Sagar and Amruta in Dubai: Day 2 impressions

by Sagar Shah
11/27/2021 – Want to get a glimpse of how things look in Dubai at the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi? The dynamic duo of Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal have made their way to the venue and are producing plenty of content on their YouTube channel. Take a look! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

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A closer look

Want to know how it feels to attend a World Championship match? Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal, the couple behind the ever-growing ChessBase India website, are working on getting the most prestigious event in the chess world closer to us aficionados. 

Browse through their YouTube channel for frequent video updates from the venue of the match. You will not be disappointed!


Behind the scenes

While Carlsen and Nepo are trying to figure out how to handle a massively complex Catalan Opening, let us take a look at the behind-the-scenes right before the start of game 2, the first encounter in which the world champion got the white pieces in the match.


Is the game going out of Nepo’s control?

Sagar enthusiastically goes over the first moves of game 2. What was Carlsen’s physical reaction to Nepo’s 7...b5? We are in for an exciting fight! 


Is Carlsen in trouble?

Another update from Sagar. Nepo seems to have solved his positional issues while still a pawn to the good. An enthralling fight, indeed!


Feel the tension

If we chess aficionados find ourselves glued to our screens while following the tense games of the match, imagine how it must feel for the players inside the glass enclosure. Sagar has uploaded a video showing us how things look a few meters away from the players!


Live analysis by Sagar Shah

 

Magnus has reached this position 146 times with white and only 14 times has he gone for the Catalan with 4.g3. So it was already a surprise for Nepo

It was time for Black to surprise White with the move ...b5!? The main played move is ...a6. But Nepo went for the 2nd most played move.

Next Magnus surprised Nepo with Ne5!? The more common way to go was a4

...f6!? pushes the knight away but also weakens the Black king a bit and the e6 square

e5!? and it was already starting to look dangerous for Black as he was quite underdeveloped

Ne5!? by Carlsen came as a big surprise. The move was aimed at getting control of the weakened dark squares, but it turns out that after just taking the piece on e5, Black is able to coordinate quite quickly!

Nepo gets his knight into the game and already looks quite well placed

The knight jumped to b3 and now it was important to keep the dark squared bishop with Be3, but it would also mean that you sacrifice and exchange and still have the strong knight on d3. Hence Magnus went Rb1 but now Nepo took twice on c1 and was an exchange up. It definitely looks good for the Russian player.

In this position Ian could have pressed better, but he gave back the pawn with c3.

Magnus played his queen to c2 and recovered the pawn.

The knight on d6 was the reason for White having good compensation

Nepo sacrificed back the exchange and liquidated into a drawish major piece endgame

The rook endgame with 3 vs 2 was going to be a draw!

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Sagar is an International Master from India with two GM norms. He loves to cover chess tournaments, as that helps him understand and improve at the game he loves so much. He is the co-founder and CEO of ChessBase India, the biggest chess news portal in the country. His YouTube channel has over a million subscribers, and to date close to a billion views. ChessBase India is the sole distributor of ChessBase products in India and seven adjoining countries, where the software is available at a 60% discount. compared to International prices.

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