This was PURE GENIUS ¦ Magnus Carlsen vs Praggnanandhaa ¦ Norway Chess 2024 Armageddon

It's the lip-smacking encounter between Magnus Carlsen and Pragnananda at Norway Chess 2024. This is the second time they meet each other, their classical game. The second one ended in a draw and now we are in Armageddon territory. Magnus has 10 minutes and must win. Prag, who has three minutes less, seven minutes on the clock, a draw is fine for him. Both the players have their pieces ready and we are about to begin. Prag beat Magnus in their first classical game, so I'm sure that Carlsen is itching for a revenge here and also it would greatly help him in the final standings if he manages to beat Prag because Hikaru is right at his heels. Let's begin the and we have the London system with bishop f4. Prag pushes his pawn to d5, e3 played and the bishop comes out to f5. Magnus pauses a bit and thinks what is it that he wants to do and plays his pawn to c4. Prag is well prepared, e6, knight comes out to c3, putting pressure on d5, bishop b6. Well, there were other moves here, c6 is one of them or bishop b4, also a good move but he takes and now Prag takes back with the queen and Magnus plays this slightly teasing move. What are you going to do about your b6 pawn? Are you going here with your queen or are you going to push your pawn? These are the few questions that Prag has to answer now and Magnus seems to be well prepared. In this opening, I love how Magnus sits very calmly even in such high pressure games. He's totally focused. That's the look of a man who is just completely focused on the job, has no other thoughts that is playing on his mind. You can see that white is very slightly better not because of any particular long term reason but because his pieces just seem more cohesive. You see both the knights, the bishop, the queen, they are all well placed while black's bishop on f5 is well placed but slightly looking in the direction of nothing. a6 played here, maybe the idea is to play b5 and c5 later Magnus ignores it, castles, Prag develops his final piece here, knight comes out to d7. a6 was an important move because knight b5 could come and hit the queen and the pawn. So right now we are looking at this which is quite equal in nature, the position but Magnus has to decide about his rooks. One more idea is to play a4 to stop b5 move and keep your queen well positioned and Magnus thinks for a bit here, plays rook f to d1. That's a nice move. b5 played, queen comes back and perhaps it's time to break with c5. Yes, exactly, Prag does that. He pushes his pawn to c5, Magnus takes, queen takes. Now we have a very symmetrical position but once again, it's those slightly well placed pieces that white has which gives him a small edge. Also, if you see, knight d4 is a fantastic move, hitting the bishop and looking at this c6 pawn weakness, not c6 square weakness. Not to be underestimated, he plays his knight to d4 and for the time being, Magnus has 8 minutes, Prag has around 5 minutes, 43 seconds. So bishop goes back and Magnus plays his bishop to f3. Now there is a very cool move that Prag can find, bishop h5 looking here. If he finds this, he exchanges his not so great bishop with white's good bishop and these moves are very tough to find because your rook is attacked and you generally want to move the rook and you can see Prag already brought his hand close to the but if he finds this move, bishop h5, he would equalize but he goes rook a7, not particularly great because now the knight can jump in here attacking the rook but Prag has a plan in mind. If knight c6, he wants to go rook c7. That's the aim with which he played this move, rook a7 and that's the reason why Magnus is thinking about his move and not just jumping in with knight c6. Of course, the best thing to do is get all your pieces into the game. So rook a1 can be brought into the game. Rook c1 is played threatening all sorts of things now. Knight takes b5, knight d5 and so on and what is Prag going to do here? Rook c7 looks like an option so that you pin stuff here. He goes queen g5, not particularly great. White can go queen b4 or queen a3 and start looking at all these important dark squares but Magnus goes knight c6 and Prag had his response ready. Magnus missed this because he can't take the rook. Knight takes king here and knight g4 is a very powerful attack. So he takes the knight, queen takes and now plays his pawn to a4. So you can see there Magnus is not so happy with what has transpired because his very important knight just got traded and this is the thing which makes Prag so good in this format. He is very tricky. Even when he is under pressure, he finds those little tricks which even players like Magnus Carlsen fall into. B takes a4 played and now the position is really very equal. What is Magnus going to do? He can take queen takes a4, he can take knight takes a4. These are all possible moves. He goes queen b6 and quickly Prag brings his queen back. Knight takes and h6 is played. So Prag very quickly moving now. He knows that draw is not too far. It's within his grasp. The position is equal. For Magnus to win such a position against Prag is not going to be easy. This might mean that Prag beats Magnus in both their games. First one in classical, second one in Armageddon. Will that happen? Magnus has to find his little chances that he can take here. Of course trading queen is not going to help because it just brings the rook on a better square. The other idea is of course to keep your queen on a5 or d4. He plays bishop e2 and I think now Prag can take and just bring his rook here and I don't see how Prag is worse in this position. He is doing excellently well. Maybe Prag is thinking about it but does not like the fact that there is a check and the knight comes here. The pawn is slightly weakened and these are little doubts that he could have which is why he plays his knight to d5 and Magnus is happy to bring his queen back because now once again the position becomes slightly more complex. The queen defends the pawn and prepares to bring the knight to the c5 square. Prag pushes his pawn to a5 making the pawn safe from the bishop's field of action. Knight c5. The knight moves in and the knight is an absolute monster on this square. It's looking at e6, d7, b7, a6. So many beautiful squares that it is looking at. Meanwhile, the bishop on g6. Well, this is the piece which Prag really wants to improve because it's great but it's not doing much. It has a beautiful view but what to do with it? While all other pieces are fighting for these weaknesses, squares, Prag's bishop is just sitting there. Maybe it will have a role soon. Queen b6 played. Small little pin here. And Magnus can now decide what to do. He can just play this little move b3 perhaps just saving his pawn from the action of the queen. He can go bishop f3 or bishop c4 to destabilize this knight. He does it. He plays bishop to f3. The knight, if it moves away, let's say knight f6, it just allows this very nice tactical blow which is knight takes on e6 because now the queen is hanging and if you take the queen, the rook is hanging. So it is now concrete issues that Prag has to solve because Magnus has found some tactics. By the way, Magnus could not do this straight away because here the queen is defended by the knight. So that's the reason why he's attacked the knight. The knight must move here if it wants to avoid the bad structure but that allows the tactic. So very interesting moment now in the game. Prag goes rook b8, saves the queen but now Magnus can take the knight and once he does that, we have a pure imbalance in the position where we have a knight versus bishop and this is exactly what Magnus wanted to create certain imbalances which give him winning chances. Also the time is a big imbalance here. Magnus has more than five minutes. Prag is down to his last couple of minutes on the clock. Magnus is contemplating whether he should go very calmly with b3, keep the pressure or take the knight. He takes it. Pawn takes b3. Just keep the thing because if you take on d5, queen b2 and black has come out of all the issues. Notice how the bishop really controls the b1 square here. So that cannot be done. I think Magnus cannot take this and if he wants to fight for an edge, he has to play the move b3. Also there is another tactic which you should keep in mind that the rook is slightly loose here. So Magnus can move his knight and the queen cannot really take the pawn because a7 is hanging. He has to exchange the queens but where to move the knight is the question. So he goes b3. I like this move. I like this move. For Prag, maybe the best move now is something like f6. Just maybe getting the bishop back to f7. It's a weird move because you give the pawn with a check but your bishop comes back. It's such a tough move to play. Also maybe some move, bishop e4 trying to prod around a bit in the position. But he goes rook c7 and this is a small little error by Prag which allows a tactic for Magnus. The tactic now is knight e6. Very cute move because if you play rook c1, queen g7 is a checkmate. Nothing less than that. And if you play queen takes e6, your rook is hanging. And if you take the queen, I take back and Magnus finds it. Beautiful, beautiful. Magnus is just very good at spotting these little things and Prag now needs to trade the queens. There is no other way. Takes, knight takes and the position is now very very good for white. You can see that the knight can never be moved from here. There are two weaknesses to attack. Rooks are doubled on the c-file. Maybe you trade one pair of rooks but Magnus says no need. I'll attack this pawn on a5. Fantastic. Rook a1 played. Prag down to two minutes. Also does not have a great position. I think Magnus got what he wanted here. He just wanted to fight. Bishop comes back into the position. Very interesting because now where do you move your rook is a major question. If you go rook d2, then he just goes back. And somehow this backrank issues and all will create some problems. So this bishop c2 is more of a provocation and if you take, rook takes, black is very happy to trade his bishop for the knight. So Magnus takes again some bit of time which is very interesting. You know he is taking time at moments which are instructive. He wants to find the best move here. Rook c1 played and you will see that Prag can now actually bring back his bishop to g6 because trading one pair of rooks, creating some backrank issues is not a bad idea there. Prag thinks he has one minute 56 seconds. One thing which Prag has not done well in this tournament is when he has like couple of minutes left, he thinks a lot and comes down to last few seconds. Today he has to avoid that because there are some major decisions which are upcoming in this endgame which will surely make his life not so easy against a player like Magnus and he needs time for that. Okay he goes bishop d3. Now do you keep the rooks is the question. If you go rook d1, he will again attack you with bishop c2. So Magnus trades, rook takes. Now you can't take the pawn, there is a backrank issue. So f3 played, Prag goes rook c5 defending the pawn. King comes up to f2. Magnus has a clear plan bringing the king in. Prag plays his pawn to h5. King comes in to e1. This is very very interesting now. What's going on? The bishop might be under some trouble. White has all the pieces beautifully placed. Black king is still not activated. So lot of problems to solve for Prag. He goes g6, king d2, bishop f5. He is ready to give up the bishop and spoil his structure. He thinks that this rook endgame is a draw. So Magnus would be not so excited to trade that. But then again, how to make progress is a big question because the bishop is taking care of these takes, takes and bishop goes back to d7. Fantastic chess. King b2 and now brings his king in. So this bishop controls these squares. The pawn controls these squares. So the king can never get into the game. Now the knight tries to swivel around and the king wants to get to the d4 square. Fantastic endgame that we have on our hands. No one knows what's going to happen because objectively, this is equal. But with the time that is less, Magnus does have his chances. The knight is clearly superior to the bishop here because the knight can keep moving on both colored squares while the bishop cannot. King d4 has been played. He wants to go knight c3 and attack here. Prag pushes the pawn. Very cool move. If you play b4, this pawn is very strong actually. a3 and then maybe some point the king can start coming in from here. So Magnus has to decide how much is his ambition here. Taking the pawn might be the safest move to play but also reduces his chance to play for a win. He takes his time once again at this critical juncture. Bishop takes knight f4 attacking the pawn on d5. You can go back bishop c6 and defend or you can come forward bishop b3 and defend. Prag goes bishop b3. Has 35 seconds. Magnus fixes these pawns on light squares. Another important thing when you are playing against a bishop, fix the opponent's pawn on the color of the bishop so that the bishop becomes more passive. Prag has to wait. Bishop a2. Yes, good move. He's still in the game. Magnus goes g4. Fantastic decision. Trying to create a passer too soon. Too soon going back. He should have waited. Only when Magnus creates a passer then move and this would have been closer to a draw. But Prag goes a little too soon. King e7 and Magnus can now take the pawn on d5. This is the result but the position is still possible to hold. King e6 played by Prag. e4. Maybe Magnus just wants to solidify the knight and now bishop b1 or bishop b3. You need to wait as Prag. Just wait here. He goes bishop b3. Good move there. Amazing defense by Prag on last 16 seconds on the clock. Magnus using his time so well. He has 1 minute 22 seconds. Knight f4 comes with a check. King goes in to f6 and now with check, do you push e-pawn? Do you push g-pawn? I guess pushing g-pawn makes sense because it fixes these pawns. King g7 and now king comes up. Bishop c2 is needed but he yes finds it. Another great move. Knight d5. King f8. Very important move but blunders here. The reason is now with king d6, the king cannot come up to e7. That was the big mistake. The king is boxed in. Prag needed his king on e7. With all that happened and now you will see how Magnus is going to convert this. He goes for a check. He knows he's winning. Pawn push to e5. Look at how this king is boxed in with his knight and king. Fantastic chess. King e7. Prag is waiting with his bishop asking Magnus where is your killer blow? Well, Magnus has seen it. He's seen it where the killer blow is. Bishop a2. He defends it here and chops it off. Fantastic here. What a move by Magnus. Bishop takes. Pawn to e6 and king here. e7 e8 is coming and the game is over. What an endgame. Prag has that smile on the face which is very very nice. Just mark of respect for the way his opponent played this endgame and for the endgame prowess that Magnus is so famed for. It was shown in this game. Magnus for him it was just another day at work. It feels he brings back his pieces. He's happy with how things went by and it was a good win for him. Really at the end if we look at this very crucial moment when e5 was sorry not here where in this moment instead of bishop d3 he should have played king f8 because then the king can come to e7 and this was the key moment where the draw could be held but if you see Prag hesitated with bishop d3 and this allowed knight f6 king d6 and then the king was boxed in completely and Magnus Carlsen went on to win with this beautiful technique which he didn't take even few seconds to understand.