ladies and gentlemen at the time of recording this video it's July 2024 and Magnus Carlson is still the best chess player in the world but I haven't made a video about him for a while probably a record on this channel why there haven't been that many top level events the truth is there's a bunch of random chess tournaments going on but none of the top players are really participating in them until now it's time for the speed Chess Championship the speeds Championship is a 16-player knockout tournament where every single round the players play five plus one Blitz three plus one Blitz and one plus one bullet over the course of 3 to four hours and in round one Magnus Carlson was in vintage form he won the match against his opponent Grandmaster minle from Vietnam who is an online Blitz and bullet specialist Magnus won the match 20 A2 to three and A2 except he didn't lose a game two of the games that went to mlay were by disconnection of the internet from where Magnus Carlson was staying in one of those positions he had a slightly worse game but he never lost the game from start to finish and I picked for to share with you because it's really crazy how he manages to do this over and over these are games with different flavors different textures different feels so your goal is going to be to learn three things from this video and uh I'm going to put on my teacher uh hat and uh my best teacher tank top and by the way recently I've been you know hitting the gym a lot more I'm currently on the road to GM so I'm been consistently going to the gym with my wife for about a year now uh and today we did a lot of tricep you know I've been trying to build this this this little weird muscle over here uh and um last you know last time I talked about Fitness in a YouTube video I got a few comments like that's all you lift and that's weird because I thought about it and I was like if you're an active attendee of the gymnasium where you improve yourself and your muscles and everything why would you insult others who don't lift as much as you that's really weird behavior and just a general PSA outside of Chess just be nicer to people I mean y'all are the internet has given a lot of you this weird empowerment to be terrible yeah don't do that just spreading a little of positivity you know now can you insult your friends when they make terrible chess moves absolutely so we're going to open this game up uh we're going to take a look at uh every game that Magnus played from his perspective his opponent opened up this game with Pawn to D4 Magnus played Knight F6 and then he played B6 now the reason the move B6 doesn't make sense under traditional chess wisdom is because black never made any intention to take the the center you cannot take the center with your knight and Bishop because what the other person is going to do is they're going to take the center and now he has completely secured a third Pawn normally what white does is Play Rather what black does is play E6 now you're always threatening to play D5 now if white plays Knight C3 you play Bishop B4 pinning the Knight to the king and disallowing E4 if Queen C2 then you can play D5 or C5 mag plays B6 now I have played B6 myself in the past and normally what black tries to do here is immediately fight back for the center but to be honest with you this just gives a position where white has a lot of space and black is not doing that great so Magnus plays this completely and totally surrendering the entire Center to his opponent now the game here becomes very quickly a locked CER Center and a king's Indian defense so Magnus plays G6 and Bishop to G7 now again look at the structure now let me rewind imagine from the beginning of the game we had G6 Knight C3 Bishop G7 Knight F3 D6 E4 E5 D5 castles Queen C2 in this position people who play Black will literally never play B B6 and Bishop B7 now white probably will not play Queen C2 because it's not a very useful move but this structure now watch me go back to the game okay watch me return to the game that was supposed to that was a blooper it was supposed to transition to the structure so the structure in the game that we got was very similar it's very similar structure this but in the game Magnus already committed this way now in the Kings Indian defense black likes to play for a kingside attack it's in the name Kings Indian right King King side attack white likes to play B4 C5 and attack over here so from a particularly strange move order watch has Magnus uncor a pure master class from start to finish keep in mind black wants a kingside attack white wants a queen inside attack ready Bishop C8 so he played this on move two and three right played this one move two and three but now he says okay the bishop belongs over here I know that I have pre-existing knowledge right now White NOW needs to get moving so he does he plays A3 and Magnus sees that B4 is coming so he plays A5 you cannot play B4 right because I'm going to take in The Rook is here so now you should probably play Rook R B1 but you shouldn't play Rook B1 what you were supposed to do here is you were supposed to play B3 and slowly get ready to do this this seemingly very natural move designed to stop B4 uh which works because there are various tactical things here this move immediately allows Magnus to to shut down the whole Queen side with A4 the setup mlay chose was inaccurate and the point is that the Knight cannot simultaneously defend the center and the queen side so if Knight A4 The Queen Is Now overloaded you have this queen E4 Rook A4 and this is not what white wants remember white wants advancement here black is now going to very quickly go over to that side of the board so A4 so now mlay is not going to be able to implement one of the critical game plans of the Kings Indian defense and Magnus puts the Knight on C5 mlay plays H3 now black is slightly better why is black slightly better because well you shut down a q resource of your opponent in these types of positions now this Knight rotates this way to support the Knight on C5 to potentially support another transfer Point Rook e one Queen E7 necessary preparations have been made and here is F5 so now we go to phase two we go to phase two implementing our game plan right so we're Implement and keep in mind the opponent is a 3,000 rated player Magnus is making it look like this is a sparring match like this is not a high stakes event for thousands of dollars he's just implementing the game plan completely flawlessly right white plays F4 trying to strike back now here with black you've got to clarify what's going on do I take one of the pawns both of the pawns a b AB do I take none of the pawns like what do I do well Magnus takes on a four that's important because now regardless of how black uh White takes back we have a resource here and we're very happy and the resource is completely counterintuitive you would think that this bishop is a beast right no we get rid of the bishop the bishop has served its purpose why because now we destabilize the White Center and after this we take the pawn so now we are a pawn up now to get the pawn back white is going to have to invest time and resources so he's going to have to trade off some pieces so we play Knight F6 now the only way to get the pawn back is to trade the bishop probably trade the queen probably trade the Knight there it is Queen F6 and Magnus the best endgame player in the world and maybe of all time develops a piece with Tempo brings the bishop back so he has pressure on this Pawn defense his seventh Rank and now let's go to work Rook Bishop six pawns Rook Bishop six pawns why is black better black is Magnus Carlson that's a big Advantage black has most of the critical pawns on the opposite color of the enemy Bishop when I say critical pawns I mean pawns that cannot really be easily targeted these are very critical pawns because of course we can do this this Pawn controls these two pawns so not only did we suppress play earlier in the game in the middle game we also now fix is what that's called that's called fixing fix those pawns you learn something and you've hopefully been learning th far fix those pawns and also we have two split pawns versus two pawns together like in Bowling King F2 we bring the king up H4 now we play Rook e eight seas and control the file white can't easily trade because after this trade there's probably some infiltration points but also if Rook e one was played maybe Magnus would just move away so Bishop F3 and the first game that Min the the first move Min basically has to make where he can't really autopilot yeah he BL ERS because the king just walks directly up to the pawn and white cannot defend the pawn because the Rook would come in hitting the bishop disallowing this and ready to go over there and in one move the entire position for white disintegrates so the only move here to hold the game for white after rookie eight was probably offering the trade of Rooks and that's not very intuitive but you are able to do this because white is uh defending against this advancement with this check and that's that's that's literally the whole reason probably Magnus wouldn't have traded so minl makes a mistake and Magnus just absolutely surgical takes the pawn brings the king back pins the bishop Rook F7 now improves right improving those pawns four or five critical pawns on the dark squares Now The Rook plants forward the second The Rook comes in the king comes back why does the king not go forward because you would allow counterplay so he plays King back to F6 centralizes all the pieces wins the pawn and in this position white resigned Magnus won this game with like 98% accuracy something completely ridiculous and um he won games even more absurd than that so the game that I just showed you he was kind of pressuring right well in this game we had a again Magnus playing this Knight F6 B6 we have a transposition to a té or a trusi which is an opening that I've played a lot white gets a very very big Center here you'll notice that Magnus is trying to use his FL FL Pawn to trade but white has a flank Pawn to recapture Knight C6 and from the early going I mean White's just got more space his position looks a little bit more pleasant black doesn't have any clear play so we have D6 we have a capture and now rather than castling Magnus decides Knight D4 now normally this is not a good move uh it's not a good move because white can take the Knight and then white can give a check which is just a direct thing but actually King f8 and he correctly evaluates that the king is safe over here the bishop actually has no role whatsoever and actually it's black who's creating a multitude of threats so again correct decision-making breaking the traditional principles of the game not castling so quickly white goes here and now we get an end game that looks like this completely symmetrical structure AB efgh Knight versus Bishop so when you think about the End Game King activity Rook activity weaknesses of the opponent and trying to keep most of the enemy pawns on the color that we want to infiltrate against so white would love to get the pawns on the light squares get a king to the center get a rook to the center black would love to just remember like in the previous game A4 well black would love if they could get some of this because then these pawns are liabilities in the long run Rook D1 we have a trade Magnus has to Castle he's got to get his rook in the game the only reason Magnus is not much worse here is because he has rook d8 and you cannot defend you can you cannot take these things right so that's actually what happens and we have this end game I mean this is an end game where people agree to a draw like here come the Kings right here comes the Knight got to be a little careful and now here come the Kings the kings run over B4 so it's actually white who voluntarily puts pawns on dark squares but okay I get it you're controlling my Pawn fine uh could you have played B3 probably in fact in the long run I would argue B3 and even A4 not right away this is maybe even better for white because that way your Pawn is not a liability and then you can put your King on C4 and life is good but mlay right he plays B4 so now Magnus plays F5 and now now we see the early makings of freezing the pawns on the wrong complex if white plays G3 black might play G5 and if White takes then this is a weakness so maybe white won't take maybe white will go like here but suddenly you've put a lot of Pawns on the the wrong square and then maybe there's Bishop ideas but in the long run this should be a draw in the long run this should be a draw so maybe instead of that black will take on F4 and try to sneak around and cause some but probably it should be a draw with best play but when you play Magnus you don't you don't play now we take so now there's imbalance right so King D6 now here come all the Pawns right all the pawns are trying to participate and a very critical move G5 and Min deals the pressure and suddenly goes wait a minute I can't move anything if I take here Magnus takes on D4 first and now here he's winning because one Pawn fixes two pawns remember one Pawn fix two pawns here it's on the other side and the way you win here with black is you go here and you just March the king down the board until white runs out of moves if white goes here King D5 King G5 E4 King F4 King D4 it's a race but believe it or not it's actually me who Queen's first and me who wins the queen so there's all sorts of ideas here and mean blunders what he had to do was he had to go here allow the bishop in and try to survive this end game by creating equal counterplay but he couldn't and the color complex of the position allows for a very Swift transformation this is called an outside Pawn majority and in the end game it's fatal why is it fatal because when you try to go defend yourself you are not in time after take take King F4 I take you now have to spend one crucial final move taking my Pawn back and I win King D4 King C3 and that's it I've made it to both your pawns and I win the game from a position that looked completely harmless but there is always always poison when your opponent is Magnus that first game sure he had the pressure throughout he was looking for complications this this this last game I mean yes an argument can be made mlay blundered but he didn't blunder by himself his opponent led him to the blunder but not every game was like that uh this game ended in 18 moves and he was getting it done quickly he was getting it done slowly and in the last game of today today's video I will show you a game where he played the king's Gambit like sometimes everything is going everything so you start playing things where you take more risk because when you take more risk you get more reward and things look real real nice on the Highlight Reel so he had a game and you know mlle himself likes to play the London Magnus was playing the London I think Magnus played about 15 different openings it really was a master class C5 excuse me E3 Queen B6 this is one of the ways to play and now here aggressive Gambit with Pawn to C4 completely disregarding the pawn on B2 why is he able to do this why is he able to give away a pawn and an attack on The Rook a lot of us would Panic here the reason is Knight D2 and essentially if I can summarize this in a general way the amount of time that black invests in winning this Pawn will require likely three to four if not five Queen moves and in that time white gets pressure and better development and better coordination which leads to long-term problems for black so for example if black just says all right I'm going to go here and Castle now I take okay I'm going to take with the if the Knight maybe hits the yeah Knight hits the bishop okay now I take this Knight what yeah because now Rook B1 and if you take another Pawn this is a problem whereas in the previous game Magnus was hiding his King yeah here the king's just in the center I can even Castle Pro ah there's Knight C3 let me be a little careful let me play like Knight E5 and Knight F7 first now we see the makings of how you can lose a position like this very quickly with black right you take a rook Knight of seven check K E7 now I can Castle you take a knight I mean I'm I'm just completely winning here right so we see how the early investment right pays off and and by the way M just never took the pawn so the queen went out to B6 but it never took the pawn which means yeah Magnus is now able to take over now if you're going to take the pawn you run into Rook B1 Queen A3 CD Knight B5 stuff uh not to mention probably Knight takes D5 is fine uh and if you take the queen well then I take and then I'm going to try to go to B5 if you try to shut that down I take you take I Castle I've had four things developed you have nothing you have nothing developed at all and this is an isolated Pawn which I'm going to Target so Bishop C5 Queen D2 Min targets Magnus Knight Queen that's a nice pin Magnus moves the queen again again development he has four Min only has three castles Bishop E2 and here's something very funny happens Min is like well I'm very clever I waited for Magnus to move the bishop now I take on C4 because Magnus has to take back now he spends two moves moving his Bishop I play Bishop D7 I go to the C file and I'm very happy and Magnus says I don't have to take the pawn I don't have to again you're playing a Queen's Gambit position you you have no development going to wait I don't care about this Pawn I'll win it back with my knight with my Bishop at some point now m is like all right well now I'm going to get rid of this Knight now Magnus if he takes with the queen I have this he's not going to take with the pawn because then he blocks his own Queen Magnus takes with the pawn blocking his own Queen so now Min is thinking okay well I can defend this Pawn but then he's going to put pressure on it so let me play Knight C6 now he's going to take back no he still doesn't take he just makes an improving move why cuz the Pawns not going anywhere and if black invests time and resources into defending the pawn with something like Knight A5 you'll lose I just go straight sorry not Rook D6 maybe maybe bishop D6 is even nice Rook B1 is nice point is you just get a much worse position Queen A5 finally he takes back the question is how does black develop any pieces if you play Bishop to D7 they Rook B1 attacking the pawn if you play B6 I play Rook B5 and I trap your queen basically so mlay plays E5 and can you believe that this game ends in four moves four moves black resigns how it's six well Min plays E5 because he's trying to activate his Bishop but now I go here and I'm trying to damage your structure guess what nothing you can really do about that it's nothing why because if you try to move out of the center of the board well I can rotate around but also you're basically blocking your development Min says all right E4 if he takes me I'm going to take him and he has to move his Bishop take take he moves the bishop I take positions probably equal well Magnus knows that the bishop is hanging but he's also a Gotham subscriber you don't have to acknowledge danger if you can create equal or exceeding danger we call that danger levels around here Rook to D5 not only is and Rook D5 is not just a queen attack there's always a d idea when these guys play the point is I'm rotating over here and the King has zero defense and when you consider the fact that 20 points of material are about to point at the king from different angles the game is simply over the king is brutalized Queen to B6 Rook to G5 black resides technically Rook H5 was even better why because after G6 you can sack the queen both of the pawns are pinned this is an absolute pin this is a relative one just out of nowhere like the position was in the balance but he did enough annoying things to throw his opponent off and make him go E5 I got to I got to get my Bishop back into the game and so quickly Rook D5 hopefully the arrows are clear and he went here Rook H5 was even better but Rook G5 of G6 you just take just take and the same exact thing it's made and one last game for you a king's Gambit and uh Magnus here does not play The King's Gambit where you need to control Queen H4 in fact he invites it Queen to H4 check this is one of the most badass Kings gambits you can play it's also one of the best practically speaking because what you will realize here if you're brave is a lot of people with black will go Queen H4 thinking you're a huge and in this game it was a different move order it was Knight C6 D4 and then Queen H4 it doesn't really matter you'll play Queen H4 King E2 and then you're going to push your D- pawn and then it's shockingly difficult to do something about this I think the top computer move is Queen H4 King E2 D5 which nobody at your level is going to know not a single human they're cheating if they play it I mean it's just you know CU then it allows you to take and threaten a fork there's this Knight F3 and then Knight C6 sacrificing a fork sacrificing a rook Knight E5 Queen E1 Knight F3 defending the queen you got to go here they take Discover check then you play like King E1 then they have to go G5 the final move and this is how black gets an advantage uh nobody's going to do that they're all going to probably play like this and now you develop the Knight now you take back the pawn and the final gangster move you play here is you take with the King that is why this is called the king's Gambit because that is what the king does he gets out there and the amazing thing about the king's Gambit is that if opponents are not able to take advantage of it it's a Vienna Gambit on steroids like me no just kidding I I don't all natural and you a little creatine little little way protein you know how it goes but um yeah in the king's Gambit the position that you get basically is the center more Pawns in the center and two Bishops and more space Knight F6 now we play G3 because now the Queen's got to go now we go here now we trade the queen we have two Bishops we have the center and watch how quickly things can change black castles and that's a losing move what black had to do here was probably play Bishop E7 and go short but even if Bishop E7 I mean you can run it straight down the center you can develop a piece black W Castle you'll put another rook in the center your position is just fantastic I mean this is basically the diagram we draw in beginner chess books minus the queen is gone and Etc uh but uh yeah here Bishop C4 how do you defend this Pawn you can't if Rook D7 I have E5 I have Rook F1 and then E5 so mlight tries to go for a tactic after Knight E4 he has a fork unfortunately I have this and the tempo that you spend taking my Bishop I'm taking the pawn and I'm forking your Rooks down in 14 moves of course he was already tilted at this point in the match he was down a lot if this was game one he would have been sharper but point stands trades everything pushes down the center of the board you can't take the pawn on C2 because the the The Rook goes to C1 D6 make some trades and um by the way just Magnus is Magnus so he doesn't have to go here for all of you take the Knight you're up material just take the Knight the Knight is way trickier than the bishop here put the Rook out Rook F4 Rook E4 take on C4 rules for him not for you okay he goes here he trades the bishop cuz that's the more correct thing to do and also damages the pawns Rook E7 Rook D4 Rook F7 and uh The Rook comes back to the second Rank and in this position mlay resigned and Magnus got it done in so many different ways he got it done in the deepest of end games he got it done in positional master classes from the Kings Indian structures he got it done playing absurd blistering attacks catching his opponent the second he would make a mistake and he did it by playing flashy stuff like the Kings Gambit he won 202 to three and A2 two of those games games might have ended draws or wins for him and uh yeah mlay managed about six draws in the match five five draws in the match no less because he got two points from wins uh yeah he managed three draws and two wins but two like literally three draws two wins but both of the wins came by four unbelievable uh Magnus will take on arji in the second round I'll put a link the description to the bracket uh I was doing commentary and uh the live final there's actually is the first year ever little bonus content for you this the first time ever the last four the final four of the speech Championship are going to be played live in Paris France the biggest thing that is happening in Paris France in 2024 I will be there it's in September I'll put a link in the description you can get tickets actually uh and VIPs get to meet me get to meet the players so uh for those of the want to spend a little money go to Paris uh in September uh you can do that and uh yeah just an incredible uh game by magnus games match so that's all I have for you today get out of here