not born then I mean seriously I think the average age on this channel is like late teenage years like 16 17 some of you watching this are like 7 years old some of you watching this are 97 years old um that's not where it stops by the way like if you're watching this at 102 God bless keep keep it going um Magnus has not played this in a long game in over nearly 20 years that's uh that's what I love about watching him play these because he just doesn't have a chance he doesn't have a chance now his opponent plays C5 that's the most principled response against the advanced French the advanced French take space away from the natural development of black you try to Anchor this Pawn with moves like F4 or Knight F3 and then all of your pieces find some sort of home around the structure black likes to expand on the queen side where they have more space white plays C3 and now a big decision okay um now black has to decide which approach he's going to take there are the offbeat approaches like Pawn to F6 immediately striking at the center uh there is Queen B6 which is a very very direct approach I used to play play this myself with black you try to take and then sometimes you put pressure on this Pawn well you're putting pressure on it but sometimes you take that pawn uh Ravi plays um Bishop D7 which is the third approach to just develop and maybe put a rook on C8 so Bishop D7 is just a very flexible move and then you can sort of decide what you want to do next white has kind of two approaches here white can play uh in this style uh of A3 and try to take some space like this to try to play a very quick B4 uh or White can just ignore the queen side and play Bishop to E2 and that's exactly what Magnus does as you can see from the time usage nobody nobody is thinking yet now an interesting decision according to the database I sound like Dorothy Anne from what was that U Magic School Bus according to my research uh yeah the the move uh in this position for black is not the move that black plays in the game game which he plays rather quickly here black will generally play Knight E7 to play Knight F5 and pressure the pawn black can also play A6 and then black can also kind of take the file Ravi Haria takes on D4 right away so he completely uh removes any flexibility from the position and now he plays Knight E7 so his idea is to play Knight F5 and put pressure on this Pawn Magnus immediately takes advantage of that square by developing his Knight but first he castles Knight F5 and now Knight C3 you will notice neither side has spent much time both guys clearly familiar with the opening the position is is level because that's the way chess goes okay black will have sustained pressure on this Pawn with moves like Queen B6 or in the future getting the queen out there if you trade the Knight the bishop will come out and black will rely on this Pawn break F6 it's very important to understand where your Pawn breaks are in the position and here riario plays A6 now that move he spent a little bit of time I would say two minutes I mean if you memorize something and you spend two minutes on it it's probably still okay you control B5 and uh now the next order of business is um how does white develop so now what Magnus thinks for nearly 15 minutes clearly this position has been reged before it's a very popular tabia uh White can play various things like G4 trying to create some sort of attack that's one of the ideas white can always play A3 it's always a useful move this bishop would like to develop The Rook would like to come to C1 maybe A3 B4 repels the queen side forces but Magnus decides to play Bishop G5 straight away this move has been played and the idea is quite simple if Black Blocks to try to speed up his development he's actually getting rid of his better Bishop his better Bishop right now is that Bishop why because six of his seven pawns are on light squares which means this bishop is bad so the move Bishop G5 looks like black wants to lazily Play Bishop E7 and then do this this in Castle but suddenly the eval bar is off of zero which is which is very interesting you would prefer to keep the tension maybe with something like Queen to B6 or queen to A5 and use this bishop as a Target that's the interesting thing like let's say queen A5 A3 black can play H6 and then black can even play G5 like in in the future black really doesn't mind but Magnus already poses a very interesting question to his opponent and and the move F6 here is just no good it's not like it's losing uh but there are various tricks here like Knight to H4 and after Pawn takes G5 uh White can play for example Bishop H5 check Knight F5 Knight takes D5 hunt the king out into the center of the board and uh it's a very very messy position very messy black might get checkmated at any moment so Bishop E7 right the utmost utmost of strategic mistakes trading off a very natural move getting ready to Castle and doing exactly that Magnus plays Queen D2 now he spends another 14 minutes on this move clearly Magnus was a little bit disturbed about what could happen if the queen comes to B4 so he was probably calculating A3 um which is again a very natural move but then you know black would Castle black is still going to rely on F6 and he plays Queen D2 and and now now Magnus plays in this position I would say Magnus plays something is in my eye that's not what he played oh my goodness oh I got it out I got it out oh my goodness oh that's a big win for me guys ever get an eyelash stuck in your eye that's not what's happening to me right now but it was something and I I was trying to just power through this video with it in my eye but you know what I got to break the fourth wall although technically a YouTube video somebody said this in a comment once technically a whole YouTube video is breaking the fourth wall because I'm talking directly to you pay attention you're going to want to figure out this move so this position has been reached uh In classical chess I looked at the database it's been reached a couple of times on chess base uh I looked at chess.com Lee chess uh this position has been reached like 30 40 times online the following move that Magnus Carlson plays in this position has never been played in the hundreds of millions of chess games that have ever taken place in history at least not recorded once Magnus plays Rook ae1 now at first glance you might not quite understand why that move has never been played I mean it's it's just a rook move right and your last move was connecting the Rooks this move is fascinating because it looks stupid just looks like a stupid move why does it look like a stupid move you want to activate both of your Rooks so naturally this Rook would likely go here to either support the center or defend that pawn and this Rook would go to C1 why would it go to C1 because Knight A4 Knight C5 duh so Knight A4 something like A3 H6 and then Knight A4 now unfortunately there is a tactic there with that Bishop but normally the queen is on D1 and it escorts the Knight to the C5 square but why would he go here what about this Rook this doesn't make any sense because if if the argument is well I'm going to move that pawn when you can't even move the Knight if you move the Knight you lose this you can't go backwards right so what what did Magnus think about when he played this move I think think I figured it out now I doubt Magnus is going to watch this video if he does then hi uh but I think I figured it out in this position if you ask white what's your worst piece it's probably this bishop white would love the bishop on that diagonal to potentially start an attack you cannot play Bishop D3 because you probably just lose this Pawn now Bishop D1 is the idea however if you play this now black can play Queen B4 then if you play A3 forcing the queen back Bishop A4 for example pinning the Knight to the bishop black can actually potentially still take because at the end of it there is a fork for example take take take Bishop D7 Knight B3 let's say queen C2 Knight A1 Rook A1 rook d8 and something like the bishop coming out now D4 D3 and the position is very unclear it's actually quite complicated so before you play Bishop D1 you play here so that now your idea is Bishop D1 Queen B4 A3 Queen B6 Bishop A4 and that doesn't work because there's no Fork anymore and the other idea is that you take take and start an attack G4 and this Rook that you transferred here suddenly participates in the attack white can play H4 in the future white can play Rook E3 and Rook G3 and while the computer for now is saying the position is balanced on a high depth it actually really respects White's position so Magnus comes up with this alien-like Rook move which in all recorded games of human history has never happened okay I'm listening I'm paying attention fascinating stuff here what else if black Tri to liquidate the Knight like this my Rooks are now here and now I am in Prime position to use my Rooks together absolutely fascinating stuff because again to the untrained eye it just looks like Rook C1 and you fight on the open file you don't even think about it so Rook E1 now Ravi Haria plays Queen d8 which is one of the best moves but you'll notice the mysterious move by Magna strikes a little bit of of fear and uncertainty 20 minutes spent on a queen move it's a fascinating thing about Chess this is why chess is going to be very difficult to get on television screens okay because you watch any sport you go hit the ball shoot the B yeah like nobody at a sports bar is going to sit in this position for 20 minutes and go wow that's an absolutely fascinating Rook move let me check my online database I don't think it's ever happened blacks got tremendous pressure here on the center but white is a move away from alleviating it and white definitely wants to create this multifaceted Bishop R route but doing that would negate the safety of the queen like nobody's sitting at a sports bar for 20 minutes drinking an Allagash White beer and and doing this okay Queen d8 Magnus goes for his plan Bishop to D1 that was the idea he's going to put the bishop over here or over here because if he gets one of Knights he's going to be in good shape now Ravi plays F6 so this is a big moment F6 is a massive move number one pontre is brewing in the center of the board number two that's weak he created a weakness for himself by trying to relieve White's dominance of the center of the board number three that Rook is going to open up unless we get this G takes F6 if if if G takes F6 was played here black should be revoked of a Grandmaster title um and it should be given to me that would make my life a lot easier so these are all the ideas of this move F6 okay so Magnus plays Bishop A4 and the idea is pretty straightforward this Knight is playing a major role in pressuring the center so I want to take it and again normally for beginners intermediates I say like if you don't see a clear enough reason to trade a bishop for a knight you don't see an advantage don't give up a bishop for a knight you know this this bishop you want it for the attack but here's the problem um if you just play something like Bishop C2 you're not you're not going to achieve an attack like you're not it's not it's not there this looks great all of this I can't draw arrows but you know you you understand it but the other idea of Bishop to A4 is to force a move out of black that that's how Magnus plays chess and he's better at anyone in the world at it he's better than everybody in the world at it he wants black to play B5 he wants black to play a move that slaps his Bishop backwards and he evaluates that the move B5 which is a very natural move building upon that move A6 and kicking out it was a super super natural move for black he evaluates that it's what he wants B5 there it is now Bishop C2 this Pawn PA actually creates a little bit of instability back here and it's very much a Target in the future right so it's a pawn that can be targeted in the future the C5 square is now potentially permanently inhabitable because or habitable habitable not inhabitable habitable I don't know I just make chess content so he induces a move right and he look at how many pawns his opponent has moved forward Magnus hasn't touched these pawns Magnus does not like to move Pawns it's kind of a general statement but he loves to make his opponent bring the pawns to him and he does Ravi Haria takes on E5 and now Magnus plays D takes C5 and this is a very tense moment in this game so Magnus has eyes on that right he has eyes potentially to sacrifice he's got eyes to pressure the defile potentially G4 to open up some attacking possibilities let's say black just plays a like Rook to C8 a very natural easy straight forward move I don't actually fully know what is wrong with this move for black and clearly as you can see from the computer the computer also doesn't really know Knight takes D5 straight away doesn't quite cut it it looks really good if you get like E6 and stuff uh but none of this works because of Bishop takes E6 and then Knight D4 and it's a lot of things are attacked at the same time Knight D4 Knight D4 and actually black is just winning so that's not the idea uh the idea could be to probably reroute the Knight something like E2 and then to F4 or to G3 or to the center in the future trying to play Bishop takes and then put a knight on D4 or something like this um that could be another idea but in general something like this is probably not worth like some sort of massive reaction but that is that that this is the general idea Magnus wants to go here here play something like G4 so sensing tactics on this diagonal sensing tactics on that diagonal Ravi har plays King h8 and this is the biggest advantage that Magnus has had the entire game point three something the computer didn't like about King h8 uh it thought it was a bit of an overreaction an overcorrection of the position it didn't like that black did not bring a piece like Rook C8 or queen C7 or queen A5 even but Queen A5 is aggressive but maybe slightly flawed but it stops Knight E2 because you're threatening to trade Queens King h8 what's so bad about that move well I'm going to do something here I'm going to turn off the eval bar and we're just going to watch okay we're just going to watch Magnus go to work Knight E2 that was always the idea right the the idea was to transfer the Knight either over here or get rid of one of Black's Knights if this of course you win D5 and you get an E Pawn passing but if Rook F5 you put a knight on D4 and you get into one of the most dreaded end games in chess the French Bishop endgame let's say of course this would not happen but let's just say you got an endgame that looked like this this is a worst nightmare against Magnus Carlson it is five out of six light squared pawns with a light squared Bishop the bishop has absolutely zero scope and the kn KN patrols The Invasion so The Rook C2 is not even possible this is a French defense endgame which Magnus would beat even the best players in the world in this is not what you want to happen and remember magnus's move Bishop G5 in the opening when he played this this is why black had to be very careful playing the move Bishop E7 Bishop E7 was a very subtle strategic mistake and you are paying the price for it deep into this game deep into this game with this decision-making okay so after Knight E2 Ravi Haria trades off the Knight he doesn't want Magnus to get rid of his Knight and have a dominant Knight so he plays Knight H4 but my friends remember how on move 13 when Magnus played Rook ae1 when Magnus played Rook ae1 remember how I told you that white would love to play F4 I told you that and then this would all make sense putting the Rooks here because they would be supporting the enf files and actually Magnus would be a genius well lo and behold Here Comes F4 and it's it's just actually incredible how easily magnus's moves flow into one another and now moving The Rook to E1 is genius in other ways because this Rook on F1 did not ever go that way so it can go up and over Magnus is two moves away from winning the game right now he's only slightly better if you don't believe me it's only three so now a very big moment black has to decide what he's doing is he bringing his Queen out is he going to bring his R to the party he brings his Rook to the party but now he's down 30 minutes on the clock and the heart is racing the heart is like I'm in a very tense moment against Magnus now Magnus sensing all of this understanding that he could go for it right now cool common collected slides the bishop back one square look how much time he spent on that move about a minute because you get 30 second bonus every time he spent Bishop back one square you think for 6 minutes with black seven you get the 30 seconds he goes here instantly ball is back in your court you got 14 minutes to figure this out white wants to go Rook F3 Rook H3 you got to get your queen out of here or you have to block The Bishop's diagonal but you don't want to push another Pawn because you're playing Magnus you don't want to push another Pawn right so the queen goes out Queen goes out now this is still constantly on the nervous system of black Magnus slides forward one square just one square and do you know what the idea is infiltrate in the future now I can infiltrate and the only reason your pawns are week is because some five moves ago I played Bishop to A4 forcing you to go B5 and I went back and as the game progressed and we traded our pieces now I'm infiltrating and I'm I'm converting my advantage over here so Ravi comes back he's down to six minutes every move that he has played his time has nearly gone down by half except right here but he's down to six minutes and Magnus still has 40 now can Magnus play Queen B6 absolutely absolutely he can play Queen B6 but then maybe black plays A5 and there's various tactics here with Knight E5 so instead of doing any of that Magnus continues improving his position and building the tension Rook C1 improving his position that Rook served its purpose on the E file now it goes back to C1 and it pressures over here this Rook threatening this and threatening the advancement of the f- pawn at any moment now Ravi brings the queen back and immediately Magnus shows him that a couple of moves ago it was okay to bring the queen back to E7 but not right now what what is the difference between this position and this position it's very subtle what is the difference between this position and this position the difference is that Magnus slid forward one square and the idea was to go there so now black is worried about the king side and the queen side but there was another difference on the third rank when the black queen retreats this is magnus's biggest advantage of the game Queen H3 that was the difference Magnus slid his Queen forward one square threatening an infiltration giving black something to think about on that weaken Queen side but the other idea was that at some point black is going to panic he's going to move his Queen to join everybody else and he's going to surrender the H file and once you surrender the H file it's going to go from bad to worse because now I am dominating on that side of the board and Magnus plays G4 Magnus did not push any pawns the entire game except in the opening look at these pawns and now watch as the game progressed yes he had to recapture but he only touched his Center pawns the entirety of the game was played by maneuvering only making Necessary pawn moves until now F4 and a couple of moves later G4 black is in deep trouble Magnus now plays A3 which prevents the Knight and the queen from going to B4 Ravi plays King G8 stepping off the G file but it doesn't matter Magnus has arrived the H Pawn is unguardable if you take it's check made in two with King F7 and Bishop G6 mate Magnus is knocking on the door Ravi with 158 play plays the one of the best moves actually sacrifices his Knight in the center of the board but Magnus before he takes it trades The Rook because he's going to be up material and picks up the Knight and while black does get a pawn with Czech that's Gable Magnus is now up a knight for two pawns but it's really going to be only one because he's definitely going to win this one Ravi knows he can't trade Queens so he trades Rook and brings the queen but now Bishop G6 sealing off the king's escape this is mate in just a few moments and in this position Ravi Haria resigned now I'm going to run a game analysis because that was absolutely effortless that was such a nice and straightforward game of chess uh that was everything that you like to see and uh Magnus played that game at 97% accuracy the computer gives him two inaccuracies which came when he played his magnus's estimated ELO that game was 3500 and to ravi's credit Ravi played apparently like a 3100 so yes but you look back at a game like this and you literally go I don't know what I did wrong I don't know how I lost this game so easily I don't know what I did wrong and I got news for you I think it actually starts right here the most innocuous looking bishop move just saying hey let's trade Bishops let me get castled my life is good that is the subtle difference between Magnus Carlson and a 2500 GM it's actually unbelievable like it's little Rook ae1 with the absurdly Deep idea of a Bishop R route also with an A A Move that induces a weakening move and then just the subtle one movers such as Bishop B1 and queen E3 so many of us would be tempted to play some aggressive move now some of you may also uh may also be keenly aware of the fact that here black can play Knight takes E5 and then if takes you would lose this so Queen E3 does defend against that which is why it's you know but white could have also went here and here so this is clearly the best move because it's threatening an infiltration in my opinion it's just it's just an awesome game of chess just awesome from from start to finish and I uh I really like seeing Magnus playing against normal Grand Masters um that's all my friends mandatory end of the video If you haven't pre-ordered the book yet check it out it's behind me it's available in Spanish and German and available in the UK with 25% off until uh October 24th and uh you know where to find me if you want my courses that's all I got for you today get out of here

Channel: GothamChess

Views: 911,835

Keywords: gothamchess, gothamchess london, gothamchess caro kann, gothamchess openings, gothamchess vienna

Id: slvH7xZ_msc

Length: 30min 0sec (1800 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 03 2023