Magnus & Hikaru: THE FINAL MATCH | Day 7 Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour Finals Recap

been a crazy week of chess in the magnus carlson  tour final and hikar and magnus squared off today   for the grand finale hikaru's got the white pieces  series tied 3-3 and once again we began with   a berlin defense this time hikora went back to a  system that he's seen many times and so has magnus   with h3 keeping the position flexible and not yet  committing what side of the board he's going to   play on knight d7 from magnus guards the center  we have knight c4 a5 some early developments   where magnus begins to play very actively on  the queen side bishop e3 fe3 and a4 and here   hikaru started mobilizing on the king side so  he brought his queen and his knights this way   and i was trying to hypothesize what his plan was  going to be during the live broadcast i thought he   was going to play something like rook f3 rook g3  maybe queen g4 um but it turned out that all he   was doing here was gluing the knights together and  he was looking for a potential d4 break and so we   had king h8 and d4 and he had to play this because  otherwise he would have been hit with bishop c4   and a pin we get takes takes takes big straight  and queen c6 and here hikaru removed this rook   and at the time of the game it it obviously  you know he didn't miss the a2 pawn   being unguarded but i was trying to figure out  exactly what was what was the thought process   here was he going to try to win back the b5  pawn was he going to try to trap the bishop   he went for the attempt to trap the bishop oh in  playing b3 we got rook d8 and now there is a bit   of a problem because if you take on a4 the bishop  gets out the pawn takes and there's a promotion   and it's not so easy to guard  here and get out of this pin   the engine here gave an absolutely ridiculous  saving idea to play rook d2 so now the queen   is guarding the rook but more importantly when  the rook takes the rook it's not a check anymore   that's the problem is that if this knight moves  and the rook takes the rook i just take your queen   and so if a3 here with the idea of moving the  bishop and just promoting knight takes b5 is   the saving move ridiculous rogue d2 queen c5 with  queen f8 mate if you take the queen i have to get   my rook out of danger there is no back rank made  because i'm in check and then i'm threatening to   take on a3 so a pretty ridiculous position here  uh and you have to find the move knight takes b5   and in the game instead of this we got knight f5  but magnus played takes takes and was just able to   take the pawn and you cannot take it there's still  some tactical opportunities hikaru went all in   sacrificing on g7 looking for king g7 a  discovered attack which would win the queen   but magnus immediately chops off a a rook of his  for two nights and this is winning because there's   no discovery check which wins the game now if you  play rook d7 you get knight d7 and this is winning   at the super grand master level because you have  a knight and a bishop for a rook not to mention   the fact that you have the two past pawns on the  queen side so what magnus does is he consolidates   his position gets his king to safety surrounded by  his pieces and slowly begins to expand the pawns   which resulted in hikaru resigning the game  on mu 43 as there is no way into the king and   slowly these pawns will go down the board and the  match began one nothing with hikaru losing with   the white pieces so in the second game ever there  was this big question you know was magnus going to   repeat was he just going to make a draw and and  give hikaru the the third game and he played e4   and hikaru played the sicilian defense which was  obviously a bit surprising in fact playing into   knight f3 knight c6 which is kind of what magnus  has been playing all the time we got a rossolimo   bishop b5 rather than g4 and then there was g6  which is a mainline position but magnus played   this in like e4 e5 style he played c3 and then  didn't actually like try to do anything crazy   in the center of the board so the position became  rather symmetrical and this sort of is the summary   of the game the game was 74 moves long and both  players kind of shuffled their pieces around   traded a little bit and you see like everything  gets traded off uh there was a little bit of a   of a hiccup in the rook end game you know both  players brought their rooks to the open file   if you need any sort of mini lesson from this game  but not a terribly exciting second game and in my   opinion went on a lot longer than it potentially  should have magnus putting some pressure here   rooks are very active but not enough weaknesses  in hikaru's position to do anything about it   and it resulted in an end game where it was hikaru  who got bishop and two pawns versus bishop and two   pawns uh even if you lose the pawn you have a  defensive fortress it's impossible to win the   h6 pawn for white and it's impossible to promote  and well the next like literally 30 moves are   basically just shuffling the pieces and if i jump  forward to move 70 now right right around here   magnus was able to push his pawn further and we  did get king of f5 uh but then we got bishop f4   takes and bishop h6 simply resulting in a draw so  relatively boring and straightforward second game   even with the sicilian on the board uh nothing  you know nothing too complicated but magnus always   a little bit of pressure and now it was back to  hikaru for the third game with a one point deficit   another berlin a variation that you've seen  a lot you've seen you've heard me say the   word berlin some of you have resorted  to only writing berlin in the comments   uh literally there was a guy who wrote like  seven berlins it was flagged by youtube's comment   algorithm as spam but in this position ikaru  did not put anything on e3 he played g4 and this   this is this is this is why we're here ikaru's got  gotta win with the white pieces and he disregards   king safety playing the move g4 he then plays  rook g1 and essentially says to magnus i'm going   to throw my g h pawns at you good luck a4 knight  back to e3 a trade a knight of fate and he says h4   and h5 not castling keeping his king in  the center probably the safest spot for   it considering the fact that if you castle queen  side you're just going to get your king in more   trouble with the a and the b pawns then we have  b5 knight h4 and we see this maneuver once again   anticipating that if this trade occurs this just  opens up the rook and white is completely winning   because white's just going to get a huge attack  like you're not going to be able to stop my attack   magnus tried to play c4 and here this blob of  light squared pawns allows the move queen before   to happen magnus tries to create some counter  play hikaru stabilizes rather than trading the   pawn and creating a weakness and here we get  queen c2 big moment here in the game very big   moment uh hikaru has to deal with the danger of  the queen jumping in and he finds the move h6   g6 and rook c1 playing on both sides of the board  creating some dark squared weakness not allowing   the king to escape off of the back rank and taking  this pawn is frankly too dangerous because again   it opens up the rook so queen takes d3 here there  was two wins the first win was 97 uh just jumping   in and getting this kind of a position threatening  queen f6 queen g7 at the same time rook c7 at the   same time queen e5 and queen g7 and all these  ideas but hikaru chose another way rook d1   queen c2 and knight to g7 and the rook is trapped  just trapped it cannot move here it cannot move   here can i move here take it on every square so  bishop b7 during the game ceci freaked out here   and obviously everybody in the viewing audience  saw it saying that bishop takes g4 was saving   somehow you sacrifice the piece and then you move  this rook out of danger and all of a sudden you   are the one creating a threat if rook d8 rook d8  and even though white is up a bishop this rook is   not doing a damn thing anymore and rook d1 is  basically checkmate white has to do some crazy   running and even if you play king f1 there is a  windy one check so super super dangerous position   if you allow this uh the best move is to not even  take this uh it's to play like rook d2 you know   just try to get your opponent to like go here  and queen d2 and try to stabilize wild position   but it was magnus playing bishop b7 and after a  trade in f3 this position a nice little idea if   you take my queen i make a new one so queen c3  rook a8 but now i can take the queen because the   rook used to protect the e pawn before it moved  to a8 now take stakes and queen e5 it was here   magnus resigned the game and it was all level and  he resigned because there's no way to prevent mate   on this diagonal if you play knight e6 stopping  queen g7 i play bishop d4 and it does not matter   that you can take my bishop because i have two  different mates and you cannot stop both of them   so we go to game four magnus says white opens  with c4 something that has been fruitful for   him and we get an english opening a  variation that we've seen magnus play a lot   now again this game was not terribly exciting  uh there was a lot of maneuvering early on again   both sides got all their pieces to the center and  magnus tried to play queen c4 and create something   on on the queen side but he was unable to do so  hikaru played relatively straightforward moves   uh just solidified and finally launched this  f-pawn forward and then there was a mass trade so   there was some captures captures captures captures  and rookie 694 and a4 so white is down upon   but has terribly active pieces like in a  good way not you know terribly active for   for somebody trying to defend this with the  black position um very very unpleasant but   in winning back upon you know i told you this  game wasn't going to be terribly thrilling again   for the next 20 moves the rooks were shuffling  around and then something really funny happened   here where both sides started chomping off all the  pawns shuffling around shuffling around shuffling   around we got a promotion to a knight and then  all the pawns got traded rogues got traded and   uh you have to know your king in pawn end games  but this is simply a draw and we go to blitz   first game of the of the blitz hikaru's got the  white pieces we have another anti-berlin and we   have an early capture on c6 and d4 from hikaru so  hikaru goes for a position where his queen is out   early and magnus has to take a damage to his pawn  structure on the queen side or a trade of pieces   now he's relying on the fact that long term the  opposite colored bishops are going to give him   high drawing chances he's not wrong but the  position is incredibly difficult to defend   ikaro develops some pieces and then here scoops  up the c pawn and that proved to actually be   very difficult to defend so magnus created  this little defensive barrier a4 and c5 and   that prevents these pawns from moving forward if  you play b3 i'm gonna take if you play c3 or c4   i'm gonna take however there's still weaknesses  and the golden rule to winning some sort of end   game with two ricks and a bishop two rooks in the  night you will hear coaches say this you should   trade one rook you should not trade two rooks  you should trade one rook that is something that   helped out a lot here one of the rooks got traded  and then hikaru took care of his only weakness   with his king and activated his pawn structure on  the other side to weaken magnus's bishop and here   magnus cannot continue to defend his pawns his  bishop is not optimally placed so he went for a   pawn sacrifice on c5 rookie 3 and now i ask you  what is the biggest strength of white's position correct it is the past pawns on the  queen side so you have to play b4 you   do not need to defend these pawns you don't  need to play f4 you don't need to play h4 h5   you just need to play b4 take stakes and  that's exactly what decided the game the   pushing of the a pawn and here the nice spatial  barrier created by the bishop bishop e4 a7 and   well there is uh no way that you were going to  stop these pawns and hear a nice little maneuver   you can make a queen but rather than making a  queen what you do is you give rookie 8 to the   opponent to try to trade this bishop for the rook  so that you can promote successfully and if bishop   f3 now you take the pawn since king takes f5  will be met with rook fa check and rook takes f3   normally rook is bad for a bishop but when you're  guaranteed a queen at the end of it it's not such   a bad decision after all and so we got king f7  and because of the nature of the two past pawns   magnus in this position was forced to resign since  the bishop will come back stop both of these pawns   in the event of a rook trade and hikaru took a  one-nothing lead a draw away from clinching the   title sixth game potentially the last we got  c4 from magnus e5 and a four knights with d5   four knights english i should say with d5 plays d5  something that we've seen before and queen to c2   knight before queen b1 and around this point the  position became a revo oh i should play before   this it's a reverse sicilian it's as if black  is playing the shevinigan i believe is the uh   is the structure it's like you know you've created  the structure we sometimes see black with this   structure but magnus just trying to do something  his game plan here was to keep pieces on the board   because he has to win and that's kind of  what he did he did it pretty successfully   he in this position brought the knight  back to e1 hikaru didn't want to trade   and it's important to note here that magnus was  down almost two minutes on the clock so queen f6   knight d3 kara just bringing all his pieces to  the party and essentially the big question is   who is going to break through and  where and it was right around here   that hikaru threw a punch not really but he's  trying to break up the structure while magnus   jumps in with the knight to c5 and a big  decision do you take on before or do you   take on c5 first ikaru went like this now the  difference between the two is if this happens   the pawn gets to a4 and at least you can lock  in the bishop on b3 and claim to have a barrier   the way it happened in the game you still  get the knight to d4 but there's no a pawns   and despite the opposite colored bishop end game  this position is pretty difficult to defend so   magma's takes on e5 c7 g7 potential weaknesses  along the seventh rank here there was a saving   move for hikaru which probably would have secured  him to half point that move being bishop d1   and the point is that the rook is hit and here  bishop takes f3 king g1 you can't take that   would be tragic but you play something like h6 and  life is good you win the pawn bishop d1 is brutal   to find and by the way it's not even the end of  the story if i sacrifice my rook to win this pawn   and then you have to deal with all of these pawns  but it's easier to defend than what happens in   the game because after rook f3 magnus goes on  the initiative on the other side of the board   picks up a pawn and starts to break through and  there is nothing that you can do in time to stop   this pawn and just a few moves later this position  ikaru called it a game excuse me let me draw that   arrow a little bit better he called it a game  three to three three to three overall and it   comes down to armageddon last time magnus chose  white this time he learned from his mistakes he   chose the black pieces five for hikaru or  for magnus let's see what happens i mean   berlin same position that we got and remember  that since there's no increment stability favors   one of the sides so both players cancelled queen  side right ikaru doesn't care about winning the   game so drastically he cares about stabilizing  the position and maintaining a time advantage   especially with no bonus time lagging is part of  it and if you decide to uh play with four minutes   that's one of the risks that you run so knight  h5 and here i like hikaru's position because   it's really difficult for one of the sides to  create play here as long as you stabilize you   don't let the opponent jump in it's going to  be very simple and straightforward but when the   knight started rotating this way it allowed magnus  to play a really cool idea he played knight h4   the idea being that if you do nothing  because the threat's not really here   cover it let's go g5 and the point of g5  is that i will now maneuver my knight back   kick away your knight and mobilize with the  h-pawn that's exactly what happened in the   game and magnus opened up the h file with h5 ikaru  stabilized the position magnus brought in his rook   ikaru fought him on this flank doubling his rooks  after rook h1b3 magnus spotted that this move   blocks the bishop but weakens the a pawn  and played c4 at this point it's about   minute and 50 for magnus about 2 30 for hikaru  up 40 seconds we get dc4 queen a3 and hikaru   plays g5 looking to break through on that side  of the board apparently here rook g1 rook g1 fg5   uh and you can't take because rook h1 and even  though you can cover up i have queen d6 and it's   gonna be really difficult to stop this but in  the game we just got something a little bit more   straightforward and magnus went for a5 still a  dream position because you're trying to stabilize   and not allow the opponent to get anything  so here there's very little play and one of   the players is down 30 seconds we get knight a4  queen d6 queen c3 bishop d7 and we get rook h3   rook h3 doesn't quite create  a threat so rook d1 queen e7   and that pawn is weak pawn is weak knight d3 and  if rook f3 spoiler alert that's actually exactly   what happens in the game here there was maybe the  biggest chance a very subtle idea that doesn't by   any stretch of the imagination win the game for  white but would have put a little bit of pressure   the move c5 and you cannot take this with the  queen because the bishop is not guarded at the end   and if you take it with the pawn i free up this  square i jump in with my night this is weak   this is weak this is weak this is weak this is  weak everything is weak and that's a problem   but black also doesn't have to take the pawn black  and play like here and uh it would still be a   little bit challenging because he would take on b6  and the game would go on but knight d3 played and   uh while magnus plays the only move that looks  like he can't play he plays rook f3 as he's not   going to play queen e5 queen e5 knight e5 that  would blunder a piece that would lose the game   he finds an idea here that's very clever rook  takes knight he gets rid of the defender of the   queen and even though you get a queen he takes  with check and rook and bishop versus queen   when all the pawns are on the same side of  the board will probably result in a fortress   even though magnus said he famously doesn't  believe in them it doesn't really matter because   sometimes they just exist the players give away  both pawns because obviously you have to stop this   you trade one more pawn off with something like  you know b4 potentially which is going to happen   in a second b4 but the two on two you just can't  break through because black plays b5 right on   time and you don't win the rook with queen d5 and  slowly but surely the players reach this position   which is a fortress defense for magnus it's  completely equal it is a draw but he karo up 20   seconds on the clock about 40 seconds to a minute  plays a little bit longer just to play it out   but ultimately offer to draw draw a greed in  this position on move 67 rather than trying to   have some sort of ridiculous finish with  a you know just shuffling the queen around   it could not get any closer but ultimately magnus  with the black pieces draws the armageddon game   therefore winning the match four to three in  the closest of margins and well what more to   say what an unbelievable match uh theory paved in  all sorts of different openings c4 d4 e4 whether   you're a supporter of hikaru or supporter of  magnus or just the cheer you know achiever for   for chess in general this is everything we could  have asked for so it's been amazing making these   recaps for all of you if you've made it this far  in the video uh and you know shout out to my shout   out to the live audience we're actually watching  this right now too um it's been awesome uh there's   i'm gonna try to do this more in the future with  high level events let me know your thoughts on the   entire event whether you think rapid chess or  blitz chess is the future and uh well i'll see   you uh in whatever next video that i decide to  make and subscribe if you haven't already peace

Channel: GothamChess

Views: 291,517

Keywords: Gotham Chess gives lessons, Gothamchess lessons, Pogchamps, magnus carlsen tour, gm hikaru, Hikaru Nakamura, Hikaru coaches Pogchamps, master chess, chess instruction, magnus carlsen, chess commentary for beginners, chess tournament, chess game play, master chess moves, Magnus Carlsen Tour Finals, hikaru nakamura, youtube chess, chess tour finals, magnus, magnus vs hikaru, hikaru magnus, magnus hikaru, tour finals, magnus carlsen finals, gothamchess, gotham chess

Id: HDvL73k_M8Y

Length: 20min 59sec (1259 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2020