Hikaru Nakamura unleashes BRILLIANT Preparation against Magnus Carlsen in an INSANE FRENCH DEFENSE

Welcome back to another FIDE World Blitz Championship and we have a very great matchup between two amazing players. The greatest chess player of all time Magnus Carlsen going up against everyone's favorite chess streamer Hikaru Nakamura and the players have opted for a classical variation of the French defense. White has a lot of space in the center as you can see with all the pawns on d4 e5 and f4 but what black is going to do is they're going to expand on the queen side and also they're going to play some pawn moves in order to undermine that center and Hikaru has played a crazy looking move it's pawn to g5 but the point of this move is he wants to distract the f-pawn away from controlling the e5 square and now e5 is ripe for the taking so out of the opening Hikaru has successfully neutralized white's space advantage but it has come at a cost because he has an isolated pawn on h7 his king is still stuck in the middle of the board he's expanded on both the queen side and the king side so it's not really clear where exactly black's king is going to go in this game but for now Hikaru he's happy and content to just develop his bishops one to b7 one to g7 arguing that if the position opens up then these bishops are really going to come alive and so Magnus he's going to think about how he wants to play this he starts with knight to e2 idea that he maybe wants to play knight to g3 and knight to h5 which would go after the dark squared bishop other ways that Magnus can try to play this game is that he can stack up on the semi-open f-file where he can stare down at the weak pawn on f7 now that pawn f7 was guarded by the knight on e5 but Hikaru he jumps the knight into g4 and he's going after the bishop here and if he can take this away this dark squared bishop then his bishop on g7 is really going to be a monster once things open up now I think Magnus has a bit of a tactic here he might be able to play pawn to g6 pawn sacrifice and then whatever he captures there he can sacrifice some pieces to open up the position while Magnus works out those complications I just want to remind you that if you're enjoying the content so far then you can consider subscribing as well as turning on notifications that would mean a lot thank you and Magnus doesn't go for he goes for a calm move king to h1 stepping away from that dark squared diagonal now that he's pushed the f pawn his king might be a little bit weaker over there Hikaru is happy to take away the bishop pair and still it's a question of where to put his king he starts with queen to e7 cutting off any ideas of like knight to f5 because that e6 pawn was previously pinned and now he's also leaving the option open to castle queenside first he starts with bishop to e5 just trying to prophylactically get out of the way of knight to h5 and Magnus his position seems okay it seems comfortable because he still has some space in the middle of the board and black's king is quite weak but he has to be precise he starts with c3 which strengthens the knight in the middle of the board I would have liked something more active like rook a to e1 looked like a pretty reasonable move to me also knight to h5 and maybe eyeing the f6 square that could have been reasonable as well but c3 is a nice solid move and that seems to be the name of the game for Magnus Carlsen so far now Hikaru he has a very interesting looking option here and that option is rook to g8 now that looks like it temporarily gives up the h7 pawn but I think white will be very hesitant to take that pawn because that just opens the h file towards the white king and Hikaru he's gone for the move rook to g8 he's eyeing the g5 pawn he'd be happy to take with his rook maybe castle queenside and then stack up on the open g file and so Magnus it's a question of whether he wants to defend the pawn whether he wants to grab the pawn on h7 maybe he could bring another rook into the game like I said rook a to e1 could make some sense another idea could be to open things up on the queen side so that he can start attacking this king in the middle of the board the fact that Magnus is hesitating a little bit here and taking his time kind of tells me he's a bit uncomfortable with his position and rightfully so because it's really not clear how white should continue what Magnus really wants to do is he wants to open up the position in order to take advantage of the black king that's still stranded in the middle of the board but he has no pawns in the center of the board to launch towards black's king so it's really hard to open up some lines he could try to open up lines on the queen side but the king is in the middle of the board not on the queen side now that still could help but Magnus he goes for the move pawn to h4 he's defending his g5 pawn but I really don't like this move it's really weakening he's pushing pawns in front of the king and now the pawn on h7 that was targeted by the light squared bishop can move up one square and really threaten to open up white's king side and look at that move from Magnus Carlsen plays knight to f5 sacrificing a piece but he understands that he has to open up the position in order to attack black's king which is just stranded in the middle of this board he plays queen to c5 though and he's taking control over the dark squares and also he's trading off the queens and without the queens this attack against black's king is not as dangerous as Magnus Carlsen initially predicted and we see there some shake of the head some frustration by Magnus this knight is now galloping into the position first Magnus before anything he takes the pawn on h6 with his knight attacking the rook also attacking the weak pawn on f7 now remember white's light squared bishop is hanging on d3 so he probably has to move it out of the way he starts bishop to c2 f6 is now played by Hikaru what a great move trying to undermine white's king side pawns also reinforcing the bishop Magnus brings over his rook in order to pin the bishop along the e-file so at some point Hikaru is going to choose to move his king out of the way i'm sure before that he might consider maybe galloping the knight into the middle of the board knight to e4 but Hikaru he plays rook takes h6 understanding that his bishops and his knight they're all better than the rooks that are placed on e1 and f1 Hikaru starts with king to e7 understanding that because we're in the end game his king is perfectly safe in the middle of the board ready to join the rest of his pieces and hunting down these weak pawns on h6 and h4 Magnus Carlsen he's putting his rook on h5 tying it down to defending these two weak pawns but it seems like it's a necessity now at some point this king might run over f7 and g6 in order to attack this rook and actually that rook has no squares if the king is on g6 Magnus he still can protect the rook though he can play moves like bishop to d1 or g4 like he's played now and Hikaru where is how are you going to continue the game i think bishop to f4 is very natural to me trying to win the h6 pawn and once one pawn falls i'm sure more will follow also trading off the rooks wouldn't be a bad idea Magnus he plays bishop to b3 attacking upon d5 this knight jumps in judging from Magnus repeatedly looking at the clock it looks like he's down to seconds he plays bishop to d1 stopping the knight from coming into f3 and forking the king and the rook and now Hikaru he's thinking what to take the pawn on h6 with he takes with the rook after a few trades Magnus Carlsen he's looking at his clock he doesn't know what to play he plays bishop to c2 he slams the clock but he's out of time you can check out more commentary on my channel thanks for watching