Son of Sorrow ¦¦ Carlsen vs Rapport ¦¦ Grenke Chess Classic (2024)

Hello everyone and welcome to round 7 of the Grand GHS Classic This is the second half of the tournament and now we're gonna have all the same pairings only with colors reversed Then we have Magnus Carlsen versus Richard Rapport. Magnus defeated Rapport in round 1 with the black pieces and now it's Rapport's Rapport's opportunity to strike back also with the black pieces. Now before we get to the game And it's very interesting because it's the Benoni and here Magnus will be playing against the Benoni Whereas in the previous video where Vincent Camber was white Magnus played the Benoni and Delivered that beautiful victory. So now we will get to see how Magnus plays When someone plays the Benoni against him and also I would like to invite everyone to check out the first link in the description below It's sort of a trailer to this tournament the biggest Tournament in the world the Grand GHS Classic and Open Created by the by the organizers. It's a very nice video Last like a minute and a half so I invite you to check it out It features many cool footage such as this one. For example, just to give you an example So a lot of high quality footage with with cameras with drones and you know with some very high quality equipment So I you know, I do urge you to check it out But now let's check out the game as that's what we are here for and Magnus with the white pieces opens with Ponta d4 We have Knight to f6, Ponta c4 and Ponta e6 Preparing to go for the Nimzo Indian perhaps if Knight to c3 is played but Magnus goes for Knight to f3 He goes for the anti-Nimzo and we have Ponta c5 And we will reach the Benoni only through a bit of a different move order d5, d6, Knight to c3 And now we have a trade and we have a standard modern Benoni position and I've probably mentioned this Maybe in some older videos, but they say that the Benoni means a son of sorrow in Hebrew. There's no real source Why they would claim this but there is a source and it says so according to a manuscript from 1825 by Aaron Ranganum, the word Benoni means son of sorrow in Hebrew And they say that the author suffered from depression and studied the openings beginning with the moves d4, c5 And then d5 sort of the the old Benoni Sort of as a refuge from his sadness, but then in the early 19th century It also has been claimed that the opening has been named after a player actually named Benoni So there are you know conflicting stories as they are in everything, but yeah It's a really cool name Benoni son of sorrow if you didn't know that. Yeah, I wanted to share that with you So, let's see how these two gentlemen play Like we said in the video where Vincent played against Magnus, e4 is the most popular Vincent went for Bishop to f4, but Magnus just goes for pawn to h3 Okay, Bishop to g7 continuing development and now pawn to e4. We have castles and Bishop to e3 Rook to e8 putting pressure on d4 pawn and now Knight to d2 Defending the pawn, pawn to a6 and if black could get pawn to b5 in then you're golden There is nothing to worry about here. You prevent the knight from coming to c4 You don't have to worry about your d6 pawn being attacked. Life is very good But of course a white always stops that pawn to a4 So if you're a Benoni player and you play a6 hoping to play b5 next, you know Never hope that because it will never happen So a4 and here Knight captures on e4, a piece sacrificed by Rapport already But it is a very well-known one and you will reclaim your piece once you execute f5 So Knight c captures on e4 and pawn to f5 where white has two good options One is to play Knight captures on d6 The other one is to just continue development and give up the knight here. Now capturing on d6 can be played But it is very tricky and obviously Magnus doesn't like it If you move the knight just pawn to f4 obviously But if you capture on d6, the idea is after Queen captures on d6 You play Knight c4, kick away the Queen and after the Queen moves Now you play g3, sort of stop f4, but not really as the bishop is pinned So f4 we're gonna have captures captures and you're gonna have this position where You know, you can play it with white but against a player like Rapport You don't want to give him this with black. So Magnus just continues with Bishop to e2 We have f captures on e4 and now Knight to c4, an excellent square for the knight Plus if black allows it Magnus will be interested in going a5 and Knight to b6 so of course a5 by Rapport and now Bishop to f4 putting pressure on the d6 pawn and this is a Usually a problem if you're a Benoni player and someone gets this with white You're gonna feel very sad and also could be one of the reasons why they call it the son of sorrow Bishop to f8 Defending the pawn here. There's no other good way to defend the pawn And now there are some games where castles was played But here we have rook to a3 by Magnus and it is now as of move 16 that we have a completely new game Magnus is ready to shift the rook to the kingside and start a full-on kingside attack against Rapport's king So okay, Knight to a6 you do have the b4 square and nicely secured You want to get the knight over there and then perhaps in in the future even to d3 We have castles by Magnus Knight to b4 and now Queen to d2 We have pawn to b6 and rook to g3 now putting pressure on the black king We have rook to a7 preparing to bring the rook to g7 or f7 if needed and pawn to h4 we have rook to f7 now preparing the Queen to f6 to go after the bishop on f4 and While you could go with h5 right away Magnus goes for Bishop to g5 first forces the Queen to move or to block with The Bishop Bishop d7 was played Bishop captures. We have Queen captures and now pawn to h5 the attack continues Bishop to f5 and now What's the what's the deal with the b6 pawn? Can you capture this? Well, yes, you can and Magnus could definitely do it But then he invites a Rapport to rook to the b-file and once you move the knight Then this knight comes to d3 and it's just a very very strong position for Rapport for the price of only one pawn and of course if you capture then Would already have a fast pawn on d3 so it's not the best So Magnus instead went for Bishop to g4 even though you can't play this It's perfectly fine. The engine even says that it is the best white has you know as engines really like pawns Bishop captures on g4 rook captures and here you have to play rook to f6 or even rook to f5 But the move that Rapport plays Sort of loses in the game, but it's not it's not at all clear So feel free to pause the video and try to find the absolute best move for Magnus While I give you a couple of seconds. So for those of you who were able to do it, congratulations I'm realizing that there's no defending the e4 pawn and for those of you who just want to enjoy the show It is rook to e1. This is what Rapport missed or maybe he didn't maybe he just thought it was okay to give up the Queen for two rooks either way It's objectively winning for white. Rapport played g captures on h5 and now rook captures on e4 Rook g captures on e4 of course Queen captures on e4, rook captures, rook captures and now knight captures on d6 And if you count the material now five pawns each, a knight each and Rapport has two rooks for a queen So all in all should be around equal or you know material wise Black could even have the upper hand as two rooks are stronger than a queen But not with the active white knight on d6 and not with the passed pawn already on d5 So here we have rook to e5 but just pawn to f4. Rook captures on d5 and now an elegant queen to eq And there really isn't anything Rapport can do here If you take the knight, it's a mate in one. So of course, you cannot play that. Rapport played pawn to h6 to free up some space for his king But now queen to e6 with check and he was in this position Unmoved 32 that Richard Rapport resigned the game as there is nothing more to be done here Not because you lose the rook, the rook is defended But after the king moves, if you move here, for example, this is checkmate. If you go to h6 For example h8 then just queen captures on h6 and if you go to h7 to guard the h6 pawn Then just knight to f5 and there's no defense. Queen captures on h6 will happen Also, the rook is hanging. You could take the rook, but then you're down material and you're gonna be much worse So there's no point in trying that and if you try to defend like rook g6 Then comes queen f7 check and that's it. King to h8, queen captures on g6 with mate coming next. If rook to d7 Then queen to e8 with check winning the rook. So Everything falls apart and very quickly you will just get checkmated. There is nothing That you can do here Well, you could also go for some other moves like knight to d6. It would be much much cleaner As you cut off the king completely, for example, king to f6 and queen to f7 will be checkmate But all the other moves are losing as well Yeah, after queen to e6 Rapport resigned and Magnus takes the win both in the first half of the tournament and in the second half of the tournament And I thought it was a really really impressive how in the previous video If you haven't seen it, do check out Magnus' game against Vincent where he plays the minority defense and completely You know stomps over Vincent and now he plays against the minority equally impressive and yeah These are the standing so far. Let me just Show you that Yeah, here they are so Magnus is currently in the lead with four points followed by Three points Maxim Bakhshiola, Gravely Rapport and Ding Liren and with two and a half points at Vincent Keimer and Daniel Friedman So not not not the best for the Germans, but we still have the second half of the tournament So yeah, that's the game. Hope you guys enjoyed it Really appreciating the Benoni's in these last two videos. Hope we see more. I would like to thank Stefan Arnold Schelp Rest in peace David Gotten, Joyful Chess Lover, MrHoodieGuy and Andreas Rosenthal for a contribution to my channel Thank you a lot. I really appreciate it. As usual, you can check to all my previous videos here Thank you all for watching and I will see you soon Continuing to check up on your wonderful suggestions and whatever else happens in the chess world So thank you all I will see you soon and have an excellent rest of your day