No hat-trick for Firouzja
A rivalry has developed the last weeks between Alireza Firouzja and Magnus Carlsen. The lack of over-the-board tournaments has put all the focus on online chess, a speccialty of the wunderkind. Carlsen is, of course, amazingly strong while playing in front of a screen as well, but recently lost two matches against the Iranian — first a 194-game bullet marathon and then a 16-game blitz confrontation. Both matches were closely contested, and we should not forget that these time controls lead to much larger variability in results, but seeing the world champ losing twice in a row is still shocking.
On Monday, Firouzja could not get his third straight win over the world number one. With a 15'+10" time control in place, Carlsen was his usual self and kept things under control pretty much from start to finish, with a noteworthy exception — in game two, the Norwegian had a better position with Black when he blundered the game away in one move; his young opponent, a brilliant tactician, did not miss that chance and inflicted Carlsen's third loss of the tournament.
Scarcely any world champion has managed to captivate chess lovers to the extent Carlsen has. The enormously talented Norwegian hasn't been systematically trained within the structures of a major chess-playing nation such as Russia, the Ukraine or China.
The other match-up of the day saw Hikaru Nakamura beating Anish Giri. This was the Dutchman's second loss in two days, which, given the line-up, can happen to anybody. However, Giri's games have shown he is clearly in bad form. When asked about his colleague's unusual subpar play, Nakamura explained:
Anish has not played as much online chess as most of the other guys — especially like myself and Maxime. [...] It's slightly different looking at a screen for a couple of hours instead of looking at an actual board.
The American blitz and bullet specialist also referred to day one's Armageddon encounter against Carlsen, when a technical glitch created some confusion. 'Naka' used an example from the AlphaGo documentary to explain how difficult it is to eliminate all bugs in these situations:
I don't believe the result would have been different, so it's not such a big deal. [...] In the key game, when Lee Sedol won the game, the commentators said something like, 'Is this a bug from AlphaGo?', and then the point was that, with AlphaGo, if they would've eliminated bugs altogether, that's much bigger than solving the game of Go (smiles).
Carlsen 2½:1½ Firouzja
True to his tactical style, Firouzja employed one of the sharpest lines of the Ragozin Defence in game one — 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Bb4 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bf4 and 6...Nc6. The idea is that after 7.Rc1 Ne4 8.Nd2 Black can go 8...g5:
The Ragozin is being played by every top grandmaster in the world - it is time you also add it to your repertoire to get interesting and dynamic positions against 1. d4!
GM Alejandro Ramirez analyses every single move that White can play once the Ragozin is reached, but due to several transpositional possibilities he always emphasises strategic goals to keep in mind.
Carlsen vs. Firouzja - Game 1
A very unusual setup ensued and, although Black did get some chances, Carlsen reacted proficiently, avoiding tactical traps while solidifying his positional advantage. The world champion got a fine 34-move win, which meant all five games he had played at the Invitational up to that point had favoured white.
The biggest shock of the day was seen in game two, as Carlsen first neutralized his opponent's play, then got a comfortable edge and finally blundered the game away in one move:
Firouzja vs. Carlsen - Game 2
39...Rd2 loses to 40.Rb8+ Kh7 41.Qg4:
Carlsen resigned after 41...Qf1+ 42.Rg2 Qxg2+ 43.Kxg2, as there is no way to avoid the good-looking mate. He confessed afterwards:
I thought 41...Qf1+ was mate. Obviously it is mate, but I'm not the one that's mating.
Another Ragozin was seen in game three, except this time Firouzja did not go for 6...Nc6 and played the quieter 6...0-0 instead. Carlsen slowly but surely outplayed his opponent positionally until getting a 58-move win. A safe draw in which the world champion was the only one who got chances sealed match victory.
Carlsen was asked whether he is having issues staring at the screen for hours every day:
I feel very much adapted at this point. No worries there.
Replay and check the LiveBook here |
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1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Bb4 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bf4 Nc6 7.Rc1!? Ne4 8.Nd2 g5 9.Be3 Nxc3 10.bxc3 Ba3 11.Rb1 f5 12.g3 12...0-0N 12...Bd6 13.Nf3 f4 14.Bc1 Qf6 15.Bg2 Ne7 16.0-0 b6 17.c4 Bf5 18.c5 Bxb1 13.Qb3 Be7 14.f4! Na5 15.Qc2 c6 16.Bg2 Bd6 17.c4 gxf4 18.gxf4 Be6 19.cxd5 cxd5 20.0-0 Kh8 21.Nf3 Nc4 22.Qd3 b6 23.Kh1 Qe7 24.Ne5 Bxe5 25.fxe5 Rg8 26.Bf4 Rg6 27.Bh3 Rf8 28.Rf3 Qh4 29.Rbf1 Qh5 30.Bc1 Rfg8? 30...b5 31.Bxf5+- Rg2 32.Bh3! Rxe2? 32...Bxh3 33.Rxh3 Qf7 33.Qxe2 Bxh3 34.Rg1! 1–0 - Start an analysis engine:
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Carlsen,M | 2881 | Firouzja,A | 2703 | 1–0 | 2020 | | Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020 | 2.1 |
Firouzja,A | 2703 | Carlsen,M | 2881 | 1–0 | 2020 | | Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020 | 2.2 |
Carlsen,M | 2881 | Firouzja,A | 2703 | 1–0 | 2020 | | Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020 | 2.3 |
Firouzja,A | 2703 | Carlsen,M | 2881 | ½–½ | 2020 | | Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020 | 2.4 |
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Nakamura 2½:1½ Giri
A win for Nakamura in game one was the only decisive result in this match-up. Giri got to put pressure in an opposite-coloured bishop endgame in the second encounter and had the upper hand for a while in game four, but he could never make the most of his chances, and it sort of looked like Nakamura had the match in his pocket throughout.
The decisive game saw 'Naka' avoiding the Grünfeld with the white pieces, which led to a Benoni structure in which Black did not manage to find his way after getting a good position out of the opening. This is how Nakamura described the game:
The first game was pretty terrible for both of us. In the opening, I was probably just much worse I think. Then Anish just let me off the hook, he just started to play normal moves instead of trying to punish me. So I got pretty lucky and then turned it around into a victory.
Things came to a head when White pushed his central pawns:
On top level the Benoni is a rare guest but with this DVD Rustam Kasimdzhanov this might change. New ways and approaches in most lines and countless improvements of official theory will show you how to play this opening at any level with success.
Nakamura vs. Giri - Game 1
After 35.e5 dxe5 36.d6 Na8, White can capture with 37.Nxe5 — 37...Rxe5 does not work due to 38.d7. The game continued with 37...Nb6, but after 38.d7 White is completely winning.
Nakamura also noted that five of his opponents are playing in the Candidates, which according to him certainly plays a role at this event:
All these guys have been playing the Candidates, so it's sort of like a cat and mouse game, where you decide what openings are you gonna play. [...] Anish playing his real openings kind of surprised me.
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1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.e3 0-0 5.Be2 c5 6.d5 d6 7.0-0 e6 8.Nc3 exd5 9.cxd5 Bg4 10.Nd2 Bxe2 11.Qxe2 Na6 12.Rd1N 12.Nc4 Nc7 13.a4 Ncxd5 14.Nxd5 Nxd5 15.Rd1 Nb4 16.Nxd6 Qe7 17.Nc4 Rfd8 18.Bd2 12...Re8 13.Nc4 Ne4 14.Nxe4 Rxe4 15.a4 Nc7 16.Bd2 Qd7 17.Qd3 f5 18.Bc3 Rd8 19.f3 Ree8 20.Be1 Qe7 21.Bg3 Bf6 22.Rac1 b6 23.Be1 Bg5 24.Bd2 Bf6 25.b4 Qd7 25...Na6!= 26.b5 Qf7 27.Be1 Qe7 28.Rb1 f4 28...Bg7 29.e4± Bd4+ 30.Kh1 Rb8 31.Bc3 Bxc3 32.Qxc3 Qf8 33.a5 bxa5? 33...Red8± 34.e5 dxe5 34.Qxa5+- Rb7 35.e5! dxe5 36.d6 Na8 37.Nxe5! Nb6 37...Rxe5 38.d7 38.d7 Rd8 39.Rd2 Qf5 39...c4 40.Re1 Rc7 40.Re1 Kg7 41.Qc3 Qxd7 42.Nxd7+ 1–0 - Start an analysis engine:
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Nakamura,H | 2829 | Giri,A | 2731 | 1–0 | 2020 | | Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020 | 2.1 |
Giri,A | 2731 | Nakamura,H | 2829 | ½–½ | 2020 | | Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020 | 2.2 |
Nakamura,H | 2829 | Giri,A | 2731 | ½–½ | 2020 | | Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020 | 2.3 |
Giri,A | 2731 | Nakamura,H | 2829 | ½–½ | 2020 | | Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020 | 2.4 |
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Round-up show
GM Daniel King analysed the games of day three
All games
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