Magnus Carlsen PLAYS with 97.6% ACCURACY to BEAT Rapport in 2023 Tata Steel Chess

Yeah, he has played 1e4, which is, you know, something that he's been doing his entire career. So none so far, not even an attempt at Berlin. Yacoun says Wesley played Berlin. Has he? Against? Or maybe there was a Berlin somewhere, yeah. Just to remind ourselves which line that was. So today seems like a very, very solid round in general. We have a lot of lines chosen by black, which have a very, very stable reputation and not a particular reputation for fireworks to Petrov's and anti-Berlin. Honestly, I, depending on how this goes from here, but you get the feeling, you know, how this goes from here. Yeah. I feel like we need to, this is, you know, this is, I think he firmly believes he has something here. I don't think he does this just because he is bored of all the mainline theory in Petrov. I think these lines are, you know, to a degree exactly what he likes about chess. These kinds of, you know, queenless middle games where there are a lot of finesse perhaps required and in some cases, and you do have to be precise, you do have to understand exactly what you're aiming for. We have to work out how we got here because it's just, it's a seemingly random kind of selection of moves. So yeah, he played c6, Magnus went with f3, Nf6 and d4, which is something that you generally, I think, want in these types of positions. f3 is a very useful move, very much limiting the squares with Nf6 and then we want d4 and then either c3 or as we will see in the game, maybe even c2, c4. Richard goes h5 here, which having played Bf5, I think is a logical move because I think white will actually very happily play g4 and h4 if the bishop is left there and this plan is unchallenged. So h5 is useful just to make sure it survives on this diagonal, Nc3, Na6, Kf2 and Richard kind of played himself into a situation where if you take on a 2, I think I would make an argument that this is now slightly worse for black because we've gotten c4, d4 against c6, d6 instead of a very symmetrical c3, d4 against c6, d5. h5 is useful but also if you imagine some position like this, it also gives white a very decent square on g5 to aim the bishop at and your pieces just make sort of less sense than white's pieces do. Which is why he played knight b4, I guess just to keep the tension and also create the threat of knight c2 and other queens have stayed on. Yeah, no more standoff, Mexicans can't standoff between the queens but who's king is going to be safer? I'm assuming at this point that black's going to castle queenside, I don't really see how's the king. I don't like this for black very much, I think you have to play this, if this is to work out for Ritchie, his next few moves need to be very very precise. Bishop takes g5, I might have some tactics along the lines of knight g4. Bishop g5 pretty much never works I think. This is a way to lose. King castles in the meantime on the board, unsurprisingly. So rook e8, yeah and you're threatening knight e3, bishop g5 as we've established is not great so the way to play here would be a kind of really awkward move like queen d2 but then g4, bishop h6 starts coming in, yeah. Okay, so... I mean it's these kinds of questions that he has to solve and he might just be in time. This is what, this one will not be a recurring segment of force David to name a computer line because I think this one is difficult. And will not, like my asking the question will not be enough of a help. But for a second there on my screen, the best line black had here apparently was d5 and very specifically d5, everything else white is like significantly better. Oh wow, that's not obvious. c5 and then bishop d3, bishop d3 and knight e4 check. I honestly still don't know why this works. I guess the point is fe4, queen f6 check and you don't have good squares, the danger is. And Richard in the meantime has played d5 so potentially very exciting stuff coming up. Yeah, if you told me to look for a computer move, I would have thought oh it's going to be something weird like a5 or... No, I think like you would once again name it in one second if I stopped here and asked you to make a move. Yeah. That's a bit, yeah, like asking you to get there from here I think is a bit unfair. And d5 makes a lot of sense but it makes sense to play concretely otherwise you've just given white the clamp with c5, bishop f4 coming. So yeah, so this is the point exactly that if once again, if you suddenly switch back to the sort of sedate compliant mode, some position like this could just be borderline unplayable rook h1 coming in and then you just get mated after b4, b5 comes in. So if you play d5, you have to do it with a very concrete plan in mind otherwise c5 is just going to be crushingly strong. But this, yeah, this does look very playable for black after knight takes d3 in that specific position. Yeah. Takes, takes because after d, if you go f3 once again, I mean this just kind of loses right because everything collapses, bishop takes c5, also a threat. Richard where c5, yeah, we thought there was really no other choice so we were expecting for this to happen and now bishop d3, knight d4 does feel like it's a very, very critical attempt which we don't know exactly how to evaluate as far as I'm concerned. Two players who are definitely not having a particularly glorious tournament so far and would very much both of them I think like a win and I think currently I'm, I think Magnus has a much better chance of getting that win. We left it here and as expected, Richard did land on an idea of knight e4 check but it looks like he maybe did not use the absolute best sequence. He played knight takes d3, I think we like bishop takes d3 slightly better and also the engine likes bishop takes d3 slightly better. Bishop takes, knight e4 check, f, e, d, e, bishop b2, queen f6. We actually had it on the screen before going on break. Yeah. And the game continues exactly as we expected it would continue from here. Magnus played bishop e3, which like what else do you even play in this position? It looks so natural. Yeah, and Richard played bishop takes e5 and also what else do you play in this position? But as a matter of fact, as I understand this position, a lot revolves specifically around the idea of rook f1, king g1. And white really should have started with rook f1 here and if rook takes d4, you go queen e1, bishop takes e5, bishop e3. And this is the setup you want, but you want it like the more crucial part of this setup is getting rook f1, king g1 rather than playing bishop e3. And white is supposedly better in this position, which I think you can very easily believe because I will play king g1, I will play queen g3, things start coming out. I think it's not difficult to imagine white being better here. The trickier part, I think, is why bishop e3, bishop takes e5 is not the best reply. Playing the bishop e6 check here was, I think, preferable to what Richard has done. And let's say after king takes g1, he played bishop takes e5 here, I guess with the intention of doing this, which is quite beautiful in its own way. Really did not believe in his prospects of holding some kind of a technical position, so he went for a gamble. He played queen h4, check, king g1, bishop d6, which more or less forces white to play rook takes f5, but I don't think white is very worried about that. The king will go to f1, and then, yeah, I just don't know how we're supposed to give mate to it. I guess he wants queen h2, king f1, king queen h1, bishop g1, bishop h2. But then you kind of resign against king f2, right? Yeah, you're running out of pieces, running out of checks, I don't see it. Does he want something with, I was going to say maybe instead of bishop h2 on the last move, something with g6, just to annoy the white rook, hoping for rook takes f7, rook f8 at least. Yeah, we're definitely not opening the f-file for black voluntarily, I don't think, but let's just go rook f6 for now. Yeah, he should have plenty of squares. Yeah. Bishop h2 always met by king f2, h4, h3 is never, like it's just giving white additional squares for pieces, and no, this just honestly just looks like you're very, very far behind. Bishop e5, you just take on e5, and then you say, I've got all the pieces. Oh yeah, I'm very happy giving up some material, yeah. We're two pieces up, and we just need to avoid some checks, which don't really appear lethal at all. Yeah, it feels like he wanted to go down in flames, he realized that maybe he'd made a rash decision already, or maybe inaccurate decision. It'll be interesting to see what he says about kind of going into that other line where he was just a pawn down with a very stable position, rather than this piece sacrifice, which turned into two pieces. Yeah, I mean, this is not very enjoyable, but it's definitely playable for black. Let's say we go bishop e7, I'm looking at king g1, rook he8. Yeah, might be a loss very soon, I don't see him playing on too much unless he can find something in the next two or three moves, and bishop g1, okay, Magnus is thinking of king f2, I guess, the fact that he's paused, but king... I don't think he... He's not on the board somehow. He is, no, I mean, he is. What are we missing here? Like, why would that be... You mean, Magnus thinking about king f2, or... No, king f2 is just a perpetual, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. King f2, queen h4, we have to go back, like, there is no way we're doing that. So bishop g1, yeah, I don't see what we're missing, feels like Magnus just checking his lines. Hmm. g6, rook f6. Yeah, weirdly, after rook f6, bishop h2, yeah, once again, I've... King f2? There is... For some reason, this is different. I guess e3 check is stronger for some... Ah! Whoa. Oh, the rook hangs. Sorry, yeah, the rook hangs. The rook hangs. Okay, so... Hmm, yeah, and it was also pointed out to us in chat, but rook f7 still wins. Ah, and then you're maybe just holding the rook with bishop c4, or queen. We're still completely fine, yeah. Queen b3 will hold with bishop on f7. Eventually the bishop on f7 does get lost, but in the meantime, white just stabilizes very very comfortably. Like bishop h2, we go king f2, takes takes, rook f8, queen b3, and black eventually attacks it in such a way that it gets picked up, but we will have just a very healthy extra knight on c3 in these types of positions. A bit of time on rook takes f7, but not too long. I think this was the explanation for the pause before bishop g1. He realized g6 existed, so he spent some time here calculating it, but now he is blitzing stuff out. This is the current position, which we assume is just winning for him. Should we try and see how Rapport can even fight on? Otherwise we might see a quick result. No, I think the line I showed is the best Rapport has. Are we going to see how to pick up that white piece to at least get one of those pieces hung? Well, you go bishop h2, you take on f7 and go rook f8, queen b3, you take take, you play queen h4 check, and then you play queen f4, ah no, but that doesn't quite work. Say I play king e2 here? Yeah, because you always have queen e6 check. Ah, maybe you give us a check. Ah yeah, queen f4 check, yeah, and then queen f4 check, and then queen takes f7 or something. And I have to read something out, because rook takes f7 played, I assume rook e1 is the best. Knight e2 also looks fine, but why not? Queen e6 check maybe as well. Yeah, why not just try to, ah yeah, queen e6 as well, just queen e6, queen takes e4, why not? Yeah, and if rook e7, then you play rook e1 or something. Or knight e2. Or knight e2, yeah. Yeah, rook e1 looks best actually, just pick it up. Yeah, Magnus, his technique is more than good enough for this one. He plays knight e2 immediately, he's also just very sensible. I think he just knows he will win this, so he's not really very interested in finessing it past a certain point. Which I think is fair enough, it does look very winning. I'm a bit surprised he did not try to win the e4 pawn straight away, because both of the moves we were discussing. So in that position after knight e2, Richard played queen f5, and Magnus just went queen h3, and yeah, Richard not very interested in trying to defend this, it's not really very defendable. He doesn't really like wasting anybody's time, so. I assume after knight e2 you could maybe keep the queens on, but the result still isn't really very much in doubt. Queen f5 is another one of those moves where it feels like you've sort of checked out, you no longer care about whether it takes you five minutes or an hour and a half here, because you know what the result is.