The Norwegian Bishops’ new wood

by Jonathan Speelman
7/18/2021 – In his third column examining who is the best chess player in history — and his 150th overall — Jon Speelman fast forwards to the present champion, Magnus Carlsen. Speelman considers that Carlsen’s greatest strength is in the endgame, and dares to call him the best ever for this stage of the game. | Photo: Anastasiia Korolkova / FIDE World Cup

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A universal player

[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]

In the previous two columns, my “mirror” examined games by Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov in the hunt for the “best of them all”. Today we fast-forward to the present champion, Magnus Carlsen.

Magnus CarlsenIt’s always difficult to evaluate a champion at the time, and possible that we tend to overestimate them until they are supplanted, but Calrsen is surely one of the top five players in history. In the list that Yasser Seirawan sent in comments to the previous columns he put him fourth behind Kasparov, Karpov and Fischer. And when I (inadvertently but serendipitously) sparked off this line of enquiry by suggesting that he is arguably the strongest ever, I don’t think it was totally unreasonable.

One thing you can say is that while Magnus has won and then kept the world title for eight years now, he hasn’t been utterly convincing, at least at classical chess. In an uninterrupted run of over ten years as the world’s top-rated player, he became champion by defeating Viswanathan Anand in 2013 [celebration pictured], and has since then defended his title against Anand himself, Sergey Karjakin and Fabiano Caruana. The latter two were drawn at classical chess, but Carlsen always had the rapidplay in reserve and batted off both opponents relatively easily.

People make the point that whatever you think about his reign, Bobby Fischer held much more dominance over his rivals than today’s champions — this moreover at a time when he didn’t have the technological aids that modern players do.

Indeed, Carlsen has the use of fantastic computer engines on cutting-edge hardware. But his rivals have  tremendous facilities too and this makes it much harder, for example, to establish an advantage in the opening unless you can catch the opponent out.

In addition (depending on your definition — would rated at some stage more than 2725 do?), there are more top class players than ever before, partly because with the explosion of information available over, the internet players develop so much faster. I didn’t become a grandmaster till I was 24. In the modern era, anybody who hasn’t gained the title by his or her late teens is already liable to be considered a late developer.

Carlsen is a universal player who shines in different types of position and at very different time limits. The dominant force in the middle of the last century, Mikhail Botvinnik (world champion on and off from 1948-63), famously disapproved of blitz. Carlsen is superb at 3 minute (and indeed the deadly “slow” 5 minute) chess and recently won his first 30(!) games straight in an online 3-minute arena. But he seems to find this all a bit slow and plays more bullet online, standing supreme among the small coterie of people — I suppose there are a few hundred in the world — who play bullet so well that it looks not like a video game, but well ...chess.

Magnus Carlsen

Carlsen during round 2 of this year’s FIDE World Cup | Photo: Eric Rosen

Carlsen is a great tactician, and in a fortnight we’ll examine some “blood pudding” (which is really a type of sausage) to follow this week's main course. But his greatest strength of all is in the endgame, at which he is probably the best ever (I await fury from Capablanca fans, but the great Cuban’s opponents were generally a lot weaker).

He especially likes playing with the two bishops, and I’ve got three examples here this time. One of the advantages of bishops is that it’s normally not hard to arrange BxN if necessary, but bishops can hide from NxB. Carlsen is fantastically adept at this, so much so that you sometimes feel that he is creating extra squares on the board for his prelates. And on a traditional wooden board, you might just about stretch this project to encompass the title above.

 
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1.d4 I was told about this game by Luke McShane. It features Michael Adams (a player who normally wipes the floor with me nowadays) on the ropes against Calrsen and his fantastic bishops. I found the game unannotated and haven't made that strong an effort to ascertain "the truth" about it. The most salient points are how Carlsen chose to keep the two bishosp rather than his extra pawn ,and then the truly brilliant manoeuvres - Rb1, Be1, Kg1, Bf2 with which he preserved and then activated his dark-squared bishop. Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.Qxc3 dxc4 7.Qxc4 b6 8.Bf4 8.Bg5 is more common nowadays. 8...Ba6 9.Qxc7 Qxc7 10.Bxc7 0-0 11.Nf3 Rc8 12.Bf4 Nbd7 13.Nd2 Rc2 14.Rb1 Rac8 15.Nb3 Black has a big lead in devleopment for his pawn, which gives him good chances of recovering it. Bc4 15...Nd5 16.Bd2 e5 16.Na1 Ba2 17.Nxc2 Bxb1 18.Na1! Nd5 19.Bd2 e5 20.e3 exd4 21.exd4 Nb8 22.f3 Nc6 23.Bc4 Rd8 23...Ncb4 24.b3 Nd3+ 25.Kf1 Nc7 24.Kf2 Bf5 25.Nb3 Be6 26.Rc1 f6 27.a4 a5 I'm really not sure about this. It blocks the a-pawn and creates a possible outpost on b4, but does weaken b6. 28.Bc3 Bf7 29.Nd2 Nde7 30.Bf1! Rather than play an unpleasant position in which he has an extra pawn but Black is beautifully coordinated with a lovely knight on d5, Carlsen jettisons his extra pawn and then begins to conspire to use his two bishops. Nxd4
31.Re1 Ndc6 32.Nc4 Nd5 33.Rb1! This excellent move prevents Nxc3 and gives the bishop a retreat square on e1. Kf8 34.Be1! Ke7
35.Kg1! Normally in the endgame you bring your king towards the centre, but with this retreat Carlsen makes room for the bishop to reach its best square Nb8 36.Bf2 Nd7 37.Re1+ Kf8 38.Rd1 Ke7 39.Re1+ Kf8 40.Nd6 Ne5 40...Bg8 looks better to avoid 2N v 2B. 41.Nxf7 Kxf7 42.Rd1 Ke7 43.f4 Ng4 Obviously if 43...Nxf4? 44.Rxd8 Kxd8 45.Bxb6+ wins. 44.Re1+ Kf8 45.Bd4 Rd6 46.h3 Nh6 47.Rd1 Nf5 47...Nxf4? 48.Bc5! 48.Bf2
48...Ke7?! Wilting in the face of the incessant pressure. This gives White a check on the e-file, allowing him to force a winning transition. 48...g6 49.g4 Nxf4! 49...Nfe7 50.Bc4!+- It's absolutely not obvious, but my engine gives this as clearly winning because Black simply can't wriggle out of the pin on the d-file. Ke8 50...f5 51.Bh4 wins a piece. 51.f5 gxf5 52.gxf5 Rd8 53.Rd4 Rd6 54.Rd3 Rd8 55.Rd4 Rd6 56.Bg3 Rd8 57.Kf2 h6 58.Kf3 Nb4 59.Bf7+ 50.Rxd6 Nxd6 51.Bxb6 Nb7 52.Ba6 Nd5 53.Bf2 Nd6 White is clearly better, but Black can still fight. My feeling is that the prelates normally nobble the horses in the end, but it would still have been a contest. 49.g4! Nh6 With the king on e7 49...Nxf4 50.Re1+ loses a piece. 50.f5 Nf7 51.Bg2 Nf4 52.Rxd6 Nxd6 53.Bxb6 Nc4 54.Bc5+ Kd7 55.Bf1 Nxb2 56.Bb5+ Kd8 57.Bb6+ Ke7 58.Kh2 Nd5 59.Bxa5 Kd6 60.Bd2 Kc5 61.Kg3 Nc7 62.Be3+ Kb4 63.Bd2+ Kc5 64.Bc1 Nc4 64...Nxb5 65.Bxb2 Nc7 66.Ba3+ Kb6 67.Bf8 Ne8 68.Kf4 Ka5 69.Ke4 Kxa4 70.Kd5 Nc7+ 65.Bxc4 Kxc4 66.Bd2
66...Na6 67.a5 Kb5 68.Kf3 Nc5 69.Bc3 h6 70.Ke3 Kc4 71.Bd4 Na6 72.Ke4 Nb4 73.h4 Kb5 74.Bc3 Na6 75.Kd5 Nc5 76.Bd4 Nd3 77.Ke6 A fantastic game by Carlsen.
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Carlsen,M2714Adams,M27291–02007E36World Cup4.1
Carlsen,M2850Nakamura,H27931–02015D117th London Classic 20157
Ding,L2805Carlsen,M28750–12019E06Croatia GCT 20198

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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.


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Jonathan Speelman, born in 1956, studied mathematics but became a professional chess player in 1977. He was a member of the English Olympic team from 1980–2006 and three times British Champion. He played twice in Candidates Tournaments, reaching the semi-final in 1989. He twice seconded a World Championship challenger: Nigel Short and then Viswanathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and New York 1995.

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