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Norway Chess 2026: Wesley, Alireza, Pragg, Bibisara, Divya, Anna All In Contention! Penultimate Rd 9
06-04-2026 · 5h 34m
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Oh
I
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What I like about chess is that there is actually a lot of...
...series on it.
With the football as well, you need to plan your moves a bit ahead.
You need to stay sharp. You can't lose one second of focus.
If you focus, if you do, you might get punished.
So they have to sometimes surprise you a moment.
Chests have a lot to learn.
In life, they have a lot to learn.
So everything in life, you can always get better
and you can always improve.
Total chess can turn chess into an even bigger sport
for new audiences.
It's the penultimate round of Noe Chas and Noe Chas women.
The pressure is on for Wesley.
Guys, what are you doing?
We are live!
Just cut, just cut.
For the first time in 13 years,
Norway chess moved from savanger to Oslo,
bringing the biggest stars in the game into the heart of the capital.
Over the next week, the world's best chess players
attempt to keep their nerves together,
while the rest of us pretend we understand
the edge in evaluations.
They didn't like this, not really.
I have four.
Oh, the bar drops, though.
This year's lineup is ridiculous.
Magnus Carlsen returns once again
and faces challengers like Lukash the Marashi,
Isen Karmar,
Wuzly So,
and Ali Reza for Russia.
Every single round looks like a world championship match
that accidentally wandered into another tournament.
He's feeling the nuts now of Isen Karmar.
The women's event is just as fierce.
Ruzushin Erk,
Juwen Jun,
Humpik Neru,
and Anamu Jun already defies from every point like its person.
But here's the thing that makes Norway just different
from any other event on the calendar.
There are no peaceful brawls.
The classical game ends tight, the players go straight into Armageddon.
One game, one winner, Max Wunstress.
Until last year we know exactly how intense the story is going to get.
Oh my god!
So get comfortable, the clocks are ticking, the evil bar is about to go insane.
Norway chess starts right now.
And it's a good day in Oslo, but you can forget everything you think you know about libraries,
because here in Oslo's iconic library, Yavik, Dakeman Library, this is an arena of roaring
energy.
The crowd, we are ready for what is about to transpire for the next two rounds.
at them go. Well, we are all care for the action that is ready to unfold today. I'm your host,
International Master Yvanka Houska, and I am here with International Master Tanya Saastir
and Grandmaster David Hauner. They're a little bit on my bad books. It was all good. It was
all good.
It's Tanya. She was grabbing my muffins. They're mine.
I mean, it's that stage of the tournament. We all need all that energy and David, you can only have so many muffins at a tournament
But I have to say I mean this year now which has has completely
blown out the script from everything that was expected, you know, we've had it all you've had the shock defeats
We've had the turnaround to come back all the tents to Armageddon's and now with two games remaining the finish line
Visible and David howl with visibility comes muffins and pressure
Exactly the pressure is on it's the closing stretch
I was looking back at past results. The last rest day is when suddenly something
Something switched a flip was switched and yeah
It just felt like the players they wanted to start fighting
They wanted those decisive results things started getting very dramatic and I'm hoping the last day the last rest day
Gave them the energy to do that again. Well, we're certainly looking forward to seeing what the
The players are gonna bring to the table today
today, but as Tanya and David mentioned, round eight was just simply shocking for decisive
games. Let's take a recap of what went down.
And now Wesley is just looking for the most surprising moves to make in order to make
Vincent burn that time on the clock. There you go. No more checks. Just offer a trade
of queens and make Vincent think and here we go. Mistake. Can't take it. He comes back.
And the clock! Vincent loses on time!
Tough defense for Man, but Wesley gets the job done.
I was really tired mentally from game yesterday, so I'm really happy to win the Armageddon, at least.
Big blunder in the game between Divya and BB Sara.
Wow, that is a full Rook sacrifice. She needs to sacrifice the Rook on B8.
She does it! She's about to take the 3-point to win!
No way for White to save this. Suddenly, oh, she's walking to a different type of checkmate.
H3 now is the killer and Handshake Bibisara turns it around Divya heartbroken.
For her it was very hard to play because her king is weak and also my bishop which was
stupid for the whole game has become very strong.
I think I just overpushed and realised where to draw the line.
Magnus has got to be careful, only one move, think to E2, everything else is checkmate.
Only one move now for Magnus Carlson, it has to be King E3 when he goes forward!
It's a checkmate in Stabin! It's a mate in Stabin if you go Queen before Jack!
And Magnus is done! It's a checkmate! There's no way forward handshake!
Wild number one crashes the defeat track, kicks him down!
And Magnus calls himself to leave it!
He's fucking the most stuck in winner in a row!
Jack Lovic just taking down the world's number one!
Whenever he was under time trouble, some of the things weren't working for him.
I think that's the case for everyone.
Get the King into the game.
You do anything, you can put a rook and f6, support it with a g-pawn, you cash his kings cut off.
Even if g6 falls now, it should be a win for white.
The black king is so poorly placed, it's a handshake!
I think nothing will be decided until the last round probably.
So, I have a game against Wesley, so it'll be interesting.
Nothing will be decided until the last round.
Prophetic words there from Ali Reza of Frujda as we take a look at the standing.
And with Wesley and Alireza set to fight in the last round,
everything looks like it's going to be a showstopper for these last two games.
Yeah, every point matters. Armageddon might not be enough.
Even if they win those Armageddens, they might find themselves overtaken
by those who get the job done in the classical almost anything still possible.
And yeah, it all comes down to this last stretch now.
I absolutely love what we set ourselves up for.
Wesley leads by one point ahead of Alireza and two ahead of Pragrinanda.
basically we've got a leader who refuses to give up his lead and two cheaters who
refuse to breathe down his neck right now and nothing's decided the path ahead
for Wesley includes a mutt up against Magnus and Alireza tomorrow this is
still a field wide open it is absolutely a field wide open and for Alireza he
faces off against Vincent today and talking about field wide open is a
completely different situation in Norwich ass women there we have a baby
Now she faces off against Anna Mujituk today, knowing that a draw will give her that point
that is required to cement the win.
If the Vivisaurus takes this to the Armageddon, that's it.
Norwich as a woman is her title.
She will be the debutante who becomes champion.
It could have been a very different storyline as Vivia Deshmukh would have converted her game in round eight
against Vivisaurus so incredibly close to that.
Vivia would have been in the half-point lead, but today what we have instead,
point lead but today what we have instead is Bibisara with a five point plush cushion right now.
Yeah, she has been so impressive, so entertaining her games as well Bibisara. She would be a worthy
winner but of course Anna Muzichuk in second place will have something to say about it. She will
however need to win her first classical game of the tournament. For Anna Muzichuk it's been a tale
of Armageddon so far. It has been Armageddon central for Anna Muzichuk as she is looking for
her first classical win while our players are ready. I feel so nervous about today. I cannot
predict what is happening. For Bibi Sari, it sounds like an easy job, right? She just has to hold
her nerve, get that required draw in the classical to take it to Armageddon. But it's so easy when
you, it's not so easy when you have so much at stake. And the thing is, the other good news for
Bibi Sari, she's playing against a player who's had all draws in the first stage runs. That's Anna
a player who refuses to draw anything right now. It is Wesley so it all
turned around for Wesley with a win against Magnus in round five. Before
that it was an honor as a Ferozha show but since Wesley has had a lead he hasn't
let go of that. It's a big challenge against the in front of him at the
world number one Magnus Carlson. You know Magnus not mathematically out of it but
even if he feels inside him that he's not in the hunt for his eight Norway chess
he's still in the hunt for a perfect finish.
Exactly. Magnus, if he wants to win the tournament, he knows he needs to beat Wesley today and hope and pray that other results go in his favor.
But obviously a long shot. Magnus at least will want to end on a high.
They met each other after the last rest day, went Wesley's favor.
Another rest day might have also helped Wesley's mood.
That's a bit of a laughter. I think they were discussing a banana.
Unclear who that belonged to in the meantime Vincent Chima. He has suffered in all of the Armageddon's
Zero out of seven from those Armageddon games, but he has won a classical game hasn't lost any
So a win here a win in the final round two and he would launch himself up the standings
And someone else who would also potentially launch themselves up the standings is
Pregnant under as he plays black against Goukesh
I mean, there's not really that much in it in the standings.
We had Wesley, one point ahead of Ali Reza, and Ali Reza is one point ahead of Pragnananda,
and a classical win would basically just set the field wide open, and still nothing is
decided in that particular event.
But in the women's, it's all in BB Sara's hands.
And is this going to be the day where Anamos Duke finally gets a decisive result in the
classical that could completely change the narrative going into the final round.
Bibisara needs only a draw to take the championship, a one around to spare.
I have to say, that's got to be a good feeling.
It's got to be a great feeling. The question is whether Bibisara knows how to play for a draw.
She plays such ambitious chess, always on the front foot, always trying to make things happen.
Anna Moosley-Schirk has been rock solid. I will say that she has looked happy to draw the classical
games on occasion with white with black. So it depends on how much she wants this, how
brave she's feeling, taking risks with Black against Bebasarra but we'll find out soon.
We will and for Divya Deshmukh to have any outside chances, claiming the title, she needs to
start with a win today in the classical against Jujina. For Jujina, she's got to be feeling good
after her win in round eight, taking down Divya. How much of a reset has Divya had after the turn
around that happened against Bebasarra? Yeah, that was a very painful loss there for Divya as
she managed to lose a winning position and suddenly it feels like all her hopes are over.
Ruzina coming off a win against Juwen Jun and both of these players are actually on 10 points
so they still have outside chances at least for if not for first for a very good finish and
these two are so young but it feels like they're already developing a very old rivalry both from
tonight and as we see the world champion Gukesh get ready with the white pieces for Prak this
could be everything absolutely this is the ultimate Indian showdown it is board number one versus
board number two two Indians one is out of the title race for the other one very much in it
Pragrinanda with two back-to-back wins taking down Magnus along the way now few can boast of
defeating Magnus Carlson twice in their entire career Pragrinanda did it in one tournament
And now, Prag is now one of the few grandmasters out there who's got a plus score against Magnus
Carson in classical. Not many can boast of that, but Prag can. I love how they're wearing
matching outfits as well. Mukesh against Prag, but I'm right.
It's the famous Waka Blazer, the Westbridge Arn and Chess Academy, bought Menti's prodigies
of Waka and wrapping it.
They are definitely wrapping it and showing it to an elite level as well. And going back
to your stat about Prague, but most people who have positive scores against Magnus, you know,
got that when he was a child. Prague has actually got it from this year. From this year, and most
of Prague's win against Magnus, well, all of them in classical have come from Norway, chess.
Norway, chess in 2024, Prague for the first time takes down the world number one in his life,
and that was such a big moment for Indian chess. And right now he is one of the chasers in this
tournament. He's two points behind Wesley very much in the race. He knows he's
playing a struggling Gukesha right now. A classical win would be everything for
Prague today. It would certainly propel him up the standings even
potentially into first place. So much rides on this game as we get ready to
initiate. Round nine let's go let's get ready. Everyone looking sharp. Everyone
looking very focused, those ceremonial first moves just being made on the boards before
the action really begins too early of course without prediction game, but I'm predicting
there will be a lot of ambition at least.
And I completely second that because this is the stage where great tournament runs become
championships, become titles and it's so important to not just try and play safe.
I think for Wesley, he's not feeling safe at all, even though he's kept his lead for
so many rounds, the player top center there, Alireza Ferozha, you just cannot
count him out. His story is not over at Norwich S. He was leading for the first
five rounds of the tournament and then two back-to-back losses and how does he
respond? With two back-to-back wins there. And now he's back in this one, a huge one
against Winston Kaima. Does Ferozha feel that he wants to play against a Winston's
biggest weakness? Will he take him to Armageddon? It's go time. Round nine is
is underway. It is, we have a lift off as we see Wesley open with the E4. Pawn against
Magnus and Magnus means business. We have a Sicilian on the board. This is none of this
E4, E5 symmetrical tense game. Magnus is here saying I want to win this game.
Okay, and Wesley would have predicted this. Wesley could not have banked on Magnus playing
it solid, allowing him to force a draw. I think for Wesley, he's shown in the last couple
of rounds that he is happy to kind of hedge his bets, take it to Armageddon, try to get
that extra half point there. But here we see open Sicilian. Magnus has been playing the
Sicilian night off in recent months. Very provocative opening, giving white lots of choice. How
aggressive is Wesley so going to be to try and extend his lead in the tournament?
We saw Magnus play this against Prague as well with the black pieces and that did not
very well. Despite some interesting positions, some exchange sacrifices there, Magna's getting a great advantage in that one eventually, but slipping away went on to lose.
But I think the opening phase wasn't one that you can complain about from that game. Heading towards a night off we are.
A night off and yeah, Wesley, in games where he's happy to make a draw with White, he either goes ultimate mainline E4 or ultimate mainline D4.
He doesn't go any sidelines, he normally goes very, very direct, but there aren't so many
lines which kind of force too many simplifications in the night off.
Here we go.
Ponto A6 is the Sicilian night off after Miguel, famous grandmaster.
But Wesley, the safest ones I would predict might be Ponto G3.
This is where Magnus had his confessional, said White had pretty much 18 logical moves
that have been played on the database.
I'm going to predict G3, but we could also see one of the visions come out.
A bit of a shake of his head, Wesley right now, and that takes me by surprise,
because Magnus just played this in Norway chess against Prague,
and on that we're Prague in this position, pushed the H1 up the board,
H4 was the first big surprise, an absolutely up and down game.
Just me or Wesley looks slightly uncomfortable?
I think he looks tense.
There's a lot riding on this game, and Magnus has opened up with a night off,
and I've got to remind everyone that earlier on Magnus played a night off against Prague.
Prague responded with h4, it was a super sharp game. I think we're going to be seeing something
like that. I mean you predict g3, bishop e3 but the fact that Wesley's now thinking
makes me a little bit worried because here with no increment you have to play quickly.
Yeah, you definitely want to play quickly. I mean he must have spent a big chunk of the rest
stay preparing this, that's for sure Wesley. I think this is just kind of either he's
plucking up the courage to do something really direct, really attacking, or he's
just saying okay what mood am I in? I prepared two different lines, which one
today is going to be my choice. I believe that Wesley's mainly been playing
Bishop e3, there we go, over the last few years, although open Sicilians aren't
so common in his games, in his practice, and yeah there are some drawing lines
if Magnus had played the move Knight to G4, Wesley might have gone back to C1 and tried
to repeat the position, but Magnus goes main line, E5, keeping the Knight back to F3.
This is known as being very solid and of course you can't spell solid without so.
Taking to your recipe, we are for Wesley So right now.
The other move Knight to B3 is in fact the more popular approach in this position, Knight
F3, the second most played move.
of top-ground masters have employed it, Iana Palmasi, Fabiano Caruana. Magnus's
response, quick and fast, gets the queen out to c7. Very common idea, just to stop
White's bishop coming up to c4, where it would have nice vision against f7, but
also where it could control the beautiful d5 outpost. So this is still
mainline stuff. Mainline stuff, but fun fact right now, David Howell, that if White
doesn't make the move a4 which has been played about 1000 times but you've got
some other options you could take your bishop out you could also plant the
bishop which is just moved to g5 all of them going to way less in on territories
so Wesley has a new idea it should be in this position if he plays a4 he's
pretty much sticking to plan madness will have a response ready to that exactly
as our producer says you can't spell sophisticated without so either and a
force of a sophisticated move stopping blacks plan of advancement here on the
I have a feeling we'll see A4 from Wesley White kind of diverge from the main lines when he has a decent reputation for White.
Maybe it's kind of a mind game battle now.
Who's going to launch that first surprise?
Yeah, we will see Wesley thinking some more, just perhaps trying to find his rhythm.
Of course, he knows this opening inside out, going to our bird's eye view.
we can see what is on our screens, Vincent Klimer and Ali Reza Frugia, also another Sicilian.
Not an open one though, as the Rosalimo, as the Bishop, the Biscayre Bishop on F1, that's no longer on the board.
And we have a Nimza Indian, very aggressive system there with Prague, Guget, Prague.
Those two don't seem to know how to play solidly at all when they face each other.
And you've got to love that, right? It's just not in their style.
in their style combative chess is the name of the game that's the brand here
and I think we're going to see that given the tournament standings as well
the top row as you highlighted you'll be we've got two Sicilians one d4 if you
look at the Norway chess women right now also quite a variety of openings there
one of them started with David Howell's favorites the Reti one night of three on
the board the other two the Queens font opening but the middle game that we're
going into in all of these one things clear it's going to be quite rich it's
going to be a lot of fun I see a lot of weaknesses on that bottom center marquee
matchup. Vivis R versus Muzichok. When I say weakness, I'm talking about the C6 B4 Pond already
overextended on that board right now, leaving behind some squares, leaving behind the backward
Pond as well for Black. Yeah, I think this is going to be a really fiery round. Anna Muzichok
racing with her moves, playing very quickly, trading off some pieces. That is still theory,
I believe. But yeah, the fact that we've got two Sicilians, we've got one of the sharpest
I mean, I don't see any of the fiddling out quickly. I don't see any of them being kind of simple slow maneuvering games. I think there's going to be a lot of direct action in the early stages.
I agree with you there. I'm very curious though. Can we choose one to dive into because I have some
that really pique my interest and the one that I'm curious about and I think it's really important
of course for the whole championship for the whole title is BBsara against Anna Muzichuk. If we can
go there that would be really good because if we do an action replay BBsara has already passed
the first test. And the first test is later on. So this is really interesting. She chooses
the Moran, she doesn't choose the Queen C2 because the Moran, sorry, with Bishop to D3,
if you have a lot less choice as black, with Queen C2 you can keep the position fluid in
many different ways. You know, Bishop to coming out to D6, the Queen can come to E7, there's
a lot of tension. Bishop d3, usually because of the threat of e4, forces pawn takes c4,
and after bishop takes c4, you can go b5, you can go bishop d6, those are the two main
moves. So b5, bishop retreats, and then here, the main lines are bishop b7 or a6, but they're
very forcing, very aggressive lines. Everything has been pretty much worked out there. So
Anna has chosen a line that I used to play because I never liked that much theory.
And this is where the first test is.
So usually, you want to be centralizing the knight.
You want to be gaining control over the c6 pawn,
and you want to be gaining special control over the c5 square.
And so a lot of people think it's very natural not to swap off the knights
and instead go knight to a4.
But knight to a4 is a lot more complicated
because it does allow you, you know, Bb7, c5 is very quick and the knight is offside.
So, BeBsR has already passed the first test. Okay, the first test, she did centralise her knight
and just to catch up with the live position. Yavanka, what do you make of this? A knight exchange
and black playing Bb7, there's already a pin. Yeah. Yeah, how, as a player from the black side here,
how would you be dealing with this? So, the way that you fight this one is you go, obviously,
you have to protect the pawn on c6 but then the knight will come to f6 the bishop will come to
e7 so you want to be dislodging that bishop pretty much asap so you often go knight f6
get it out because everything will hinge on how white develops in bishop e7 and then
castle and then you should be as quick as possible to get in c5
C5 has to be the breakaway plan if you are black here to open up your bishop but also
solve structural problems.
I think for white the key idea here apart from finishing development which is around
the dark square bishop you decide do you want to place it on the B2 square where eventually
you can throw in a D5 at the right moment especially if we were to see C5 happen open
up that diagonal and the other strategic plan for Bibisara is all around that square that
been left behind because of black's overexpansion on the left flank.
Nd2, Nc4 is the way you want to follow this up.
Get your queen out towards the king side as well.
I have to say that I think for a player with a two point, sorry a five point lead right
now needing only a draw to take this to an Armageddon, the Visara has no reasons to be
displeased with this opening currently.
There are so many ways that white can actually try to push in this position.
You have the better center, you have the better pawn formation.
Once your bishop lands on B2, once that knight gets on C4, your queen comes out of the way,
the rook coming to D1, C1.
Beautiful harmony in white's game.
Yeah, I completely agree with you.
Often you play this as black just to equalize and once the center gets eliminated with
that C5 break, you basically black is equalized and that's it.
And you just get a simple game which you would usually fizzle out to a draw.
I used this a lot to get your trolls against Grandmasters, that was it.
The problem is, a draw's not enough for Anna-Masry Drake.
I know.
That would basically gift the title, the NoHS women's title this year,
and first prize, a lot of money to Bibisara.
So yeah, interesting that Anna's kind of stuck to her tournament strategy of playing solid.
And she's also stuck to an opening that she's played before.
Anna's had this position against Grandmaster Miguel Alascaz back in 2024.
exactly bishop to e7 was last played, where Mikhail Dan with the white pieces decided to
go immediately being ahead in development with the move a3.
And it was quite a fascinating battle, at the end of which a draw happened, an up and
down one, but I never saw Anna in that game get an advantage.
If I had to guess Anna's mindset currently, I would say given everything, the way the
tournament's gone, we might be in for a fight, a race for the second place, and Anna really
wants that second place.
happy to take this to an Armageddon and say it's still a lot of money.
She has been quite pragmatic, I would say, in recent years, Ana. Even when she won the
WHS last year, she was playing very solid in some games and just hoping the opponents
would overpress, giving them the responsibility of deciding how hard to go and then reacting.
I think that suits her style quite a counter-attacking player when she gets the chance to seize the
initiative. She normally does jump on it, but from the early stages, openings maybe not
the ball. I think that's the
biggest thing that she's got.
Her strongest or at least not
something she tries too hard to
specialize in. She likes to give
the ball back to the opponent.
Okay Well, we set the scene for
this particular game. We're
expecting equality. I think that
game may be in danger of
fizzling out, but let's go to
the bird's eye view and let's
have a look at what's occurring
No pawn breaks, all the pawns on the board, and it's a very locked position.
That's basically depending on someone to blink and just open things up.
And also it's pretty exciting between Gukesh and Prakhanananda.
Which direction to step? Left or right?
Can I go right to the all Indian Derby between Gukesh and Prakhanananda?
Kesh of course having a tough tournament in last place right now, but he could still salvage a lot of pride if he wins this last two rounds
He has quite a good score. I think against Pragan recent times at least in classical
beating him earlier in the tournament and just a very quick action replay for everyone at home
This is one of two nooms here Indian defenses today. We also saw one in the women's tournament between I
Think it's Humpey and Juwen Jun. So here we see one of the sharpest variations after a three
just allowing, inviting Black to double the pawn structure. This has always been such a brave choice in my mind.
I would never touch it. It feels like you're losing a full tempo.
Pawn on A3 isn't great. Just to force Black to do something they want to do anyway.
But here we go. It does allow White a free hand in the center very quickly to try and build a nice pawn chain.
Nice C6, Prague not going for the main lines interestingly like instead of B6
it's quite normal to go D5 C5 but nice C6 allowing white forward and just going
straight for the weak pawn and yeah Tanya this is double-edged stuff.
Double-edged stuff I mean just that position you had David first seven moves
six of them with a pawn. What happened to traditional chess opening principles
about take out your pieces? Well Gukes says you know he wants to play for a
wind right now, he wants to take Prague off any big theoretical battles and these are
lesser played openings. Yes you've destroyed the pawn structure, yes you've lost a lot
of time on that left side of the board and if you move forward we see that C4 pawn comes
under so much fire defended now with the Queen over the last move lining up. But very often
black keeps piling on the pressure on the C-line, gets the rook there, gets the C-pawn
moving, opens it up and even in some cases wins it while all of white's attention and
focus is on a king side attack you know we have e4 d4 c4 we might see f4 g4
everything up for a very quickly in this one it's going to be a fun battle I
think we'll see Prague go down upon and go for Goukesha's king okay this is
going to be super exciting and when we see Goukesh I mean Goukesh is playing
really combative right with f4 in the king side attack and Prague he's just
going to go for the material maybe we can kind of try and peek into the future
and make our guesses as to what will occur. Let's do it. It's time for the
prediction game David. Oh already. We do it with moves first here. We have to
change the rules by the way on the prediction game so we have to be David
versus all of us. And the chairs. So I could just pick my result and then if
If I'm wrong, we will win.
Yeah, we will win, yeah.
But even then, we only...
No, we don't even...
No, we don't even win.
No, I've got five of the eight correct so far.
Yes, then Tanya's got two.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Hang on a second, the chair's got one.
She donate the chair's points to Tanya.
I just feel bad taking it.
I love how David's just stressing on that.
No, David, I refuse it.
But it does break my heart because, yes, in, you know,
for Wesley, he hasn't won in two rounds to spare.
Baby Sara almost there,
but David Howell definitely there in this battle.
I think we have to adjust the rules who knows who knows today. I might have some fun and predict all six decisive in classical
But I wanted to say that beforehand now. I think it might be four or five, but
Okay, thank you Pedro for the support. I am inevitable as they say but see five. Okay. Let's predict as you wanted Tanya
And you've anchor. What do you think? What which moves are coming next? I?
I really feel that for Prague the plan is so simple.
What we've been talking about is he's doubled down and now he's going to triple down on
the c4 pawn and just go win it.
And if you're white you have to look for counter play on the other flank of the board.
One idea is to start pushing the pawns already.
David, the other way to go is something that you pointed out.
Get the bishop out, pin that knight, I'm also threatening the move e5 next.
So you have to take a pause and answer that threat before going for the pawn on c4.
Bring it on, g5.
That's very committal for black, unclear where the black king goes if Pryg decides to push that pawn, but if not, as you say, e5 is coming.
This is the reason I don't play the Nimzo Indian so much. I always bluffed the Nimzo Indian and then I switched to Queen's Gambit Declined because nowadays there's such sharp lines.
It also reminds me like Goukesh now thinking. It reminds me of that documentary with Judith Polgar just recently, Queen of Chess, because there was this illuminating moment when her husband was like,
like oh wait you know that a draw is a possible result in chess and it feels
as if Goukesh like nobody's told him even when it is all going against him
even when he's not at his best not as sharpest losing a few games here and
there he doesn't play it tight he doesn't just play it solid he's
chooses lines like this with white work you go very right big and also go very
very wrong and it's really fascinating that conversation right because at one
point you feel like you really want to shake up location tell him you need to
you know, especially against the elite players that you're playing against.
But you also have to admire the fight that that brings on.
And it does pay off in so many cases as well.
For Gukesha, I think one of the reasons for his meteoric rise was exactly this fighting spirit.
It's what got him the world championship match.
Just continuous pressure along 14 games against Ding,
never letting him off the hook, never giving the draw easily.
But somewhere, and a lot of times it seems to backfire,
backfire. How do you find that balance if you're Gukesh Dombaraju?
It's interesting because Gukesh is really bucking the trend because I have noticed that
all the top players are trying to make their style as universal as possible. You know,
we had Hikaru playing Gura Sivachas and then he was like, no, no, no, I need to be less
predictable. I need to play a little bit more positionally. And then suddenly he swings the
other way and because now one of the best defensive players in the world plays very
solidly but he still has that capability to play ultra aggressive and the same goes with absolutely
everyone but Goukeshe is like no I know what my strengths are I am going to keep on improving
that and make that a massive Tours hammer because we're in Oslo and there's a little statue of
Tours hammer and just try to beat all of my opponents with it but at the same time that does
make him predictable and people are kind of beginning to understand exactly that if they
take into a certain position he will react that way. And you maybe don't have to bring
the fight to him because he's ready to do it. And I wonder David, if that's exactly
what Madness spoke about when he said that, you know, when it comes to Gukesh, the weaknesses
are clear, that he will always be provoked.
Yeah. I mean, his style of chess takes so much energy, Gukesh, because he has to calculate
so deeply all the time, he doesn't try to play any positions where you can just kind
kind of go on instinct.
He always plays positions where it's high responsibility.
He commits, like already he's committed long term,
like strategically he's lost with white.
If he doesn't go for some attack and create some dynamics,
he's just gonna lose his pawn long term
and he's gonna suffer.
So he's already basically said to himself,
I have to attack.
And if you're not feeling energetic that day
or if something's slightly off,
you're slightly tired or ill or something,
then it just doesn't work, this strategy.
So yeah, I mean they do say,
doing the same thing over and over again
I mean, kind of expecting different results.
That's the definition of matters.
I would love to see Bukesh at some point
add some strings to his bow and, yeah,
kind of continue to evolve as a player,
rather than just continue insisting
on doing the same thing every game.
And it's also a bit concerning.
I mean, if we just zoom into from our conversation
what we just had and what we're getting,
a lot of applause, I hope it's for our commentary.
I actually know the reason.
I think David knows the reason as well.
It's because it's Ari and Tara's birthday.
Ooh, happy birthday, Ari.
Exactly.
So a lot of good chess players are the star sign Gemini.
Some, a few of them on our table right now.
Maybe it's the best star sign to have.
I'll have, you know.
Everyone, message Ivanka happy birthday next week
in just six days.
Oh, no, I don't need that, David, you know,
because they start publishing things like my age.
And then I try to go through life, hiding it.
And then when that one day comes,
I get so many messages going, oh my god.
And I'm like, yeah, yeah.
You know what they say, you can run, but you can't hide.
It feels like Ganesh can't hide in this position right now,
what we've got.
Like you said, a very committal approach in the opening
and very concerning that Ganesh is the first
to go into a long tink right now.
Prague is playing the most direct way.
Adia is clear, take that pawn, take the pawn on C4,
line up with the rook and the queen maximum pressure.
For Gukesha, I almost feel like there are some concrete lines to be considered.
At first, I was making a case for pushing the pawns,
but David, there are already makings of tactics here.
And I just think we can just show an idea.
I don't think it works particularly now.
But something that Gukesha is thinking about, and he needs to be careful for,
let's say you go g4, trying to get an attack in.
And now you take on d4, you take back on d4, and maybe there's a better play,
better play than what I'm about to suggest,
but just a very thematic tactical concept.
You take that pawn on C4 already.
Let's say you take it with,
I was gonna say Bishop, but maybe the knight.
But the idea I wanna demonstrate is that,
all right, let's take it with a Bishop.
Bishop takes pawn,
Bishop takes Bishop, and Queen to C7.
I'm hitting your Bishop, I'm forcing it to retreat,
and the idea is Queen C3 check,
and this is what speaks of all the pawn moves
that Gukesh has right now invested in.
Yeah, this is incredible.
That would not be on my radar, actually.
would take me a long time I think over the board to spot this double attack here
would win back material yeah I was looking at other tactics like just kind
of calmly bring the knight in trying to hit the rook trying to win this pawn as
well so I mean so many questions for Kukeshta answer he doesn't react
actually in the center so the big question is whether this is possible
now this type of tactic and then either jumping with the knight winning the D
four pawn or as you say Tanya maybe even taking C4 actually with the bishop
And, oh, White has to be so careful suddenly.
Kukesh, as you say, it's odd to see him spend time
because Prax played the most popular moves in this variation.
He's played literally the main line.
And the fact that Kukesh stopped to think,
just like when he lost to Alireza Frugia,
just the day before the rest day,
he played all of his preparation,
blitz-blitz, everything out,
and then suddenly the opponent makes the most obvious move
and he stopped for 40 minutes and lost.
gets a new move, Bishop f5 in, goes down upon a new move which offers a queen trade and pretty
much suffering for the rest of the game in that one. Gukesh can't allow that narrative early on
in this but it does feel like he's about to go down upon and either of these two variations that
we're looking at right? What is going on after taking that pawn jumping into the center of the
board? Big questions for the world champion perhaps? Absolutely and I gotta say this is a line
which you have to really go in prepared. So I don't know whether Gukesh is perhaps playing the
mind games. Let's not forget that he's probably maybe deep in preparation and he's set a devilish
trap and he's faking it. That could be the situation. You often try to play it out, act it out
when you have such a weapon in your arsenal, but I don't know if it is looking like things are
unclear. I would be concerned if Gukesh is freestyling this because he cannot do that.
Let's go to Wesley against Magnus, because that's a completely different game.
Whilst we had super sharp position between Goukache and Prague here, it's completely different.
Wesley against Magnus, even though it came from an open Sicilian,
it feels like this is more Wesley trying to get in control over D5.
Yeah, with his last move, Wesley is starting to gain the Bishop pair.
A striking knight takes bishop, just a very quick action replay of the last few moves for everyone just joining us.
We left it, Wesley playing the very solid, very sophisticated A4,
stopping black from advancing. So blacks play now, it's maybe more one-dimensional just playing to develop the pieces.
Magnus gets castled, both sides actually get castled and
bishop to E6, the dream square for the bishop, but normally you want H6 to stop this knight jump
and Wesley says, okay, you haven't played that yet, I'm gonna try and take advantage and
I wonder if Magnus goes back, then Wesley, he could be very tempted to just retreat his
knight and argue, okay, your best move is to come back with the bishop.
And if you do that, we'll repeat, and we go to Armageddon.
You'll be out of the race for first place.
Magnus, if he doesn't want to go for that, I guess he could bring out his knight to
C6 or play other moves, Bishop C6, and the game goes on.
But maybe he'll actually be tempted in the live position to challenge the bishops instead,
trading off one of the defenders of D5 would be slightly risky. Risk indeed
involved for our players as Magnus is considering exactly what to do. We are
going to go on a very short break but breaking news, I just received it just
now. Magnus has a confession. He has gone to the booth and we also have a lot of
pre-game interviews where you can catch the pre-game thoughts and the moods of our players.
But in order for you guys just to kind of get the time to subscribe because this is only available
for subscribers. I mean Magnus in the confessional I just got to ask you guys what do you think?
Is he comfortable? Uncomfortable? How's he feeling? I love that regardless of how the
tournament is going we always get Magnus in the confessional we got to be came to his mind
and see how he's feeling and David Harrell they're usually very entertaining.
Exactly I'm gonna subscribe quickly right now because I want to know what
Magnus what's going on in that mind his mood today after a tough tournament so
far yeah I can't wait to hear his thoughts. Well there's breaking news if
you're subscriber well good luck how you are in here great shape because you can
hear Magnus Carlson's confessional thoughts. We cannot get subscribed now because we're
I'm gonna go, I'm gonna short break and catch everything, then.
I'm finding this position very uncomfortable.
Like, we're 10 moves in, I think, about that.
And both players are castled and there's no imminent attack, there's no imminent crisis
in the center or anything like that.
It's just a kind of normal positional game.
It's just blowing my mind.
I haven't seen one of those all tournaments, essentially, I'm doing a lot to do.
Hey, Wesley.
Hey, how are you?
Good to see you.
Good to see you, and are nerves starting to play a role now towards the end?
Hopefully not, yeah, but yeah, of course it's never easy.
Well, but the thing is you shouldn't think about the results too much about the math, what could happen, and what not.
Other than that, it's fine, because if you start thinking about, oh, I want to win this, win the money, then, okay, the nerves add up for sure.
But if you just try to play a good game, then it's okay. I slept very well.
I don't know if that's easier when Mungus Carlson is the one on the other side today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Well, okay, he's won Norway chess seven times.
I don't think he's got anything to prove at all.
I mean, he's in his worst form in his life here, I guess,
but he could easily turn it around.
So I'm really excited to play him today.
I'm really excited to see what kind of Magnus we'll see today.
I have a lot of respect for him.
What kind of position do you hope to get him into today?
What kind of position?
Well, it depends on him.
Minto can play a game.
But obviously not to burn my bridges,
because for me, there was a goal completely fine,
obviously, with light.
But for him, there was no chance of winning.
Yeah, I just want to get a game where one mistake won't cost me the game.
Good luck.
Thank you.
Ana, it seems everyone's showing up at the same time today.
Do you get more comfortable with the tournament as time goes and you come a little later to the games?
I don't think we come later.
We come more or less at about the same time.
But I think today we had more people like fans for the autographs.
So that's why we came a bit later here.
How do you feel about your chest now after a rest day?
It was great to have a rest day yesterday, so yeah, we are like in our last phase of
the tournament, last two rounds, so let's see.
Good luck.
Thank you.
Pibisara, it seems now that you're in very, very, very good position, but how are the
nerves when you are sitting like this in the tournament?
Yeah, the position is good, I just want to play the last two games good and I hope everything will be good.
Are you happy with how everything is gone in this Norway chess?
Yeah, for sure.
Good luck today and we look forward to the game.
Thank you.
Vincent, how are you feeling after a rest day?
Rested. Now of course it's, I think it was quite well needed, but still last rounds will be tough and I'm looking forward to facing Andreas who I think we always will have some interesting games.
games. And you are turned on for the standings as a whole now you're playing against one of the
persons in front that you can do something with three points today in the standings. I mean of
course I'm white so I'm gonna try to get something going but I mean it's never easy but of course
I'm gonna try my best. Good luck. After a rough day in your last round Divya is it nice to have a
rest day to regroup or? Yeah definitely I spent the whole day just resting eating well and sleeping
It was nice.
How would you summarize the tournament so far though?
Are you still happy with how you've been playing in this Norwegian?
I think I've been playing very well.
It's just unfortunate what happened in the previous game.
I was winning the whole game, so I don't really mind so much.
I think I'm playing well.
What have you planned for today?
I will find out.
I look forward to seeing that.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Magnus, how is your mood today?
Did you manage to recharge your batteries?
Yeah, well, I'm kind of a little bit tired after the tournament, it's been long and also I've had a lot of long exhausting games and they haven't gone all that well, but at least I feel fairly rested after the rest day, not like energetic but somewhat rested and we'll see what can happen today.
And final question, Magnus, you won pretty much almost every major event recent years.
Of course, the expectation is super high for you.
What is the story of this tournament, if you could share it to the fans?
No, of course, I'm disappointed. I think a lot of people are.
And I think now that I play so few classical events, it kind of puts more pressure on
in everybody's mind and it makes it a little bit more dramatic that I'm not doing well,
but I mean the truth is that this is now the fourth NoHs tournament that I've had a really
bad result, so it's going to happen occasionally and I've also won a ton, but now I want to
tournament a few weeks ago and this tournament I'm doing badly and you know a lot of people
are gonna have the take away that I did really really poorly which is fair enough.
Still we should just strike back the last two rounds. Best of luck today.
Thank you all. Try my best.
We are back with round mine of nohs.
And it's a tense one because so much is on the line we have Magnus in the confessional
jokingly saying to him outside, he's uncomfortable because he's got a normal kind of position.
He's not used to that whatsoever.
He's not under attack just yet.
But actually, he may be feeling okay.
But he's sure using the clock.
And that's a tough sentence to board then.
I love how he's not even hinting at a repetition that we were earlier talking about by falling
back with the bishop and giving Wesley the opportunity to do a little yo-yo dance with
the knight and the bishop. Magnus and that confesher, I mean, I have to agree, completely
shocking, right? That we have this absolutely solid version of a night off, no opposite
side castling, no H and G pawn up the boards. I mean, my mind is blown right now. How did
this happen?
Who would have thought it was so plain solid? Magnus has definitely never seen that before.
And if he hasn't, then he should have been watching our broadcast because we've been
saying it since day one. But no, Magnus, I mean, the biggest surprise for me isn't the
confessional and the sarcasm and the way he's feeling. The biggest surprise is that he didn't
recruit his bishop, ask Wesley the question, and if Wesley repeats once, then, okay, maybe
play a different move. Firstly, because then it shows Wesley, okay, I'm playing for the
win, you're trying to repeat, I'm the alpha, all of that stuff. Secondly, Magnus' time
trouble has been a huge issue for him. Repeating the position once with the bishop dropping back
to d7, knight f3, etc. That we're getting closer to move forward where they do get that 10-second
increment so I don't see any reason not to have retreated his bishop. He's allowed knight takes
on e6 now, slightly damaging his pawn structure. Yes, he covers the d5 outpost but
yeah, I think in the practical terms, slight surprise for Magnus.
It's a slight surprise for Magnus, see, Wesley, see, see, laughing, but you know, this surprise
by Magnus and that Wesley's smile, it makes me feel and believe that Wesley is going to
go for it.
He's going to try to make the most of this move that almost feels like Magnus right now
literally doesn't care.
He just wants to fight no, no intention of even hinting at a repetition.
has a clear direct idea. Get that bishop out into diagonal, hit the pawn that has just
moved there. Get the queen out next, place it on h3, I'm eyeing a clear path, queen
f3, queen h3. If I'm not walking into any big direct night jumps, God, we may be slightly
careful there. But e6 is suddenly a glaring weakness in Magnus' camp. Knight c6 surprising
to me as well.
Yeah, most positions you're basically told you shouldn't do this, even if it improves
black's control of the center. If a bishop can hit this pawn and if you can't advance
quickly with d5 then other Sicilians you're told not to do this so Magnus is
kind of going against some general rules I guess he has to play Qd7
to friendly with a knight is also possible but looks a bit sad it's
fascinating I guess he's gonna try and go for a very quick d5 but if Wesley can
stop him then it's advantage white oh advantage white for Wesley if Magnus
does not strike out right now with this whole concept of going D5. Let's leave this one and
go back to our bird's eye view because there is action brewing on some of the other boards.
Let's just do a summary of what is going down and we're going to begin with Vincent Kheimer
against Ali Reza. And a fascinating one, that one that is our green board on the top left. We
can see center, there is tension there, another double the e-ponds in that one by Ferozha. But
It looks definitely a better decision than what Magnus has with the D3 pawn for Akayma
as well.
Weak.
I think this is going to be a double edged game, especially with F4 already on the board.
If you go to our top right, Gakesh versus Prakrananda, we are in for a fantastic fight
battle there.
It's going to be also about who remembers these opening lines and expecting a ton of
sacrifices.
But right now, speaking of sacrifices, David Howell, my eyes are at Norway chess women.
That bottom row, it's blown up, especially bottom left.
that right? Yeah, bottom right, the position between Humpey and Zhu Wenjun will jump in
there, Bibisara against Anamusi Chukun who we'll go to next just because that is huge
for the standings, first place against second place. But we see a Bishop sacrifice, we can't
resist a Bishop sacrifice, and Nor could Humpey apparently with this last check. Just before
we jump in, because right now she is down a Bishop just for a couple of pawns, we'll
do a very quick action replay. We saw, I mean, the Nimzo Indians, they've been the flavor
of the round so far. Because, yeah, we saw a3 played by Goukesh against Prague. Here
it was e3, a quieter system with a much more solid reputation, but only now a3. Only now
that she guarantees after this exchange that she will be able to part with her double pawns.
This is the big difference. Goukesh was stuck with them, but here there will be an exchange
so she won't end to find herself with long-term weaknesses, Humpy, but she has lost the tempo,
however, the white bishop coming out to d3 and later having to come out to c4.
So black ahead in development and we see some threats now on the c-file, something similar
to what we showed in the pride game. Queen to d3 looked like a newish or rare move from Humpy,
and normally the bishop retreats defending here. But after e5 striking out in the center,
a capture, the rook hit the queen and she was tired of retreating. I'm pretty sure this is
preparation, just judging by the clock time as well. Kumpy normally spends a lot more time before
committal decisions like this, but yeah, her queen is hit, but she is hitting the knight,
so she throws her bishop away. Bishop takes f7, check! Brilliant move! The queen cannot capture
the bishop because it has to defend the rook on d8, so the king takes it instead. We see a check,
And if the king moves, the knight drops. If the bishop had blocked, the white queen steps across, I guess, to pin the knight.
Win it next move. Nd5 played, and Humpy definitely a practical e4.
Played out immediately, about to win that knight. And I think Vangin shows the option to jump in to the centre of the board with her knight,
because now she's got the opportunity to grab that two-point deficit that was there on the board.
Take a look at this. Currently right now, it's 7 versus 5. Black can pick up that e5 pawn.
You give up that knight at the center of the board, maybe throw in a bishop to f4 as well
just to finish development.
Let's say the black queen falls back to stay connected to the knight.
I'm expecting the game to develop like this.
Take that knight, take that pawn, go into that end game.
Another big question, if this was to happen is, how much of an advantage is this for white
considering the complete lack of development on that black side on the left flank right
now?
Rook knight, bishop haven't made a single move but I will say this is closer to a draw
than any edge that I can imagine Humphrey trying to play for with the opposite colour complex as well
of the bishops. It certainly looks that way you know as well because black is very quick to develop
the queen side and white is going to take a few moves to untangle castles and then the root coming
to d1 I suspect the same but it was just a brief show of fireworks but we're seeing the highlight.
Yeah. Felt flashy, but in the end, once the dust does settle down, not going to be much
of a flash left in this position.
Yeah, the top players, they like to joke about modern chess. Everything is modern chess
nowadays, but often this is the way, theoretically, it's like you prepare a nice idea, you try
and scare the opponent, but if they react correctly with black, then they tend to equalize.
And I think just jumping in with the knight into the center was probably the accurate
moves that Zhiyun and Zhun had to find. And now, yeah, Quintic's poor and it looks quite
linear, like everything's so direct. White's moves are pretty much forced, so you'll have
to take back the knight and most likely, Quintic will come off. I'll be interested to see if
Humpe can surprise us further, or surprise Zhiyun and Zhun further, but if not, this should
be heading towards equality.
And as this heads to the words equality, I just want to bring our attention to our
marquee matchup, Yovanka, because in that one, definitely I believe that looking at the
a player has been surprised and
it's a tournament leader. Okay
let's head there to be the
star against Anna and if we can
do just a quick replay of what
went down. We see that black has
broken out with C five, but
white rook is suddenly sniffing
around on a seven. So a three
probably was the move played.
Yeah, a three came in shortly.
There's a nice outpost, can't be challenged by pawns on c4.
Bishop to a6, ridding the knight of that square, gaining time against the white rook.
But the bishop did just move to b7 recently, so a bit of a loss of time.
This must have been preparation from Anamuzzi Cuk.
Now a3, as you say, Yavanka, trying to open up the a-file, looking at the loose bishop.
The bishop moves.
I guess a4 is a gain of time, but the black bishop happily steps back and white's got a4 for free,
but doesn't really help much. Instead, she prioritized the development of her Rook,
Bibisara, hitting the A7 pawn, and after a capture, Rook takes A7, C5.
Black is a pawn down. We've seen a few pawns actually already this round.
And yeah, one from Goukesh as well. This one, my first impression, doesn't make it kind of...
Well, it's a bit surprising, but I guess the bishops do kind of stifle the white army for now.
And we've been talking about how if the bizarre takes this to Armageddon with a draw this becomes a race for second place
No, which has women it's title in the bag if you have a visara
Are you thinking about forcing the matters here? Rook B7 hit that Bishop if Bishop goes back to a6 if you trade
I'm super happy if the Bishop goes back to a6. Let's bring that Rook back and
Bishop doing yo-yo and I say that but I do spot a queen to be six to just avoid all those
repetitions. I don't know why the bar says this is level David. How it helped me out here.
Look is trapped. So it has to be a sacrifice. I don't think it will not
that sacrifice unless mouse slip. I was going to say I don't think it's for the
bishop. It's probably for the knight and the black king has to step out and now
I don't know. Is there a knight c4? Or do you want to take on c5 first? Oh directly nice.
Nice. Nice, Sri Lanka.
Hit on the Queen.
And yeah, just for everyone at home,
that's not a free night this time.
She sacrificed the night to win the Queen.
And it's a discovered check.
That is beautiful.
It's a nice C4.
Black Queen has to go somewhere else.
And, oh, not there apparently.
This is terrifying suddenly.
It's scary.
And a big attack tonight, leaping into G6.
White is winning.
So not easy, I'm going to say,
but if Bibbasara wants to look for repetition
and provoke Anna into taking risk.
We could see that variation play out.
If she spots the idea of knight c4
and giving up the rook for the knight,
I would say that Bebesara goes for this.
The draw works with perfection.
If Anna Muzic wants to continue to try to play for a win,
and Bebesara sees that attacking line
that we were just talking about,
I say we see this on the board.
Well, there's also the question as well,
how to untangle the pieces,
because you can't touch the knight.
the bishop is jammed in by its own piece.
And the question really is for White,
like how are you going to get developed?
Until you do that, one feels a little bit stressed.
Yeah, I guess there are tempting Queen moves,
but as you say, like process of elimination,
definitely not moving this bishop knight on rook.
Don't think you're moving the bishop from e4,
like where would it go?
And I could see her getting tempted to like
bring the Queen out here to pawn, for example.
Can we put that on the board?
Because that is a very bb-sara type move,
Queen to, oh okay and that's not light at all because castles and then you've got F5 and Nf6.
Nf6. Yes. Just a one move. Pats the seas of the threat. Pats a mix of threat. Sorry everyone.
Gg4. I take it back. Nice suggestion. Not great there. It's actually maybe, yeah,
Ruby7 does make a lot of sense. I would say maybe B3 to try and get this Bishop out as well by B2.
could be on the radar, although, hmm, this is a little bit clumsy.
What about Queen B3? And the whole idea is Rikki won, and then Knight moves somewhere.
Okay, well, obviously, that's not great either. So still, questions?
Not bad, though. Makes sense.
Makes a lot of sense. But this is such a direct player, and I love that line that we just saw.
and I feel that you know with every time we see Bevisar on the board there's been a sacrifice
there's been an attack on the king and she somehow has this ability to find these ideas
of playing for the initiative even if it comes at the cost of big material.
We've seen her sacrifice so many times at Norwich S and it will be impressive to see that line
happen on the board. I think Bevisar Rook b7 it has to be on her radar whether she spots a Rook
takes night later on in that line and the night C4 jump is the big question but
you're always looking for direct lines especially with the championship on the
line would love to see rugby seven happen and the ball being passed to Anna.
Well, Vivisara is thinking for a while let's head to Vincent against Ali
Reza because it's also a massive game for the standings. If Ali Reza wins that
will net him three points and could potentially put him in the lead.
Yeah, Vincent would have a chance going to the last round if results go his way elsewhere
With a win here in the classical and
Vincent he yeah, he started playing e4 a bit more than usual. This wasn't an open Sicilian. This was a bishop b5 checks Sicilian
Maybe we just go back a few moves because not too much was happening until just three moves ago four moves ago
Looks very solid white has this nice kind of botvinic structure that you'd normally see from the English opening
but yeah it stops black from breaking out and after the move Rook A to E1, I
glanced over I thought this was very slow lots of maneuvering but Rook A to E1
from Vincent he played it instantly didn't pause even slightly and that said
to me that suddenly he's about to move his knight out the way he's gonna play
F4 he's gonna pawn storm the king side and it's actually hard for black to find
counter play on the other flank so I loved Vincent's preparation here even
engines aren't so impressed from a human point of view very logical plan for
white night move f4 f5 etc. Ferozha played night e5 kind of accelerating
blacks accelerating white plans here after an exchange Vincent could try and
play against the pawns but black does have an open defile to stare down at a
backward pawn so Vincent says okay I have to be speedy f4 not taken because
the bishop would gain some time against the backwind Rook ad8 and f5 and
Visually, I'm really like White's chances.
d3 can be protected.
It is sad, but by a bishop, at the very least, or maybe by the rook on f3,
if Alireza isn't fast here, then he's just going to get steam-rolled by pawns.
And I saw that featured chat there by Castinchas24, where he mentioned that the bishop on a4 are uncommon,
and it kind of sits with the idea that you're planning out here, right?
David, you want to reroute it.
YSE to keep the d3 pawn defended.
I think everything that Alireza has played so far has been directed towards that d3 pawn,
taking this doubled central line e pawns, saying that my rook is already ready to get
down on it. Queen d6 ideas coming in next. And this is very different from the double
structure that we're seeing on another board. We will go to that shortly. But here, if you
do trade on e6, you also get an open f-line. I think this is a very double edged game.
And David, maybe we can just show this idea that I'm talking about. If you go queen to
d6, for example, you want to step back or do you want to take an e6 first?
I don't like breaking the tension.
I don't think black is ever so keen to take an f5, maybe it's possible because now white's
knight gets access to a nice outpost.
And I'm just wondering with black and only as I start rerouting his own bishop after
taking on f5 and just say make a case of maybe going bishop to c8, hit that rook and again
trying to get b5, break in and make a case for this d3 pawn being a direct target in
this position.
I want to read out my knight via e8, c7, e6 towards the center of the board.
This is very strategically rich. I think Alaraison won't be so happy here because it just looks like White's very quick with some kind of attack.
But yeah, in general, it might be no easy choices anyway. So this could very likely happen. I like Qd6, just tying White down as a starting point.
And he does play that move. Good course, Anja.
just to finish that point I think if you go bishop to c2 I really like the plan
of transferring the knight to the center of the board and there's a route via
e8 but there's also a d7 b8 c6 we've seen these night maneuvers so many times
and maybe Ali Reza has got this one in mind because once that knight gets to
the d4 square it's gonna be a super happy camper there it's gonna be extremely
happy that I completely agree with you there Tanya and you can leave that
tension on the board between the pawns because after f takes e6 there's a
question actually which way black should recapture you could capture with the
pawn for instance and say hang on a second definitely the bond yeah I'm
also angling at the pawn as well because you just want to keep that really
important d5 square under control and here it feels like white's attacks has
been stopped. But then this begs the question. Vincent is going to probably go gung-ho on
the king side and then back it up with g4, g5. And how scary is this?
I'd be slightly scared. Black's knight takes four moves to get around to d4. By that time
White's queen will have moved out the way. White's bishop can just sit. It's a bit sad,
but sit somewhere, d1, b1. And in that time, White's got a pawn on g5. I mean, some moves
For example, maybe there's more accurate move orders because I didn't really like the black bishop come to H4
But for example, but something like this and a cave did bar shows that black is better in this exact position
But it is scary to allow ideas like f6
I mean good luck evaluating this from the starting position that blacks doing fine when you've got the queen lined up and f6 about to appear
But Winston like you said sorry all your is I even like you said has ideas of bishop H4
Even maybe slowing down that one avalanche with a small 8 6 at some point. Yeah
It's going to be a race that feels like strategic versus dynamism.
I get the feeling that Alireza wants to have fun in the classical.
He doesn't want this to go down to an Armageddon, even if Armageddon has been Vincent Caima's
biggest weakness in Norway.
Yeah, I think at this point like nobody minds Armageddon against Vincent, poor guy.
He's actually lost to every single player in Armageddon at this point.
He's been struggling.
Alereza probably it is Wesley in his sights he's kind of fixed his mind on
getting first place that will be a huge tournament result his biggest win in
ages in terms of tournaments for Alereza if he can somehow get the magic
working in the last two rounds. Yeah let's not forget that for most of the event
it was Alereza who's been dictating the pace he was the leader until the halfway
mark going into round five and then he had these two back-to-back losses
against Magnus and then against Prague. And what does he do? He comes out with a
boss response taking down Gokesh right after that. He knows he's pretty much
still in the chase. One point behind Wesley. The big question is what comes
next for Alireza? I have a feeling he's played too much good chess here to just
disappear with an injured ankle. It might come down to a decisive
matchup tomorrow between these two. I mean that's going to be a big, big story
line if Alireza is able to get the win here. Absolutely and take a look. There's
There's been some improvement in the chest. There's also been improvement in Alireza's
ankle as well as the foot is down. And what comes next is especially pertinent in this
particular position where the players are not just considering the immediate moves,
but also looking beyond that horizon to see what the best long term plan is. Super fascinating
game here. Let's go back to the bird's eye view because I'd like to again see how things
are developing in the other games.
And we'll check out the other games.
Just to mention, although his foot might have got better,
Alariza has lost his coach.
Ivan Shaparinov has gone to play a tournament.
So change up in dynamics there.
And top players nowadays, they're just busy.
I could have been top secret.
It wasn't top secret.
I know it was announced.
I would never have revealed it otherwise.
I almost got a bit worried there because David,
like before the rest day on the night of the rest day,
Ivan was chilling.
He was out.
I was like, what happened? How did that end?
Now we know he was just getting ready for his own chess.
Exactly. And OK, action on the boards.
Where do we think it's going to get heated fastest?
Well, to my eyes, with the white form stepping up to E5,
it has to be top right.
That is so sharp right now.
It feels like both players have to navigate this next stage.
OK.
Well, we're high on a second.
We've got breaking news.
We have a confession from Prague as well.
So let's actually hear that and then explore the position.
Another day and another opening which my second told me
will come, and I didn't check it properly.
I did open this file yesterday, and then I quickly went
through, but I don't remember anything right now.
I feel like this is the game between Norbert Beck and Wei from one of the Wiccansies but
I can't fully recollect and there are like a lot of different interesting options and
I hope he's out of book, he's thinking so if he's out of book then that's a good thing.
Yeah, position is complicated so we'll see.
Well, Prahaik, actually being very relatable, saying his coach told him, hey, check out
this line, it's super sharp and Prahaik goes, yes, yes, yes, I checked it and of course,
you can't remember how many times has that happened to you, Tania David.
I mean way too many to count, but I was also just thinking about Yavanka, while that is
every chess player's struggle, it always blows my mind the kind of memory that these guys
show at top level chess.
Pragrananda completely on point with his recollection that Wei Yi played this in Tata
Steel.
It happened in 2025, I've got the game in front of me right now, 98 was the move of
choice by Wei Yi, an absolutely wild game against Nauderbeck, played that one was and
and in the end ended in a draw but it was anything but peaceful in its narrative.
We saw Black Strike in the center with D5s and on croissants and on croissants did happen
in that game as well.
This was wild but Yavanka Wild Prague doesn't remember or has forgotten to check certain
things.
I have to say memory ace game there.
How do you guys do this David Howell?
How are you able to remember games of other players played like years ago?
How does this happen?
How does it work?
watch. I spent every waking hour watching chess, so yeah.
Hang on a second. It was Tata Steel 2025, so chances are one of us three has commented.
One of us definitely was. Not sure who. I think it might have been me.
It's amazing, right? They were this super big brain that the players have when they
recollect other players' games and say, oh, this happened in this tournament.
exactly. It's very impressive. The key question will be like how much he remembers because in that game
where he made a big mistake, just two moves down the line and after night F2, D5, en passant,
he played the move night at six, which is apparently not the best. So sometimes you need to remember
enough, but you don't want to remember too much because then you spend all your time trying to
recreate rather than trying to understand. And to answer your earlier question, Yvanka, like it's
It's never happened to me because nobody's ever sent me a file.
Pretty much in my career, never had a second, never had a coach.
So I had to work about myself.
So I think it, for me, it became easier because I was always
analyzing myself to recall things because there was always a reason
link to a move.
It's like when these great, you know, these mentalists, when they
remember stuff, packs of cards, decks of cards, they're like, they
associate a story to everything.
And that's how I manage.
But nowadays, what impresses me about the young guys is they
literally just click a button.
they're passively learning but they still still goes in. Should I tell you my most embarrassing
lapse? Storytime with Yogi. Wow. Well it was during commentary in Gibraltar and I'm looking at this
position that Jan Christof Duda is playing and it is looking very familiar. I'm like hmm and Simon
next to me is saying oh this is like super dangerous for black and I'm like thinking yeah super dangerous
for black. Yeah, scary. I wouldn't want to play this as black. And then, but this position just
kept bugging me. And Jan Krushtov Duda shows that the position isn't as dangerous and to be kind of
move on from that game. And then still haunting me like I have seen this position before. I have
been here. I understand it. So I got back, checked my files. It's literally what I recommended in my
my Kara Kahn book. It's literally the novelty that I spent one week analysing and working
out that it was fine. I just did not remember it there and then. And I could have just flexed
to everyone and said yes. But my brain just completely went no, you've never seen this
before. It's very scary to play like this as black. Who would do that? I was like, oh
Oh my God, that's embarrassing.
So there you go.
It's not story time, but it's like nightmare with your VK.
Fully relatable, by the way.
That one reminds me of one of the Olympiads
we were playing in and having the preparation happen
right before the game, having team coaches with us.
And you see it and then my coach told me,
and I think we had a really big round.
This was in 22 Olympiads in Chennai.
We had a really big match that day.
And I was like, OK, we've seen enough chess now.
I'm going to go get ready.
I have to have lunch.
and he said, okay, fine, but I'm sending you two lines,
make sure you check both of them before you go for the game.
And I wasn't really expecting any of that to happen.
I said, you know, we've already put into hours of prep,
obviously something from this will happen, never that.
And I said, of course I will go check it.
I just hope you're not watching this one, Abhijit.
And then I go back.
And then I go back to my room.
I go through one of them in my defense.
And of course, you know, which one plays out at the end.
It's the one, the one line that I don't check
and the one that I think will never happen.
and yeah, I'm cursing myself over the board.
Luckily, I was able to figure my way out
and survive that game, but I think I spent about 15 minutes
just being really mad at myself for missing that.
Because then you have all these questions on the board
that you need to work out yourself,
and that's never a good feeling with the clock ticking down.
Yeah.
That's like Murphy's Law,
where like everything that can go wrong will go wrong,
but it's Kaisa's Law, the goddess of chess.
It's like, if you've studied 100 things,
it's always that one last thing that was on your to-do list
that you didn't get time for, that will happen in the next game.
Do you often find that when you're analysing on a laptop and you're just flicking through,
you come up with moves, and then when you get to the board, another move completely dawns on you
and they play that move and you're like, well, why do they?
Exactly, it literally is the most human move. Why have you not looked at it?
And I know this is off-topic and maybe not the most, it might get the chat going a little
while, but I think that is what actually surprised me from the very infamous game of
Sinkfield Cup between Magnus and Hans as well, where I think later on just realizing how
important it is to check the opening right before, and how do you come up with the point
that you're going to see that exact line minutes before the game, I mean, that's super good
luck.
Yeah, the fact that it had nearly never been played, Magnus had never played it before,
It's incredible luck to have checked that just before the game.
Why can't we have that kind of luck David Howland?
It's never happened to me that kind of luck.
Some players, I guess they manifest their own luck.
Talking about manifesting their own luck,
someone has unfair advantage because they have a time travel machine at their hand
and they've been winning the prediction game.
Left, right and centre.
We still have to play it.
This is only depressing at this point with the score line that we're at, Jovey.
But if we collaborate with the chair, we might have a chance.
Although I do feel like I'm a free loader because I literally have no points.
You'd love a collaboration right now.
Yes, I would.
Alright, who gets the first pick?
Oh, did David.
If we're taking the rest.
I want to know your guesses as well, both of you.
Just needs more time to work it out.
Jovey, why don't you go first?
Okay, well, I'm gonna break it down one by one.
Everything Vincent, Ali Reza,
there's gonna be a decisive result there.
Also, Wesley, Magnus, Magnus wants something.
Yeah, I think there's gonna be decisive.
No, no, hang on a second, that might be a draw.
Goukes, Frag, that's gonna be decisive.
I mean, that's not gonna fizzle out to a draw.
Divya, Zhu, I suspect, we're in so I got three.
three and the other two is going to be the rules.
So three decisive results.
That's actually a very, very logical pick.
I'm going to go with looking at the positions
that we have right now.
I see bottom, right, already Queens off the board,
the opposite color Bishop.
You know what?
I'm going to go with two decisive games
for Armageddon's in this one.
So my pick is two, David Howell.
Oh no.
I was going to shoot a gun first.
I was going to say three
and then after Yavanka took hers,
I was like, okay, then it's two.
So I'm gonna go.
Oh, dear.
But we've cornered him every single time.
We've forced him into four and one,
and it hasn't never, ever worked.
I mean, deep down, I'm looking at the women's boards.
I'm thinking there were probably gonna be draws.
I'm looking at the top, and I'm thinking one,
two maybe, decisive results.
I think we've cashed pride, definitely decisive.
One of the two.
Do I go one?
But then I'm banking on nothing else,
crazy happening elsewhere. What do I go for? They call me strange. Dr. Strange. Four decisive
results this round. Let's go.
If you get this one with the kind of positions that we have right now, four decisive, I would
love to see that happen. But if it was, I would be convinced what our future chat says
that he definitely time travels.
Yeah, literally.
I reckon he's got the almanac from the future.
No comment. No comment.
We'll find out.
we will find out. Well, talking about the size of results, one game that I feel like it is
razor razor sharp. Prague has been at it and told us that he didn't quite know the theory.
Let's actually deep dive and break it down. What is happening because E5 has been played.
And yeah, just to very quick, because it is interesting, a very quick action replay of the
the last few moves. We did kind of leave it here and we were saying Black has a
couple of threats, knight h3 we did see but we didn't dive too deeply in because
after an exchange of pawns, Prague after six minutes did play rook c8. Maybe this
is theory avoidance and the pattern recognition because he knew that way he
had played this, got away with it. In that game we talked about from 18 months ago
at Vaikanzé but there was the opportunity to go in knight to b3 attacking
Rook attacking this pawn and Yavankov mentioned to me during the break that
e5 here had always been played by White but White has never won a game after
e5 so I mean this is a fascinating sacrifice to my eyes I guess Knight takes
a 1 here and the whole idea is that after one Knight drops the other Knight
gets trapped and you know Yvob are still seeing level which is very hard to
understand it's going to be two pieces for White versus a Rook and maybe a
couple of pawns after Rook c8 this one dropping so Pragg turned down this
sharp option. He also turned down the sharp option Tanya mentioned of Bishop takes Bishop
and then Queen c7 hitting the bishop and if it retreats this would have been a deadly
double attack. So these were options although I think strong stockfish engines are required
to understand anything of those lines. Rook c8 instead much more human move. E5 blue arrow
says the best, understandable. The knight has no safe squares other than back home. Knight
H5 would get trapped, and QH4 I guess White's knight can just retreat to defend everything,
although apparently this continues.
Ng8 far more logical anyway.
And here we are.
What do we think is going through Goukesha's mind right now?
He chose the line, he isn't aware of a top-level game like NdBabdu-Sattorov against Wei Yi,
and he's burned 40 minutes off his clock despite him being the one who's pushed the
game in this direction.
a bit strange. Yeah and it's the kind of position that you really want to be well
prepared in right if you're white because just of the nature of the position
you can't defend that C4 pawn. That pawn's a goner no matter what you play.
So if you're Gukesh you know you have to be very direct you can't have a slow
approach in this game and I think David you made a really great point earlier
that strategically this is close to a lost position for white. You have to play
against Prug's lack of development, lack of coordination, time is of the essence
If you're Goukeshe right now, you're looking at attacking ideas,
Knight G5, Bishop G5 hitting the Queen.
I'm liking Knight G5 hitting the 8-7 pawn, but more importantly,
Knight E4, Knight D6, D6.
I see a beautiful post.
I see the lack of a dark-squared Bishop.
I want my knight on that spot.
And I believe those are the kind of ideas that Goukeshe is thinking about,
because going short castles, slowly getting your Bishop out,
centralising your rook would just not make the cutting such a position.
Yeah. I was white, not winning more.
Look at that centre, says Spenny Thompson.
shout out to Spenny, I'm a big fan, but yeah it is a fascinating position, I guess it is
just because black is quick enough to win this pawn and live to tell the tale.
Big question, 9g5 is definitely the move he wants to play, but concretely I see
the black knight jumping in, hitting this rook, hitting this bishop, the bishop is
removed, like the white can't react now, because the bishop dropping would mean
that the knight is no longer defended, but apparently this is possible, knight g5,
black knight jumping in and I guess white just didn't was it and I think you
would want to follow it up with 94 you know another line you mentioned David
that after knight takes rook and we'll see whether the other bar reacts but I
just want to say knight takes rook that knight is a long-term goner you're gonna
trap it so maybe white does have the time to jump in with his own knight give
a check black king you know not feeling super happy about the options king e7
you have to always calculate checks and g5 so let's say you go to f8 and if
nothing else at least I can take the rook and see it land my queen on b2 and
and restore some resemblance of a medial balance here.
Oh, well, that doesn't work.
Yeah, but you can definitely refine that idea.
I think it's working to perfection.
With a knight on d6, I would just say queen to b2.
Just pick that knight up and then just focus on development.
Because then, as Spani says there in our chat,
White has such a massive center and a massive knight.
It looks great, doesn't it?
The defense c4, none of that bishop takes pawn.
I love it and queen b4 coming up at the right moment as well
And I was going to say queen b4
I just wanted to point out once the queen is taken the night or whoever's taken the night
You can land queen b4 queen a4 and the bishop on a6 doesn't have too many squares
Nice all the black pieces are suffering here really instructive actually that the knight is so powerful
It's an octo knight like an octopus here. It's much better than the rook. So no point even taking a rook
Full exchange down once this knight disappears
that's why Goukeshe is spending
so long here now. 15 minutes on
one move. Just to mention the
game we were talking about
not about Abou Sattorov went the
other direction. I think he must
have been caught unawares as
well. I'm trying to remember if
I was commentating on that game.
If I was, then I think I was
surprised that white was taking
so long on the clock, but
another path forward. The
downside here is that black
this position. Way, actually, sorry, after knight to f2, d5. Way, he went a different
way after on-person. He didn't take the pawn back. Apparently, it was best to play bishop
to c4 here with complications, but knight to f6 gave white the advantage if he had found
the move c5. And, wow, this is, I mean, some incredible stuff. Just a queen check here and
white with a beautiful pawn chain.
And because we're having so much fun, I just want to finish this line by highlighting the
difference of getting that knight and f2 and knight and d5 in a similar knight and g5 with a similar
line David and the big problem for black is that after knight g5 if you go the way he direction
with d5 as Nd5 a game did proceed here now white has the option of just going on Peissant take that
and you take that back or develop your knight white has got d5 and suddenly there's so much
pressure on the h7 pawn but also the central e6 pawn because of the placement of the knight
this is so sharp like I don't blame Gukesh at all for thinking now like I would also be thinking
But the fact that he chose the opening that's the big thing that surprises me and it happened again against for Russia
Like he knew up to a point, but didn't know deeper it in my mind
Like I'm trying to understand that like to me from the outside point of view
It seems like good question thing given notes
He's playing through on a computer, but he's not asking himself like what's a human point of view was the most natural move for my opponent
How deep should I go? It feels like he's just clicking through and he's like, okay, I'll play it and
These are the kind of openings you're we where you really need to go into the depth of the position, right?
It's not about checking a lot of lines but checking this particular position deeply right now
But then I think about all the times that the players speak about preparation before a game
They often talk about it how it's like an iceberg, right? You see so many openings
They're preparing so much there was a rest there yesterday Gukesh
No doubt looked at all the options that truck could respond with and what happens on the board is just a tip of an iceberg
It's incredibly so small part of your preparation
How are you supposed to guess that exactly this variation will happen?
So, for Gakesh, I think the amount of time has taken to David's point and to what we're talking about.
He's on his own now.
He shouldn't be. You should know more.
Like, if there's been a 2750 level player playing this with White, you should know that game.
Let's be honest.
I think he's trying to hide his prep.
I'm going to defend him by saying, I think he's trying to hide his World Championship prep.
And maybe Cinder of now will have to burn several weeks preparing for this whole A3, F3, Samish against the Nims and Indian.
That's my theory.
But, yeah, it does happen a lot as well.
We all remember Hikaru Nakamura's 67-minute think against Zindarov when he forgot his prep.
His, well, his second hadn't put it in the files, but he hadn't questioned it.
And instead of playing the most natural move, he kind of self-destructive very quickly.
So I think that's modern chess, but that's the pitfall of it.
Like, preparation is so easy, but it's easy to be superficial.
Yes, it is easy to be superficial, but there are mind games at play.
As we see the world champion deep in thought whether he should continue with a night jumping to G5
as we are expecting a bishop can also land there. So many aggressive tries and we are going to go
on a break but don't go anywhere because we have got more action coming up and if you are subscribed
on Twitch you can catch a confessional by Magnet. He's been back in the booth again so if you're
subscribe, go enjoy that if you're not yet subscribing right now and we'll be back in a few minutes.
So right after I was in here last time and talking about how the position was like positional,
normal and so on, I made a pretty committal decision and it was based on like, come on,
by Kb. And my update so far is that I don't really see it like it seems like I have a
reasonable game. And it seems to me that long term my prospects are pretty okay. I would
love to probably reroute my bishop like bishop d8 to a5 or even c7, bring my rooks into
the center. And the thing about the double pawns is that, well, I've given up a bit
of a knight, but I've also plugged the hole on d5 and without that square, his knight
on c3 has very few prospects and once it leaves the square on c3, then he has to reckon with
d5 all the time. So I think the long term or at least middle term prospects are pretty
reasonable for me and I'm guessing he's looking at kind of more direct attempts to
go at four for instance now but it doesn't seem that bad so. And we interrupt
the confessional to bring you breaking news. Repetition has occurred between
Bibi Saara Assalbe Ava against Anna Muzichuk and that gives her the much
required point that she needs in order to clinch Norway chess women 2020
One round to spare. What a performance this has been by Vivisara as the orbit just goes to decide.
And it will be given the claim for a 3-4 repetition.
And David, you'll break this down to us, but it's a big moment for Vivisara, making her debut at Norway chess.
She's the player with maximum wins in the classical, took the early lead with a round one win,
went on to keep it for the majority of the tournament and just when things needed to be kept under control against Anna Mousichuk,
to find the forcing win.
Vivisara Althubadeva will be the winner
of NoWitchSWomen 2026.
Exactly, confirmation, we're just awaiting it now,
but the arbiter has double checked things,
and we'll see a smile break out any second.
The last moments of tension,
they will play in Armageddon a bit later,
but at least she'll be able to do that, Vivisara,
with all tension off her, all pressure will be gone.
To clinch it, it's so impressive.
round to spare, will we see a handshake?
There we go, the moment has arose,
Bibisara Asalbeva, the winner of the Noeches Women.
She takes it to Armageddon, she takes the championship,
Anna Mozicic ready to do what she's been doing all along.
Eight draws, make that a ninth to Armageddon for Anna,
and now, Noeches Women, a race for second place.
Race for second place, massive congratulations
to Bibisara Asalbeva, who has won Noeches Women
with a round to spare.
What a performance.
Caculating so well.
And at times she was pushed to the brink.
I'm thinking in her game against Divya Deshmukh,
she really, really had to play super well
in order to survive that.
She did, she turned it around.
And thanks to those invaluable three points
that you get when you win in a classical game,
she is a champion.
What a game.
David, can you break down those last few moments?
Yeah, let's do it because we left it
not too long before the game ended, we left it after c5, we were speculating here that
maybe she might be tempted to go for this rook move already, although this would have
required quite a lot of guts considering that the draw was enough for her.
Rb7, the attempt is to repeat moves here, but she would have had to see that in this position
the black queen can come out trapping the rook and she would have been forced to sacrifice.
Rook takes knight, luring the king out, and now the brilliant move that's hard to spot,
easy to miss from afar. Knight c4 hitting the queen, setting up a discovered attack.
Bishop takes knight with lose on the spot due to the double hit on the king and queen here.
But this is actually hard to evaluate after the move, queen to b5, queen to d8,
the game goes on and she's material down.
She didn't want to risk this, so she found a nice way to finesse it.
She just waited. She played the waiting game.
Amazing patience here from Bibbitarre just dropping her bishop back.
Maybe she's going to challenge this bishop with her.
White's got bishop who knows but after castle something has changed and that is after Rb7 hitting the bishop.
R a7 there's no Qb6 at all anymore because the knight on d7 no longer defended by the king.
This meant that Anna decided to repeat maybe the only way to play on would have been
a move like knight back to b8 defending the bishop but Anna was never really going to do that.
Black is a pawn down after all.
Yeah fantastic way to finish things off for Bebesara. She did not need the drama today.
she kept it clean. She's given us so much entertainment in classical, in those Armageddon's,
but today a very clinical performance does what was needed.
Does what was needed? Wow, what a performance there from Bibi Saira Asabeyva, No Way Women
Champion for 2026. 16 and a half points, that's what's guaranteed to her. No one can
catch her up at all. No one is in the striking distance and she wins the championship 2026.
Well, we are gonna go back to normal service. We were on a break and we will be bringing you
back all of those confessions that we promised. So remember, subscribe. See you in a few minutes.
So, right after I was in here last time, I'm talking about how the position was like positional,
normal, and so on. I made a pretty committal decision. And it was based on like, come on,
how bad can you be? And my update so far is that I don't really see it like it seems like
I have a reasonable game and it seems to me that long-term my prospects are pretty okay.
I would love to probably re-wrap my bishop like bishop d8 to a5 or even c7 and bring
my rooks into the center and the thing about the double pawns is that well I've given
a bit of a night but I also plugged the hole on d5 and without that square
his knight on c3 has very few prospects and once it leaves the square on c3
then he has to reckon with with d5 all all the time so I think the long term or
at least middle term prospects are pretty reasonable for me and I'm guessing
I think he's looking at kind of more direct attempts to go at four for instance now, but
it doesn't seem that bad.
So, I'm, I feel like I'm doing alright.
We are back and if you are one of our lucky subscribers, well then you got to hear Magma
saying he's feeling relatively comfortable with his position.
is after all not in any immediate danger especially as he's playing Wesley so now one of the great
things about Norway chess is that you're always guaranteed to have a lot of fighting chess but
here in our studio we are guaranteed fun we're always having a laugh you know whether we're teasing
each other losing the prediction games pan-n-m-y about that one though that it's only fun when you
win the only guy who's been winning is this one on my left you don't need to
rub it in David you really don't the other thing he can't stop rubbing it in
and I'm like on a wig before broadcast after broadcast leave me alone I'm just
chilling eating muffins there's nothing wrong with that I'm fighting over
muffins I mean guys what was that at the beginning I mean if only everyone could
see what's going on here they're all gone now the muffins it's just it's just
Empty wrappers.
Well, you know, Norway Chess is one of the most exciting events to follow. For us, it's just great entertainment.
We love watching the Chess. We also enjoy having as much fun as possible.
So, Bik, our wonderful producer, has produced some of our highlights. Have a look.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Norway Chess. My name is Walter Bik. I'm the producer here for Norway Chess.
And I'm here with my good friend David how David we've been having some fun on the countdown clock
We've been putting your name a little bit sadly with David howl, but it's just a bit right big man. It's it's gone too far
I've got to say it's
It's been a bit hurtful like even my mom's called me up in tears just upset about the words you've been writing about me
Like it's got to stop
Are you serious?
I'm serious. I can't do it anymore
Welcome to NoWitches.
I saw that there are some people who are sleeping in the first room, but honestly I don't blame them.
I think that's what I would have done too.
Yeah, I think like a cow, that's a shame of its body.
Our thing is... okay.
Right, you take over the broadcast. I'm done, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.
Well, of course, we know the best thing are muffins.
But the second best thing right now, I do, I do agree with you, David, that it does look like you, what?
It's as delicious as that wrap, Tanya.
Okay, it might have to be story time with Dave in a second.
A really nice swimming pool, hot tub, I was with Mightness.
I was talking to somebody recently. I hope there's not been some.
Somebody?
I love the fact that I am just in general so unmemorable that he couldn't have remembered who it was.
Oh yeah. I discussed this line with my great friend David Howell. Great guy. Love his commentary.
That's exactly his wording and those were the exact outfits we were definitely wearing in the
Oh, I love it. Chilax to the max.
I think we've had ding chilling. I think it's Oliver's are chilling now.
some great moments there love it and I'm sorry David for teasing you so much
about the the muffin. I mean literally my mom calls me the muffin man now but it's fine I'll live
I guess. It wasn't me but I did jump in I couldn't resist. So you know why no one else has been
getting those muffins at the Björvika library now and I'm not done taking David's case on that
that's been a go on for a while especially with the performance that he's been having but I have
to say guys I mean we've had such incredible chest at Norway chest here so much drama on the board
the high tension Armageddon's, but we had a blast on this desk. This has been a lot of fun.
Gutted it's nearly over. It's the highlight of every year for me and it's a bonus. It's now in
Oslo. You're welcome, David. It's all us. It's definitely all you guys. The players have a little bit
to do with it. Vic too. But yeah, it's been fun. It has been a whole lot of fun. I was just being,
I still am, being attacked by flies, but I just don't know if it has been so entertaining.
With these guys, it's not work, this is just watching chess with two of the finest commentators
on the planet.
I thought you were going to say, do the finest friends, I'm hurt now, Yobi.
Oh my god, that was a total event, Tanya.
Take it, Tanya, take it.
But yay, you guys, someone besties.
Oh.
I know you guys for ages.
Who love you too.
I don't have a positive score against you, and I don't have a positive score against you either, so, yeah, I still have to give you.
Still good. We're friends. And, well, we might be amongst friends, but the players certainly aren't as we see the play start to get quite sharp.
I say quite sharp because I see f7 f5 has made an appearance in the game between good cash and
Pragnan under and you mentioned Tanya that Divya has sacrificed an exchange against a huge in there
That's on the bottom right. Whereas it's still in game mode between Humpy and G when June
So maybe because Magnus did his confessional
We dive into the top middle and see whether Magnus really should be feeling as comfortable as he says he is
or whether he should be a little bit concerned.
Yeah, that's the big question, because we heard him kind of debate his own earlier theory that Black's probably not doing too badly.
It does look strange what Magnus has done.
And just for those of you just joining us, or for those of you who only heard his confessional and nothing else,
we kind of taught a lot about this position where the white knight coming forward to g5 meant that Black was likely to react with his bishop.
Magnus surprised all of us, I think Wesley as well, by not touching this bishop, he could have retreated it to d7, brought it forward to c4, kept the bishop pair, but nope, Nc6, allowing an exchange, and he was saying in that confessional that at least his pawns cover some nice squares, d5 now never a weakness, but bishop c4.
The weakness has shifted, it's Magnus's pawns that he has, he has to care for here, Qd7,
f4 from Wesley, before black is able to set up any d5 pawn breaks.
And yeah, opening of the position for bishops is always a good idea, root to e8 now, indirectly
defending the e6 pawn, and we see some manoeuvring, but Magnus's last moves, Qc8, Qh8, they're
all defensive pawns.
I wonder what's coming next, I think Wesley is going to at some point just try to hide
this bishop either by stepping back to G3 or maybe give the king some breathing space
bishop H2, at some point move his queen out somewhere, get this rook into the game. Long
way ahead of course but I really like white's position, where's these chances?
Make that plus one from my side because you see the bishop pair, you see direct targets
at the center of the board always eyeing those two pawns, E6 and D6, you know you've got
a clear plan, get your queen out of the way, put the rooks at the center of the board,
D6 will be doubled, tripled down on in those positions.
Magnus might be feeling comfortable and that he can hold it, but I don't see a way for him to actually try to create winning chances in such a position.
You know, with black in these Sicilians, you either need to break through with D5 or B5.
And both these options feel like a faraway possibility, though as soon as I say it, I do spot that E4 pawn is a bit tender.
So I wonder if Magnus with his last move is actually setting those ideas up, where he's going to sacrifice the B pawn by moving forward,
and say if you grab it with your knight, my knight's jumping in to take your e4 pawn.
Is that something that Wesley should be thinking about?
Yeah, it looks possible for sure. I think Magnus as well, just getting out this diagonal
means that tactics won't always come with a check against him. I think he wants to put
his knight on e5 and say, you can take me, but at least then the bishop has gone. Obviously
color bishops. We've seen some interesting games with that dynamic throughout this event
so far. Knight on e5, at least it's one strong piece. Then he could start looking for b5 type
ideas later. Yeah, I really like the concept of Tania's activity and also
jumping in with a knight to e5 because I'm reminded of the words of quite a few
Sicilian players. They said as long as we get a knight on e5, we are super happy.
I don't care if our king's being attacked, whatever, as long as we put that
knight on the central square, everything is good. I'm like I love the optimism but
that's not for me. But it makes a lot of sense even at the risk of doubling
pawns, right? Because then suddenly the bishop on e7 would have a square on d4.
And wow, that's massive jump on the evaluation, but like and then also the
white king thanks to the pawn on h3 is vulnerable in the dark squares as well.
So yeah, you would not want to be trading off a bishop for the night. So I do like
Magnus's, but I'm not gonna say I'd like his position, but I'm gonna say I like
the fact that there are some chances.
You made a great case there, and that's the reason I think Magnus just did not even attempt a repetition once earlier on in the game,
when he did have the option after Wesley jumped in with his knight a few moves earlier there.
He's just saying he wants a game. And show this one, it feels like you've got the weaknesses.
I will still take white in this position, never taking that knight on E5 once it does land there.
I love the bishop pair. I love that I've got these two targets on an open line as well.
But Magnus has something to play for. He wants a game. He knows that, well, the hunt for that eighth Norway chess title, that's mathematically possible, practically not in his hands at all.
He first needs two classical wins, then needs a number of results to go his way, but he still wants to pay spoiler. He still wants to have a perfect finish in this tournament.
I mean, everybody knows this in the chess world, and an angry Magnus is scarier than Magnus Carlson. Angry Carlson over Magnus Carlson.
Exactly. And there we do see a feature chat from Paragen. And maybe this is something that we should be talking about because Magnus has lost 20 rating points, 20 elo points, this tournament alone, just in the first eight rounds.
That means he's around the 28-20 mark, which is the lowest he's been in a while. And yeah, it's been a tough, tough time for him losing some of his lead at the top of the Sandings.
I wonder if it's the lowest he's been since 2011.
I think this is the lowest he's been for a while.
I mean, I saw on X that people were tweeting that if he loses this game and the next game,
which is not going to happen, Magnus doesn't lose that many games.
You say that, but he's lost four already.
And if Kasparov decides that he wants to play anyone and just get some rating points,
Gary will be the new number one in the world for him to do this.
If he got active, he just has to play one game.
Yeah, and that's it.
Well, number one.
Well, number one.
Talk about longevity.
Yeah, his first rated classical game in 21 years.
Gary Kasparov comes out of retirement just for that.
That would be impressive.
That would be incredible.
Gary's actually ahead of his time.
That's my strategy now.
I'm not playing.
I'm just waiting for deflation to kick in and everyone to drop lower than me.
And then I'll come back and farm some points.
points but no I mean for Magnus on a serious note like it's not maybe four
front of his mind but yeah I mean it's definitely somewhere there that he's
number one he feels he deserves that number one spot and the fact that
suddenly you know people are starting to talk about ratings that number one ranking
it could yeah could either inspire him to play more and get back to the level
we know he's capable of or it could inspire him to maybe just play less and
of course nobody wants to see that so yeah they'll we saw Kevin Finch big day
I don't think he's ever lost five classical games in an event.
I think four is the maximum, and that's happened a few times,
including here at No8S 11 years ago.
At least not since Magnus Carlsen became a household name.
Four classical losses already.
You have to look back to 2015, a long way back, 11 years ago.
But speaking of Ray things, I mean, yes, he's dropped down to 28-20 in the library.
He's been in the library for a long time.
He's been in the library for a long time.
He's been in the library for a long time.
I mean, yes, he's dropped down to 28-20 in the live reading, but still a good 28-pointer
Martin from World Number Two currently.
Hecaru Fabia 2792, a bit of a gap still to go.
Yes, definitely a gap.
I mean, Magnus has been consistently over 2800, something that the other top players
have not done.
Let's get back to the bird's eye view because I want to draw your attention to several goings
on.
So first up, it is top left between Vincent and Alireza Ferozda, the evaluation bar saying
why it's comfortably better.
Also draw your eyes to Goukash against Pragmananda.
There, it's saying Prag is the one that is better after Goukash's last move.
And well, double question mark.
Blunder says the engine.
Wow, and the big question now for us to figure out and for pride to figure out is whether this is something you can punish
heavily and immediately or whether it's just a blunder because
Black can pretty much not react. Black was gonna win a pawn anyway, and White just lacked compensation
So very quick action replay for those just joining us
Before the break we talked about this position. White's knight coming into g5 was one of the prime candidate moves
active, but maybe a bit of a loose square target in some position. So he went back to F2, copying
Ndb Abdu-Satroff who had this position 18 months ago trying to get in. But instead of Wei Yi's D5,
we saw F5, a brand new move, a novelty by Prag, very logical one, because now he covers the E4
square, the White Knight circuit, no longer able to complete it. And after en passant,
we were talking about en passant after the D-Pourn move, but here Black develops with tempo,
So again covers e4, gets castled, wins the pawn on c4, happy days.
So Gukeshi decided that drastic measures need to be taken but g4, it does feel like white's
not ready so I kind of on general grounds understand why it might be a mistake.
Like white hasn't castled yet, white's still asleep with a few pieces.
But can it really be that bad?
It's super committal though, right?
You play a move like g4 but I just want to point out that Gukeshi took 22 minutes with
the decision to retreat his night to F2. He really sat that one out. And that could mean
one of two things, right? We earlier touched upon this, that he's, it's fish out of water
in this position with the white pieces for Gakesh, or he's hiding World Championship
preparation, not jumping in with the best move there, night to G5, as we were talking
about it, which gives all those tactical ideas in the position also for Gakesh, how much
of his prep does he want to show at this point, when there's really no big hope of winning
the tournament, you're at the bottom of the standings, you just decide, you know what,
I'm going to fight this out on the board.
I'm not going to show my best move.
I'm not going to show my best hand.
If you're Gakesh right now, Prague on the other hand
with everything on the line, with a chance,
with a shot at the title, he's still in trap, I would say.
You know, while he's trying to work it out,
F5 is the top computer move.
It's better than what Nadebeck played against Wei Yi.
It's better than D5.
So Prague going all out and is met by an immediate reward.
By an immediate blunder, a double question mark.
Yogi, I'm struggling to find a direct repetition here,
though, for this move.
Is it just long-term weakening for Gukeshe's right flank?
Yeah, it looks really shaky on that side of the board,
especially if he puts a foot wrong.
And my guess is that the computer has just simply evaluated
that nothing bad is happening on the King's side,
and that instead, luck is gonna go all out
on the Queen's side, you know,
Knight B3 is an idea in order to attack the rook
and jump in and capture the pawn.
is also C4 as a target. The evaluation doesn't bar doesn't go down, but it was, I think,
quite natural. I mean, there's just so much risk here for whites. I say risk in the sense
that white is the one who's constantly having to find the energetic moves in order to keep
this going.
Yeah, I just want to point out there was a nice feature chat just a moment ago. I think
it was Lugdias, but they said that the reason it's given the double question mark is because
was forced. They forgot the rules of chess. Gukesh, not taking onpeçon, that is a cardinal
sin. One of the seven deadly chess sins. And you might get punished.
Feels like that, right? How could you Gukesh? How could you forget the most basic of rules
here? But David, I think that was much better than the option that Gukesh has gone for.
And maybe we should just show the problem with this move. I really like Yobi's idea
of jumping in with the knight. You have to be direct here. Either grab the C4 pawn or
all look at this option. Shall we do a quick deep dive after Knight b3? Because if you move
the rook, give up the d4 pawn. I don't believe that's going to be a very happy decision.
I'm also seeing tricks like rook takes pawn, I'm defending the knight, take my rook David
Howell, I want that queen on e3.
Ouch, that would be painful. After the rook takes, I think he might be looking at variations
like this and just trying to castle and saying, okay, black's pieces are hanging in midair,
maybe the tactics continue somehow. Is it f4?
I'm trying to trap this white queen and the queen doesn't have many safe squares,
has to keep f3 protected but I mean in this position...
Yeah, I think this is possible on Passon and knight f6 and the queen is trapped in the center.
Could this be something that he might have missed because it's all quite forcing?
The queen wherever she goes now will get forked and the position is just over.
I'm getting there because of the eval bar. We see the eval bar. Prague, of course, doesn't, but she must sense that there's some tactics.
Disha takes C4 equally tempting, I've got to say, as well as maybe just development. But yeah, this is such a direct line.
I want to make a case for Gukesha's choice against grabbing that C4 pawn, because at least then it feels like a bit murky once White takes the pawn on F5.
And I feel like that is where Gukesha's head is at. You never want to grab that pawn with your knight because then you're going into this eternal pin on the diagonal.
If you're black, Knight takes pawn, has to be avoided off the bishop takes pawn, Gouquetche
wants to grab F5 and full chaos on the board. For me, I think for all of us here, the bigger
question, what does Gouquetche have in mind for that Knight jump-eyeing the other central pawn
and a much more key one? And talking about key games, we have Bibi Sarah, our new Norway
chess women champion of 2026, playing against last year's champion Anna Muzichikou. I say
last year, but she's currently raining. I don't know. What is it now? I'm confusing myself.
Raining for the next 24 hours. Anna-Muzie Tripkin too.
He's not raining championships for Anna-Muzie Tripkin, only.
Yeah, it's raining here in Noi, that's for sure.
It is. And well, we have Armageddon here as we see Bibisara in a must win situation if she wants to
grab those one and a half points. But she's secured the title already. This is just bonus time for her.
Yeah, nothing to lose now for Bibisara. Not a huge fan of White's position. One big question
is whether she can get greedy and take on a7, but I mean, Black probably wins a pawn
back in return. She pushes with a4. Normally I love the bishop pair, but one of the bishops
will be removed in short order and traded off. Black will want to do it on her terms,
though, not to help connect the White queenside pawns. It does look quite equal. Animos Yatruk,
I think it's a very comfortable position for her, but she'll want to win at least, or at least get the Armageddon win with the draw, because second place is going to be a tight race.
It goes to $40,000 on the line, so that's a whole lot of money for that second place race right now.
And obviously the kind of position that we have on the board in this end game, more suited to Anna's style, less pieces on the board, less chances for those tactics where Bavisara has just played incredibly well.
amazing control on her nerves but there's no chaos to be found here it
becomes a night versus bishop dynamic as bevisara looks for the rook activity but
a very healthy pawn formation for Anna Muzic so far now I'm to create some
passes on the left passes on the left flank stopped for now I just want to
finish by saying I think bevisara has done such a great job winning the
tournament one round to spare whoever her second was here definitely a keeper I
would say yeah definitely keep I can actually see her second right now in my
line of vision but yeah I'm sure whoever those seconds of hers might be very
proud of the performance so far. Yeah in fact he even said that he was very
impressed with BB Sara's calculation sometimes you know when they analyze
together she would see a lot more than he did and for those of you wondering
who we're talking about it isn't of course none other than World Championship
challenger this is no big secret javaki a syndrome dropping some fun facts here
from navajas yobi are you giving too much away is it out in the open does
everyone know everyone knows they did a big reveal on instagram everyone knew
for a long time but they were dancing around okay but maybe this is yobi I
need to be quiet here give us the details no nothing yobi no just between
and everyone watching.
But I will point out that Javakir in that interview did mention that he finds it very entertaining to be here.
And I'm sure he's also following all the action on Gukesha's board.
As we go closer to words that draws, pawns are getting off the board.
Anna Muzicic up a pawn currently in this position, but finding it difficult so far to push that a pawn, a draw, suffices for Anna.
She would win the mini-match, consolidate her place in that race to second place.
Shavakir mentioned that when the players go down to those final few minutes, he loves turning on broadcasts, and I'm pretty sure he was talking about us guys.
I think so too. He said it was on YouTube and Twitch. I'm pretty sure Shavakir watches us, which is always an honor to be part of, of course.
But yeah, this one, I don't think Shavakir will be too thrilled about this Armageddon game because Bibisara, on the board at least, merely playing for a draw right now, pawned down.
She will have most of her chances here resting on the clock and for Anna maybe to forget about that.
Only one second increment kicking in, only a bit later but in the meantime draw handshake
and a musy trip gets the extra half point here, the bonus for the Armageddon.
That could be super important in the race for second between Anna Divya-Jujume and the substitute
Did you see that? She congratulated Bibisara after that Armageddon game. She said congrats.
Despite the fact that Anna took this one, yeah, Bibisara took the bigger price.
I mean, going into two rounds to go, you arrive as a five point margin leader. You know, you've
done a fantastic job at the tournament. Anna Moosechuk obviously congratulating her. Makes
a lot of sense. Very well deserved victory for Bibisara. Going into that repetition,
you can't fault her. You can't blame her. Do not play for a win. One, the position.
second let's cut her some slack she just wants to enjoy and celebrate the
tournament victory yeah absolutely you know she's a proud winner of an OHS
women and she did it in style as well one round is fair you exactly plus three
they weren't too many wins in classical in women this year and baby Sarah got
three of them she has more wins than the rest of the field put together here at
know, HS women. So just a fantastic all-round performance, but it's not just the
scoreline, right? Always entertaining on the board, finding those sacrifices, finding
those attacks. I mean, she sacrificed a rook and managed to win a game in one of
the Armageddon. What more can we ask for? And it's usually players like that who go
on to be championship winners, right? Who got that fearless attitude.
Exactly. And to do it in style as well, commendable. Congratulations to Bibi Sara.
And going to the board, we saw the drama between Gukesh and Pragananda. Maybe
Maybe let's check out what's happening between Vincent Kheimer and Alireza as we see this
one and here, well we've got a doubled e pawns for black, e6, e5, but David's pointing
out all the vulnerable pawns that black has in the position.
And it's very clear what Alireza is about to do next.
I think almost without any doubt, he wants to put a rook on d4.
He wants to heal his pawn structure at the cost of some material, at least if the bishop
ever takes that rook on d4, sorry, he'll get the bishop pair, he'll get the dark squares,
he'll get a nicer pawn structure.
I'm really surprised by Alariz's last move though, queen to a5.
like I understand that this pawn is poisoned and the b2 pawn because after
knight a4 queen takes pawn white can do it in many ways but at the very least
you hit the queen you don't trap her but the bishop at the very end will get
skew it and we'll drop off the board sorry now sip Queen a5 and Rook takes
bishop but yeah if the pawn is poisoned I understand not wanted to take it maybe
he's scared of b4 here but Queen a5 that's such a bad square it's not doing
anything at all on that post and Vincent's just going to brace for this Rook to land.
Maybe it doesn't come with any threats, maybe he just plays around that Rook, but that's
a very well known positional exchange sacrifice.
Yeah, while I understand the desire to fight against B4, you want to get your queen out
of the way and not fall into any traps where you end up losing the c5 pawn, but David,
the square c6 is so much more attractive, right?
You keep an eye on that e4 central pawn, you're X-ring it.
So the idea is that Rd4 remain alive, in fact in some positions you might be hitting the
c4 pawn as well.
It's very strange because suddenly the queen on a5 feels like they're on a real target,
it's a bit offside and in fact Alreza might be forced to waste a move in the near future
to get it back into the game.
I mean, I've seen some weird moves since this tournament but this is inexplicable.
I can't see any variation where the queen is well placed on a5.
I mean, she's literally staring at very well fortified pawns pieces.
The only question she can get back to is c7, where she could have gone last move as you
say, Tanya.
I'm not sure exactly what Vincent does in the meantime.
If he could magic all the rooks off the board and the queens off the board, I think he just
wins, Vincent, because the 3 vs 2 majority should be sufficient to create a pass pawn,
maybe even pick up some of black's weak pawns.
But getting the rooks off the board, I think, is hard.
the queens off. Yeah, that's going to be equally as difficult.
Combining everything that you've just said about getting the pieces off the board and
the narrative of Norwich has so far where it feels like one move has ruled, one move
to rule them all, what are the chances we see G4, G5 off the board, get the rooks off
the board, get my queen to G4 once your knight gets out of the way?
Yeah, you said it, I quite like it. That's the way to clear the f-file to initiate the
trades. It's actually funny because G4, I don't think it's about mating black, it's
just positional. Take space, take squares, get rooks off and that would be a very interesting
move. I like it. Interesting but not necessarily good because again these moves are so committal
on the board but also you know to the point that Ariraza's queen is so far away, disconnected
from any ideas of getting on those dark squares. I think G4, especially with every piece of
white, ideally placed. You've maximized your development, you need to find a way forward.
B4 isn't possible. You know what, I'm betting on G4 here. I think Winston goes for it.
You think?
If colors were reversed, Ali Reza would play G4. That is for sure.
1000 out of 1000 times.
Yeah, I agree with you. Ali Reza would definitely play G4. Vincent, he's more of a slow-bill
guy. I can see him playing Rook b1, b4 or something. And now Hang on g4 and here's Tanya.
Well done. Thank you. I mean, why do I not win a prediction game? Why is it when there's
nothing on the line that I get this right? But I'm still happy to see it. And this is
how you fight for the full point, right? I think today might be the day. Tanya, I think
one of you is going to win it. I can't see four decisive games this round. I don't know
said four instead of one, but I don't know why I didn't go first when I had the opportunity either.
I was trying to be a gentleman, but that backfired. We'll see. I mean, there's already been one
draw in the classical. That was a bit bizarre, of course. This one classical, still fiery. I think
Yukech gets pride. Definitely decisive, but the others all look in the balance right now.
Well, fire on the board as we see G4 with the idea of launching up the board on the
King's side, a real battle there. Well, we saw how things are super sharp, top left,
top right. Can we just check in on Divya against Jujiner as Divya has sacrificed an exchange
and we'll see how she's firing in that position.
Let's do it. Big material in balance. And this is the live board. We see that White has
given up a rook for Bishop and Pawn. She got rid of Black's hanging pawns in the centre.
She's conquered the light squares, has beautiful compensation, but the question is whether it's
more than just enough compensation. And yeah, we see the players deep in thought right now.
Divya is down over half an hour on the clock. So she does need to speed up and find something
to compensate for that material she's given up.
But you got to love the fights that Divya brings on right with everything on the line a little bit behind Anna music right now
She wants to result in the classical and the three point would be everything
She's not an exchange about to pick up the pawn on a six everything to play for for white hair
Everything to play for indeed and I have breaking news for you all because we have a very special guest in our studio
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
All of our BBs are nicknaming you as Jabba Kya Sinder of, well, you must be feeling super
happy right now.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, I mean, finally, Sarah won a very important tournament for her career.
I mean, like, probably, I cannot remember.
It's maybe she's first time, a huge tournament, like, and I believe it will not be last.
And I'm very happy for her result.
Yeah, absolutely.
and you know we've seen you normally as a player and we've seen you perform
amazingly at the candidates you won the candidates very high pressure situation
what was it like to be on the other end sat behind a chair watching yeah like I mean before
Norway I played like two tournaments you know I was tired and here I'm spending my time
okay I mean I'm sometimes trying to work with my team but in general I'm taking rest like we
we played like some board games, usually I'm playing computer, I mean video games and yeah,
I'm enjoying.
Like, Blizzard was here, it's fantastic and you know, Norway is very beautiful, so I like
everything here and like tournament also super cool.
You know, it's like even interesting watch from behind, I mean like, I'm sitting, you
You know, first three hours I'm not checking games normally, I'm only checking the Star
games and then I'm checking only some openings if someone plays some interesting games, but
then when they go time travel I'm always opening YouTube and trying to watch it live, it's
like super cool, I'm super excited and it's everyone's reaction.
was normally I mean for people it's not okay when like some some great masters
like two seven plus players doing a huge blunders but in this tournament like we
are saw a lot of blunders which you know which is maybe a lot of funny and like
for spectators also will be a lot I mean they probably are enjoying you know from
this tournament this format and I'm also enjoying like spectator every day so I
So I like this format.
Jaugir, it's so awesome to hear that you're having such a great time here, you know, and congratulations, of course, on the big win for Bibi Sara.
One round to spare. And I think I have to ask you this question that watching the tournament play out, such a convincing performance by Bibi Sara throughout,
she lost the lead only in the middle for one round to Divya Abed, has been dominating it from the start.
When you look at it from outside, what do you think Bibi Sara did better than the rest of the field at Norwich as women?
women? Like in my opinion like one of the important things like when I mean they
go time travel side I hear better than everyone in the women's category
because I mean she's like a three-time world-class champion first but I mean
second one I mean maybe in my opinion we work a lot of for time travel with our
coach Roman so that's why I believe like she I mean she has a she played really
very well in time travel. I mean I saw a lot of games and I feel I mean from I mean
which like this game against D.Va is very important and how she found in
time travel is each Ruki 7 and she really I mean even I shocked when she
finds this and really I mean at first I didn't believe she will find this but
then I mean after she finds I start think like she can win even this game and
And yeah, she's really playing well in time travel and also, of course, she's second job that they're really working well in my opinion.
And like they find, I mean, a lot of, I mean, a lot of games even today also, she playing, I mean, she may be doing games.
She trying to remember lines, but she's playing the lines which she prepared.
She really prepared very well for this tournament.
And yeah, I don't know.
I mean, these two factors, maybe most of them are important.
Also, if you take openings to Divya also, she's trying to play a lot of interesting lines,
but both were, in my opinion, prepared very well in openings.
But this important thing, she won two games in time travel,
and in my opinion she's better in time travel, everyone in women's chess, in this tournament, so it's important.
I mean three times world blood champion and her Armageddon performance here has been fantastic
And before I give the floor to David for his question one last question for me
You mentioned that when the time goes low you've been tuning into YouTube and Twitch and I just wanted to confirm that it's our broadcast
And we're really your favorite comment
Wait, wait, wait. You asked a nice question like first of all if Sarah was playing
I'm trying to find Sarah. Yeah, but
In general if Sarah finished game, I'm opening
I'm opening this too and I'm trying to watch on this like which camera is
like focusing well so I'm watching this even sometimes I'm opening my
Mnuska Alson YouTube channel also yeah I know that I mean it's also just 24 I
don't know yeah yeah so yeah I think like you are commenting very good I'm
I'm enjoying life, really.
I must say, but the end...
When it goes to time travel, I'm enjoying to open, you know, your...
Shared.com, and also, for me, also one of the funniest things,
like, I love also how Shared.com, in there, doing commentating.
I'm super enjoying when in time travel they're commentating, like,
the reactions in my opinion, one of the best.
Yeah, in general, I'm watching every games in time travel and I'm enjoying here.
Format is super cool.
Thank you.
Words of affirmation are our love language, so thank you for admitting that.
I mean, how involved were you with Bibisaurus' preparation?
Or were you just letting her do her thing?
Were you helping every day?
No, you know, she does her own seconds.
I mean, I have my own openings and maybe some lines we play together, but in general we have different styles.
I'm just helping in some lines what she can ask, but I also don't want to get for myself big pressure.
She seconds, but of course when she asks some questions about some lines, I'm always helping her.
And in general, yes, she did very well in openings in this tournament.
I understand that, not wanting to suggest something, just in case it goes wrong and then you don't want to get the blame.
Yeah, you know, when you try to give some, I mean, some, some analysis,
let's say, you know, in a game it will not happen, it's, it's fool's fault, it's really my fault.
Yeah, so, I'm here just chilling.
Nice, and while you chill, maybe we could get your opinion on some of the other games that are going on right now.
Yeah, let's, I mean, from, I don't know, like, in my opinion,
here I was watching a lot of games and you know, I mean, everyone wants to try to win with white,
but like, when people get the big risk, I mean, Black won a lot of games too, yeah, is, I mean,
I mean, I understand they're really trying to beat with White every game, but sometimes
it's very hard in my opinion.
You just need to wait your chances, but it's hard to predict something because usually
in 10 days what was my plan?
I'm always trying to play solid.
With White also, I mean, it's why I always trying to play for two results, not going
into some crazy positions, but here I'm watching a lot of people trying to get some really
very hard positions, which is of course for three results, yeah, and then I'm not shocked
like a lot of games was won by Blacks, so I don't know, maybe because of this format
win very important and that's why they're trying to play for win, but in my opinion,
Sometimes, because of this, Black gets a big advantage and they won a lot of games.
But still, there are a lot of interesting games and also a lot of interesting lines.
In general, I'm really enjoying these Magnus games.
You know why?
Because I told him in other interview, because he's really trying to get in every game fight.
He's showing for everyone, classical chess is not dead when you can try to play for
So normally people are playing very solid and they don't try to play for win with Black.
But Magnus is different. He was a completely different guy and he is trying to play win with any color, any position.
And probably that's why he lost a lot of games.
But you know, young generation should need to learn from his chess because I don't know no one who is playing.
like I mean in I mean last year's who I mean in my opinion my nose was playing
against everyone for fight which is really impressive so I mean I'm like it
for his games and like I mean from other ones I'm happy that I learned the
playing well after Grand Chef store yeah I mean first round was very exciting
to watch how he's playing with his legs but okay I'm happy like he's playing
good here and hopefully he will fight the last round to win and about other games
I mean today prac was like have a really good advantage so if he won he will
also have a good chances for win like what a comeback from him but he lost to
other either or no not he lost to round seven to someone
He lost to Goukesh and he lost to Wesley.
Yeah, he lost to Wesley.
Yeah, after he lost to Wesley, he came back with two wins, yeah?
If he won today, it will be three wins.
No, oh my God, it will be insane.
It's been a lot of insane results in this tournament.
Like you said, very entertaining and I know that we also have Bivisar joining us very
soon.
So, Shavuky, I've got one last question to you before we let you go.
There's obviously the big world championship match coming up as well and you have had all
on Bevisara's games while you've been here but have you also been following
Gokesh's progress in the tournament?
Like I mean okay in general I'm not I'm not following the too much I'm not
trying to focus in this games because I really need some some rest after this
huge tournaments because for me it's my first first experience even to play in
this super strong tournaments because I mean I become a lead player maybe from
from this year, because before I played some tournament every year, but from this year,
I started playing in top 10 tournaments and I mean, I'm trying to hear taking rest after
these tournaments and of course I'm watching every games, also Goukesh games, but you know,
it's a long time for World Championship match and he has a lot of time for work on his everything
openings like his chest and everything and that's why I'm not trying to focus on
this right now so my goal is to play good in my next two tournaments which is
very important grand chess tour and then I will start to think like I mean
Olympic we have of course and then I will start to prep for this match but I
mean of course my team will start to work on this like I mean from last month
Well, thank you very much for joining us and we wish you all the best and I'm sure you're
going to be enjoying the celebrations tonight.
Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you very much.
That was Javaki Sintarova. Very happy Javaki after Baby Sara became Noy Chess Women's Champion
2026 for the stunning performance. And you know, it's so nice to have him here, share
his thoughts so honestly and frankly as well. And he's got all the reasons to be in a good
mood, right? He's been having so much fun here. We've been seeing him play those board
games at night. Baby Sara with the performance that she has and like he said, his goal is
to perform well at the Grand Chester and then start thinking about the Big World Championship
Matt, he's in fantastic spirits with all the reasons to be.
I mean, what are your Shabba Kerr center of has had?
Yeah, what an 18 months breaking 2700 just at the beginning of 2025.
And it's been meteoric, his rise ever since.
And yeah, my favorite thing in chess is watching someone play with a
smile, be around the whole chess scene with a smile.
Often we forget that we're very lucky to play a board game for a living.
We see people get so stressed by it.
So kind of caught up, wrapped up in their own minds.
But Jabalke is showing that if you feel good, you play good.
And yeah, such a balanced, likable guy.
And yeah, really kind of him taking up a few minutes
this time here, even when he's just chilling on holiday
to come and chat with us.
Exactly.
I mean, he didn't need to.
And he joined and he shared his thoughts on some of the games
and how he appreciated a lot of the grandmasters taking risk.
And speaking of risk, let's go to one game which catches our eye.
We saw on the cameras Gouker's deep in thought hasn't made a move after knight to be three, which we saw was a very good response, but I'm looking at the game in the middle between Wesley and Magnus because I see G5 has been played.
I also see that your idea Tania or G4 H4, well it's in full swing there as Vincent fights against Ali Reza.
Yeah, and we can see the makings of a lot of decisive results as the bars have started
moving that place as well. David Howell looking more hopeful about his predictions early on
at the start you had four decisive games David. I saw nine. I reckon he's going to get the
four decisive. Don't say that. Don't say that. No, it's like fighting chess all in the top
row. It's not only just shifted. Everything just shifted. I mean it was completely level.
I was about to gloat about my prediction and now it's all up and down starting from this one.
Magnus has blasted off G5 on the board hitting the bishop, but I still feel that Wesley's bishop pair,
the pressure on those two central pawns, David, if anyone can play for something in this end game,
even if it's Magnus Carlsen on the other side of the board, I would say it wanted Wesley.
Exactly. I think if we take away the Magnus bias, assuming that he's going to outplay everyone
just because the queens are off, then if we look at it just in the cold light of day, purely
the
best.
And, uh, he's not only objectively
white has the bishop pair. White
has space. Wesley doesn't have
too many weaknesses. He shouldn't
be in too much trouble, but
Wesley has been spending a bit
of time and he still has some
big decisions to make ahead.
Maybe there we see the clock
48 minutes against one hour,
but maybe we can just jump in
and show what happened because
the Queens have been traded
since we were last here.
after King to H8. H3, very logical move. He's going to keep his Bishop nice and safe. Black
Knight jumped in. We said, don't take it. Black gets all the dark squares. And after
Queen to do four, attacking this Knight, which retreated, Wesley doing Wesley things. Queen
C4, forcing a Queen trade because E6 has also hit. And after those Queens disappeared, we
do head to that end game. Looking, I'm going to say, roughly in the balance, White though
with the Bishop pair. And Magnus gets his King closer to defense his Knight. Now, what
What comes next? Who knows?
Yeah, what comes next is definitely going to be a mystery.
Well, we will, of course, have our answers in a few moves.
But joining us in the studio,
it is my pleasure to have Bibi Sara Asabaeva,
the new contestant champion of the Lodges.
Thank you very much.
How are you feeling after such a big win
and to do it with a round spare?
Yeah, I'm feeling good also because
I won the tournament around the spare
Because I will have just tomorrow a good game without any stress.
And you know, Bveshara, we dive deeper into the big critical moments through the tournament
for you, the games that you feel you're super proud of.
But my first question to you is, you know, we had Drava Kiryay earlier today, and he
said that one of the things that you did better than the rest of the field was when there
was time pressure and your control on the clock and nerves.
Would you, would you agree with that and how are you so good at that three times world
Let's jump in.
I don't know why I'm so good in faster time controls,
but maybe it was one of the reasons.
But because I only missed, I think,
against Jiu Jitsu in the second round, where I have minus six.
But also, I think it was important
to forget about the games after it's finished,
because if you will start to thinking why I played like this,
That's why I missed this. You will not continue playing tournament well, so yeah.
And is there one particular game I know you probably have too many looking at your performance
winning the tournament one round to spare as a debutant here at Norway chess. But is
there one particular matchup game that you're very proud of looking back?
Very proud of? Yeah, probably game with Divya was very good for me because at some moment
I decided to play on her time. It wasn't the best decision because I started to make few mistakes,
but when I was under the pressure, I just continued fighting and made her some problems,
and it's helped because in the time travel I made a great attack and finished the game with her.
And earlier, Bilisara, we were hearing from Javakir that your seconds have been doing a good job,
that you've been kind of relaxed, feeling very happy this tournament.
this tournament, what do you think has been the special kind of magic ingredient that
has made everything come together so nicely?
I think that I feel relaxed after the candidates because during the candidates I have a lot
of stress.
Yeah, at some moment I thought like I just want to quit chess because it's too much for
me but after the candidates it was hard to realize that I take on the second place but
But then I just say to myself, I need to continue enjoying chess, have some camps and coming
to the Norwiches and show my best and try to win the tournament.
And you mentioned that you had some training camps.
How much preparation did you do before this event?
After the candidates, I was so tired that I sleep for 14 or 16 hours every day for next
five days.
And I have some rest around 10-15 days, but after that I have training camps for 12 days
before the tournament and yeah, I think it's helped me a lot.
And during the year I have 5-6 training camps usually, and all of them 12 days or yeah,
around from 7 until 12.
Wow, those are intense.
I want to ask you, sorry, is this the biggest tournament win of your career?
Yes, in classical chess for sure yes, because I won few titles in the Blitz, but also I'm
just very happy that I won classical event round to spare, because last year I think
I showed good results in classical chess, but usually I take second or third place,
or I shared first and second and take second, and it's very unpleasant, but now I'm happy
that in such a strong tournament I won it.
What's next for you? What are the next targets now that you've won this event?
Yeah, next I think I will play in Goncon, the world team and the world team Rapid and Weeds
and I think I will play in the Kerren's Cup where we have similar...
Like Field?
Yeah, similar Field, like here or like in Candidates because I think here four or five players playing from Candidates tournament
And then of course, Chess Olympiad.
Yeah, we look forward to seeing you in action and all of that.
You know, Bebesar is not just the incredible win which you won,
but I think the entertaining chess that you show,
the fans, lovers, we as commentators really enjoy it.
And I personally, another thing that I really enjoy is your social media.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Usually, I'm just, before this year, I stopped using social medias during the tournament,
But this year during vacanze freestyle even candidates and here I posted every day and I just
I think people enjoying this and I think we need to show people more
our not chess life, but also life to
Have more audience and I think it's help. Yeah, love it. Thank you
Thank you. I also love it when you post your gymnastic videos. Yeah
It's nice to see a chess player who's 40.
And just one final question before we let you go.
No more chess has the feature of the confessional booth.
We haven't seen you use it.
Will you do one for us tomorrow?
I will try, but they have a problem.
I don't know where is it.
Because I was thinking about this, but I didn't find it.
And I was to try to ask, where is it?
I can tell you, it's actually right there on that right side.
OK.
So you just walk around and you'll see it there.
Okay, maybe tomorrow I will try.
Can you give us a shout out?
Yes, yes, okay.
Hany's been asking everyone to mention us,
but no one ever does.
Okay.
So thank you very much for joining us,
Bibi Sara, once again, congratulations on your amazing win,
and the best of luck tomorrow.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Bibi Sara, there we have it.
New Norway Chas Women champion,
And she promised, well, I'm going to hold her to give us a shout out.
Finally, we'll have someone doing that for us tomorrow.
Yes.
Everyone, every time we ask them, they suddenly, there's a look and panic on their face.
They're like, oh no, what have I done?
What have I agreed to?
They're all so polite.
They don't want to say no.
But no, I mean, it's fantastic.
What a champion we've had.
And it does feel, I felt that during the candidates as well.
It feels like she's levelling up every day.
She's getting better. She's improving.
She's testing her limits.
she's trying these things and clearly enjoying the whole process.
And all of that at 22, three times world-blitz champion, makes her debut here at Norway
Chess Women, wins it one round to spare, attacking aggressive chess every single day.
It's been fantastic to watch Bibisara and I think we'll be saying that for quite a few many years to come.
Absolutely and I just love the fact that she just keeps getting better and better.
I kind of felt that back in January when she was playing Tata Steel.
challenges. I thought, well, she's really leveled up here, but well,
it's Bebe Sara there. Her future is very bright. And on that subject,
we've got to dive into the games. I'm seeing G-pawns come forward.
Vincent Kymers' game is super interesting, but we haven't really given
some attention to Divya against Eugene. And maybe we'd go there very quickly.
Let's do it. Let's jump in. The race for second place. We talked about it
in the New Hs women and it was you took is of course in that race heading into
tomorrow but one of these two. If there is a decisive result in classical as
well will be fancying their chances in that race. This is the live position. We
actually saw an exchange sacrifice earlier. I'll just very quickly show that
just because it wasn't so long ago but suddenly the whole position exploded
when Divya pressed the button and she said okay chaos please night takes d5. It
It was well fortified that pawn, but this is an exchange sacrifice and in return she
gets the light squash, she gets a weak pawn that she soon picks off on a6.
Blue arrow appeared because white is actually threatening some nasty stuff on the king side.
The rook sliding across to h5 for example, knight jumping in, big attacks of bishop f6
to neutralize that.
Bishop takes a6, hits the rook.
Queen c6 apparently a small mistake but very natural.
Getting pieces off the board, rook's leaving now, minor pieces leaving, bishop takes f6.
No time to pick up C5 because of a backrank checkmate.
So here Divya gives her king some breathing space
and the dust is settled.
White's position is beautiful.
Knight on C4, past A-pawn,
black with some big weaknesses around her king,
but it is level material.
Black's rook is gonna have some open files.
Do we think it's enough for white to claim any advantage?
No, it's not looking quite enough
for white to claim an advantage.
Black does have the center
and the Rooks are really good on open lines.
It's a very interesting fight,
and that's what we've been seeing here
in Norway Chas Round 9.
We already have a winner, crowned BB Sara Asabaeva.
She is Norway Women Chas Champion,
and in the other games, it's very much a free
for all, so much things happening.
But we're gonna go on a short break,
but if you are subscribed on Twitch,
well, you are in for a treat,
because one of the sharpest games
is between Gukesh and Pragnanda and Pragnanda has visited the confessional one more time,
so you get to listen to his innermost thoughts. We'll see you after this break in a few minutes.
Yeah, okay, second time for today. Yeah, G4 was wild. I don't believe in this too much for
wide but it's complicated and some of these positions to evaluate it's not
all clear. Yeah some knight b3, I've just played knight b3, some gf is there. I thought
like worst case I'm always like always like fine but I feel like I should
probably be better in in some cases as well so I'm also happy that I have like
little bit of time advantage so I think adding phenomena I'm feeling okay about this position.
I
We are back with a penultimate round of Norway chess and if you're just joining us you've
joined us at a perfect time because it is wild so far but we do have a winner.
We have, it's almost feel like we need a drumroll for this.
I'll do it for you.
Thank you very much because winning noise chess women
with a round to spare is Bibisara Asalbeva.
Her draw in classical and the Armageddon point
that she gets got her to 16.5.
And that means that no one can catch her up.
Four and a half point lead going into that last round
an insurmountable one, one round to go.
Bibi Sarasaviva is our Norway chess champion
and she has been dominating from the very start, right?
Maximum number of classical wins.
Had that one critical moment against Zivian,
handled that to perfection, to keep the lead,
going into today.
Finishes things off with Anna Muzichuk
in clinical manner and champion.
And what an interview that was.
Yeah, just a whole lot of fun
with both her and Javaki as well.
If you haven't watched that,
was time to go from rewind and catch what they are saying.
But when it came to the standings in the Norway chess,
that was just basically almost a free for all.
We've Wesley so at the top by one point.
And looking at the games at the top row,
it feels like the people have come to the game
with their muscles trying to flex as much as possible.
We have a whole ruck sacrifice between Gukesh and Pragnananda.
Gukesh are really going for it. Whether that's going to work out, I don't know.
Wesley So seems to be in the balance against Magnus Carlsen, complicated end game there.
Whereas Vincent Khymer, the evaluation bar, tells us one story. Ali Rez's king also tells
us he's not particularly feeling so safe. So it seems like anything can happen. Which
game should we dive into?
Oh, I know the most dramatic one. That's Gukesh Prag. But I mean, in terms of the eval
our Kymer, not far behind. Tanya, I'll leave the choice up to you.
Tough pick this one. Okay, I'm going to make the decision, the call out here. David, you
know what? Let's start with Gukeshi's board. He's done an entire Rook the World Champion,
Pragrinanda, two points behind Wesley, very much in the race, and then we jump straight
to Kymer. Who looks like he might be getting his first classical win of Norwiches, at least
a huge advantage against Verucha. Exactly. And let's stick to this one for now. It's
a rook sacrifice that we have to show a quick action replay because we left it just after
Goukeshe had played a big mistake. G4 objectively not correct, but in human terms, it's the
time for moves that could scare the opponent, trying to just blow open the whole right
flank here. And G4 was met very naturally by Black's threat. He'd set this up ages
ago, hitting the rook in the corner, hitting the central pawn. And I think it is actually
very important, the variation we showed earlier, that white cannot really save the Rook and
hope to survive this. If he saved the Rook instead of the key central pawn, the queen
would have been attacked here, the queen stepping forward, sorry to e3. Rook takes
c4 would have been the devilish next blow, threatening some knight checks, knight forks
on the white king and queen. And it is so important, I checked in the break, that this
variation doesn't work for Gukesh because f4 would indeed trap the white queen. And
variation we showed with an ompassant, the black knight coming out. The queen trapped in the center of
the board, unable to stay on due to all the knight forks. Queen e5, knight takes pawn check,
and likewise, queen to f4. There would be another devastating knight check.
This meant that Goukeshe was all in. He had nothing else to do. He decided to give up his rook,
first defending it with his bishop, and then instead of giving up the valuable tempo
with bishop takes knight, he said, okay, I've said a, let's go for b. G takes f5. The knight
United saves itself and Rooks G1, he's lining up now and Prank has just moved this very
second and it's a mistake. The bar slides back up, it is in a rational position, it's
going to be kind of prime for mistakes from both sides right now.
This is fantastic staff, I mean, the fact that Prank just replied with a move that's
given a question mark speaks of how difficult this position is to handle from a human perspective.
Let's just back up before we deep dive into what's just happened right now. Now Rooks
g1 hits the g7 square but also keep an eye on d6 if you're watching this 94
96 the other big idea I don't think plug had a good way to keep that pawn
guarded if you get your queen to e7 94 things I feel there is still compensation
to speak off you're down an entire rook is you're saying for one pawn but black's
army the knight bishop rook offside not coming into the game anytime soon the
other knight in the rook not making a big case for themselves either the king
stuck in the center practical practical problems here and this is long-term
compensation for the page it's not a knockout blow right now but I just feel
knight d6 let's say king goes to d8 in this position maybe David you jump in
immediately with that knight to d6 you hit that rook the bishop the knight on
b3 about to be hit the bishop coming in from c1 to g5 with the
the game. I mean, he's always
been playing a delicate balancing
actor Goukeshe that helped him
get to the top because he was
normally airing on the side of
genius, but this is very high
risk, high energy stuff. If we
go back to the game, so after
root to G one black instead of
defending the porn, which he
is a very good player. He's
always been playing a delicate
balancing actor Goukeshe that
helped him get to the top
because he was normally airing
which he rightly decided against. Decided to go 9h6, which might have been the wrong direction.
Just to point out how difficult this position is, turning on Mr Fish here, Mr Stockfish,
Black's best moves are hard. E takes f5 I think is understandable because that slows white down
from occupying the center with his knight. But the next best moves were Queen out to h4.
Looks like a very brave move, but I guess hitting the center also pinning the knight,
So maybe understandable, but the ultimate that's with B5 thing on the other side of the board giving up a pawn just to activate the Queen this direction
I don't think he's even looking that side of the board anymore. Prag. This would have been extremely difficult
This check would have given black a decisive advantage, but to understand why knight h6 is a mistake
letting white back in and
relinquishing most of the advantage that is
difficult question in itself
That is a very difficult in question indeed, you know, as we see the night go to the edge
of the board is still super complicated for black because their pieces of lacking in coordination.
Goukesha succeeded in making it a mess and we'll see whether the clock is going to play
an important part in this game.
Let's go to the bird's eye view because I want to take a peek of what else is happening
and I'm seeing in the game between Kymer and Ali Reza that this advantage is saying that it's all
Vincent Kymer. All Vincent Kymer and Magnus meanwhile getting his king active in the central
border facing the bishop power. Wesley looks like he's got a grip and is safe enough but yeah
Vincent with a big advantage. Yes and so when it comes to Magnus and Wesley is not really clear
Who is going to go in for the squeeze? Is it white? Is it black? Well, earlier on, we talked that if Magnus loses, Gary Kasparov will be the highest rated player in the world, and we actually hear that Gary is watching this game with a lot of interest. Have a look.
Yeah, you don't mess with the dawn, do you?
The big boss.
Oh, gotta love it.
Yeah, but that is incredible that a madness goes down on the librarians.
All Gary needs to do is play one classical game of chess and he's back to being world
number one. Gary can play me. How about that? I challenge Gary Kasparov. If Magnus loses
this game and tomorrow, I think unlikely. But if that happens, Gary, will we see a comeback?
That's the big question. Also unlikely. I'm not sure which one we are going to see if
either of them. But in the meantime, this is the position Magnus finds himself in. It
It must be at the back of his mind, right, the ratings.
It's got to be.
I mean, you know, when you've been a player, the highest rated player the game has ever
known at 2882, and then you see you're coming down to that 2820 mark, losing about 20 rating
points this tournament.
Yes, you're still a little ahead of the world number two.
The only player currently, still above 2800, is Magnus Carlsen.
But I have a feeling that Magnus wants to keep that world number one spot in ratings
and rankings in classical chess even to the day that he decides to walk out of the game space.
Exactly. If Magnus did drop, I think he would push ever harder just to reclaim number one
before ever even thinking of walking away. But yeah, it would be a strange world to see Magnus drop
below 2800. Many of our viewers, I don't think we're even alive last time Magnus was below 2800.
So yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Wesley in the meantime, what do we make of what he's done?
black with a fantastic knight in the center of the board but Wesley has
expanded on the left flank with his queenside pawns he has traded off
queens keeping things simple who's gonna be happier if this does fizzle out
towards equality but the one thing that I'm seeing with Wesley's position is I
don't see the plan of improvement like normally you have an idea you know a
knight will come to a4 you know there'll be some c4 b5 but that's
unfortunately not possible but the knight on e5 is so strong and this bishop on d3 is super weak
and speaking of that piece the bishop on d3 is not a great one either it doesn't have a role in life
so i it's difficult to see the improvement he did just put it there though just interestingly
i think he wants to basically force this knight to stay on e5 otherwise knight to c6 might attack
backs and pawns, wins and pawns, because if the knight moves, then E5 check will unleash
the bishop and suddenly make it a strong piece.
Yeah, good knight versus bad bishop for now.
And to follow up on that idea, what Wesley has in mind is that if Magnus decides to trade
that knight for the bishop, getting rid of Wesley's bishop there, it gives the option
to recapture with the pawn towards the center of the board, also opening up the c-line for
further challenges, and then you can look at the bishop moving back, the d-pawn moving
ahead up the board.
So it changes the dynamics and the nature of the position.
But I also just want to highlight,
I think if this was to go into an Armageddon
to answer your question from earlier, David,
I don't think Wesley would be disappointed with that.
He's playing against Magnus, who is always dangerous,
regardless of how the tournament has gone for him,
how many losses he's had in the tournament so far.
I think for Wesley, having the lead that he has,
a point above Alariza, also what's going on
on Alariza's board right now, Alariza
and the back foot against Winston.
And Armageddon is not an absolute disaster,
So I'm not expecting Wesley to take too many chances to over-push in this end game.
Keeps it going.
And in fact, I think Magnus is happy with that as well.
Magnus is happy that this game goes on.
If the chance has come, he'll take it.
If not, we'll have the Armageddon.
I'd say that Wesley would be the happier of the two because for Magnus to have any shot,
he needs a three-pointer today.
Yeah, he definitely needs a three-pointer.
But the question is, will Magnus be satisfied with just taking the draw?
You say yes, he will be satisfied?
No, you say no.
I think that Wesley would be the happier if it goes to a draw.
I think for Magnus, as long as the game keeps going, it's an end game.
We speak of the Magnus touch.
If he has that shot in an end game to try to squeeze something out,
that's what he's looking at, which is why he denied that repetition early on in the game.
For Wesley, I think he's really close to that Armageddon that we speak of right now.
I'm predicting one of the four Armageddens to happen in this one.
I predict one of the two, maybe.
I was going to join in and say one of the three, but I've never been right, so probably
one of the two, one of the four.
You've got to manifest it, Jovi, you've got to have more confidence in your predictions.
I feel like that's where the problem starts.
I have gone into every prediction game going, yes, I'm going to finally get a point, and
then suddenly my A4 appears, but I won that prediction at least.
You did. You asked the question, what's Wesley doing next? How does he improve?
He says my least favourable piece in the position is the knight I'm rerouting.
And David Howell, where is he rerouting it to?
Great question. Very unclear to me.
I think at some point he will maybe remove that bishop from D3
if he can do so safely, then start to push his c-pawn and then just start to
suggest that he might continue pushing in one of these directions.
But for now, I think it's actually a prophylactic move.
wants to prevent black from breaking out with b6. I'm not sure that was ever realistic because a6 would have hung
But if that black can break out on the Queen side, eliminate all the Queen side pawns, make it a fight on the center
and just on the right flank, then the short-range knights, the way they can control both color complexes
I think would actually be superior to the bishops
So I think this is just designed to keep the whole Queen side intact and it's the type of cemento control move that might frustrate Magnus
Okay, well this one is tense, both sides perhaps trying to squeeze the other one out in an end game.
Let's move over to top left Vincent against Alireza. Alireza if he wins he will move to 16 points.
If Vincent wins he will suddenly be in the fray with 13 points and Vincent here looking like everything under control.
It really does. I mean, round nine for Alreza is about closing in the gap with Wesley and
I have to say it is going to be an uphill task for Alreza to make that happen. Currently,
look at the position we have. Let's try to break it down for everyone watching here.
It's a bet-upon formation for Winston. You've got the open d-line. The queen actively plays
tying down that bishop on c8, which kind of has no future behind his own pawns. Compare
that to the bishop on e3. It's already got a target on c5. You can look at ideas of rerouting
the night. You know, 92, 93, 95 ideas, the pawn always threatening to step into G6 with
a kill zone, a boxing up of the black king with ideas of the queen lining up on the
H-line and then eventually getting rid of the only defender which will be that lone
knight on F6. You've already got a dark square bishop if you're Winston Kammer and that.
I just think that combining all the positional strategic pluses that white has, the rook
coming onto H-line plus the tactical ideas, this is Kammer's best chance to get a classical
win in Norway chess in a long
time. He's had one classical
win so far, but this would be
the more meaningful of them. And
I think the most important
thing is just to avoid Armageddon
for him at this point. And yeah,
it's fantastic. I love his last
move earlier. We were saying
swapping all the rocks. White's
last move was to keep the
books on the board, but swapping
them. We said long term is good,
especially if you can get the
Queens off as well because black's
porn structure so bad, but he's
changed gears here and now he
on the black king and Alireza just does he any active moves for him?
The black queen so offside as well, misplaced.
And that was the strange decision, right?
Joviou had Alireza made to play queen to A5.
I mean, what even is that queen doing there?
Queen one edge of the board, knight on the other edge of the board,
both having very little future ahead.
Yes, and I got to say that the queen being offside on A5
also makes me worry for Alireza's king
and something that you touched upon, Tanya,
but I just want to really drum it home,
is that white could think about transferring the rook to the h-line and you can do that in two ways
you know king g2 and or davis way which was also my inclination as well rook d2 go rook h2
then back it up with queen h5 and then suddenly everything is collapsing for black all right
then my counter question to both of you is if you want to escape from rook trade so much can't
all yours are trying to force the matter by now putting the rook on the d8 violent is really
hoping that you agree for a repetition here. The idea would be Rf1, Rf8,
Stairoff, and who's gonna blink first? I have a feeling that his idea is just to
keep the Rooks on, Rd1, and the reason he's done this in this order, it's a
small finesse thing, but instead of keeping the Rook off the open file now,
allowing the black Queen to sweep back, apparently not the best move, but this
type of idea, pressurizing the pawn, getting the Queen into the action again,
he's gonna say, okay, Rd1, if you challenge me, now I move, and the
Black Queen still cannot quickly at least get back towards the King side and now there
might be time to go for some kind of direct attack. Apparently not Rookie too, maybe there's
something even stronger. Perhaps G6 first, perhaps Rookie too, King G2, something to do
with getting the rook to this side of the board.
I love that. I love that nuanced GM level breakdown of the difference between the Black
Rook on F8 and the Black Rook on D8. That's why you got played the big black save it howl.
I wish not as big bucks as these players, alas, unfortunately.
Very nice. A nice touch there, but Alireza, how to escape, you know?
He has to do some repair work. It's his move.
Where to go with the pieces?
I mean, can you, for instance, just take a deep breath
and ignore the go-ins on and go Queen to B6?
I love because I'm just threatening Queen takes B2, and that was it.
I was kind of hoping that the checks would scare white off but I don't think they do.
You know I'm still eyeing the king side and I really want to get either the rook there or the
idea of g6 but I'm just wondering if you want to throw in a knight a4 just making sure there's
no queen takes pawn in any of the lines. Maybe we try g6 first because it's super direct but
what threw me off from that was the knight jumping to f5 but it feels like it's still working queen
h4 and can black chess. And if black chess takes in b2 are you just ignoring the whole house and
going for that knight on f6. Queen h3 actually quite important because it
defends this knight. I only realized too late and the whole idea is Queen's
bishop, black still threatening nothing and this just ends up in checkmate.
It's actually like an impossible threat to stop once this happens.
Indefensible here, black's position so maybe if g6 is a threat I saw the
eval barcode crazy by the way in that variation with the rook dance and same
thing G6 and I think it's just checkmate either with the rook or with the
bishop removing the defender so maybe like process of elimination then just
black have to block it stop that direct hit on this night stop that direct hit
with G6 and also make sure that if you rook and queen combine on the H file you
can defend laterally from the seventh rank as well right if things go south
rook f7 going north with your rook it's a space gainer I guess gained space for
the black king rook but still very sad position to defend the black right but
if g6 is the only try then suddenly I'm thinking of a queen post up on h6 that
g6 pawn is a goner maybe not the end of the world because I guess the rook can
block a check maybe you anywhere planted on f7 and just hold and pray for dear
life yeah help me hold and pray for dear life is it night I fear there's a
Let's zoom out from this one and go back to our bird's eye view because the game that is so
sharp it could turn on enemy move is between Goukesh and Pragmanda and I still am very curious
as to what is happening there. We jump straight to that but let's just point out that Carlson
Wesley remains in the balance right now. Some pieces have been traded off and Wesley's knight
has landed on a nice b6 square but where is the progress especially with Magnus hitting the b4 pawn
That's the top center board right now in our Norway chess woman. We already have a winner big as our are taking the championship
It's a fight for the second place and one of the hottest contenders for that is the viadeshmuk with the white pieces
She's still down in exchange
But it's got two pawns in compensation and the queen in the night the powerful duo trying to create chances against
Jujanus king a dynamically balanced game that one and our bottom right board there
Humpy versus Juventus and definitely going into an Armageddon though. I have to say if anyone has a chance in that
It's potentially Humpy with the white King closer to that B5 point
We'll keep an eye out on those but David I'm with Yvanka here
I think we head to the board where the world champion is down a rock
Yeah, we can see on the camera even Juventus more excited about the Goukesh Prague board than her own game
She's looking up at the big screen there, but yeah, let's jump to that huge
of the tournament. It's a
really, really huge kind of
tactical mess that we're seeing
in front of us. Goukesh against
Prague every time these two
clash. It produces some kind of
nuclear reaction, and it just
becomes so tactical. I mean, in
the first half of the tournament
when these two met, it was
Goukeshu one from a almost
hopeless looking position.
Pratt could have just pushed
forward and made a new queen.
It was a bit bizarre. He didn't
and suddenly got mated when
Goukesh was able to counter
preg but this time we saw the mistake knight h6 question mark and just to point
out that Gukesha found the only way to complicate the issue I think he had to
find this he pushes f6 and only now jumps forward with this knight and the
big difference is that he gets the f6 square as well as the d6 square if he
jumped in first then the black knight could have captured holding the d6
square and now f6 is also covered but yeah f6 such an important move he found
it, Ne4, fxd5 and or do you check, do you just take the pawn? Are there better
moves? At some point the rook's gonna come in. This is not a guessing game, this
one precision is required and okay good question, doesn't have so much time.
No he doesn't have so much time but we also have to be super concrete about
this and so let's go knight, let's kind of like take it move by move and have a
look at knight to d6. First move you calculate right? Chex captures threats
in terms of calculation that's the order to calculate things so this has to be
played it's now it's a 50-50 you kind of feel King f8 looks safer because at
least you have a check of H4 I guess what's followed is to take this one hit
the rook hit the rook let's give a check bats a Caesar check bats and plays a
check right I'm with you there okay I don't know again I'm kind of a lottery
with the king it could be f1 safer e2 safer but let's go d1 and I'm just
thinking because black has such a huge material advantage we have to give up
one of the two rooks right the rook and c8 is defended by the bishop at least
we'll be up at night maybe we try to trade off more pieces here if I'm black
I'm looking at rook g8 hoping that you get the rooks off the board show you win
the rook and c8 at the end of it I pick up the knight and make a case for my
extra piece in that position and say, you sort of treat, ooh, what did I miss?
Yeah, I think there's d5 there at the end of it.
Oh, d5.
The dormant bishop wakes up.
The one piece that wasn't playing are all in the attack.
I thought that bishop was in a coma, like I hadn't seen it for ages.
I wondered why it even went to d2, but now, wow, okay, I take it back.
I think about the knight.
So we've got to take it with the knight.
Now just hope that you capture the rook and see it.
Bishop takes knight and still looks pretty scary after checks over d5 coming in.
I was thinking if you attack the bishop, at least there's 97 if nothing else.
Yeah.
The king should hide next to the knight for d5.
That goes on but shouldn't be enough apparently.
It is quite tricky as well because you have to cover the g7 square but also if you try
to do that with your queen, then queen to b8 comes up. And then it's not easy to defend
it, you have to take a step back. There are pawns up for grab. I mean the complications
just keep on going.
Exactly. We could get a position like this and the eval bar might say it's totally
winning for black, but so easy to blunder. We're making natural moves and we're also
not finding the correct solutions. Maybe it's this square I just realised hitting d2,
a mate as well as defending white mate. But yeah, this is still very difficult. I think
96 has to be played there, surely. Every move in each of these lines is such a high responsibility
move. Even if the Valbar is on one side, you could be lost with just one single blunder.
I also want to point out, because we were talking and you know, the Mr. Fish was also
critical of the decision of 986. But as we were working on these lines, I think I have
an explanation for why Prague chose to move 9-8-6 David and I think that also explains
a lot of the lines that we're looking at. 9-8-6 I think Gukesh found a really cool way to proceed.
The best move in the position to keep things active, to keep the attack going. By the way
we've got a decision on the board. 96 check played here right now. Prague will come back,
take a decision where to move the king F8 or E7. But if you just quickly go back to that
point that I wanted to make. 9-8-6 what Prague was hoping for was Rupptakes won. Another very
natural move in this position but actually I think Prague set up the move Rook to G8
which would essentially force the pair of the Rooks off the board here. You take on
8-7 there's Rook G1 check at the end of that line. And if the Rooks come off the board
you are in a sense just saying goodbye to your attack here.
And the main attack has gone and yeah very understandable now H6. Maybe he did underestimate
the power of F6 and yeah we catch up with the live position check. I said it was 50-50,
F8 is the best of the two, according to the blue arrow, because I guess if you advance
forward you really risk getting mated on the spot. Check. And just to show, if King F6
is an immediate checkmate, and King takes D6, check. Check. Black has to block. Check.
And mate. And it's the game, the rook cutting off the king. So, okay, he plays it. Of course
he does. The only way not to lose on the spot, Prague, but he might find himself in a situation
has to find a series of only moves to keep the advantage sure this could turn.
Yeah, I mean can we just for completeness run through the queen takes e5 lines one more time?
Because I would be first up is queen h4 seems to me the most natural move get the queen out
with check. It also stops the f4 square right for example I think rook g8 and you're suddenly
walking into a lot of disasters in the position maybe there are other ways but queen f4 check
hits that knight, queen f7, will be a weak spot once that knight is off the board as well.
Queen h4 just makes a lot of sense. So that's a no-brainer for us, a queen h4.
Now, this is the next question. We have quite a few king moves.
I somehow doubt it's e2, just because queen takes pawn, might be a variation later.
Okay, it's defended now, but maybe it's possible.
I don't know, King E2, also I'm scared I'd walk into something on this diagonal later.
But yeah, okay, I'm saying it in general terms, so nice.
King F1 maybe as well, but I think King D wants them as natural.
It's also placing yourself as far away from that distance of the black knight, right?
You don't want checks and that diagonally placed knight is going to take a while to
give a check to the white king, so just intuitively it feels like the safe spot for the white
king.
Oh, we're going to see this, QxE5 is on the board, from the home.
Arrow does appear. Prec has to give this check to keep the advantage. I think he
finds this simply fighting against the idea of Queen f4 check. You know there's
a threat on the rook and c8, rook h8, the checking ideas. Prague will come back
and play this move. Makes sense because there's no other way to defend the
king and the f4 square. I say he does it on under two minutes in fact. I think he's
always a good idea not to rush in this type of positions.
Prague has made mistakes in this type of position before. I mean in the first half I mentioned
between these two, in the candidates against Cinderov, both games Prague, his opponent
Sack to Peace, Cinderov Sack to Peace against him and won, just couldn't handle being on
the defensive. So I think this is a game strategy from Goukesh. Even though it went wrong and
he was objectively lost, like it's the type of position he thinks he can trick Prague.
So Prague definitely has to like kind of lock in here and find all the best offensive moves
What that's not even fair
Have I not lost enough prediction games? Well, no, I like this actually Tanya
I feel that you know the two minute mark was a bit optimistic I should have said five
Okay, come on
I know the Indian kids. Well,
I saw you lose confidence in your
pet. And as we saw them the future
church shout out to as mother
that, uh, yeah, they're playing as
if they have two minutes left on
the clock. And I think now plays
just as the tournament's about
to finish. They've all realized
that time trouble is decided. The
classical so they're all trying to speed up but of course the Bukesh clock is
more than issue now so just to kind of confirm maybe we can use the Mr. Fish
moving the King to D1 our bestie is our but by a while is our best choice by a
mile okay the others didn't quite make so so much sense because you know it
allowed down the horizon the potential Queen takes H2 just to point out here
in the variations we were talking about. It would be this type of position. I'm not sure why the
king is best on d1 rather than e2, but we were talking about this type of position and how there
was a threat of mate, but apparently the king is just better on d1 in general. King f1 I think
is just too vulnerable to queen checks, knight checks later down the line. So king d1 I think we
can by feel he should be doing this, but you know, root to g3 I guess the other option,
but you don't want to paint your own book. No. And that's the other thing with Goukeshe, right?
He's a player who plays less on feel and more on calculation. Zero on feel. Zero on feel, right?
So if he starts going down those labyrinth of variations, maybe it's not going to be so clear
for him where to place the king. He needs to sort of rely more on his intuition, especially given
the clock situation as well. 19 moves now to make in 18 minutes. So critical question to you,
Oh my gosh, I know what to do. Do you think Gukesh will take more than two minutes to make?
He will definitely, yes.
He's been thinking two minutes already.
Yes, I was going to say he's definitely taking more than two minutes and there I won that one.
But I think Gukesh will again rely more on calculation at this moment.
He is going to try to work out King E2, King F1.
If I had to make a prediction, I think in the next two minutes he plays this move.
this move. Whether it's going to be King D1 or not, I'm not asking Winston about that.
I think Queen H4 from Prague. Easier to do, you're fighting against direct threats. This
is not the easiest of decisions to make for a calculator.
Yeah, but like this is such valuable time ticking away. We've made a big point of the
players getting 10 seconds at me 40, but there's only 10 seconds per move. It's eternal time
trouble. And this is where the likes of Wesley would turn up. He'd be like, okay, there's
no chance I can calculate to the end in every variation anyway. Like at some point you just
Gotta say, okay, King D1, there's no checks in the near future.
Yes.
King E2, there are checks in the near future.
King F1, you will get checked.
You just make a move.
Yes.
And it happens to be the best one because we can get there by feel.
But I would love to see Gukash play maybe in private, a training match,
where he's not allowed to calculate, just play by feel.
And I think he would realize he's a fantastic player as well by instinct.
But the fact he doesn't let himself just make moves now,
means that he gets in time trouble and it haunts him later.
You have to just trust yourself in these positions and Gukesh needs to play King D1 but more importantly, he needs to play it quickly.
Because this is not the last question that will be posed to the world champion in this game.
Look at the nature of the position right now. For both sides, every move a high responsibility, a high cost move right now.
Yeah, he needs to take a decision as well because I can tell you this is only just the beginning of the complications.
King to D1 Goukeshe needs to find it and he needs to play quickly. And by the way, I think
we should start a hashtag. David Howell for Goukeshe coach.
I think I could turn him into 2900. I don't know, he's so talented. And all of his strengths
match my weaknesses and my very few strengths I think match his weaknesses. So I don't know,
I think it would be a good pairing. I think it would be a great pairing. I think we need
to make it happen. And if anyone in Gugetian's team is watching, David Howell is your man.
And Tania can be the motivator.
I work for Peanuts. I work for 50% of the prize money in the World Championship.
That's still not Peanuts.
No, up front fee, but if he wins it.
Oh, wow. I mean, I'm semi-joking, but I genuinely think, like, okay, he has opening coaches around him,
but at some point you need someone purely to work on the mental side and the practical side.
Like, I don't think the mental side is always, like, his weakness.
I think it's actually the practicality.
Like, he's been in time for every round this whole tournament.
Yes.
And I don't think his coincidence in last place is the clock.
It's the clock and the explanation for that has to be the confidence that one is feeling.
Coming into a tournament like this, facing the elite competition that you are
and the history that you have over the last 18 months,
everything that's happened since winning the World Championship match.
For this kind of a format, incredibly demanding on the players, right?
You play a classical and then a deciding Armageddon.
Self-belief and confidence has to be up there.
It's as much about the will as it's about the skill on the board.
And for Gukesh, I think double guessing, recalculating, not relying on intuition,
not relying on his gut feeling about positions and taking too much time
has been the reason why he struggled at this tournament.
And David, if you do get the role as one of the seconds,
I will sign an NDA, I will do absolutely everything, but you've got to let me know.
OK, you should watch the sessions join in, teaching the Karakhan.
I'm not teaching Gukesh the Karakhan.
The last time, the one and only time I played Gukesh was when he was maybe 12 years old,
and I tried a line in the Karakhan that I'd never ever played before.
He just blasted me off the board.
It's funny because I actually played Gukesh as well when he was already a GM,
he was 12 years old and it was in Gibrot and already then he had the same exact style.
I was like wait, he just mates everyone, he out calculates everyone, he's a great attacker,
I made it so boring and like slow and positional and he was overthinking things and made lots
of positional mistakes and time trouble was what decided it.
So he hasn't changed those things, his strengths have got better but the weaknesses are still
there.
And it's now touching the six and a half minute mark, everything that we've been talking
about right just not and he does it but has he burns too much time finding his
way across vacation not relying as much on his intuition but working it out
working it out to perfection but that's cost him time cost him it basically a
third of his time that's huge 33% of his time on one move that was obvious yeah
and yeah we kind of got there by instincts as well I mean obviously the
players so much pressure on them. And now we're seeing that Prague has to defend against
Queen coming to a G7, that would be checkmate. So it's very natural for Prague to slide
the rook over to G8. Is this one going to be made very quickly, Tanya?
You're putting me on a spot every moment. Yes, my answer is yes. I think he plays it
process of elimination here. I'm not sure what are the other lines that Prague could
be looking at. I'm trying to work it out. Instead of moving the rook, I don't think
you want to put your king on e7 with the white rook infiltrating the g7 square being so tender,
either coming in with the queen or the rook looks incredibly scary. I feel rook g8 happens
in the next, in fact, 58 seconds under the two-minute timer. And Prague will do it to
put more pressure on Goukash's clock as well. I'll also point out that Prague was the player
to give Gukesh the first again at that. I mean seriously, Vik, can we stop with this?
You've got to look at that so far. You've got the duty to understand them.
But I feel I'm playing a bit with fire here. 58 seconds was a bit too optimistic there,
but he plays it fast enough, maybe I'll go down. Okay, 30 seconds. Come on, Fogg.
Is there Rook G8? You've got to find that Rook man, what are you thinking?
I should mention, I just checked, Rook G8 is the only move not to lose on the spot.
So this was a good bet, Tanya, but you're cutting it fine now.
No, no, no, he's reaching for it.
Oh, Tanya.
Bravo.
Oh, you should have bet on the next move as well.
Goukesh played that instantly.
He had to only move, of course, for Goukesh.
His rook was hanging, he had no good checks.
He's still a full rook down.
At least he can restore some material parity by taking back this rook.
Yeah, there was absolutely no other option, right?
fall back with your knight in that position. There are checks on G7. We
analyzed the king moving up checks on G7. So, Prague. And he doesn't, you know, it's
really important he understands that he's playing for the initiative here but
he's also playing against Gakesh's clock. So, making those moves fast and quick. And
I was about to say, Yovie, that Prague was the player who gave Gakesh his first
20th birthday present. Gakesh finally got a classical win in that match. It could
have gone either way but in the end Gakesh came on top. So, a bit of a grudge
match as well, this one for Prague at a very key stage in the tournament.
Yeah, it's so crazy every time these two players, each other, is one of my favourite
head-to-head matches. I also love Goukesh against Arjun, because that's the
way it's always decisive, it feels like. And, okay, here we see from Shablah, there's
no way Goukesh never uses intuition, right? It's just so hard to believe, as great as
he is. I think it, yeah, never is an exaggeration. We use that for, we use the hyperbole for
effect has commentators but I think more often than not he he just calculates
it's his default setting it's the way he feels comfortable and confident and
sometimes losing a bit of control actually takes the pressure off and
would help him save time for the key critical moments exactly I think you've
hit the nail on the head just as weird as it sounds intuitively he's more
inclined to calculate he definitely uses it he wouldn't be where he is if he
didn't by the way getting ready and you can see this sort of panic the pressure
that's coming in with the clock ticking, you know, again, hesitates a little bit, but relies
on the importance of playing quickly. For Gukeshi, he's just a player who relies heavily on calculation
and that's why Speedchess has been something that's been of a big question for the world champion as
well. Yes, undoubtedly, because when you calculate, it burns the time, it burns the energy as well,
and it's very difficult just to keep things going and be consistent. What is this? David,
Bets, what did you say?
He's going to move before he loses on time.
That's my bet.
I'm pretty confident I'm going to win it.
I'm pretty sure that you're going to win that one.
That was a very risk-free bet.
But this is not a good sign that he keeps pulling his hand back.
It gives the way that you're not feeling good about your position.
He does take that rook
and the knight's about to be picked up.
And now the question, you're down a piece if you're Grykysh.
You have to continue to be on the offensive,
but you're running out of ammunition after Bishop takes night.
And the two bishops in the Queen left, the Black King, if it ever gets shelter or if the Queen's
ever come off, unless he's won back the piece that he's going to be down, it means Gukesha is going
down two defeats as well, but Bishop takes night, I think we'll see from Prague in
in the next 37 minutes or so.
I have a bone to pick with Bick right now. I love how my timer is like point on the spot
with 30 seconds and one minute to Tanya and when it comes to David's prediction it's like yeah he
make it before he flags yeah but have you you did set yourself up Tanya you did say I bet you he
will make you be within this one yes guys you can all borrow my time machine it's fine it's fine
yes absolutely I never set myself up for this one three okay come on two one
You're only in the most complicated position, yes, I bet 10 seconds for Prague.
But what was the hesitation, but okay, well, really complicated position we have on our
screens has been a real slugfest between Goukesh and Prague, but we have a fight all
round.
We're going to go on a short break, just so that everyone can just stock up on your
drinks, stock up on your food, and just get ready because there is going to be time travel
ahead.
Thank you.
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We are back with Noe Chas
This is the penultimate round, we already have big news of the day, we have a winner,
Noi Chess Woman's Winner is a BB Star Assalva Ava, but in Noi Chess itself, there is a complete
mess, just like the mess that Tanya and David make on a daily basis.
This is not okay man, I mean seriously David.
It wasn't me, it wasn't me.
Tanya's got like 20 muffins, 20 sandwiches, like makeup wipes, it's like everything down
here.
I agree on the makeup part with the food and the mess is all David Howells.
It's messier than the Goukash against Prague position.
Nothing's messier than that right now, Yavanka.
Nothing is messy because take a look at how chaotic it is.
The evaluation bar has risen sharply in Prague's favour, telling us one thing.
Goukash has made a blunder. Let's dive in immediately to that game and see what went on.
Yeah, let's jump in. We'll do a very quick action replay.
mistake on the last move. We see a question mark attached to that King move from Goukeshe. He's trying
to run and hide his King on A2, but until this point they were both playing very accurately. We
left it with Goukeshe having to take back some material at least. There's no way to continue
the attack. Knight takes rook. Now it's only a piece, I say only. At least the bishop is poorly
placed and the knight a bit loose. He found out, found the best move. King to C2. Hitting this
night very important to drive it back because we saw some variations of the black queen coming in
with a nasty checkmate the white king in the tempo now another tempo gained because check is
threatened the white bishop is lined up that would regain a piece the black knight would drop
afterwards uh covered though by prague and now king to b1 and i did check in the break apparently
the best wasn't easy this is where maybe he needed a bit more time gukesh because suddenly it's a
a little less intuitive, his moves aren't forced.
Bishop to C1, maybe better, bringing the bishop into a new diagonal.
Maybe bishop to C3 as well, also playable, trying to get a new angle against the Black King.
But King to B1 simply too slow when he's a piece down.
For losing a tempo like that, it could cost him.
And too slow is exactly what the World Champion cannot afford,
with 13 moves and under 10 minutes on the clock,
that's less than a minute for a move right now.
King to B1 passes the ball to Prakrananda.
You're up a piece, but what Gokesh is relying on is the disharmony, the disconnection between all of Black's forces, right?
The Knight, Bishop, the Knight, they're not really doing anything. You're still going to get them into the game.
And unless that happens, you've got play.
Bishop C1 could still be the big idea right now in the position, especially with the King feeling safer.
And I'm just wondering, can Prague use this move to actually create a better development here?
Do you want to go direct with Pontix Pawn if you're Prague hoping for a Queen trade to follow next?
Maybe 97 coming into the game.
I'm also on ideas like Pontics Pawn, Queen takes Pawn, 97 knight f6.
Yeah, this is exactly what Prague will be looking at. Just consolidating his position,
just needs to do the repair work with the pieces and get them all working.
Because once you can start utilizing that extra piece in the defense, then that's it.
Koukesh is a busted.
Yeah, just to point out, I think Pontics Pawn might be quite nice.
firstly the other black knight can start rejoining the action secondly the
bishop might later be able to get out via this diagonal and if the pawn had
taken I think Queen takes a much better practical try but I was gonna say d6 and
there's suddenly this bishop comes to life there's no threats no checks if the
black knight can come around to c5 then ie my words from earlier all of black
space is actually in good post and there's no way you can land a check
against the black king therefore you're just a full piece down the one thing
that you would want to watch out if your prog right now in this position is the
threats that Gukesh has in the air of the Queen sliding over to B8 pinning
that Bishop on C8. You've got 97 as a defense but it's the only defensive
resource you've got. So just don't walk into that trap and you're doing well if
you're prog right now. 25 minutes to work this out. Gukesh on the ropes here.
Definitely on the back first as the world championship, world champion rather.
the back of the head. It's
going to be a great start.
But first, I'd like to look at
Wesley so against Magnus, and
then I'd like to focus in on
Vincent against Ali Reza. Okay
let's jump in to that heavy
weight clash. Our leader Wesley
so trying to keep things so
solid here and the position
hasn't really changed much over
the last few moves. It looks
like Wesley's built what he
be forced slightly tender but there will be tricks to keep that pawn alive. White has, for the last few moves, played King D2, King E3, King D2, King E3 and you might just put the King of C3 if he needs to if the Black Knight ever goes back to try and attack this pawn.
It looks like he's covered everything and Magnus, you can see in the body language, doesn't really believe in his winning chances.
Yeah, Magnus might not believe in fortresses either but this one is hard to imagine that he'll be able to break through right now.
even though he's got the more active of the pieces here, the rook and the knight center of the board,
but where is the progress if your Magnus Carlsen here? You know, no big weaknesses to really target
the knight and c4 doing a fabulous job. I think Armageddon incoming, it's not too soon to call
that one out. Yeah, okay, whilst this one is heading to a draw, if we could just quickly go back to
the bird's eye view, I just wanted to point out that it's also looking like a draw between Divya
and Humpy Canaris, especially, as I think we're going to be seeing too many decisive games there,
but let's immediately go to Vincent Kramer against Ali Reza-Faroujah, top left.
Yeah, we can jump into that. Just to mention, Humpy is about, it's going to be a draw any second.
She's about to find a really nice draw. Actually, before we jump to Vincent, maybe I can just bring us into that one.
Yeah, let's do it.
Yeah, this will be the last time we visit this game.
Black is pretty much just going to play Knight F3, Knight takes pawn against anything, just
to show White's about to win the G4 pawn, even if she defends her H2 pawn, Black can
just take this, Black can put her king in the corner, and this is just a dead draw.
It's Bishop and wrong coloured rook's pawn, no way to evict the Black king from that corner
square, and this will be a draw, and a handshake any second now.
into Armageddon. For our leaderboard, not the most important of the matchups, but both
these players looking for a good finish here at Norwich S with the final two games. For
Zhu Wenjun, I think it's just been an incredibly disappointing campaign here, looking ahead
at the World Championship match coming up. I wonder if Rusty Ness has something, a role
to play as we see David's idea being played out here. Wenjun back to classical chess after
a long time. For Humpy as well, never really got going in this tournament.
Yeah, for Humpy it was like her first round loss against BB. Sorry
It just knocked the wind out of her sails and she never ever found her momentum
For you and June it looked like you know things perhaps could turn when she won in the classical against Divya
But then she lost
And we have to jump she went June's night is trapped but doesn't matter
This is gonna be a draw. She can just put her king in the corner ignore everything else
Let's jump over because you've seen action elsewhere Tanya.
Actions all over the place and I just want to point out that on our Divya board
we will jump to that but later it's not over it's far from over bottom left there
there is an imbalance in the peace dynamics but look at that top right
there Pragrinanda has gone for point expand at the center of the board
looking at how this is being paid out notice top center Wesley Carlson most
likely heading into a draw that means an Armageddon for Wesley the gap really
narrows if Prague gets this three-point win. I think incredibly equally important
Vincent Kymur with an advantage right now against Alireza Ferozha. We might see
a leapfrogging here where Praveen Nanda is the hottest on chase going into that
final round. Wow, if Prague wins in the Class School, if Wesley loses the Armageddon
to Magnus, they'll be locked on the same points heading into tomorrow's grand
finale. That'll be quite the climax to the tournament. And yeah, in the meantime
We have been promising Vincent Klymer and Alireza for a while.
We did see an exchange of pawns between Goukesh and Prague.
Well, it's not getting any better for Goukesh, it's got to be said.
Which one do we jump to?
I think we have to go to Vincent.
Let's do that.
Alireza, because things are getting critical here.
We see Vincent making big progress, Rook there on G2, and as David's indicating, well, that's
a really sly manoeuvre to go around the back.
And I could actually see this being a threat.
If black does nothing here, I'll just put a move on the board.
If black plays like Qb6, I think this might be almost a game-winning threat because after
Rg7, white can occupy the center, control the d8 square, now how are you ever evicting
this bishop from e8?
You can't.
Therefore, your rook is trapped, your queen is kind of, if the board is cut in half here
and I'm not sure exactly how white wins, probably it's something to do with activating
the knight.
Maybe eventually you bring it round to f3 to hit e5 pawn, but black is, yeah, just totally
frozen for the rest of this game so this is a very annoying threat even if it's
not decisive immediately not a knockout it's really annoying to have to deal
with in only eight minutes for Farooja. Only eight minutes and how to deal with
that. I mean the only moves that kind of sprung to mind is the bishop coming to
D7 but even then that has its consequences. It might be forced I really
like it. Well I didn't see that much on that maybe you just highlighted at the
center of the board to combine the queen and the bishop to attack the bishop on d7.
Should we quickly see that line?
It looks very tempting to go bishop d7, trying to neutralize the threat and the light-squared
bishop.
And now knight to d5, you hit the queen, you hit the dark-squared bishop.
If black grabs that knight at the center of the board, you go bishop takes bishop and
guess what?
Bishop e6, another devastating threat, a pin on that rook.
And if you try to fight against that, the d5 pawn will be lost.
Yes, you can go forward, but can I just ignore it?
OK, you're saying bishop d2 and then just go bishop e6.
Yeah, I mean it's not so clear actually. I thought it was over but
Black can prevent the bishop from reaching e6 so it's not
totally gone yet. I liked your idea Tanya of bishop e6 first but
if only the white rook had f2. Exactly. That would be game over but
no, this is, yeah, it's not over yet at least. I liked knight d5, I just
came to mine instantly but actually maybe white shouldn't go for that
and should be happy to just allow Black to be
Saddled with these weak points forever rather than healing the pawn structure. So maybe you just retreat with your bishop and say that you know
What I'll find another plan. I want to keep as many pieces on the board
You're under eight minutes now mr. Ali Reza and you still have a lot to play
So maybe just come back either to C2 or D1 and then think about how you want to improve next
Maybe you start expanding on the left flank with your pawns moving up the board as well before at the right moment
Yeah, and I was also thinking, you know, if the right works lights to D2
I don't think black either wants to be trading off the light square bishops because
E6 is so weak and I'm just seeing that black is the one that is just simply groveling
Black is groveling black is suffering for a should no time either
This could be huge for the standings. Vincent will catch him up
And these two could be just one or two points behind the lead heading into tomorrow
We could get maybe four five players within two points of each other
depending on how the Armageddon's go and how the other game goes.
Yeah, you've got to spam the Danny Emote right now of absolute cinema going on
because if that was to happen, I mean, who's Norway Chess is going to be?
I'll tell you who's not, it will be. That's Magnus Carlsen.
Few would have predicted that. We've got three people in the race potentially
for that Norway Chess crown and none of them are named Magnus Carlsen.
Who saw that coming?
Exactly. Goukesh is unlikely to be included in that conversation either.
If he loses today, depending on other results,
he might be guaranteed last place with one round to spare, which would be a really devastating
result, especially on the back of the last 18 months. And, yeah, it looks like on that right
board, no counterplay. Please down. He's under five minutes. Gukes is right now. 12 moves to
make. The idea, David, you pointed out of taking the D5 pawn, hitting the Queen next, opening up
the bishop. It's on the board. Is there anything that Gukes can do here to try to create his tricks
against the Black King. I'm struggling to find a way in.
Yeah, like you can literally, apart from the eighth rank, the back rank, you can pick up
the White Queen and put her anywhere. She doesn't really create any threats. And I love what
Prague is doing. Like he's been taking care of his King with the Black Knight, great defender,
the Black Queen, an equally strong defender. He's covered the Dart Squares with pawns,
and now he's covered the Light Squares with his bishop that looked like it was a sleep.
covered everything. If you're Goukesh, can you try to go wild with Queen H8? I'm
at least pinning your knight. I'm hitting the pawn on H7, at least pretending to
have a threat in this position. It's desperate, but I'm struggling to find
anything more active than that for Goukesh right now. Exactly. As our producer
Bick is saying, if the white pawn wasn't on A3, if it were anywhere else A2, A4,
then white would have had ideas like Bishop to A3 pinning the pawn on the
diagonal, and this diagonal would have been lovely for the bishop, but
unfortunately that was too many ifs in one sentence and that pawn he put on A3
as early as move 4 misplaced it seems and he goes back with his Queen I quite
like Queen h8 just a disturbance move something that maybe Prec hadn't seen
but yeah Queen g3 and now this black knight and a5 all he needs to do is
improve itself if it ends up on c5 every piece is controlling an important
square and you've got two ways to do it right and I don't really see a ref addition to
either one of them B3 or B7 retreat to go forward, hit that bishop, a matter of
few consolidating moves and Prague looking to join the lead going into the
final round. Yeah, win with in the classical for Prague will just boost him
to 15 points and that's very much near the top and just to confirm it was a draw
between a Humpe and Ju and Jun. So we're going to be seeing our second Armageddon
of the day. If we go back to the bird's eye view, I just also want to point out that the
evaluation bar is all the way in favour of Juzina as she is winning against Ndivya Deshmukh.
So looking like Juzina is going to be netting three points and for Wesley and Magnus still
very much balanced. Ndivya had to keep the queens on the board. She had to combine the
ideas of the queen in the night for competition against that exchange. This is a game where
Black's rook will chase down all of Divya's pawns. So Jujina the plan is clear. Get your
king, kick that knight out, attack B3, win that. White's king stuck to the square because
F2 is tender as well. There'll be no coordination between the white knight and the king. I think
Jujina gets the job done in this one.
Divya walked into that queen trade, I think mainly by accident. She felt she had to, but
she just had no time. This is the position we weren't looking too long, but 40 seconds.
that needs to be said and just to show the Queen exchange happened just a few
moves ago it was around here and she was facing the threat of checkmate. I just
wanted to show this because it is a brilliant move she had to play this
now but Queen to G8 check and Queen sacrifice unfortunately it wasn't
saving her she was able to land a fork but yeah one the dust settled Queen
trade only helped black and the a2 pawn falling didn't help this double attack
and if we catch up with the live position, I think all that sushi nennies to do there we go
She's moved her king on over
It's all because the existence of the c5 for an f4 desperate attempt to free the white king to hit the rook
But just too slow blacks gonna start picking off pawns on the other side soon
Yeah, you could do that you could kick the knight away first. This is a jiu-jitsu game
This is definitely a jiu-jitsu game and I gotta direct us immediately to Vincent against Ali Rosa because Ali Rosa has gotten creative
and he just played Rook F force sacrificing the Rook for a Bishop and this is his plan.
He's gonna get active, try to imbalance the position in a manner that maybe White will
not be able to take control.
The clock rearing its ugly head again.
Alireza done to three minutes.
The storyline of this tournament is the players who's not able to handle the time.
I'm one to speak, I'm big time trouble addict, but I think just taking away the extra 30
minutes that move 40, it's throwing everyone off balance.
quick recap in this position. White's in full control about to infiltrate with moves like
bishop to d7. So Allerais have felt this was the last moment. I think a good practical decision,
like he's worse anyway, we see the bar. Like yes, he's still a lot worse after rook f4,
but the question mark, I think we throw this one away. It's a good practical try.
If he gets a couple more moves, knight takes pawn and f3 check. Suddenly the white king isn't so
safe. Suddenly real counter play and still no infiltration for the white rook. White's the
the exchange up but that rook as long as it can't get in the material not the
most important thing yet. I completely agree I think the evaluation bar is
quite deceptive in this one right now from a practical perspective there are
questions to be answered the g5 pawn is about to fall regardless of what you do
the e pawn about to move forward to improve the position of the bishop
bishop from b7 lining up against the e4 pawn the other way to get it into the
attack knight g5 queen 8-6 looking at that h3 square to screw up the white
side even tighter in those positions right now. I would almost say that I don't understand the
evaluation bar right now. Like such a big advantage unless it's a concrete line. I think it's a great
sacrifice by Alireza. This is where like 20 years ago, before, well maybe 30 years ago, before
computers became really, really good, we would have been like, yeah, this is double exclam,
brilliant move, and momentum turner. That's the main thing. Momentum breaker. You're worse,
you're worse, you're suffering, you're passive, you've sacked something, you barely sacked anything,
It's just a bishop for rook. He's suddenly got better pawn structure and this could definitely turn
It's the kind of sacrifice, you know
You're thinking about the romantic era of chess with McAltar currently celebrating in his grave right now
Just happy to see this being played out on the board
But then the evaluation bar just takes the fun out of the position
But what is white's response? How does kind of keep the pink side defend it?
And this was my question to you because the g5 pawn is dropping off
I don't think you could be defending that one. So I have like two instincts here bishop to d7
I don't know why I want that, but I do mm-hmm get a rook into d7 and
Makes a lot of sense e6 is weak as well after that. Yes
So that would be one instinct another instinct that I have
Which doesn't quite make so much sense is to go e5. I
Yes
Just have some funny tactical ideas of posting up a knight on e4
But that's probably wishful thinking. I also break the rules as well big time
just want to point out with this e5 yes David thank you I was just going to say that as well you
make your king very exposed don't weaken the king on the diagonal well I want to highlight that you
have great instincts Yvanka because I mean bishop d7 I think is the most human move just eliminating
the black bishop pair before the black bishop gets to b7 but the top move by the computer
is actually your plan just same idea just different order starting with bishop c6
which I'm going to say is very difficult, it feels like a slow move, but it takes away the square from the Black Bishop, which is actually trapped now,
and after 9825, then E5, and you stopped F3, you've covered that square, you've stopped the Black Bishop getting active.
Wow.
This would be genius from Vincent Klammer, but you struck the right idea, Ivanka, and that's how chess works, right,
which is fine-tuning, finding cool ideas and making it work.
Yeah.
And how narrow is the path to an advantage, so say for instance Bishop to D7 would that get you to an advantage or would that get you to a mess?
Advantage I think.
I just want to point out that maybe at some point we get the double board view because Gokish is down to under two minutes on the clock and he still has eight moves to make.
me. That's about four moves per minute that the world champion has to afford in a position
where, again, you could have as much time as you want and you're still struggling.
Yeah. I mean, we see actually Bishop to D7 on that left board. Vincent Kimer does play
the most human approach. So he covers all the light squares. Still the exchange up,
Vincent, although it has to have slightly worried about the white king now. On that
right board, I mean, Lukash, this is so sad. He's just a pure piece down. His whole idea
now on that right board is to try and trade off Black's knight on b7 with his last move
and the white queen wants to sweep all the way to the top of the board with a check.
But yeah, that's easy to stop I think for Pratt.
If you're proud, can't you just actually force a queen trade off in this position?
I'm going queen f5.
If you hide your king on a2, my queen comes to c2.
If you step up on the dark squares, I go queen f6.
Isn't that just handshakes?
Yeah, I think we should show that.
Let's jump in because Vincent has found the best path against Alaracer to stop counter
play but this is where the most drama is happening under two minutes now for
Kutkesh and Tanya's pointing out this move. This looks very natural, very strong
and I mean first thing we calculate right checks. Any dark square B2, A1 as he
said just queens off and this is resignable now. D5 drops, extra knight.
I think this pin is only temporarily uncomfortable. White can never profit
from it and yeah the other way, the only way to save the... or keep the queens on
This is just this is over another pawn bites the dust
Yeah, Queen takes corner. I was thinking of Queen C2
But you still have Bishop b2 in that position and the game goes on
But Queen takes one looks very very strong there
And I don't even think Prague needs to be super precise because Queen f5 Queen g6 check both would probably
Potentially lead to the same position being forced to give C2 after King to a2. Yeah
Exactly advantage. I just saw a pawn. I wanted to grab a phone, but
Exactly, there's plenty of ways for practice to do this, so the path isn't that narrow even.
Now I was also going to point out that black's knight, they might look clumsy,
but the knight on b7 covers the all-important d8 square, and the knight on g8 covers f6, h6, e7,
and those are critical squares. So for instance, you can take the pawn on d5 once you get there with check
And the full knowledge that if a bishop blocks that check, it's fine, the queen can move
somewhere else, she doesn't need to protect any squares.
And just to show that, I actually missed Bishop C4's and thank you for pointing out
that everything is still covered.
Not sure exactly where to go, but should be still quite safe.
But there's no stress.
That's the thing, the knights are doing all the fantastic job.
But because your southern knights are doing such a fantastic job, I wonder if Prague isn't
rushing with this decision because there's a temptation to go pawn hunting immediately
from the starting position, the live board that we have right now. And I wonder if Queen
takes pawns, still keeps everything intact because I'm not seeing any big check for White
in this position.
This looks like a mating attack for Black. Suddenly, with the White King, such a big
target on the light squares, Pratt can win, I think in any way possible now. He can also
just put his Queen on a dart square. He does give the check first though, very logical.
Very precise. I also would just like to say, I don't think this is about Gapesh not getting
slag. I just don't think he reaches move 40 because he's about to lose before that.
Now this is move 33. Seven more moves to make to get the 10-second increment.
But yeah, the position is terminal. He does at least keep the game alive by keeping the queens
on the board. So that's the first step. I think we've all been there, like lost positions. We just
try not to give up hope, but keeping pieces on the board is the first step. And there we go.
Set up with a check. And let's not forget, this was the scenario in the last encounter
at Norway, Chas and Gukes turn things around at the very end from a dead-loss position,
snatched victory in that one, Bishop comes back, Proc confidently now getting ready to set up the
check on C2, the Black Knight ready to jump into the game as well, Bishop E6 a massive threat.
Yeah and for Gukes he has barely any checks and he's gonna resign.
And there we have it, it's the results, the world champion loses, Prague, the earth
win in a row in classical, he's jumped right up in the standings now, in with a chance
of winning Noi chess tomorrow.
Yeah, what a comeback and false statement it has been about Prague and Nanda over the
last few days suffering a setback with two back to back losses and responding in full
boss mode, taking down the world champion today at a point when it matters the most.
One round to go, drug very much in the race. Completely in the race. I mean,
Craig with that victory moves to 15 points. He's currently in the lead. If
Alireza falls to Vincent, which let's go there and have a look, if he falls,
Vincent is the one who will move to 13 points. You know, we might even see the
situation that if Magnus manages to squeeze out a win against Wesley, Magnus
will be in the mix as well.
Wow, we have four players within two points of each other.
Heading into the last day, that would be an incredible showdown for the title.
It does look on that right board, like the status quo has been maintained.
Wesley So against Magnus Carlsen still looks like a draw is the most likely result.
Not much changing there.
But Vincent with huge winning chances exchange up.
Wow.
And that's the big one for Alireza Ferozha down by a point on the leaderboard
on the leaderboard currently before the Armageddon between Wesley and Magnus if it was to go there.
Alireza in big trouble right now. He's down materially. I'm still not seeing the attack,
the compensation, especially with the black queen boxed up on e8 right now. The black knight tied
there to not allow the white queen from picking up one of the two pawns. The rook, do you simply
slide back or do you stay active on the seventh rank? Is the question for Kaima? The question,
I think ideally he wants to stay on the seventh rank just more active and also tying down the black queen to her bishop
But yeah, I'm the best kid of getting trapped on the seventh and also if the black queen gets the D file oh
This could turn like I think it's good for Vincent that he's up at nine minutes
If it were a three-minute versus three-minute scramble, that's where for Asia is quicker sharper tactically tricky
And yeah, we could see a black suddenly take over
I could imagine a pawn on F3 and if the black queen gets anywhere in the white half of the board
Meeting attacks, but yeah, still needs a helping hand from Vincent. Yeah, and I was gonna say I
Well
We have a result a draw between Wesley so and Magnus Carlson
So we'll be seeing Armageddon later on. This is such an important draw for Wesley in the standings because he's now guaranteed himself at least
15 points
Absolutely, and that's been class about Wesley right. He's not always reminder. He's not always flashy, but so unbreakable
It just feels like he's just there super solid and impossible to take down currently in that classical section
and it all happened with a big swing in round five taking down Magnus Carlson is when
Wesley Storneman started skyrocketing and he hasn't stopped since then
Goes into an Armageddon, but that just means that Norwiches remains a wide open on the last day
Totally and let's have a look at how that game finished David
Yeah, just we don't need to go too far back. Essentially nothing much changed from this point onwards
White has everything covered nice beautiful pawn chain everything protected white King centralized
Magnus tried to maneuver his night around and he tried to bring it around to attack white's pawn
but now the King showed its versatility and
Essentially they just started repeating the position and Magnus here bring his night back and forth offered the draw
which Wesley I think very gratefully accepted. There were actually maybe one
or two small moments where Magnus could have taken over just before we reached
this exact end game but ultimately Wesley way too solid and Armageddon between
these two that's gonna be a lot of fun to watch. Yeah and the big question can
Wesley pull off a Prague take-down Magnus twice in the same tournament or
practice it in classical? Wesley he'll be looking to do it in Armageddon. He's
been super strong in Armageddon. Magnus meanwhile shaky the whole tournament
This might be the time he decides to strike at the King Magnus Wesley mentioned it himself
Yoranka when he joined us in the interview that Magnus's form has been the biggest question
So maybe Wesley smells blood when the clocks go down. Yeah for Wesley. There's so much at stake here, you know
One or getting one point getting one and a half points could be the difference of
Being Norway chess winner and also I've got big news for you, Tanya. It's very good news. Oh, no
We've finally taken down the mighty David Howell.
I lost my time machine.
I lost the keys to the TARDIS.
I lost it.
What went wrong?
I'm gutsy.
It's between you and me now.
But I think it's looking really good for you.
Magnus Wesley will be our third Armageddon of the day and this one if I have to make
a prediction with the extra exchange for Winston.
I see that he gets his second classical win of Norway chess right now which would be an
absolute disaster for Alreza Feroja at this point.
Yes, he'll still have his chances because guess what, Alreza plays Wesley in that last round.
His fate in his own hands, but he might be forced to go for a classical win in that case.
I don't know what's more important here. Yavanka winning the prediction game,
getting her first point, or the tournament being blown wide open here in this game.
It's obviously Yavanka's first point. I mean, it's been ages since that happened.
Yavanka has been here. I feel good, but I haven't won it. I'm in with a chance.
I've been in with a chance every single day, but we'll find out. I'm pretty excited, regardless of how this game...
We can do a little victory dance for us if you were to win the prediction game.
I can do a little victory dance right now, but even though I haven't won.
We should do a check, actually. If you do win, was it the same exact round last year that you won as well?
Because it was quite towards the end. Will it be 12 months to the day?
It's been so long that your banker has no memory of it.
Oh, no, I remember. I remember that feeling of winning was very rare from the prediction.
Yeah, but I don't know. I was so good at the prediction and it always feels like a lottery.
But this one, whoa, you know, interesting decisions have been made by Vincent because
when you mentioned David, you know, about dropping the Rook back, keeping control on
the D-line, I was like, yeah, that's very much Vincent. But Vincent hasn't gone for
that. Instead, he's kind of said, well, Rook to B7 is going to be my move. And I'm not
afraid of the queen taking
control of the D line. Mm hmm.
Yeah, I would have been a bit
afraid of this and the
variation I was trying to work
out was Queen takes porn Queen
in check coffees and they're
trying not to draw too much
attention to it. You're right.
I'm trying to deny today's
existence, but this would have
been a bit scary, although
eval bar shows the way it's
winning and probably can dodge
the checks eventually. I think
it's just a couple of checks
and they do dry up when the
I also want to point out another defensive resource, which I think will be important in future lines as well.
If black does take the D-file immediately, you do have the queen retreat offering the trade here.
You take it end game waiting for white. You don't take it.
It's the white queen infiltrating on the seventh rank on D7, just solving all problems.
By the way, a decision by Alireza right now, he does instead of putting the queen to D8,
decided to put it back on F8 and has pushed the F pawn. The white knight, meanwhile,
rerouting itself towards the center of the board. Why a C3 to D1?
Yeah, and I like what he's doing. Actually the night is going to be very nice on F2
We've seen the theme quite a lot this tournament already like a knight being a king's best friend and
A knight just controlling all the squares around a king on F2
The black Queen will need at least three moves to deliver any check. You'll need to be on a dark square as well
I don't think the black Queen gets three moves because everything is so loose the bishop is loose
the black knight couldn't have taken the pawn last move because
G6 E6 also under fire
I think the whole idea behind Nxd1 was to put it on the square and then liberate the
white queen, the white Rekordi doing a great job and maybe it was just see Vincent tie
up black and start pushing pawns.
It looks like that right because where is black's progress now that you've got that
knight on the beautiful square.
It defends everything, keeps everything under control.
For Alira is a ferocious, he's trying desperately to get his queen in right now, d2 and the
blue arrow appears queen f4, he needs to stop that threat.
will give Alireza the much-needed counterplay in this position.
Wow, only move territory for Vincent Kheimer. That is findable,
because you just ask your opponent what their threat is.
Also, it sets up White's own threat of Rook to be 8
with a nasty skewer on the 8th rank.
So I think he finds it. Like, process of elimination.
You definitely don't move the knight, you get checkmated.
You don't really want to move the king, why would you move the king?
White Rook can't be improved, so I think, yeah, he's going to find this, surely, multi-purpose move.
And you've got to stop Queen D2, right? Because it's not even just going to be holding. It comes with some deadly threats with Queen E2 check out.
Yeah, and look at how he does a Winston Kaima in full control, access denied.
Yeah, and now there's a threat of his own, Rook to B8. That would be attacking the Queen and the King.
It's a game-changing threat. Okay, so he moves the Bishop, goes on the counter, hits the Queen.
And now for Winson Kaimah, do you move the queen away?
Do you push the e5 pawn there, hitting the black bishop?
But I feel like it's pleasant choices to be made here.
Pleasant choices.
The most natural would be to push the pawn forward, and Aresa will retreat his bishop
and argue that at least he's closed down that white queens diagonal, B8, no longer an issue.
But Vincent, you could see that he's sent something there.
He suddenly got really excited.
Okay, looking back now, he's like, okay, I'm not winning yet on the spot, but getting close.
Do you think he got excited about Queen H4, Queen H6 infiltrating with the Queen,
trying to threat some, a kiss of death, checkmate ideas, also eyeing the G6 square?
That can be quite tempting.
Also, dropping the Queen back to D2, setting up a pin.
Oh, nice.
Could also be on the radar as well.
Next big threat would be going E5.
In some kind, we're getting ready to make his move.
He's under five minutes.
The players have crossed the 40-move mark, but only get an additional 10 seconds right now.
Kymer putting the finishing touches to this one.
He has to be just careful about not allowing Alireza's Queen into his own camp.
I do fear that Vincent, if he drops down to around the one-minute mark at some point,
bit of a shake of the head there, then he might start to get nervous.
Like the ghost of all those seven lost Armageddon's,
all because of the clock or because he wasn't able to handle his nerves.
Suddenly it feels like an Armageddon game.
Like he has the advantage, yes, but he has to win it.
material up and if he can't convert soon, he might start to get nervous.
Right, and does Vincent have to be accurate in this? Does he have to find E5, which is
a very natural move?
Just checking with the computer. If he doesn't find E5, the advantage pretty much halves.
So still better. Quintity to the next best. Quintish for also good. Let's say E5 by far
the strongest and he does play it. But what next?
Yeah. Black Bishop has to retreat now. E7 or F8 goes back where it came from defending the Knight.
Still no way in for the Black Queen.
Everything under control. The Knight defending the Squares, the White Queen taking control of the D2 infiltration spot here.
Winston's ready with his response.
So now what's next for Vincent? How does he improve?
He simply just pushed pawns. What does he do?
I could suggest one plan here David, if you're white, go Queen E3, go Queen D3.
I just want to fight for the D-line.
Very classy. That would be very calm, very collected.
Not just that, but maybe forcing Black's hand because of a hit on G6.
He goes back with his rook, same idea. Different order.
Rook to D3, his idea to shut the gate.
closed the D file also looks very very logical. Very nice. I was looking at some
weird ways of like going King G1, King H2, King G3. I thought you were going to say King E1, Queen D2. King G1, King H2 is very impressive David Howell. Probably also just bad.
Also I might have been blundering like night each. Oh my god I thought I was
blundering night each three there and then the backwing coming into D1 but okay
Rook D3 much more professional. Isn't that an idea as well and yeah like
immediately. Wow. I think White will react by taking this pawn, not getting
deflected. But if the black knight moves, yeah, that's bait you don't want to take.
But he dodged the blunder there. Queen to D7. He's tying that A4 square if you go
Rook D3. Oliver is a ferocious setting up Queen A4, Queen C2 ideas, desperately
trying to get to the white king. This is where Alarose is at his most dangerous.
When he has nothing to lose, when he's just playing for swindles, playing for
tricks. More often than not he tricks the opponent, especially when both clocks are low. His vision
and his creativity is another level. Everyone watching, just ignore the evaluation bar and
watch the magic unfold. Alireza Fruja isn't going to make this easy for Winston Keimah.
Not easy at all. And you see there with this little move that Alireza has found, you know,
if you do slide over the rook to d3, that queen is primed to come in on the queen side.
start, you know, skirting around the king with Queen a4, Queen c2. And there's
questions. We're gonna watch this being played out. Alar as I will reach out for
his Queen. Make it the most active piece in the position. Might as well. Nothing
much to think about here. Bring the Queen in. Maybe White's idea is to just
continue locking that door. Just bring the White Queen to slightly passive
square but at least controlling any entry points. Vincent is going to go for his
queen, he's going to retreat her, there we go. He covers the C4 point importantly
but now the black queen has no way in. And this is super instructor from
Winston, right? He's gone up material, he's now going into defense mode, he knows
as long as he fights Alreza's counter play, he's going to be winning this game
in the long run. He just cannot allow any offensive ideas of Alreza, he now falls
back with the Queen. Alvarez are also trying to get Winston down to his final few seconds.
He knows that's when miracles happen.
It's a bit liberating having a lost position because at some point you just start playing
not to lose immediately. You're just like, okay, prolong the game, prolong the game,
prolong the game. The longer it goes, the more your opponent gets nervous and then you're
like, wait, I'm still in it. Momentum could turn. Very professional from Vincent B3 covering
his pawns.
being protected and yeah I think it was Indian cricketer Virat Kohli who said
you have to believe in that 1% because then that 1% can become 10 can become
20 just keep making moves fight your own mind to not give up absolutely true and
also if you approach it like a challenge you just say well hang on a
second I'm completely lost I accept the results and then you say can I survive
this next move and then the next move and then you just keep on going and
suddenly your opponent gets frustrated and that is something that could very
well happen to Vincent although Vincent just coolly advancing the
queenside pawns. Peter Lecker would be proud. Cemento,
queenside totally locked down. Now Black's infiltration points are only on the
other side of the board where the queen can't get to. You're time for Ali Reza,
watch the clock everyone. Oh seconds, he's got a path though, he's clearing the
8th rank, he wants to swing the whole way across the board, back and round.
My favourite chessbook, the Seven Deadly Chessins, they call it the Goalkeeper's Glory, because
when you're facing a penalty, you're never scoring a goal, you can save it, and you look
like a hero, or you let it in, but here you're just trying to save it.
That's all, but it takes the pressure off.
And once again, Vincent Carmel gets his queen active on f4 but no infiltration squares for
that queen.
Meanwhile, Alireza steps back now, weighing the b4 square to come in from.
Watch out.
Does take a few moves, but Black's queen might get in.
It's all about the clock now.
And Alireza, in my opinion, is so impressive in this type of position because, yes, okay,
he's lost.
with the queen b7 he's threatening to come in on the queen side also don't
discount that this possibility that the queen could snake its way around the
eighth rank is still there and for Vincent how does he improve his position
how does he put the goal in the back of the net I think I was relying on the
idea that the queen gets too ambitious you've got rook d7 on the seventh rank
and black just cannot afford to allow that that would be game over so instead
he comes in with his knight not fearing any queen moves as the rook would come
Night G4, now targeting Summleto's Dark Squares, Queen H2, Queen H6 ideas in the air, and Night F6 would be a really good disruptive move as well.
Just to break the connection between the Bishop and the Knight.
That might be a clincher. What's Black's response to that one?
Night F6 jumping in, the defensive Knight becomes the attacking beast that it always dreamed of being.
I think it's about to do just that. You can't afford to take it, the Knight on G5 will be hanging and he reaches out, it's on the board.
It's on the board the night lands on a deadly square now the clock seven seconds to defend this the black knight is hanging
Rufia goes back, but that hangs the F3 pawn
Oh, he's relying on some tricks there to hit the central pawn for white
But this trick does not work surely the white rook can also come up to D7
He can also go rick takes F3 as well and Magnus watching the excitement from afar
You know while I can't help calling Vincent Vincent the way I do I love how chat has gone on that bandwagon and saying let's go Vincent
Can't say win without Winston exactly. It's not drawcent or lucent today
It's not Armageddon since who's
Unfortunately made too many appearances this tournament, but classical chess. He is fantastic
Breakout year and he'll be gaining rating points if he wins this
Thank you to the arbiter for blocking the camera in the meantime
time. That was Wesley. Oh it was Wesley. It was Wesley, not the Arbiter. I'm so used to it being the Arbiter's and wow,
control Vincent Clemmage, King F2, saying to Black that you were totally frozen.
Yeah Armageddon will come next, ladies and gentlemen, first is the grand finale
of this game, G5. I'm surprised Vincent didn't go for the kill immediately. Why
did he not take on F3? That would have been game over pretty much on the spot.
Probably did not want to lose control of that E5 pawn keeping everything under control
But something's got to give when you have to cash in and right now Winston down to 15 seconds as well
Oh, now as a matter of fact he wins in panic sets in look 10 seconds
And what is this is gonna play he drops the Queen back and begs for it off Queen H7 check into Queen H7 Queen G8 game over
But now the night you can capture it and
The King goes up so it doesn't walk into a check
there's no rook takes pawn check and now white only has one move to keep the advantage. Queen g3
that is extremely difficult. This one is suddenly turning. If he takes this pawn with a rook,
knight h6 and the black knight's getting in. This could be a total turn around.
For Ruja working some magic, Vincent doesn't find it goes behind with his queen
but there's no threat. There's no threat. A queen check and black will just take the pawn with
his king. The knight now holding everything together. Wow and suddenly you have to worry about
the black king side pawns that are advancing up the board. Queenie 4 blacks
knight about to jump into the game by 8-6 as well to stop any Queenie 8 check
ideas 9-8-6, knight G4 in the air. Look at the clocks! Made that move with three
seconds remaining. Great move though and now Vincent's on the back foot. Watch out
some attacks at incoming. Rook takes pawn I think is the most natural move here.
He will play it defending everything but the black knight is gonna be a real
stronghold on May 5th Square. Another of the Frugels ride back into it with six seconds on the clock.
He jumps in, gives a check. The White King can move forward, hit the Knight.
Or the Queen and the Knight combining. That's never an easy space to breathe for the White King.
Not an easy space at all, but also Alireza cannot forget about the safety of his own King.
He reaches for taking that pawn. Everything's under control. The Queen on C6 will be able to
hold everything together. G4, huge threat on the board. You've got to unpin yourself.
He hits the night. It is actually possible to play the move G4 right now
Apparently that forces a draw, but he doesn't want to give up his night with check of course now night to H5
Apparently a mistake question mark since it has to get his king out of there gets it off the pin
Now liberating his rook again and the black knight's misplaced
This is a game for all three results right now Ali Reza sensing to get
Abicious over there with that night jump, but will it come back to bite him?
Queen d7 the only way to stay in the game look for those queen checks Ali Reza
Oh, he's so good under time pressure.
Alarazer, with one minute, is like most top GMs with two hours on their clock.
It feels like he's the opposite end of Gukeshe, always relying on his intuition, finding the
best moves when he's got no time to calculate.
Well, he's got no time and he has to find the only move.
The correct step with the king is to go backwards.
Do not get yourself picked.
He goes the wrong way and now Rook to H3 would solve all of Winsengama's problems, he reaches
out for it.
He goes the other way.
Very logical there. Vincent didn't want to allow any checks. He could have allowed checks and lived to tell the tale there, but
The trouble continues. The downside now for white is that the black knight you can pre-move it
It's coming to F4 no matter what white plays the black knight is off the edge of the board back in the action
Game on yeah
We saw Magnus Carson there also enjoying the drama unfold in this position once again
The bar might be level but the position is anything but equal the knight jumps in the rook needs to be defended the jeep on
ready to go up the board as well. I think Alireza's got to be feeling right now that this could be my win.
Yeah, and Vincent, we've seen the Armageddon. The way he's handled the clock, when he gets nervous, when the time is down,
he starts to make mistakes. Now going up with his rook, threatening a nasty check from behind, that has to be guarded.
That should, for example, there we go. Hit the rook, defend the check, and the queen's coming in.
Finally, onto the other side of the board to give some big checks to the white king and
look at that, Winston goes onto the defense.
The black queen about to step up.
Step up the game.
Queen to C3 is the move.
Wow.
And you see the evaluation bar.
Oh, it's inching in favor of Alireza.
Alireza finds it, setting up the pin.
Some monster right now.
An absolute beast as Alireza Furuja finding the best moves one after another.
And look how he's coordinated the pieces.
The knight on f4 protects everything, a check there.
Vincent's just panicking.
It's all gone wrong.
Alireza wants more.
He doesn't even go back to 8-6.
He's not playing for repetition right now.
He will jump into the lead.
Unless Wesley, actually, he's definitely
going to jump into the lead.
If he wins this game, Alireza for Ruzza.
What a turnaround.
The last two moves are the first time the whole game
that Black has been better.
And Vincent needs to bail out.
Find a way to gain control back.
He's on the back foot now.
Valor is a Foujard. Intense shift of Gehr's there. He's going for the win and he knows it.
You just take all the pawns. Take the pawns. There's no checks on the black king.
The knight is way stronger than the rook right now. Start capturing.
All of them one by one. Pick up B3, pick up A4.
And he's taking his time. He's just quickly calculating what move to play.
Look, he's in kilomote!
Oh, QB3 check! He almost went like, why am I not taking this 20 seconds ago?
Is what he said to himself.
the white king feeling the pressure Queen comes back to assist big mistake
apparently forfeiting the center allows black to switch focus to the other side
of the board the G-pawns actually a winner the G-pawn might be the clincher
in this game a future Queen white pieces offside Vincent's gonna prioritize
King safety but it's not enough the clock ticking two seconds as he trades the
Queens but he's got the same plan he's gonna go running with the G-pawn
But shocking decision for Alireza there, Vincent Caiman's king was under so much pressure.
Yeah, he had to save for king, why trade queens? Also, he could have given a check, driven the white king further away and then traded queens.
This isn't our only move. He has to defend against the G-pawn advancing. If Vincent does not find Rooks to C3, he's going to be losing.
only move he has to bring his rook up and swing it behind because there are
actually a ton of forks no matter where you go you get forks unless you find
Roxy 3 which he does Vincent Kramer's still clinging on by his nails
oh my goodness the black king now moves forward if anyone's winning this it is
Alireza with that knight in the pond and G2 but Winston Kramer's surviving
wow look at the intrigue there and the playing hall the intensity of it
Magnus, Wesley, all watching this. They don't even want to start that armageddon.
They've just refused to get on with it. Not until this one's over.
For this turn again though, like, White's rook, if it's able to get round and pick off some pawns,
Black's so active for now though.
King E4, push that pawn to E5, start marching your king to the left side of the board,
start picking up the pawns on C4 and A4, E5, King D3.
Is what I was just setting up? Yeah.
Push that pawn, consolidate the knight, King D3 coming in.
King F2 absolutely necessary in order to allow the white rook to get active.
There we go it does get active it's going round to pick off some pawns and uh only moves yet again
for white and this one's difficult pushing the king it's so natural to go with the rook
and big mistake though now black has a free hand to push forward with his other pawn two
pass pawns it's too many. Warchick will have no time to pick up the pawn on A5 as the pawns will
will start rolling down the board. Nothing to stop them. And he's going... He is so
incredibly accurate as Alireza Fruja! Ever since he dropped down to one minute, Alireza
has played almost the perfect game. Both defense, the switch up, the turnaround, and
Vincent realises too late that he's in big trouble. No way to stop the pawns now! And
you can start giving some checks, but Alireza is also ready to pick up the pawns and look
at that. Alireza locked in, leaning in now. Five seconds! He knows it, he knows that
He's got the win in his hands.
Vincent can't believe how quickly this has all turned.
Stopping E3 right now, which was a big threat on the board.
King can come back.
The king can hide.
Where is the winning plan, though?
If White continues checking from behind, still not easy.
Alvarez has to combine the C, E, and the G pawns,
all to move them forward.
And the one loaned rook will not be enough
to save God, all the cleaning squares.
But Arreza is feeling the nerves.
Please cut those extra seconds now to work this out.
He does.
The first step, he has to defend the e-pawn
that is under attack.
He's trying to cut the little checkmate,
is what Farouzha is doing.
Reaching for the king, he's gonna move it closer to the pawn.
Winston ready with the check.
Will the king go forward?
Yep.
And just to confirm for everyone at home,
here we see Magnus Carson watching the action.
Technically, he should have started four or five minutes ago
his Armageddon, but he doesn't want that.
he is just a pure fan right now enjoying what we're seeing in front of us this game.
And Wesley will not be complaining. This match is so incredibly important for our standings right now.
As Oliver is on the last two moves has slightly improved the placement of his king.
But how does he hide against the threats on the E-Born and the Black King?
Five seconds and he has to take a decision. I'll have to repeat the position.
Will he take it to Armageddon because of the clock pressure?
He's got to be careful not to repeat the position. Now he blocks with his knight
But it's back to a draw. He gave up his most valuable pawn.
He should have walked the king the other way, banged everything on the c-pawn.
But now White is again within drawing territory.
This is an absolute roller coaster that doesn't stop going up and down right now.
And Winston Keimer, more twists and turns ahead.
Now only move again. He has to go for the e-pawn. This is so difficult.
It'll be so natural to go for a check. Which way is he going? It's going to be the
the rook. Is he going right, left, e8, the only safe square? Wow, he has to overwork
either the black king or the white or the black knight. He has to tide those pieces
down to their pawns, but this is difficult. 53 seconds he's built himself a time bank
at least.
Yeah, and it's so natural either to cut off the king from going for the a pawn. To go
Rook to e8. It's very difficult. Will he find it? He's got 36 seconds. It's ticking down.
He finds it. He does. That's difficult because it looks like Black wants to push the pawn anyway.
He's giving Black an extra move, but essentially, after we see that pawn push forward, he's going
to tie Black down now. There we go. The king goes away. Only moved territory again for Vincent
Kima he has to give a check and then the king can approach finally.
Giving the check? Will you voluntarily give up your A pawn?
If you don't give a check Black's going C2 next move as well.
Process of elimination for Vincent Kima. He can't attack the knight at the centre of the board.
C2 would win the game. Kima getting ready and he does.
Stays in the game. He had to. He had to. Now the Black Knight either has to give up the E3
pawn by blocking. All the black king steps in front of its pawn or walks away from its
pawn when the white king can start approaching. This is so close now to a draw, but will there
be any more only move for Scenarios for Vincent Clymer here? That's the big question. Alarazer
just needs to test him. Set one last trap.
So much drama in this game. Unbelievable scenes here in the penultimate round of Norwich as
Magnus and Wesley looking on. High stakes game right in front of them being played out right now.
Wesley's begging Vincent to hold this one for the standings. Here we go to White King, steps forward.
Now the Black Knight is overworked. And this was the whole point of enticing the
E-pawn to step forward. Now the King can get into the defense. Oh and three seconds for Wesley.
He too. He needs to move. E2. You've got to take that pawn. King takes pawn.
Why is Winston thinking? Take that pawn.
Black's going to create an umbrella for his king. He's going to put the knight here on B4, then use his king to come in.
So it still looks scary, but just take it. You have to take it. Why not? It's just too strong that pawn.
There is another move. Apparently coming back with the rook was also fine, but this is the most natural.
And now the Rook lines up, the White King about to march over to the C-Pawn, the Rook
ready to give itself up for the A-Pawn if that is needed.
Tying down the Black King there, can't step up with the King, if you're Alariz of
Uruja.
And the White King ready to march closer towards the pawn, Winston knows he's got the draw
here.
Alariz out there, with a shake of his hand and a shake of his head.
Wow, this is still the classical game everyone, this is not Armageddon yet, we'll see these
two in action again most likely.
I think a draw is just a fair result here, Vincent winning for most of the game, the turn around.
And it is a draw, ultimately, what a rollercoaster.
Both players with smiles on their faces after that titanic epic battle.
And there's got to be relief and joy for both of them,
for putting out this master piece of the game right now, as we listen then.
This is...
Oh yeah, this is...
556, 457, 457.
556, 457, 457.
9-4-2.
And the Arborist stepping in there to get the place to sign the score sheet.
I think they've forgotten about everything other than that endgame. In the meantime, we move on to more action
Wesley sir against Magnus Carlson. I can't believe that this is just the side show to what we just witnessed
We were talking about the relief and joy for Winston and Alireza after that insane fight
I think that was some relief on Wesley's soul seeing that go down to the arm again with Alireza not converting it
And now he's got to do it against the world number one to keep his lead
Yeah he absolutely is in a massive win situation if he wants to walk away with
one and a half points that one and a half points could make a difference
between finishing first finishing seconds and well we have time time on
no it's not time on if it's a car it's a sillion on the board night takes
nights it's like a hybrid I agree Yavanka a6 came first and then 96 so a mix
between the Khan and Taimanov and White slightly ahead in development, but the poor structure
looking quite symmetrical already at this early stage, Magnus, has switched it up.
No more Naidoth, which he's had mixed results with over the last few weeks.
And Miss Feeling is about probably because of those results.
Now he moves the pawn one more time to open up his own bishop, taking control of some
dark squares there is Magnus Carlsen for Wesley.
he has to keep the pressure on the clock right now, but definitely a sense of relief after seeing
Anurazhan not win that end game. Yeah, Wesley will be in the lead no matter what. If he loses this,
he'll be in the joint lead. But if he wins this small lead heading into the last round,
half a point never felt so important, never tasted so sweet. Wesley here does have to create
something though and he has to do that quick. His night hitting a point. Don't take this point,
big trap. Many of us including myself have fallen into this in our lifetimes. A black queen would
come out with a check and that knight in the center on e5 would have fallen. I remember
allowing that when I was a kid. Never again. Queen h5 though. Very interesting. Wesley doubling up
on this pawn which is difficult to defend. It is very difficult to defend how to do that. I mean
if you go bishop takes knight you can go bishop takes bishop but there's going to be this old
scholar's mate on the board and that's going to be some unpleasant pressure.
And also the long term advantage of a bishop there that's not a happy decision
if you're Magnus Carlsen if you need to give up the knight but Wesley putting
early pressure right now forcing Magnus into a thing. Queen H5 takes Magnus by surprise.
Does indeed and does he just gambit this pawn prioritize development? Does he try
to defend it by using his bishop here? It's not easy this choice for Magnus
Carlson he's burnt a lot of time now around a minute that is priceless a
minute and Armageddon he needs to move he needs to speed up and he could be
thinking about a check on B4 right now Magnus Carlson a C3 not possible
because of the bishop on D3 being lose right now you don't want to sidestep
with your King lose rights to Castle. Magnus doesn't look comfortable with the
choices he has he's getting ready to make his move he does in fact give up the
bishop there. Okay and then covers both pawns F7 and E5 with Queen to E7 but
the problem is, is how is he going to get developed now, why is it going to be super
quick to start developing the pieces. You've got to be careful though, because there is
Queen to be for in the air.
Yeah, White should get castled sooner or later, or stop the check, defend the bishop. Surprise
Magnus didn't allow scholars mate, that would have been a turn out for the books, but no,
Magnus defending and I think his next move, he plans to play G6, kick the Queen away and
And then if given the opportunity, he wants to get rid of White's Bishop power by playing
the move Bishop to H6, trade off the Dartsburg Bishops, and White will be so far ahead in
development that I'm skeptical, but at least then Magnus' long term would be okay.
Wesley now needs something quick, dynamic, to try and take advantage of Magnus' weird
mode of development here.
Wesley is indeed the armour overlord.
He's had so many of his wins there, the first half of the tournament, drawing the classical,
Taking up the points, taking it to Armageddon and currently leading after a big swing in
round five.
That's all the fortune stone for Alireza and Wesley keeping the lead since then is Wesley.
So fighting for it, he does go back with his queen, defends the bishop on c4 against the
double attack ideas.
Nice move actually because perhaps this is unexpected for Magnus.
Maybe Magnus is planning for bishop b2 and in the Armageddon with the time deficit, this
That is critical. G6. G6, you want to trade off the Dartsquare Bishops from Bishop H6,
but more importantly, trivia question for everyone at home. How many water bottles are
on the table right now? We don't see them in camera. Have you been keeping an eye on
the game? We're testing you right now. Let us know your answers.
Ooh, I love that chair. Is that Wesley's signature on that chair? Yes. Need to have those sort
of giveaway with love one of those. Do you think all of the players have their designated
chairs throughout the tournament so the arbiters I mean the main heavy lifting is
moving those chairs before each round. Wow, such a time for Wesley, he goes age 4. Trying to treat
after dark squad bishops here, neutralizing the bishop there that Wesley has. Hey, is Magnus going
to go longside castle or shortside castle? Well Wesley's gonna get there first. He's gonna castle
queenside and say to Magnus where are you going with your king? You won't have an option to go
left flank then. That would be illegal. He does it. Yvanka, your idea on the board, ready
for that H5 strike if Magnus goes the other way around.
This is tough for Magnus now, because he tried to challenge Rooks, tried to take the defile.
He brings his knight all the way home. What a move. Magnus is forgetting all about the
opening rules in this game. He's getting all about the concept of tempo. He's lost time
with his bishop, with his knight, and he's getting attacked from all angles right now.
15 moves in and only Magnus's queen has been developed so far after everything that's happened
He does get the knight out but Wesley takes a g6 with no pawn. Oh, he actually goes out for zero ask on the position
He goes it's wait. Did he take or did he push there was a capture at the lifeboard there has been a glitch
So I'll put the moves there. We didn't see an on-person. We didn't see black bypassing currently white has a semi-open H file
To stare down out
But if black gets two more moves, if black gets king f8, king g7, there's a nice little
Sanctuary for the king, a nice little haven for it to hide on.
I think long term black is doing great if rooks come off the board, if queens come off the board,
the white bishop isn't that great, no targets, it's hitting thinner,
but if he can launch an attack before black is ready, then Wesley gets the advantage and might win the sum again.
Thanks for starting leveling up, would you be sorry?
Yeah, I was gonna say thank you David for highlighting Magnus' plan because that tells us exactly what
Wesley needs to be doing queen e3 followed by queen to h6 check saying no poem for you
He starts with g3 instead also on another approach of getting f4 in pushing those central pawns right now
I just want to highlight that now the clock deficit is a little bit more than a minute
So magus making headway there as well. He doesn't play the blue arrow move that did appear black there did just for one second
Have enough time to castle. He could have blocked the d-file
He can't castle through check so blocking the defile and then getting his king to safety on C8 would have solved all of his problems
Defending his rooks connecting his rooks. He's trying to get those rooks off right now. Wesley maybe should have been using his queen
He's attacking with pawns, but the white queen still passive
And it's Magnus escaping that's the big question
The only way to escape is to get that rook into the game Magnus going for the plant King F8 King G7 bring that rook to the central
File Magnus that Carlson only needs a draw to take this Armageddon
He's getting close. If he gets his king to G7 and challenges Rooks, Queen of Night works
so well against Queen of Bishop. He's going to blockade on the dark squares, he's going
to be out of danger, so Wesley has a tiny window of opportunity here.
He's never going to allow Rook to de-aid. He will double up with the Queen of Rook and
claim the defile to be his own. Wesley saw.
And Wesley in a must win situation, so he can't play cautiously here. And look at the clock
times, they're leveling out. He said I'm not going to play cautiously.
So VF5, G4, G5 coming up next as well.
You could also just take a moment to stop the idea of Rook to D8.
I want those Rooks on the board.
He's going all out on the King side instead.
G4, G5, F6.
There's no way Magnus ever allows that pawn to step forward and conquer the Dart squares.
Magnus now has two moves essentially.
He has to block, totally fix the pawn structure, or he has to stop the advance.
H6, G5, Rook to D8.
I don't know if it's possible, but I don't think he wants to see it.
For sure, H6 or G5 feel like the two.
It has to be one of those.
And I suspect that G5 will be the move that Magnus plays.
Because it will keep in the back of the bucket
the idea of in an in-game going H5,
creating an outside pass-porn.
Absolutely.
And he might anywhere be forced to play H6.
He does start with H6, in fact.
Keeps that Jupe on.
Dension alive.
But giving Wesley some additional options now
of grabbing that G6 spawn.
I'm shocked.
G5 looked like such a good way to kind of bank it long term, fix the structure, surely
again this opportunity, now it's available to Magnus.
It's this or a Rook trade.
Rook trade though is possible.
Wesley just there on our home should have been taking this pawn according to his computer
to open up a new avenue for the White Rook.
But now the attack is fizzling out.
Magnus is getting closer.
He's not going to trade the Rooks.
Rook D8 put, Wesley has to decline this.
Hide away on that H line, start targeting the 8-6 pawn if you're Wesley, so trading
will only solve Magnus Carlson's problems here.
Oh, and the big mistake from Magnus Carlson, look at that eval bar.
He should have been going back with his Rook.
He wants to plant a knight onto the G5 square, all the Queen.
Very logical, but Wesley there, he plays a fine move at some point in the near future.
Queen H2 is going to hit this pawn and hit the central pawn.
There's two undefended pawns right now.
Magnus in big trouble.
Oh, this is starting to look very ugly for Magnus with all the pawn weaknesses.
relying on the queen stepping over to f6 to keep both those pawns intact if
queen h2 was to happen. Queen h2 is happening on our board of course Magna
steps the queen up to defend but now I guess you can take a safety first move
on the king on the queen side in order to get the king some hope that it does it
a3 c3 taking control of any activity with the rook stepping onto the d4
square. Knight of it hits the bishop Westley says I'm playing for the win
No trades for you, Magnus.
Magnus better believe in fortresses now because that's exactly what he's trying to set up.
He's blockaded the dark squares. The black knight is pretty silly right now.
It has to guard the white bishop coming back into that nice outpost on E6.
But where is Wesley's way forward? Where does he make progress?
It's the principle of two weaknesses. Everything's been maximized on the right flank and now he's going for the left side.
The queen rerouting itself to enter from E7. Watch out Magnus Carlson.
That would win a pawn, the white queen swooping in, Magnus too slow to cover that square,
the black knight would love to be anywhere else right now, but not easy to hold that.
I think his last move, pushing forward to A5, played on general principles,
might have just created a second target that Wesley needed.
And the realisation is dawning on Magnus right now.
That suddenly there are new problems on the board to take care of.
Just when you thought you had everything under control.
He needed the black knight on F6, his big mistake earlier Magnus was moving his
night off that blockading square. Queens are the worst blockader. Black Queen is not well
placed. Knights are the best blockader and he will want to rearrange his pieces somehow
even if it comes at the cost of a pawn. Magnus isn't out of this yet.
Westley's taken down Magnus once in the classical and Norwich as in the earlier encounter looking
to take it, do it again this time in the Armageddon. The Queen comes in, one of the pawns is about
to fall and the B7-1 is a big pawn.
now if you don't want to be letting go of that pawn as Wesley now takes full
control he's gonna win material into d8 well this allows Queen takes b7 e5 was
the only one that you could keep protected right now Wesley about to
step it up take that pawn and finally a tangible advantage an extra pawn for
Wesley saw the Magnus's idea is to trade off Queens he reckons that if he gets
them off, the danger is fast and he can hold that one.
Just got to try. What else? Just worth noting Federal at home, the B-Porn couldn't have saved
itself and moved because of the pin along the 7th rank earlier. Bishop to E6 would have
been a clincher removing the knight. So now that is a threat. Bishop into E6. Any rook
end game, if the Queen's come off, winning. Black has to keep the knight on the board.
He does try and trade Queen's. Wesley pushes forward. F6 check. Deflection. Brilliant move
from Wesley if the pawn had been captured something would have fallen the white
rook would have landed the check or the black knight would have dropped off the
board you couldn't have taken on f6 Magnus surviving but barely but what's
the follow-up you go into an end game now or as Wesley set up some deadly ideas
against the black king is he gonna go in with the queen to see it sacrificing a
bishop but going for the girls for the Carol but if you come at the king you
best not miss it you're about to give up the bishop and B3 is that checkmate
There is checkmate queen into e8 check if the black queen swoops back to defend white will have rook takes h6 at the end of the
variation
deflecting the black king away from its queen and
Otherwise it would end in a mating attack
Magnus now only move to avoid checkmate is to go back with his queen. He doesn't go back
It's forced mate within a few moves with you the evil bar go completely white right now
But the second time in a row Magnus got on the bar to be checkmated on the board
Queen so sorry about setting up a checkmate threat on RK6 and it's a win for Wesley. What a game.
What an Armageddon by Wesley keeping his lead going into the last round and for his second time at Norwich as he takes down the world number one.
What a game by Wesley so huge for the standings. We'll talk about that shortly but Magnus shake of the head.
He actually defended extremely well for so long, but the pressure was just constant and no way to fight the pressure there.
That was incredible from Wesley. He's in top form right now.
It really is. When Wesley goes for the kill, he just knows exactly how to make those moves.
What a performance there from Wesley and such an important half point as well as he walks away with one and a half points from this mini match.
We are going to go for a very short break when we come back. I'm going to get into the front corner.
It's been quite the comeback for you in this tournament here, but out now you're suddenly
very much in the whole top position discussion.
Yeah, I thought today's game was important.
I obviously wanted to fight today.
I think it's like a perfect opportunity, never backstab from a fight.
And you always like go for it no matter how the tournament is going.
So yeah, that's something that's always inspiring from him.
Yeah, I was kind of surprised in the opening,
but I think I played a good game.
I calculated well, and I got a winning position.
Yeah, I was going too creative at some point, I think.
Congratulations on winning this Indian battle, Pog.
Hey, David, it's a tough game again today.
How would you summarize it?
I don't know actually, I thought the exchange sacrifice was quite interesting and I don't know the valuation
But yeah, I definitely misplayed the end game quite a bit. I think Gwindi won was very bad
And yeah, okay after that, I think practically it's quite hard for white. Thank you so much for stopping. Thank you
I
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
Woo!
Come on!
music
music
music
And we are back with the ultimate high stakes is Armageddon between Vincent
Kainer playing white in the must man situation against Alireza Ferozda who is playing for
every half point as he fights for that really important all way tie the first place and
we're seeing Alireza with black. He's gone for taking the centre with the pawns, and we see Vincent,
he's gone back to old familiar territory.
Yeah, started as a Reti, it's kind of a King's Indian attack now for white with the Fiancetto
and Vincent about to strike in the centre, but then we might see an exchange of pawns,
and that would lead to a relatively solid symmetrical looking position for Alireza.
So I think he should take, rather than block it up and force a long game when he's down on time,
especially when a draw is enough
And it's not just going to stop on the pawn trade right you're potentially looking at going into an early end game if you're alirazer for
Ruzha, he's doing just that now does he trade on white stones which would give Winston karma access to the open d-line
He's going to develop his bishop instead say take my queen so I can complete development with recapturing it with the rook
And if not nighty four in the air
Yeah, I'm surprised Vincent went to this move order as far as I know you're supposed to start a little different a couple of moves back
especially if you want to avoid this whole idea of getting pinned and they're very awkward for white
There's no good way to dodge the Queen trade and if you do it on black terms
Then black gets the extra tempo rook in the center looking nice
looking very nice for
both sides
And now it's all about how to react to this particular pin
How to handle that trade of Queens jump in with a knight
right. Lots of options. Long think now for Vincent Chima though, almost one minute. And
it's not an easy decision, right? If you're in a must win seat right now, which is Vincent
Chima's seat, you don't want to go into an end game. You don't want to capture the
Queen. But if not any other move, are you as I was ready to jump in with the night to
D4? How are you surviving both these threats and saying that I'm fighting for an advantage
here. I don't see it. You go queen e1, black can even just take an f3, put that knight
on d4, even plant the knight immediately on d4. c2 tender.
Yeah, and it's not very easy as well because of, as you mentioned, this control of the
d4 square, this is really taking his time to work it out. I mean, the training of the
queens is unattractive. You don't want to be doing that in a muslin situation. So I
I guess you just have to grit your teeth and.
You have to do something though.
He spent over a minute and a half now and counting Vincent for everyone at home.
Just a reminder, he's lost seven Armageddon's in a row in this tournament.
This is number eight.
Will it be lucky number eight, Tanya?
We were talking about how actually you and June, Vincent Kama,
they were mimicking each other's results.
That has finally changed.
But you and June did get her first win in the Armageddon earlier today.
What do we think?
Is it Vincent's time or is the trend continuing?
Well, the position says one thing, right?
Very likely that the trend continues,
because it looks like he's just burnt most of his time
advantage right now and not yet figured a way
to solve his problems yet.
To win this position, not going to be an easy task.
Vincent Kammer's lost 100% of the Armageddon
that he's played in this tournament so far.
He wants to change that narrative.
He says, I will trade, but on my terms, the bishop comes out.
Is Alireza going to jump with the knight forward?
He says, I don't want to trade.
I'm coming into my bishop to h3, get rid of that fianceta bishop, looking at knight jumps,
leader on.
Yeah, it's a really practical move as well because it's indicating to Vincent that black
is going to be castling king side, maybe posting up a rook on the d-line, start attacking the
queen and he's not going to be rushing with the possibility of jumping in with a knight
to d4.
Not only playing bishop h3 but mainly stopping white from playing h3.
This is almost an unbreakable pin now. How to relieve the pressure that this Bishop is
exerting. Very nice move and Alarazer using Vincent's time there really nicely. Vincent
spent two minutes, Alarazer reacted in a couple of seconds. And look at this, the clock advantage
is pretty much gone and it's only move nine. Vincent needs to win. He needs to just move
quickly at this point otherwise he has no chance. Long think, wrong think. Vincent
coming and taking more than two minutes to find that Bishop move and then again another
tank moment right now for him. It just feels like he hasn't found the right plan, the right
opening set-ups required with White Hill to try to get winning chances or at least a game
even. Alireza Fruja very comfortable on the board and the clock. In fact, he takes over.
It takes over on the clock but for Vincent perhaps is much more difficult for him to
shake off the ghost from the previous game because there if he'd won in classical he
He would be fighting in tomorrow's race for first place.
As it is, he is out of that and maybe he's just coming to the kind of conclusion that
actually this hasn't been an event that's worked for him.
And while for Kaima, the classical, he did hold the advantage for most of the game.
It was Alireza Ferozha who was pushing for the win at the end of it and I have a theory
that the player who's playing for the win, closer to when the match finishes, when the
game ends is the one who's sadder of the two and the one who's trying to survive
at the end of the game has to be feeling the relief more. Yes, but for Alireza a
win would have meant he was in first place but a draw still very much keeps
him in the running for tomorrow and fate in his own hands as he's going to be
facing tournament leader. Magnus Carlson went down to Wesley Sobert, Wesley his
his spark to championship is
test by fire tomorrow, taking
test by fire tomorrow, taking
on for Ruzia.
on for Ruzia.
That being said, I don't think
his face in his own hands yet
because Prague has white.
Prague will be ahead of
Alarazer no matter what.
And he will face none other
than Vincent Chima.
These two are going to have a
huge role in the destination of
the Norway chess title.
They don't focus on tomorrow yet,
of course, they should focus on
here and now, but at least
Vincent's got Alarazer thinking
for the first real time.
The bishop forced back to an
awkward square.
Now the pin doubling down.
Now the pin doubling down.
Now the pin doubling down.
Now the pin doubling down.
Now the pin doubling down.
back to an awkward square, now the pin doubling down on that knight, knight jumps into d4.
Alereza, is he just going to trade everything off now?
He keeps his knight for the foreseeable future in the centre.
But you absolutely cannot castle unless you block that diagonal, so Alereza first pushes
his c pawn, killing that bishop on a3 and saying I'm getting my king to safety next
and the rook on the d-line lining up against the white queen.
is committal though. He's given up all of the light squares to do this, Alireza. So if
he can survive the next few moves, then Vincent Chima could get a positional advantage. You'll
need to do something about his A3 Bishop, which looks silly, but Alicia has some hope
long term. Some really nice light squares for his pieces.
He might have nice squares for his pieces, but he does have the ability to, Alireza does
have the ability to castle and also he'll be thinking about the good chances he'll
have if he manages to trade off Queens. That's a good end game. And he denied Queen trade.
Alireza did voluntarily a few moves ago looking to get ambitious. But I wonder if he's regretting
that decision right now. Objectively though, still Black is doing well in this position
with that beautiful knight planted at the center of the board. It's almost a Wii. It's a connect
four on both sides of the board because of that knight on D4.
Exactly. Just draw some arrows here to show how strong that is. The white knight apparently
should have been going forward to B5. There would have been some tactical issues there
actually for Alereza for Asia, but Vincent tries to trade off nice in a different direction.
A bit more time consuming. You can see how to drop his bishop back. There were threats
like pawn to c4 to really annoy the white queen there, but now pawn to c4 would only
help the white darts where bishop come back to life. So Alereza shuts the door, brings
his rook across, and blue arrow appeared for a second there. Vincent had to trade knights,
but now Alereza has got so many tempting options, takes with the rook.
keeps the bishop locked out, Queen steps back and now he's just taking control over the d-line.
Coming in with a threat as well, rook d2 and the other rook about to triple down on that d-file with total control.
Total control and white's bishop on a3 just so silly right now and the light squares I was talking about,
the holes in black's position, there are no knights to jump into those holes so not an issue at all.
Alereza, he's in charge on the board, on the clock, a draw is enough.
Vincent needs magic now.
And you ask that question, will Vincent continue to mirror
Juvenin, Juvenin getting her first classical or her first Armageddon win
even today?
David, I think we're getting closer to that answer.
And I don't think Armohal's the key to it.
The unlucky eight, could this be his eighth Armageddon defeat out of nine rounds.
And he did win one classical game, but zero percent in the Armageddon.
the bishop at least coming back now
but rook d2 it would hit the queen and the pawn the only way to survive that
would be to put the queen on c4
and doesn't look very stable there you know i defend c5 and push in b5 next
yeah i also think that the queen is doesn't have too many squares out there
on c4
you can see a future where it gets attacked by a knight or pawn as you're
indicating
the rook comes in
queen c4 and b5 immediately
Oh my gosh, Vincent Kline has blundered the piece. Queen takes on c5, he gets skewered
by the bishop on f8 and he has to go for this. If he went back there was a fork with pawn
to b4. He missed it. He completely missed this idea. He thought Alreza would have to
defend the c5 pawn before threatening the b4 for moving forward but Alreza tactically
incredibly sharp and aware. But he's paused now. Bishop f8, he's analysing what happens
after queen takes pawn. The knight jumps to g4, hits the queen.
Yeah, the Queen can go back to B2 to defend her bishop, but at the very end of the line,
the B4 will shut in that piece, win that piece.
It's a short 3-4 move calculation.
Ferozha has a bunch of time, three and a half minutes still to work it out.
He has worked it out.
He played A, he played B5, he's going to say B, and skewer the white Queen to her bishop.
But the fact that he slowed down, I wonder if he did not calculate it till the end?
Missed the idea of the Queen retreating to B2 defending the bishop, but he's got to find
B4 now.
He needs to speed up. Alright, step one. Vincent takes the pawn. Step two.
Queen will fall back. B4. Bishop over.
Bishop is gone. Vincent leaning back. What a tough time Vincent's had here in Oslo.
He's going to lose material here. The buy is totally black showing there's no hope.
He will have a few pawns though. So can he play on? Can he find some tricks to make this complicated?
He needs to go into hustle mode and starts playing quickly and actively queen has to move queen to g5 makes perfect sense
Just be within touching distance of the night. Don't burn up the time
Burning most of it though two minutes 40 left of Vincent Kajima just move 21
Nowhere near getting that one second increment and at this point
You just have to hate the idea of playing Armageddon's right now if you're Winston Kajima
Just everything that's happened in Norway chess so far and how this game goes on to be played out if there hadn't been Armageddon
Vincent would be undefeated with a plus one score. Everything is great
But because of the Armageddon, he's not being able to just collect those points
Not just the Armageddon even in the classical he's had chances. He was winning against Magnus Carson first half
He was winning this encounter earlier today in the classical
He could have had plus three plus four in the classical, but chances have disappeared and here we go
He's dropping a bishop which it takes a three
Free piece Alarisa. He's going to try and bank something on pinning the black knight
But there should be ways for black to escape from that. We'll find out
But here it comes
Bishop is going to step to h3 set up that pin it can be bolstered by an h5 and
And unfortunately, it's way too loosening to even think about attacking that knight with the pawn.
Instead, he goes with the idea of pushing his own pawn, opening up the bishop, targeting the Black Rook at the edge of the board.
You don't have time to triple down on that pin with the idea you were seeing, Yobi with F3, too many checks, too many pieces lining up against the White King.
So, Winston's stopping that is now desperate. I don't think it was part of the plan to sacrifice the bishop. That was a blunder by Winston Gaema.
100% and not his first early in an Armageddon also lost with white very quickly against Prague last week
E5 yeah, the Rook can choose where it wants to go
Alereza may be thinking of flicking in some hits on the white queen
You can hit it with the pawn you can hit it with the bishop lots and lots of moves all winning
Two minutes. You should keep his time advantage though
Despite how strong he is in time pressure Alereza. He will not want to cut it too close in this game
No, because even when the players get to move 40, they only still get a one-second increment,
which is next to nothing.
And E6 in the air, Bishop takes Rook in the air for Alireza, needs to find a way to deal
with both of them.
The most natural move for me is just simply to triple up on the D-line and then just let
the game continue.
Actually, any other square with the Rook would be a big blunder.
Any other square would allow E6, so he has to hit the Queen first.
E6 would have separated the black queen from either her knight or her rook.
That was a secondary threat behind Vincent Kama's last move.
And he leaves the rook hanging Alereza because now the white queen will
have to fall back to a different square. And yeah, the best way to connect the pieces
is to triple up, relieve the queen of her duties defending that rook.
And it's also the most natural move in the position. Just go rook to d8
and stop that pawn from moving forward. Vincent Kama has been on the wrong side of
of all the miniature Armageddon's that we've seen at Norwiches, having a 22 move loss against
Pregnananda, having a 16 move loss against Gukesh. And right now as well with the white
pieces on the 30 moves, black completely commanding advantage here. Now block that, put your queen
in front of that pawn, never allow that pawn to move forward, queen to E6.
Yeah, big threat for white to push that pawn and the black knight would then be loose at
the end of the line but yeah, there's many ways to do it. You can use your rook to hit
the queen, you can block, defend your knight,
and a five trade, why not piece up?
Only two pawns, Alereza, grimacing there
because it might not be as easy as he hoped,
but under one minute, surely he doesn't get nervous here.
He did get nervous earlier when he was dead lost,
now he's totally winning.
Yeah, he's got that shake of his head
in a completely winning position
where it almost looks like
White has got no compensation at all.
Yes, you've got two pawns, but that can't be enough.
If your Alereza draw is good enough as well,
you're never worried about ideas like Bishop H3, F3,
too many checks on the dark squares left he was to happen he's coming back with the rook he hits the white queen
E6 player, a span in the works.
Oh if you take the queen now you might be in big trouble the white pawn would have ended up on D7
The nasty check incoming so he removes the pawn still defending his knight
fit some blocks
The pawn hits the queen forcing the white queen away. That was a great move there from Alarosa who has calculated everything so far
Defends his knight as well
indirectly and forcing Vincent back. Vincent has a lead on the clock which
could give him some hope but Ali Reza he's so quick attacks the Queen. Queen is
going to drop back and now we're seeing a trade. Step up for the Queen. He attacks the pawn on G6.
Be careful Ali Reza of course. King to G7 and now the Black Bishop radio line up on
C5 to hit that F2 target before that happens. Vincent pushes the Knight back.
Winning the E5 pawn, that's a third, it's still a second pawn, two pawns for a piece it is, the Queen continues getting chased down the board.
Alarose are continuing to hit that Queen.
Ooh, 10 seconds for Alarose!
Ooh, 10 seconds, he's only got seven moves, he's still got seven moves to make in 11 seconds here.
Vincent could try and flag him.
He has to.
Six moves to make in 10 seconds, Alarose are looking up now, realizing that he's in huge time trouble.
Absolutely.
This is not over.
It's far from over.
For Winston Karma, his only ally is the clock, and he tries to keep the pace up, banging
that clock saying Alarizar, you to move, no time.
Four more moves to make.
Eight seconds to go.
Alarizar, too easy, his move, so Vincent not even trying to trick him, not creating
any threats, not landing any surprising moves.
He's trying to play too proper here.
And Alarizar's got the fastest hand skills there, as to be seen, he picks up a pawn as
well along the way.
And that's move 40.
now get a one-second increment after every move. He pins the white bishop. That could be the closing
stages of this game. White's so passive now, handshake! Vincent Kramer resigns. Analyzer
Ferozha moves closer to the championship and we've got a three-horse race at Norwiches.
We absolutely do. Every point will matter and take a look at how today's set of results impacted
the standings because it was a drama fest even though we only had two decisive results
and here we see take a look on the left side look Wesley so still leads but the lead has been
whiffled down to half a point Wesley there with 15 and a half points Pragnan under 15 points and
Ali Reza Ferozja, 14.5. It's going to be a three-horse race. Tanya, as you said, in the women's.
Baby Sara Asaabeva has clinched the title with a round to spare. And now it's going to be a mad
scramble to see who can get second place. It's two completely different narratives on both sides
of our screen, right? Baby Sara Queen of Norway. Chess does it so convincingly with the other side
of our table. It's a three-horse race. The first three players, you divide that into half. Nobody
else stands a chance right now, obviously. So it's a half point lead, but that's not going to be
feeling safe at all for a leader who's led the tournament for the most part.
Pragananda 3 back-to-back wins that taking down Alireza, taking down Magnus today,
winning against Gukesh puts himself in second spot and sorry, Pragananda did that but Alireza
not far behind with that Armageddon win against Vincent Caima, surviving the classical.
Yeah, tomorrow's going to be so interesting. So many storylines. I'll point out one story line
that I don't think anyone would have predicted before the event. Tomorrow, Magnus Carlson plays Gukesh,
It's a fight for last place.
Lukashin last, Magnus in second last.
A lot of honour on the line in that clash.
And on that subject, Magnus did a video.
So let's hear what Magnus had to say.
Magnus, you saw in classical, you tried to put some pressure on Wesley Kouloutas.
Did you have any chances?
No, not as far as I could tell.
I felt that I was putting a little bit of pressure on him.
a little bit of pressure as you said, at least psychologically. Objectively, I didn't ever
feel like I had anything particularly serious, and I thought he did a very good job holding
things together, swapping when he could, and forcing me to steer the game towards the draw.
I was happy that it was a decent performance. I felt that my play was pretty normal.
Of course that has to do with the kind of position you get as well.
This one was a lot easier to play than a lot of the other games,
but at least it feels alright to have played a game where I was never in any danger.
And in Armageddon, what happened there? What went wrong? And also, why did you start later than expected?
I don't know. I was following the game between Vincent and Alereza and nobody made any...
I didn't remember what time they said where we were going to start, so I was just following the game
and assuming that somebody would start the game at some point. I have no idea, but I was happy to follow a very exciting game of jazz.
As for the game itself, you know, he just completely crushed me, but I didn't care a lot at that point.
And, you know, it was certainly an important win for him, for me.
Winning the classical would have mattered. The army gave it not so much.
Thank you for your comment. Best of luck for tomorrow.
Magnus there just referring his hat off to Wesley saying great armageddon win to Wesley
and also just acknowledging that it's so important to get these half points, especially coming
up tomorrow.
But now it all comes onto the battle tomorrow and just earlier what we were discussing,
David I'm totally with you on this.
I don't think anyone could have made this prediction Jovi that we will go into the
last round.
three players who will be fighting for that top spot. None of them called Magnus
and in fact for Magnus and the world champion they're gonna try to survive
not finishing last tomorrow. That's crazy. That is very crazy. And we started
with saying is this Magnus's campaign for his eighth Norway Chess title? I know
and also tomorrow we will have a new winner of Norway Chess. I don't think any
of these players have ever won before. So that's pretty exciting.
Yeah, I can't wait now for all that action. I mean, it feels like we're barely catching
our breath from today and we've got to look ahead because, yeah, that's just the format
keeps giving. I'm not sure Magnus is loving the format right now, even though he has enjoyed
it in previous years.
You know who's enjoying David Howell? It's got to be Vivisara. I mean, what a performance
by her. She goes in tomorrow with none of this conflict in her mind will just be enjoying
just an amazing outright performance, pretty much outclassed the rest of the field, Yvanka.
Yes, and to win Norway Chess Women with a round to spare is something very special.
And BBCour will certainly be going into tomorrow's game with a smile on her face.
It'll be a mad scramble though for second place in the women's as we take a look at
tomorrow's final round pairings and we couldn't have written a better script because we have Magnus
Carlson playing Gukesh, they're fighting it out for last place but Ali Reza Foujda plays Wesley So.
And then we have Pragnenanda against Vincent Kramer and in the women.
Bebe Sarifin, just enjoy life as she plays Black against Juventus.
Yeah and the big one, the Maki matchup is going to be Divya against Ana Muzicci.
The race for second place, so much money on the line, honour on the line here in Norway chess.
It's no joke to finish second in this crowd of super elite players right now and that's a massive faceoff.
It is between these two players and their fate in their own hands. I will point out one more thing.
You know Magnus Carlsen versus Gukesh Tomaraju, the viral table smash moment with the standings as they are right now.
I think both of them want to smash some tables tonight, but for different reasons.
Tomorrow is going to be smashing, that's for sure.
Absolutely, we are all set for an epic final round at Norway chess. So many storylines.
First up though, I got to say a big thank you to Tania, David. Tania, congratulations on winning the prediction game.
I don't know what happened, my time machine malfunctioned. Something went wrong.
I just had a better read on to all that was going on. David, you just got to accept it, Madhavit. You're at five.
at five I'm a tree you'll be sorry I can't remember that's not nothing but but but yes but
but okay well tomorrow what do you think we can get we can expect in terms of Armageddon
we're gonna get you now to do your choices oh already already wow that's the first I mean I will
I will say one thing, Bibisarra takes the championship one round to spare, in Norway chess it's a completely open field, another guy who's taken the championship of prediction one round to spare is David Howell.
Well done.
Thank you. I will say two decisive results tomorrow in the classical.
I love how you really pounce on the opportunity to go first. I don't believe I heard anyone give you a chance.
Okay, you go first. I'll take what's left. I genuinely think it's anything.
I'm taking you on on this one. He's going with two decisive results for tomorrow. I think with every everything that's on the line
I say we have more I say we have three decisive results tomorrow
Okay, well you heard it here first two decisive results three decisive results for one thing for sure
We are gonna have a grand finale tomorrow. It's gonna be epic and you don't want to be missing it
Thank you everyone for following on and watching. Thank you to all of our subscribers
It's been a blast. See you tomorrow
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