Transcription
We have the chief arbiter Ghard there, putting the pieces for Pragna. The new position is here. Prague studies it alone because Wesley so has lost his match against Hikaru Nakamura. The arbiter just making sure that he's got all the pieces correctly. You don't want a player to be studying a wrong piece.
And while Prague tries his best to see what's the best move, you can see Magnus there chilling on his couch in the players' room, looking at the position and trying to think what to play. This is how Magnus loves chess. You know, chess is his second language. He can think about chess best when he's relaxed. He comes out with the entire audience waiting for him. Takes off his jacket, puts it on the chair. Will Magnus be able to continue his grind, or will Pragnaandanda make a comeback and somehow maybe force Magnus into, you know, showing his A-game in the second blitz game? But we'll see, we'll see all of that.
Prague, by the way, comes up now. He's finished analyzing the position. You generally have, I think, five minutes for a blitz game, ten minutes for a rapid game to analyze, and handshake by both the players. And we are about to go. We have a very, very interesting position with a rook, knight, king, a handshake there, and two bishops. F4 opening up the bishop on G1. And Magnus Carlson plays F5. Symmetry. G3 trying to put the bishop here on G2. And Magnus trying to think here how to continue. It's very important to establish your pieces on good squares in the opening stage because if you are unable to do that, then sometimes you get into tough positions.
Here you see Magnus taking his time. He goes, "Oh, he cleans the board there." Well, the thing is, Magnus is tempted by a move here, which is bishop D5 and trying to win the rook. But of course, the knight will block it. So then the bishop would look a bit silly on D5, right? Like the knight would come out and attack it. The only logic of playing bishop D5 is to chop off the knight, give White the doubled pawns. And Magnus is actually thinking about this. And this is where, you know, wow, he plays it with taking almost a minute on the clock. And Prague quickly plays these moves because it's kind of forced. E6 played. And now D4 seems very logical to grab space in the center, but uh, not so simple because somewhere you feel like it limits your bishop. And this is what Magnus wants, actually. He wants his opponents to start doubting themselves.
Knight comes out to C3. A good move by Prague. And uh, G6. This move is meant for the bishop to come on this long diagonal. I think an excellent idea by the way to get the bishop on that long diagonal. Makes a lot of sense. And for Prague, now the question is, he goes queen E1. And I think what he wants to do is wants to play D4. By the way, BG7. And then Black cannot go D5 because the E6 pawn is hanging. Also, he prepares long castling with the queen moving away. The rook can jump over to D1. Let's see if Magnus plays the Prague plays the move D4. He does it. He plays D4 here. And if he gets D5, I think he would be very happy. So Magnus stops it right in its tracks with the move C6.
And now, how about we, I mean, for White maybe long castling makes a lot of sense. There's also this idea of playing G4 H4 on the king side. Plug long castles. And Magnus brings his knight to C7. So this knight maybe could jump to D5. The other knight could go to A6 potentially. The position is very well balanced right now. And I love how both these players are actually able to match each other in the opening. Put each other under pressure, ask questions. And this is freestyle chess at its finest, I must say.
The knight goes to A4. And Prague is a little, I mean, I'm not so sure about this move. I believe Prague is playing it against A5 B5. Of course, A5 is a terrible move. It's mate in one here. Smothered mate. Um, but B5, what do you have in mind for that? I guess Prague wants to enter on C5. So Magnus goes D6 and he says to Prague that, you know, I'm threatening B5 A5. What are you planning? I think Pug should go C4. You know, C4 a good move keeping the knight here. Prague was, I think, almost ready to play a move, but then took his hand back because if Magnus starts to get rolling on the queen side, it's a question to me where is White's counterplay. Somehow these three pawns, although a bit, by the way, king B1, a small error there. B5, Magnus instantly playing it. He's like, Prague, your knight has to go back. But now I can go A5. No, first knight D7, finishing development. Yeah, exactly. These three pawns are like kind of super strong, right? They're not giving White an inch.
G4 played. The knight jumps to B6. And now pawn to H4. Black goes H5 trying to limit these pawns. And rook H2. So trying to find some counterplay from somewhere, but Magnus just not allowing it. Bishop goes to F6. And now Prague is super focused here, trying to think what to do. Maybe there is this idea of playing your bishop up to F2. Maybe like there's no, no active ideas for White. And this is what Prague is a bit confused about. If there are no active ideas, how should he proceed? He plays his bishop to F2. Does it?
And for Magnus, there are so many ideas. He can bring his rook to E8. He can play A5. He can go king D7 trying to get the king out like this. He can do many, many different things. He goes queen D7. And one of the advantages of this move is that you can castle long. You can also castle short. That would be a huge jump for the king. One, two, three, four, four, four squares. By the way, the rook has lined up against uh the G pawn, the G6 pawn, and the G file. So clearly short castling is not on the agenda right now. He goes A5. Magnus is going A4 B4 here. He's just going to push his pawns. Bishop D3. The bishop comes in. He's looking at the F pawn. B4 played. Knight E2. Knight comes out to D5.
And now at this point, Prague has to do something. Yeah, C4 seems it's it's been like this position where it feels like Black is slowly outplaying White. But Prague with his patience is keeping balance. You know, there could be some players who could lash out and just simply lose. But Prague is like, I'll keep calm. I know that such things happen. I know that also when Black will try to do something, I will get my chance. So I mustn't just burn the bridges right now. A4. Look at how Magnus is going in. And C4 played. Takes, take with the knight. Prug. No, he takes with the pawn. Super risky. Super risky to open up the B file. Super risky to have this bishop on this diagonal. The knight looking here. And I guess pawn can push forward to A3. It's big pressure. Lot of pressure here on Prague's shoulders. But Magnus has to figure out what his next move is. One minute 43 seconds for Prague. Two minutes 21 for Magnus. And Magnus is, I guess, trying to think if he needs king C7 to bring the rook to B8. Just think about it. King C7. But maybe he doesn't like the fact that the king can hide on A2 after A3. So maybe pushing the pawn to A3 is the strongest move. But you have to feel it like that's the right move. There are many possibilities here. Sometimes you can also think about C5. Although it opens up the position, you want to get this bishop rolling. Finds it. Finds it. That's Magnus for you. He thought for nearly a minute. You can see how he invests his time at the right moments. A3. The plan is knight A4. The knight can then go to B2. The knight can attack C3. So very multi-purpose move there. And Prague now taking his time here, thinking about his next idea. He goes C4. Magnus calmly goes back with his knight. The knight comes to C3. I mean, the only problem I see with this position is the White king here. It's not safe. And also, this bishop looks super strong.
Pawn to D5. Excellent chess because you are wanting to get your knight here. So imagine if C5, you go knight C4 attacking the queen. You take, pawn takes, and now the knight can jump to D5. The bishop is looking here. The king can move up. The rook can slide over. Too many problems. Too many problems. So D5 on the board. Magnus pushes that pawn. Pranandanda is thinking, what should I do here? He has some time, but it's not going to be enough. He's now going down on the clock. Well, he's about to push. Maybe he goes queen E2. And I think for the for Magnus the best idea is take, bishop takes, knight takes, queen takes, and jump over with the king. But he was rook B8 setting up a deadly discovery. And M queen C1 quickly played by Prague. He brings his king to the side. He didn't want to go into this corner. That was too dangerous with the bishop eyeing here. So he comes to C1. Magnus has 57 seconds. This product has 24. Magnus thinking bit more. He plays D takes C4. Bishop takes on C4. Attacking the pawn on E6. Knight takes. Queen takes. And jumps in with his knight to D5. Prague definitely feeling some chances. One of the moves is knight D5. Now he takes on F5 first. Not a bad idea. Taking back seems normal. But there is also a very interesting move. Queen B7 threatening mate in one. Magnus finds it. Queen B7. Now Pragnanandanda needs to be very careful. The rook on G2 can defend this square. So the bishop moves back to E1. And now there's an insane move which is short castle. But he takes on F5. And now knight D5. Prague must find this move because after E D5, queen D3, he's attacking F5. No, he makes a mistake with rook C2. And Magnus so quick. What a castling, guys. What a castling. Magnus was like, I'm attacking your king. The king ran away. Check. King comes up and Magnus finds the tactic, the fork. He takes. Knight takes C4. Rook takes C4. But now Magnus is an exchange up. He went in like a hawk there. I mean, that was just insane. The quick, the, you know, the speed at which he recognized that he had to go short castle with his king and then found the tactic with queen B1 queen D1. My goodness, that was just insane.
And now both players down to their last few seconds. But Magnus knows that he's winning. He makes this last move with just 2 seconds on the clock. He needs to be careful about his time. Prague goes knight C5. Takes on D4. Knight B7. Rook to D5. And Magnus wins. Pragna is unhappy, but he was fair and square outplayed in this game. Magnus showed incredible positional understanding by first giving up his bishop for the knight and then, you know, kind of building a position that was so conducive for his knights and not for his opponent's bishops. And there you can see Magnus struggling to put the starting position there. He likes to do that. He likes to put back the pieces on the freestyle chess position that you began with rather than the normal position. Maybe it's something that he enjoys. But for now, while he's doing this, I'm sure he's getting back into his element. After losing the first game, he struck back in 10 + 10 and now takes the lead in 5 + 2. Prague is in a must-win situation. Not at all an easy space to be against Magnus Carlson.