Will Magnus Carlsen Be World Champion Again?

ladies and gentlemen welcome back to uh the final big chess event of 2024 this is the one that we all uh meet uh together for the world rapid and Blitz chess championships while the world celebrates the holiday season all of the NFL and NBA games have happened already uh we play rapid and Blitz chess the rapid portion is three days it is 13 Rounds in the open and I believe 11 in the women's uh and this Edition is in New York City this is the first ever World rapping Blitz championship in the United States ever

earlier this year there was the first candidates tournament ever in North America so you know it's clear that uh that Fay is trying to uh to sort of go west a bit more and more like there has been the world championship in London before but generally all of these events benefit folks like in Europe and in Eastern Europe I mean that then that's that's really there's no uh you know uh two ways to to slice it like there's been tournaments in usbekistan Kazakhstan Etc um but now there's one in New York and it's pretty cool

it's in Wall Street uh and I'm there every single day I'm working with the uh the take take take folks uh I'm doing interviews on a couch there it's um pretty chill Vibe and I was uh I was live there today so I'm going to show you a bunch of games I'm going to show you a bunch of highlights I might miss a few games because there are hundreds of games going on every single day it's not so easy to cover but we've got Magnus we've got Hikaru Fabiano Carana we have a huge match up

of Daniel n itki versus Brandon Jacobson which is uh a very fun match up because Brandon Jacobson was the one banned on Chom for cheating under that Brazilian account a long time ago and if you have no idea what I'm talking about go look it up V Vu VII hore s soou it's uh it's legendary stuff here we go all right Magnus trying to defend the title and um well this was uh early in the day his opponent uh Dennis kadrich from I mean Dennis is a I think I don't know why it's Montenegro now

but I I mean I think he's from Bosnia if I'm not mistaken E4 E5 but I could be wrong Knight F3 Knight F6 the Petro defense is chosen Knight takes E4 Magnus plays the classical petro and Dennis plays Knight F6 which is uh not a popular move I mean most people here uh are taking here but about let's say one in six games black actually Retreats the Knight and says well on my next move you know I'm going to play some very easy chess like Bishop B7 Castle put a rook on E8 and play like

this this actually is a way to play as ridiculous as it looks and then you know here black can play H6 but H6 is a little bit of a weakening move and as you see from the minute spend here on the you out of the 14 remaining in the 15-minute uh portion that they're playing it's um a it's a potential weakening move it might actually be better for black to play Knight F6 and C6 I feel like one of the reasons that why kodri chose this is he's um he's big on the filor he plays

a lot of filor plays a lot of kind of D6 setups and in this game he you know he had a he had kind of the worst imaginable position you could have against Magnus like under a little bit of pressure uh Magnus getting the Knight to F5 and and and really uh really having some nice chances here by the way here Magnus could have played the absolutely ludicrous Knight takes H6 sacrificing a knight trying to get the pieces in and somehow black just isn't fast enough to develop the rest of his pieces Magnus played this

game as if he knew there was a Gotham recap at stake Knight to E7 check then Queen F4 he brought all his pieces forward uh and then came uh the fireworks so the first thing that Magnus did um is he played this awesome move Knight to G6 check so obviously if you take the knight uh the bishop is falling so you can't do that black goes here Magnus grabs the bishop because this destabilizes the position the pawn on D6 now uh is no longer protected by anything Rook f8 Queen D6 and now Queen takes B2

and like I said you know Magnus kind of had a feeling he saw me there I interviewed him it was it was very nice he was uh he was in good spirits and I I have a feeling he was like how do I want to be remembered in this Gotham recap so uh in this position Magnus carlsson touched all all of our hearts this uh this Christmas season and he sacrificed The Rook Rook takes E6 Pawn takes and either you can play Queen takes E6 now or on the next move but the point is you

bring the pieces all you do is grab the bishop take Knight E4 and the queen along with these two pieces rather three pieces is going to be uh to to be too much to handle for black what's funny is black is actually up material two points of it because White's King is so safe and Black's king is not Black's King is very airy it's not easy to defend yourself Knight bd5 Queen E6 it only gets worse like I said uh if the Knight goes backwards after Queen E6 King h8 and Knight D6 there are irresistible

problems like uh for the position I mean you can play Queen C1 King H2 nothing helps and I think Magnus must have seen this and was like oh yeah oh yeah we going for that good stuff Knight D5 Queen E6 he puts the Knight on D6 and kadrich is in huge trouble here The Rook is booted Around The Rook has to go reposition itself kadrich knows the game is over so he's a gentleman and he sets up the board you know for the next game I'm joking but no the position is is losing and uh

he gets battered around a little bit sacrificing this Knight as well taking and you breathe a sigh of relief here uh as black but not yet this is a very instructive moment he wants to check the king so that the king moves on a dark Square so that now you check the King again and now we simply take and kadric resigns gentlemen already put the rook in the corner so he didn't have to set it up and now he can you know set up all the rest of the pieces queen king no I it's a

fantastic game some of you might be looking at this going I have no idea why he resigned well first of all Magnus is a four pawns which is bad because in chess you get eight pawns to start so basically black is down half of the starting Pawn setup and worse than that you're just getting absolutely obliterated your King has nothing he's no shelter at all and this king is very safe and it shows you why material and King safety go hand in hand in chess I mean this was a breatht just a blistering kind of

game uh for Magnus very instructive too because this kind of feels like a very light sacrifice I mean it just sort of feels like on the surface you know the the king is just going to the corner but actually this Knight transfer move with Knight to E4 and the queen sign steps and the Knight jumps is very very sophisticated the Knight slide oops slides to where the queen one stood very nice move all of this together but what really makes this possible is the safety of the white king it's very hard for us to leave

the king like this Magnus did it now hikaro played a hilarious game I'm going to show you another Magnus game later don't go anywhere that wasn't you know that wasn't the final one and um yeah and after that we will uh you know we we we we will take a look so uh yeah hikaro donchenko this was a hilarious game so uh hikaro had a very good first day all right he had uh I think I think he he ended the day with four points out of five and remember 13 games it's obviously it's obviously

very nice uh but but this was this was a banger so fun fact here in the caroan black can lose if black is not careful um because black can get Greek gifted Knight G5 followed by Queen H5 so uh that doesn't happen shockingly and actually here we we we just get a kind of a pure Main Line hikaro playing like this danchenko playing a very nice idea to to open up the Rook it's one of these rare cases taking away from the center is better keeps the black king safer and The Rook is open up

usually you want to take toward the center HG for black would have been worse actually in this case and hikaro plays an approach that's actually I think it's quite theoretical in fact if I check the database uh yeah I think actually uh no maybe not like at this point but a few moves earlier it has been reached before great play from Hikaru this is actually the perfect way to play against two Bishops just make them suck a lot like you know the black Bishop on C7 cannot do anything because the dark squares are covered the

bishop on D7 can't do anything because of the fellow pawns Rook C8 C3 and Hikaru begins kind of the you know the process of of of converting the position but it's not so simple I mean caroan is uh is a resilient opening winning the right hands and danchenko does a great job here I mean he is just he's sort of playing with house money hikaro now Down 2 minutes to five and the position has gotten nowhere you know and this was actually a recurring theme a lot of the games that I'm going to show you

today uh feature some uh some some Underdog stories throughout throughout the event so watch this game unfold okay hikaro plays you know all these things now now donchenko is in a situation where he's going to have to basically play a scramble against Hikaru it's 2 minutes Hikaru has like 50 seconds and suddenly danchenko gets kind of caught and is worse hikaru's Pawn makes it to the end of the board the black king is getting swarmed the dust settles in a in a short while I think here hikaro might have had had some bigger chance but

uh you know we're going to go to an end game here and you're about to witness something crazy uh it's going to be Hikaru getting the pawn all the way down the board and donchenko is going to enter a an end game where he's going to be down a bishop right so danchenko gives up the the the piece goes here and now we have this end game so now rook and Bishop versus Rook is a draw it's a draw but you have to know how to draw it and there are techniques how to make it

difficult for the person that's trying to draw it but it's a draw now this is move 78 so on karo's next move which is move 79 right um he's going to begin trying to win the game here's the thing in chess if you don't make a capture or you don't uh push a pawn in 50 moves it's a draw that's the rule and actually fun fact if you don't claim the draw on chest com it happens automatically if you're playing a tournament and you don't know what the move is because you aren't paying you know

you don't have a playing fast the Arbiter the referee can intervene on the 75th fifth move so actually you get a little bit of more time so hikaro 79th move picaro's 89th move no progress the way you win you got to force the king to the edge of the board and then there are some various Checkmate nets all right we go further okay 99 moves by the way some of you wondering why is hearo not making a draw he has an extra Bishop shut up he's obviously trying to play for a win he's completely Justified

109 moves 30 moves have been made okay now 40 moves have been made this is the 119th move Karo actually has the King on the edge of the board but he's not winning the game anytime soon Rook C6 okay Rook B2 okay okay okay and the game is a draw right wait what yeah danchenko goes King H4 and after Bishop F2 check King H3 is mated it's mate it's mate Rook H4 Rook takes and whether donchenko is an evil genius or he completely got lucky because I have no idea how he would have kept track

of this being 50 moves unless they have a move counter it would be very smart if they did denko's next move would be 50 moves by both players and Hikaru would Checkmate him on the 51st move and donchenko doesn't have to play his move if he plays his move Hikaru can play on so donchenko paused the clock and said with my next move both of us have played 50 moves and nothing has happened and it doesn't matter if it's on the 50 first move the game is a draw you can argue if chess rules are

stupid this one's kind of hilarious though and the game ends in a draw so Hikaru does not win this game but he won plenty more he beat Luca Moroni from uh whose name I like because it has in it makes me think of myself actually it's I Moroni but makes me think of myself being a yeah hiar had a very nice day you know who El also had a very nice day valadar Muran who you might have never heard of he's a uh Russian teenager uh and um he was playing Fabiano Carana who I also

interviewed today Fabian good spirits and um yeah I mean this one I'm we're going to go through through this was a sveshnikov this is a a vintage Sicilian Defense uh Knight D5 Fabiano has played the white side of a sveshnikov and the black side of a sveshnikov and in the sveshnikov um black obviously tries to do stuff over here and white if possible tries to create some attacks or put some pressure on D6 so sometimes black wants to play for an attack as well uh Moran sets up in a in a in a way I

mean there's there's many many ways to set up it's one of the most theoretically dense openings in the game and there's the attack right so the boys played like 20 moves without thinking again if I check the database uh if this position has not exactly been reached but like as far back as you know this position there already have been games there are many many setups Knight C2 is like the most popular Bishop E2 is one of the setups G3 as well as one of the setups uh Queen D3 I think um castles and Fabby

playing you know G6 instead of playing Bishop to G5 straight away which gets the bishop on this diagonal and also has some F Pawn movement this is kind of a sideline and uh yeah Fabby I think just his position is a little bit too slow here musen plays F4 generates some nice play and fabbi arrives on the queen side it's obvious that he's trying to put some pressure there but White's attack is way more forcing I mean F5 walking into the king's position Fabby gets rid of the Knight the Knight replaces it's one of these

moments where like yeah both Bishops are kind of booty buns which is a chess's way of saying they're not very good they're booty buns so you can get off the you know if you're under the age of 13 you can go you know next time uh to school or to your parents and you can describe something as booty buns I'm sure they will really appreciate it or if you're 30 go to the office the ne you know the next time that you can after the holidays and your you know your boss talks to you about

your you know work assessment and puts you on pip and then you're like well that's booty buns I mean I'm sure they're going to get a kick out of it just don't tell them your third favorite chess YouTuber told you about it uh now yeah I mean look that aside uh Vadar is playing inspired chess here Fabby trying to create counterplay but it's just not working and uh he gets a great position here and yeah Moren just pulls up rook D3 take take playing in the Big Apple clearly inspiring and I mean the pieces are

just sort of standing around and Scattered and and white grabs a pawn keeps making improvements and knocks on the door and there you go Rook A1 Rook A1 Rook A1 King G2 and uh he has to be a little careful he doesn't have a huge amount of time but he simplifies the game down here uh White actually is just going to try to win an end game and uh it's going to take a little bit of technique but Moren has the technique beautiful moves here look at the king darting in it's a draw you know

like it's rapid all right so like there's going to be a little bit of drama at the end of some of these games but he he he gets the win um and I I I almost feel like Fabby never truly thought he was holding Moran was drawing for a move if Fabby played Bishop D4 I don't know if that's possible to find and again it really felt like the entire momentum of the game was with Moran he converts very nicely here black simply cannot stop both pawns the pawn is going to F7 the king will

have to play defense and the reason why there was a resignation here is that in this position you would jump Pawn can't go anywhere black can't defend Bishop C7 King E7 uh and if the bishop were to go this way I would just push right I I I I I can just push I can also play Knight D7 so uh yeah Moren wins and Moren tied for first after day one beating Fabby four and a half out of five for this young man excellent result uh definitely playing in uh in in an inspired fashion uh

two funny games here so arjent ERI uh he um overall had a pretty nice first day he had four out of five at the end of the day he played a London uh and this was against elage Safari who is a aarani grandmas and actually a coach of one of my friends uh and um this one was a was kind of a crazy game so elage gave up the dark squid Bishop Bishop G6 and Arjun playing some sort of like Arjun plays um you know the London but he he plays the London after like 17

caffeine injections in the butt cheek which is booty buns like arjin plays a totally different type of London the London is like a a boring and you know like like a sophisticated you know um like a like a stroll through through through you know like a like a beautiful Forest you know where you you've got the water and you you're just you're daydreaming about your next chess game and I do apologize I couldn't transition fast enough into a good British accent but I'm doing me best anyway uh yeah Arin plays it like pound the caffeine

and just go at it you know Bishop G3 and like look the pawns flying all over the place anyway what I wanted to show you from this game um was uh yeah Arjun pulled up with a massive attack but really the the the beautiful story here was this elage was like Queen I don't want to lose my queen so I'm going to sack my queen kind of a nice idea because when I take Rook B7 yeah but he forgot who he was playing no he didn't because he was sitting right in front of him and

here arjin Ari was like ah you are going to sack your queen and then win my queen back and obviously if I take the Knight there is this that's very cute Queen G7 Queen takes G7 looks like you thought the bishop was a rook Queen G7 looks like you thought you had a bishop all right on q36 and you didn't what is this move well here's what this move is Bishop H6 how about this King F6 bro goes here the king is locked in a box the Knight is hanging the queen is going to be

hanging and The Rook is going to be hanging after that just a monster win from ARG um who finished the day with with four out of five but uh Safari did something unbelievable earlier in the day uh to Prague so so the the young stars of India taking on elash Safari um this was an unbelievable game so this was uh this was this variation of the French where white plays in like in a Gambit in a Gambit way here the main line is Bishop C4 and then basically nobody plays G3 because if you just do

the math uh you're just a pawn down but Prague uh you know playing normally A4 Bishop F1 Bishop back to G2 it's a draw but obviously Prague doesn't play for a draw castles Bishop E6 and Safari is just down a pawn not only is he down a pawn black can obviously take another one but taking this is too dangerous as there are problems with the B Pawn and the diagonal so yeah alash plays this uh very obscure line Knight F6 Queen back to C7 and now um you know castles is given as a bad move

because of the move Knight to C4 Rook E1 is played and now Bishop F5 okay The Rook is hanging right you just move it up and the game goes on yeah or elash Safari um just oh I don't know puts the Rook into a bazooka and explodes it on B7 Rook B7 is like the equivalent of playing your child or younger sibling in a chess game and they get mad you're taking all their pieces so they pick the Rook up and realize I can throw this at the board and all the pieces will fall over

and now I take no personal responsibility for the quality of my moves yeah and uh here Queen B7 is required when Knight E5 hits this and now black has to counter sacrifice a rook as a defensive measure I mean it's like dream come true for me but this is the wrong way to do it and suddenly Knight C six all of prague's pieces are falling off the board he grabs a rook he plays Rook E5 and this this is a right here this is like a Adana Kebab all right this is like we got the

meat we got the veggies you know or maybe that's Adana I'm not sure has that many veggies but anyway love my Mediterranean Turkish food uh yeah rookie five is U is GG's and this was an awesome game so sa Farley had some games where you know arjent had to get revenge for his boy but he also had some really nice games I think he ended the day he might have ended it with yeah he he slowed down a little bit he but he was 3 and0 so that was uh that that was super cool and

I've got two more games for you I have Brandon Jacobson Daniel nitzki and I have Dennis lvic versus Magnus Carlson now uh nitzki Jacobson is is a fascinating matchup because some months ago uh Jacobson played on ch.com he played he he played the Vu he played uh this line where you you bring out your Rook you sacrifice it and they played like a 100 games and ultimately uh and I made a video about this and and Brandon was banned for cheating all right now he went on Reddit he posted about it he told his whole

story there's kind of been no resolution he's stayed banned um who knows if it was uh you know I again got no idea like ultimately I have no idea what happened there uh if uh if it was cheating it was cheating I I don't know but let me tell you something right now that is not you know and so when I saw this game and and remember they right right before that that that that ban happened he played like 150 games against da which I I thought was very funny so now they have to play

each other in person uh and to my shock Brandon Jacobson did not play H5 and Rook H6 and I I mean if he was really a gangster he would have but something tells me it's you can't play it in Rapid chess it's just not good enough so instead we got an extremely boring game a quadruple fian ketto uh E6 this has all been seen before Brandon playing Queen E7 D5 and from the opening it was just da making very small subtle improvements uh to his position a maneuvering game uh you know a fascinating concept here

from da A4 giving this up playing this move and when the queen moves now he goes here to try to win the pawn back it was a very long and sophisticated approach uh he ultimately wins the pawn back Brandon launches a Counterattack on the other side of the board but Brandon is known for time trouble actually after played him before and he does think a lot he actually gets low on time quite a bit this game was no difference had only 3 minutes versus six and although it's very tense you know at some point time

trouble will catch you and nitki was in great form Knight F4 very nice find from uh from uh from da Bishop F1 and yeah here you have to give up some material but this is this is you know there like the knights are dancing the Knight is here as Bishop here you know all this and it's uh yeah Rook E8 Bishop E5 d is a piece up and for now the Rivalry has been put on pause as all the pieces were vacuumed off the board and it was a very nice win from da who uh

is time for first at the end of the first day and you know I actually spoke to nitzki um and I'm just going to let you all know something just very briefly um you know da is in a is in a crazy spot because over the last like you know period of I don't know X months or weeks uh he's been under attack I mean essentially by uh a a former world champion who has been talking uh about his uh Play That's the sugar coded version and um I've sort of stopped making videos about it

because uh I'm done platforming all the nonsense uh and uh yeah that's that's my philosophy and I spoke to nitzki on the in the uh sofa where I'm doing all the interviews if he's feeling any pressure like he's under a microscope and he said I'm going to focus I'm going to be relaxed you know I'm going to I'm going to play chess and it's his first ever World rapping Blitz championships so very excited uh for da who normally doesn't travel thousands of miles to Kazakhstan to play this tournament over the holiday season but now it's

in the states and a very good first day for him four and a half out of five nothing nothing to laugh at um you know who didn't have a very good day Magnus Carlson defending World rapid Champion uh I think like what 17 titles at this point had he had some up and down games um he had some games where like they were complete chaos uh he had a game against uh he had a game against gleb dudan which was crazy uh it it it like again it was I'm not really covering the game here

it was a a very long hardfought battle where dudan was like plus five for like a few moves and you know broke through the position and and and it was you know completely insane he had a game against uh shimanov which was crazy and he you know he he ended the game uh he he ended the day uh playing against lazovic and um I uh I will show you that game in a moment I I think I just realized by by switching these games we're going to get a rare uh full screen here I don't

want to spoil anything uh yeah the interface here is a little bit goofy so I don't I don't want to uh to spoil anything um yeah it was you know he's playing Dennis lvic who is um young man uh from uh from bellarus and they played recently at this at this event in uh in Oslo and lavic plays a an exchange SLO which is uh you know which is kind of crazy but he doesn't really play it for a draw I I don't know I mean I don't know if uh but here's the funny thing

everybody that played Magnus today with white played Uber solid Uber super super solid Magnus really struggled today to get wins with black like he I mean and and lovic playing an exchange slav just trying to play hyper solid chess is uh is quite hilarious because now Magnus is the one that H that has to kind of provoke he provokes you know a a game like here even black can play uh like Bishop B4 uh Knight A5 is not as possible here because there is this and now white doesn't have to repeat he will play Knight

E5 but there's I mean yeah the exchange slav is one of these things you know like you see Magnus playing Rook A7 that that is what a person plays when he's trying to win you know when he's he's trying to not allow his opponents to be too solid and G5 I mean and then like look at this this is not how you play If you're trying to make a draw this is how you're playing if you want to win the game and your opponents are kind of annoying you because they're trying to be too solid

Magnus full steam ahead but lavic is very good lvic is like a fish um you're trying to catch a fish it's slippery he's very good at slipping and dodging and and out maneuvering and he's very good at like short simple decisions that land him in good positions and in this game it was just Magnus who gave up a pawn as he was kind of trying to play for a win I mean he's just a clean uh he's just a clean Pawn down White's going to go King G2 and probably meet him right on that H

file and I'm not sure black is going to be able to generate much of an attack yeah and here's the position Queen Knights Rooks Magnus Pawn down so loic's opening strategy absolutely Flawless like like perfect he got exactly what he wanted he wanted to get Magnus to provoke him into a fight and all of a sudden there is counterplay roaring down the board Magnus here goes King f8 but unfortunately that does not stop anything on this side as Knight G6 is still possible by the way even in this position he could have played Knight G6

but it was the point is that the queen is hanging and then the Rook behind it is hanging but it happens on the next move Knight G6 covered by three different pieces Magnus has to sacrifice his Queen and lvic is not me maybe I wouldn't win this position against Magnus but lvic is not me he grabs a pawn he grabs another Pawn he's not afraid of the counterplay he's one of the best young uh players in the world and there go his pawns and Magnus Carlson resigns because he's not going to be able to stop

both bonds he doesn't have the counterplay here's a nice way to lose you know BC but uh yeah something tells me lasic wasn't going to do that and lvic ends day one uh with a great result he's uh three and a half out of five but um yeah kind of kind of insane Magnus ends day one with two and a half out of five two and a half he drew three games he won- one the one I showed you and he loses to Dennis LC and actually here's something completely insane his sixth round opponent uh

coming up tomorrow is Brewington Hardaway who I literally just played in in a tournament so Brewington Hardway is still listed as an IM even though he's a GM now and Brewington has to play Magnus world that is unbelievable I mean good luck to Brewington what an honor That's so exciting uh after day one of course look we have a we have a massive matchup of people with four and a half I already gave you Nar ditsky M and Leon Aron and laner Dominguez none of that matters we have eight more games to go uh but

champ is down this is his worst first day of a world championship event maybe ever maybe in like 10 years crazy I'll have more footage for you and coverage tomorrow um you know you know all my uh all my plugs 5 days remaining by the way if you'd like to claim uh the lowest public uh launch price for the Chesley launch it's uh $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year for all access uh owners you guys have time don't worry enjoy uh and uh yeah I will see you all tomorrow for another late night recap

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