Sarin Smashes So's Vienna in 23 Moves!

Hi everyone, it's Jerry. I have a sharp game to share with you from the 2026 Tata Steel India Rapid. This was played today, January 9th. On the wide end, Wesley So, playing against Nihal Saran. Okay, this was a round 8 game. Time controls 15 plus 10. Saran took clear first, 6.5 out of 9. We have a Vienna game, 9.f6 is the Falkbeer variation, and now move 3, d4. White is welcoming this valuable development with tempo. We'll see what the idea is soon enough. That is to transfer the queen to g3, apply pressure to g7. How would you react to this threat? Pause the video if you'd like. Okay, black continues to develop here, castles, going into a pin and inviting Bh6. This is how white responds. You do have other options here, a couple other top moves it's looking at, going after the sensitive c2 pawn, or even a capture on e4, following knight captures knight with queen e7, working on a pin, looking at a further attack with f5, in some cases d5. Okay, in this one, we have castles, Bh6, how to address the mate threat. Not with knight e8, that's strictly defensive. We have an active approach here, Nh5, attack and defense. The knight a bit more vulnerable, no doubt. Qf3 is played here, two things, knight is hit, f2, secure. If you played a g4 or h3, there's a tactic on f2, with Qf6 to follow, landing a fork, bishop is tracked, knight is defended just in time. So Qf3, Qh4 follows, and from here, Be3 is played, addressing this strong bishop post. It says better, include g3, kick the queen off of this post, get it off the diagonal, and only after the queen falls back, play Be3. Queen takes knight is terrible, f2, then the bishop collapses, winning the line for black. Be3, if I'm going to carry this one out, what the computer is saying, be okay with this case of double isolated pawns. There is a vulnerable point here that could be targeted, knight d5, not so easy to address this pressure on c7. Not an attractive position here, this double isolated pawns. Anyhow, white does not include g3, it's an immediate Be3, now comes tempo number 2, for the queen knight, targeting the queen. Queen e2, knight f4, where only 10 moves in, black's pieces here are pouncing too, now planted in white's house. Pop quiz, how would you respond here? Pause the video if you'd like. Okay, white spent about 4 minutes here, was clearly uncomfortable, he ended up trading bishop for knight. These are the top 2 moves in the position, let me touch on each. If knight f3, says fall back with the queen, and if you still want to preserve the dark square bishop here, you're going to have to move the queen, and careful where you go. d2 is natural looking, but it would fail. So knight takes g2, followed by knight captures knight. You would have to go back home with this line, and in the end, this is not a very appealing structure. This idea to target c7, the queen is around in this case to watch over that point. Okay, the other move at this moment here, meeting knight f queen d2, check this move out. Black would have knight c4 in this position, and now there's only one move that keeps white in the game, and it is to play g3 here. This is a move that could easily miss in your calculations, it's still going to be favorable for black. Here's the thing, watch this beautiful tactical sequence, the idea here, you're landing a fork, if the knight is picked up, there's bishop captures bishop here, exploiting this pin. No time for a g3 move here, queen's falling with check, the idea in the end, pulling that bishop away to the c4 square, queen takes bishop can now be met with knight takes g2. It's a really special line there for the minor pieces. Anyhow, white's response here, pesky knight in my house. Let me get rid of it. Bishop takes knight, queen captures bishop, from here g3 is played. It says best knight h3, even with this, black is doing quite well, healthy development, bishop pair. All right, in this one we have g3, black, I should note, playing at a very high level in this game, as you'll see in the end when I share the tail of the tape. Perfect move here, queen h6, two things, let's stay out of reach of any knight move in the center with tempo, stay off of f6, and no castles for you. King's still stuck in the center. What are you supposed to do here now as white? It's already a very difficult position. The try here is with f4. If you try queen d2, there's a queen exchange and a big pawn falls in the end. If you try knight d5, the knight is immediately kicked, falls back to one of these two, and you play d5 without even thinking. Just pitch a pawn, open up the position for your far better developed pieces, king's still stuck in the center, let's go. Make things dynamic. If white tries to develop here, knight f3, there's knight g4, and this is going to be a problem. Okay, in this game we have f4, pop quiz, how would you respond? Pause the video if you'd like. Okay, the winning way is with bishop captures knight. White spent about four minutes here and played rook captures bishop. If you take the knight, the bishop is saved, bishop will collect a pawn, and this is too strong of a post, black playing with the bishop pair and a healthy pawn advantage. Better structure on top of it all. This is a winning position here for black. Okay, still winning with rook captures bishop. What is your follow up here? Pause the video if you'd like. Okay, the winning way, not to react to this threat, instead eye the weak points in white's position. Rook unprotected, pawn unprotected, queen b6 is the winner. There's not a good answer here. It's more than really just a pawn that's being attacked here. If the pawn falls, a piece will fall shortly thereafter. So, the try from here is queenside castles to watch over the pawn if you save the rook. I don't know, rook h1 or g2, you're going to lose a piece next. Okay, it's falling apart here for white. We have queenside castles, queen captures rook, and from here knight d5 is played. So, this was a bit of a curious move to see. Why isn't white at least tracking the knight here on e5? It says top is to now tame the knight, include c6, and it's out of play. Black now has an idea to get the queen to an active spot, collect the pawn, and consolidate. There isn't an attack here for white. No compensation for the material loss. There is one move white can try here. Oddly enough, knight a4, and the queen is a bit short on squares. Knight taking away these escape squares, c5 and b6. Nearby, bishop h3, the queen is out of squares. Available to black, there's only a move or two you can play here and still be winning, and it involves moving the a-pawn one or two steps. So that the queen can fly all the way back here in case she's targeted. Bishop h3, queen a7 is there, queen is saved. Okay, the try here, rather than pick up the knight, is to activate the knight. Knight is saved, and white's idea here to try and stir up trouble is to drop into f6, giving up some more material. Otherwise, black is consolidating, and you have to try and stir up trouble here. This is white's attempt. Another piece, down for the count. Queen g4 check, king h8. From here, bishop d3 is played. If white tries something else, let's say, pawn captures pawn, or queen h4, looking at some perpetual check idea. Here's how you can react to each. In the case of pawn captures pawn, you have rook g8, yet again addressing a mate threat on g7. And you're going to be in time to address this bishop move to d3, mate threat yet again. Black is there in time with bishop f5, queen supporting that. No attack here for white. Also, rather than the capture on f6, if white tries queen h4, there's rook g8. In the case of queen captures pawn, the rook is there to block. And if white tries to include bishop d3 here, the way forward, a good way forward to defend, not with rook g7. Pawn takes pawn is there, scaring the rook away. You can first play f5, allow the pawn to be captured. And in this way, now you can defend with rook g7. No, pawn takes pawn to scare the rook. Notice, there's no check here in the back rank either. No perpetual check idea. Black is holding this, still up a knight and rook in this position. Okay, there isn't a winning path here for white. After king h8, the try is with bishop d3. Frequent strategy, you're up plenty of material. Give some of it back, weather, any storm white may have towards your own king here. Knight captures e5 follows. You're on the bishop, you're on the queen. Pawn takes knight, queen captures pawn. Nearby queen exchange. Queen h3 is the try. Queen g5 check, king b1. And after only move 23, h6, white resigns. There's no way to continue the attack from here. Black has weathered the storm, has consolidated nearby. d5, bring the bishop out, activate a rook. White has nothing here in this final position. So a sharp game here out of this. Again, playing at an extremely high level in this game. Registering at 99% accuracy. Your thoughts with this one. Feel free as usual to leave any feedback to this video in the comment section below. Hope you enjoyed it and maybe took a thing or two. That's all for now. Take care. Bye.