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Norway Chess 2026: Wesley v. Alireza Clash As Pragg Also In The Hunt To Win It All In Final Rd 10
06-05-2026 · 5h 03m
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I
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What I like about chess, there is actually a lot of the
stimuli. With the football as well, you need to plan your moves a bit ahead. You need to stay
You can't lose one second of focus. If you do, you might get punished.
I have to sometimes surprise you a moment.
Chess, I have a lot to learn. In life, I 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.
to the final round of Norway
chess. And it all comes down to
this baby Sarah has already
locked up the women's but on
the other side chaos rains. We
have three players in a
contention. But one thing is
guaranteed. You're going to
have a brand new champion. Who's
going to rise to the top?
champion who's gonna rise to the top? Well let the final battle begin. Let's go!
For the first time in 13 years Norway chess moved from Stavanger 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 engine evaluations. They didn't like this number, they asked for all the bar drops
So, this year's lineup is ridiculous.
Magnus Carlsen returns once again and faces challengers like Kukeshto Morashu,
Itsun Kymer, Wasli So, and Ali Reza Farushin.
Every single round looks like a world championship match that accidentally
wandered into another tournament.
He's feeling the nerves now that he's in Kymer.
The women's event is just as fierce, with Zushin Yurka, Joob and Joob,
Humpik Nerub and Anamu's Joob already defying from every point like its person.
But here's the thing that makes Norway chess different from any other event on the calendar.
There are no peaceful draw.
The classical game ends tight, the players go straight into Armageddon.
One game, one winner, maximum success.
After last year we know exactly how the Tensis turns into death.
So get comfortable, the clocks are ticking, the evil bar is about to go insane.
Norway chess starts right now.
And it is a good day from the capital city of Norway in Oslo from the
Daekman Library. Today it's the final round. It's the ultimate in-game of Norway chess.
There's no safety nets, no second chances, no tomorrow. For now this is it and our
players. They are ready. They are waiting for the battles to begin. And everyone in the audience,
the whole library is buzzing with anticipation. I'm your host, international master Ivanka
Halske, and I am here with the dream duo, Tania Sajdev and David Howe. Guys, it has been awesome,
relentless, ruthless, absolutely everything these last nine days. And now this is the moment. And
And above all, it's been so much fun.
And this is it.
This is where Norwich has get its final act at the Bjorvika
Library.
You know, we came into Oslo.
David's already sad.
I wanted to end, guys.
We'll be back next year already.
But you know what?
I have to say, we came in expecting the inevitable
call.
Expecting Gukesh to make a statement as a world champion.
What we get at the end of it is something that none of us
could have predicted.
three players, a single point separating them, one last game left. David Howell, this is
where the story gets its end.
Exactly. And we are in a library. I've read a few books in my time. There's always twists
and turns, right? The best books have a surprise ending. So what that ending is going to be
today, we'll find out. But it's already been quite a few shocking chapters so far.
Yes. The one ending has already been already written, and that was Bibi Sora Asabaeva,
with her win. Yes, her draw yesterday in against Anna Muzicik was enough to actually
net her the crown of Norway in women. Let's have a recap of what went down yesterday.
Repetition has occurred between Bibi Sara Asaba Eva against Anna Muzicik and that gives her the
a much required point that she needs.
Baby Sara Asabeva, thank you.
Thank you.
You're the first champion of the WHS.
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.
Because he has barely any checks.
He's gonna resign.
And there we have it.
It's a result the world champion loses.
Frag! The earth, wind and a rowing has to...
Take a perfect opportunity, never back stone from a fight.
And they always like...
Go for it, go for it, no matter how the tournament is going.
So, it's always inspiring for me.
Westy's taken that Magnus once in the Tossicle in Norwich,
as in the earlier encounter, looking to take it, do it again, this time in the Armageddon.
Magnus, our only move to avoid chat mate, is to go back with his queen!
She doesn't go back!
And it's a win for Wesley.
Yeah, it's very important, depending on how I do tomorrow.
For Ruzio working some magic, Vincent doesn't find it goes behind with his Queen.
Do not get yourself into the situation.
Oh my, but he does and he goes the wrong way and now Rook to H3 would solve all of Vincent Kanna's problem, he reaches out for it, he goes the other way.
Oh, big mistake, apparently forfeiting the center allows Black to switch focus to the other side of the board.
The clock ticking for two seconds as he trays the Queens.
But he's got the same plan.
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.
Will he take it to Armageddon because of the clock pressure?
He's going to be careful not to repeat the position 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.
I think a draw is just a fair result here.
Vincent winning for most of the game, the turnaround.
And it is a draw, ultimately.
What a rollercoaster.
Both players with smiles on their faces.
In the classical game that I got close to losing,
or I mean, in particular, the position was lost.
Investing it up so badly shouldn't happen regardless of the time format.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
Decisive games yesterday, but it
does mean that suddenly there
only three contenders in Norway
chairs. Wesley so. Pragman under
and Ali Reza. Farooza. They're
all at the top. They're the
only ones who have the chance
of winning. Wesley so half a
point of head of track. Well,
he's got the black pieces
I don't think anything has turned out bad for him.
He's been unshakable at the top since round five, since taking down world number one, Magnus Galton.
That's where we saw the first swing of the tournament at the top half and then Wesley happily being there.
I think yesterday surviving and taking Magnus down in the Armageddon, a solid hold in the classical.
That half point really matters going in today.
For Alreza Ferozha, the stage is clear.
The stage is set. Only one result matters.
To win all we trust he has to take down rest is so in the classical nothing else will suffice
Yeah, sometimes it's nice to have that clarity
Wesley won't be sure how hard to push how solid to be
Alireza can just focus lock-in on going for the win and
Throwing everything at his opponent there of course Prague in the wings
But it's lovely how just everyone has something to play for even at the bottom Magnus against Goukash
They both want to win they both want to avoid ending up in the cellar come the end of the tournament
It's that kind of tournament, Norway, the home of Fighting Chess.
It's always about the pride, the money, and of course the love of the game.
As we see Vincent, Will Vincent play the role of spoiler.
He has the black piece.
It's against Praganandan, and a Prague with a win in classical will be a very happy man.
But everything will depend on what occurs between Ali Reza Foujda with the white pieces
and Wesley.
And Vincent always so well dressed.
It's a brave man to wear a turtle neck in quite warm weather here
Almost summer. Yeah, very stylish though Vincent on and off the board. He'll hope to at least avoid an Armageddon today
Armageddon's have not been his friend eight Armageddon losses out of eight from Vincent Chima. That's a game starting soon
What do we think of the players going to have anything left in the tank stamina is going to be a huge
part of today's action. It will be so much about endurance but at the very top
you know three players fighting for championship it's also adrenaline it all
comes down to this everything that they worked towards over the last two weeks
it is this final round this is where champions will be made so I think that
push for a player like Prajnananda after suffering two losses making the biggest
statement on the board three back-to-back victories there in classical
taking down Alireza Magnus and then Gokesh I don't think he's thinking about
and Jorahson for Digg right now. He wants to go all out. If he wins, then it all comes
out at this board. For Wesley, so a win in the classical means, Norway chess champion,
perhaps one of his biggest victories of his chess career, at least in recent times.
Yeah, he's been kind of in and out of these elite tournaments recently, Wesley, over the
last year or two. He's had some decent results of late over the last 12 months, the St. Phil
Cup, the American Cup, etc. But yeah, in terms of international kind of elite round
Robbins it's yeah it's one of his best performances ever just the calmness he
showed the fact he defeated Magnus in such style both with black in the
classical and with white yesterday in the Armageddon that showed that he is a
man confident and playing at his very best. And he never really gave an edge to
Magnus in yesterday's game it was a very confident hold by Wesley sticking to
plan that taking him to Armageddon he's been unstoppable in the Armageddon and
And the one man who really wants to put a stop to the way things have been going in
the last 18 months is Gukesh Tomarajah, the world champion.
I think he came into Norway just wanting to make a statement, wanting to change the story
line with the world championship on the horizon for him.
That hasn't happened.
And I will say, while him and Madness Carlson playing with white today, not at the race
for the top, there is a lot on the line for these two.
There is pride, neither of them want to finish.
Bottom of the table at the end of this.
And I think for Magnus, world number one in Oslo, that's what he wants to avoid for Guggeish.
He wants to end it on a high.
He needs that win with everything that's coming up.
Best lead this year.
And it's often said that you can have as bad a tournament as you like, but if you win the
last game, then everything will be good.
And we see Magnus with his very young fans.
Well, actually, that's his nephews.
That's his sister with her back to us, Ellen Carlson, and two of her boys.
Magnus, family man, trying to get in a good mood, trying to get in the zone, as is Goukesh, just before this last round.
And for Goukesh, as you mentioned, it's all about just turning the tide, just turning the narrative.
Win would mean the absolute world to Goukesh, but unfortunately, it will not have a big impact on the standings.
Everything will be on these boards in front of us.
us. Vincent Kajmer with the black pieces will be playing against Pragnananda. Pragnananda
on 15 points, he's chasing down this gentleman on our screens, Wesley. So now there's only
one situation where we could possibly see a playoff for first place and that is if Wesley
loses in the Armageddon and Prag wins his Armageddon game. That's it. That's when we'll
get the two-way tie and will go into a tiebreaker blitz format we'll talk more
about that but for Prague he needs to focus on the job at hand first if you
can get the classical win a great that's where it all lies at and for
Winston Keimer he's looking his role today is to play spoiler to Prague
Nananda you know he's been solid so far in the classical games but suffering in
those Armageddon Magnus Carlsen though he's fighting to survive the last place
does look like he's in a good mood for the big big matchup it's world number
one was the world champion.
Yeah, I mean, one thing I got to say about Magnus is that he seems to have mellowed out
these last few years, like, if you'd done such a, like, performance less than this,
you know, lost so many games, he would have been raging and here he looks completely relaxed.
Yeah, it was only 12 months ago though that we saw the table bang when the anger, the hunger,
they were burning bright. But yeah, this year, maybe it's just been such a disappointment
that it was already a few rounds ago that he was kind of feeling that the tournament
at least for the first place was over. But yeah, strange to see Magnus just accept things
as they were. The lack of energy in the Armageddon yesterday was quite visible as well. He'll
be back Magnus, no doubt, strong as ever.
Yeah, a big question on what's his fighting mood today. He rated it at one and a half earlier,
but there's not going to be a lack of fight in this one. The entire tournament comes down
to this board. Fousha needs a classical win with White to have a chance to take the tournament.
While so, Wesley just needs to make sure he continues to do Wesley things. Just not lose
in the classical.
Yep, just not lose. For Alireza, he's a man on a mission. The only result that is satisfactory
for him is he needs to win in the classical, pick up those three points and see what happens
in Pregnananda's game.
If Wesley wins with the black pieces, that's tournament over.
That right there is championship for Wesley.
He needs to at least ensure that this does go down to the Armageddon.
And with those dynamics at play, Alure's are the tournament run that he's had leading
the tournament until round five.
Picking up, starting with the bank, picking up so many classical wins and then losing
his lead but always staying at the top.
I think he wants to go full throttle today.
He knows taking it to the Armageddon just doesn't make the cut for him.
I see that this is going to be one of our decisive classical games here.
Absolutely.
As we wait for the signal to start, also when it comes to the women's for
BB Sara, this is just simply relax and enjoy.
She's already the queen of no HS after having won yesterday.
And it's just a big scramble to second place.
Magnus Carlson, world number one plays against a world champion.
What is Magnus going to bring to the table? Who is going to ride or die here?
I think it'll be a fight despite the fact that both players are looking forward to the tournament being over.
Carson, Goukesch, they have fighting spirits. They don't bail out with quick draws, or at least very, very rarely.
I'd be very surprised to see Magnus try and end that game early.
And Magnus doing the double over Goukesch would at least be some consolation elsewhere.
We will be looking at that top central board a lot over the next few hours to see what
Ferozia can conjure up. And of course the bottom right board, Prague, against Vincent
Chima as well. Vincent, counter attacking player at his best, could take advantage if
Prague goes all out. It's going to be tough for Prague, I think, more than anyone. Wesley
and Ferozia know what they need, a win for either of them. It's over, Prague. He's going to have
half an eye on goings on elsewhere. Yeah, that is very true. Prag, I guess his fate is not in his
hands. It's all dependent on Wesley, so he can just simply play as if he wants to pick up those
three points and see what happens. What is in Prague's hands is the game in front of him right
now, right? And whatever I know of him, he will try to block out everything that's happening on
on that top center board. He knows that his task is cut up. He's got the white pieces
and he's on a hot streak right now, back to back to back wins. And against a field, that's
no joke. Ayreza, Magnus and Gukesh. Winston Kaima, he's had an up and down tournament.
Yes, in the classical, he's been pretty solid, but only one classical win so far for Kaima.
He knows that Prague as white will come for him. And I think Prague will try to create
Expectations were quite high for them not quite at their best. Maybe saving their best for the World Championship matches
Over the next 12 months in the meantime
Gloves are off we go round 10
E45 between Alireza, Fruja and Wesley so
Oh and a first semi surprise of the tour of the opening right now by Alireza, Fruja
They say nights before bishops, but Alireza switching up the move order there keeping it flexible
not showing his hand whether the light will come to f3 or maybe we'll see the
f-bond moving up the board early on. I think this is going to be a new idea by
Ferozha with no conversions to the Italian is my prediction here.
And this is the bishops opening it avoids the Petrov defense which
Wesley has employed I don't think it's his main weapon normally it's nice he
likes the Italian he likes the Spanish Wesley so trying to dodge the Petrov
defence is one thing. Psychological gain against players who like to employ that opening, but
yeah, quite very flexible, whether it is the night with a quick F4, whether it is going
back into some kind of Italian having dodged certain move orders. Interesting to see that
Alariz at Lanz the first surprise and Karo Khan on the board between Magnus and Gukesh.
Where's the celebration, Jovi? We need to see that. We see a Karo on the board and well,
a match to not finish last yeah exactly this is what I have been hoping for the
whole new HS and finally I get it I think I almost might do like my knee
stars a big guy dance big guy big big guy yes is that a big guy opening choice
here by Alireza Feroja still just hinting at that f4 move now that the pawn
will be defended with the bishop one things clear that Alireza wants to make
out of this classical. It's his shot at the championship and he's going for it.
It will be interesting to see what happens next. Black tends to have two, maybe three main moves here.
Black's knight can develop, of course, to c6 on that queen side. The black bishop can come out to c5.
Or a pawn can come to c6 to try and build a big center. That tends to be preferred by petroff players
who don't want to transpose into the Italian. But Wesley, yeah, he has a lot of experience in these types of pawn structures.
support structures. This has been quite trendy as well. This was played consistently at the
Candidates tournament by Wei Yi with a knight coming out to C3. It was played earlier in
this event, this system by Goukesh to defeat Vincent Keimer in a miniature in an Armageddon.
So surely Wesley's been looking at this opening.
Hmm, with a stunning bishop landing on 8-6 that game ended beautifully right there for Wesley.
So he started the tournament saying if he scores 12 to 13 points it would be a successful outing
for him and here he is leader going into that final round half a point ahead of the rest
of the field and everything right on this game. Do you think he's feeling a little
nervy with this choice of Alireza? He doesn't, it's also a clash of styles. Let's just say
you know Alireza looking for those combative battles, Wesley always trying to keep it solid
on the board. What's going on in his mind? He can't be too happy with what's happening
that top left board. Yeah, early days but he has been known to get nervous throughout his career
a little bit. He tends to play it safe in big moments because he, I don't know, the thought of
risking too much does kind of unsettle him but we'll see, we'll see. I think they'll play out later
perhaps on the clock if, yeah, if he's unable to recover from this early surprise. And I do remember
one event that he played where he had a heart rate monitor and okay yes it was like a Blitz game,
It was like super intense, but he was one of the players with the highest heart rate
And I'm not surprised so many times during those times crumbles
You know when Wesley is about to make a move you can see his hands shaking reaching for the pieces and it just feels like the nerves
Sometimes get to the man with the nerves of steel with the kind of chest that he shows
I also want to point out talking of surprises. It looks like Gukesh has taken the world number one by surprise with his decision to go for the carrow
What are the chances that this is also a way to sort of throw off Cinder off saying that, you know what, I do have the Karo Kahn in my arsenal, make sure your team looks at this.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, perhaps that's one excuse or one reason for Gukesh struggling in recent months. Just he's got a lot of attention on that World Jumping Chip match.
He's already got a repertoire in mind. So he's trying anything not to reveal his true weapons, often planting false flags, red herrings, just saying, okay, look at Karo, look at the, I don't know, the Peirts, look at the Scandinavian, look at him.
Scandinavian look at everything. I'm definitely going to go a different direction when the
match starts, but I have seen Goukesh play it actually quite a bit in recent months,
Zakara Khan. So I don't think it should have come as a surprise to Magnus. I think maybe
he was expecting E5 or maybe a Sicilian, but...
Something more often, yeah.
Exactly. Magnus has played everything against Zakara, by the way.
Yeah, he has. But Goukesh is pretty loyal to one system in the exchange variation, so
We'll see whether Magnus adopts that particular approach, but as we're seeing Magnus deep into,
of course, Magnus knows how to play against the car. He's not like surprised and go,
oh no, what can I play? He can play anything and everything. He's just picking his poison.
I remember during the pandemic, when we were all kind of locked at home, I played Magnus,
I think it was like 150 games online in one big session, and I kept playing the car against him
every time. And I got crushed in so many different ways. He was playing all these weird little
sidelines and he had an idea everywhere. So I think that's why we're seeing Magnus think
right now, not because he is surprised, but because he's got maybe 10 different ideas
against the Karakan. He might have used five of them before, so reluctant to use them again.
But he's just choosing now which direction he wants to go, which one suits his mood.
Yeah, let's find out that the most played move in this position for Wyatt is push that
other central pawn, you gain more space and then you decide how you want to bring your
knights forward, where did the bishop land and I was expecting Magnus to go into a think
after Gukesha's response of the Queen's Pawn moving ahead as well, but he starts from
move two already.
Interesting, I think everyone has said this at this tournament that with Gukesha, you
don't need to go looking for a fight, right?
He's going to make things interesting on his own.
He's a player regardless of what the form is, of what things are looking like, he will
create that fight on the board and Magnus right now is thinking how can he actually get him out of
his preparation what is it that Gukesh wants to get from this position from this game and how can
Magnus make sure that doesn't happen exactly the mind games are there for all to see let's go back
to our bird's eye view whilst Magnus is choosing which approach to take and let's go and check in on
Prague against Vincent because that one's a d4 d5 system and well we have some answers already on
on our board, and we see moves being played super fast.
Yeah, so top three boards there in our Norwiches,
we've got quite a variety of openings happening
in this very decisive matchup.
This one starts with the Queen's Pawn opening
and the only one to start with 1D4, a decision by Prague.
Yeah, interesting stuff happening.
So we'll just break it down from the beginning very quickly.
We didn't need to do an action replay in the other games
because there were only one move played
on the Carlson board, for example,
only three on the other board. But this one has progressed a bit quicker. We see an anti-Nymzo
Indian, so going for the Queen's gambit decline now by transposition. And rather than play
nice e3, which is one of the main moves, or go into the Catalan opening with Fiancato
with g3, Prague plays something that is, I think, quite rare, at least in this exact
position, playing e3. And it looks like a normal Queen's gambit declined, but he's
combining e3 with a capture on d5. And this is at least what I was taught not to do when
I was young because here white's bishop on c1 very much stuck. Normally the bishop is
out on f4 or g5, much more active squares. But the bishop on c1, it looks a bit like
some variations of the Nimza Indian defense except black's bishop's on e7 rather than
b4. And yeah, I have noticed that modern computers do say it's fine in every position to capture
on d5 even if it allows black's kind of traditionally bad bishop to come out to some nice squares.
So Praig must have an idea to justify this slightly anti-positional approach.
It's definitely a more cautious and a safer approach by White and I just want to discuss
the map strategy, the potential map strategy that Prague could have right now.
Vincent has a clear weakness at Norway chess, right?
If you take him to Armageddon, it almost feels like the win is yours.
He hasn't won a single Armageddon and this one, Vincent's really, really struggled.
Meanwhile, Prague super-formed in the tournament.
If Prague feels that his best chance is to get Vincent into that Armageddon, get that
one and a half points in.
And then you're at least knowing that it's Wesley versus Alireza, Wesley's playing with
the black pieces, the chances of Wesley getting a classical win at least objectively are
not incredibly high in that, right, with Alireza playing with white.
Do you think Prague just wants a safer Queens gambit decline today, wants to get Winston
into that Armageddon without taking too many chances?
And then saying, you know, Wesley's got to prove himself on his board, has to win that
Armageddon against Alireza.
Oh, Wesley looks so good in Armageddon's though. I think that would be a risky strategy. I don't think safety is in Prague's armory these days.
Like, he doesn't play for drawers. This tournament alone, what's he had? Is it six? No, seven decisive results in classical alone out of nine rounds?
He's won four classical games, he's lost three classical games. I think he wants more action and this might look safe, but I think the intention is quite clear.
he wants to put a knight into e5, back it up with a quick s-forward, maybe g4 throws
some pawns forward. I think Vincent here has to be quite accurate to justify what he's
about to do because White has such a straightforward plan.
Yeah, I agree. I don't think that Prague is going to be pragmatic about this and go into
any armageddon. I think he wants to test Vincent as much as possible and we'll see. It's a
kind of offbeat variation, which I think is very good, because it's the only way to surprise
your opponent these days in modern day chess, because Vincent knows everything and anything
about the main lines.
Also, I can't remember the last time Prague played with the white pieces and did make
a fight of it.
Regardless of what's on the line, regardless of the tournament situation, it's something
that this younger generation displays for.
They know that if the chances do come, they'll take it, they want to create positions where
you know it's going to be dynamic play so I am with you guys. I don't think it's a safety
first approach although I would make a different case for Wesley. I think Wesley would be very
happy to stir it off into an Armageddon if given the opportunity. Yeah and I have a question for
you both. Say for instance Vincent decides to come out with the bishop to g4. Say no Ne5 for you
today. Do you think Prague will back that up with h3 and if the bishop steps back g4
and then get a knight e5 and let's go. Let's go. This would be fun. The pawns
already poised to continue their storm forward. I would love to see that. I think
bishop g4 is another question. I mean I think h3 probably a worthy addition here
but another question would be after a move like queen to b3 hitting this
pawn. Does black want to take this? Knight e5 is coming. If black does take
then some positions you live to regret opening up the g-file and targets on the
the side of the board this is hard to evaluate and I'll just follow up on that
I think Prague's last move hints that he wants to get his king to the right
flank but very often you can be still flexible with it right get your queen
out either to c2 or b3 get your bishop to d2 and actually aim for those
opposite side castling positions and start with that pawn storm as quickly as
you can yeah it's interesting because Vincent if he knows that he might get
attacked like knight e5 maybe queen side castling pawn storm on the king side on
on the right flank there. Then he might be tempted to play C5, but then maybe he's not a fan of isolated
Queen's pawn positions, and Prague totally changes tactic. He just takes the pawn, for example,
castles, and he's saying, okay, I'm going to Fiencetto, I'm going to play against the weakness.
Suddenly it becomes a much more positional fight. So if Vincent lashes out with C5,
I think it becomes positional. If Vincent's too slow, plays like C6, Rookie, A97,
all the typical Queen's Gambit decline moves, then we might see Prague release and show
off his idea.
Wow, okay, I can't wait to see what is in store in this game.
Let's go back to the bird's eye view and just do a quick roundup of what is going down.
Because we have some moves on the Ali Reza Frusja and Wesley's So game.
We see Knight's Bishop are coming out to see five.
That is the last move that Wesley's chosen.
Ali Reza is now pausing for thought, but moving across we have a decision in the Karakan. It was a
2C4 Karakan. Maybe it's going to transpose into a variation called Panoflot Vinic, but still a lot
of fun to come. And going to the women's, well, Bibi Sara, she's in her King's Union, but it doesn't
really matter for Bibi Sara. She's already won the event yesterday. How difficult or how easy is
it's a plane knowing that you know you've already reached the mounting you don't need to actually
climb any higher. Yeah you reached the top already right and for Bivisara it's nothing to lose but
nothing to lose in chess is a dangerous game to play. You know you can take those extra risks and
maybe Juvenin who's had a very forgettable tournament so far might actually find her
opportunity in today's game to to come back. We talk about Gukeshi's form with the World
Championship match I think the same questions are for Wenjin as well and this tournament has put her
form into question right now. So for her, this King's Indian defence that we see, I
have to say that with the white pieces in the last round for a struggling vengeance,
she can't be too disappointed. She knows this will be a fight and maybe fortunes will start
earning for the reigning women world champion.
In fact, I was just looking at the scoreboard and doing the mental maths. If Ji Wen Jun
wins in the classical, she will move up to 13.5 points and she needs other results to
to go her way. Like for instance, Yu Junae, she needs Humpy to beat Yu Junae. And you
know, maybe she might even find herself in Shared Second, and there are big prices here
in OHS.
It's funny because if Yu and Jun loses, then things could go totally the other way, and
she could end up last if Humpy wins. So it's always tricky at the end of tournaments. It's
like you said, Yoranko, like how hard does someone push for Bibisara? Of course, she's
in the dream position. For her, it probably goes one of two ways. Either she's so relaxed,
that she plays even better than ever, no tension, or she's so relaxed that she loses focus.
For the others, they all have a lot to play for, and that tension could end up getting to them.
Yeah, fascinating. I think it's you and June, tricky, because she knows why
Shali is watching from afar. Shali might be tempted to play an opening like the Kings
Indian Suits of Style in a World Championship match, so how much does she show in terms of
her opening ideas? Yeah, it feels like all of the openings now mostly mainline stuff,
but still some kind of some intrigue lying beneath the surface and still games
pretty much in the balance early days but my eyes are not top-center board
mostly you know I think the plan of attack as you said in the caracan right
now picking up the pawn in the center currently Magnus Carlson top center up
upon but I believe that's about to go down either now or in the next few moves
David maybe you'll break down that for us but I just also want to point out that
bottom left board for Jujiner was extremely important as well because
she's the one player who is on the chase for that second place with her feet in her own hands.
Absolutely, she's in second place right now and her nearest rival is Anna who's on 12 points
but Juzina with the white pieces, it's a very mainstream I would say Queen's Gambit-declined
exchange variation. We need to rename these openings as quickly as possible because we'll
Come on, where's the fire? How can we inspire people when it's the Scotty Queen's Gambit
decline exchange? How's bad structure? Make it more exciting. Yeah, I just want to point out
that the one difference on that top left and bottom right board, Queen's Gambit declined both of
them. Notice how Prague's bishop is behind his pawn chain while Júgyána's bishop is outside,
and that changes a lot of dynamics in this opening. Yeah, and maybe we jump into that one a bit later
when there's more theory on the board. I'm also very excited, personally,
about Anamosi trick against Divya Deshmukh, because it's one of my pet lines.
The C3 Sicilian, the Alipin Sicilian, and Divya Deepin thought there, even though it's
one of the main positions. So, I want story time with Yavanka. I want it.
Karakhan defense. Let's go. Story time with Yavi. Let's do it. Okay. Wow. At the minute, I need more.
I need more things to bite with, yeah, because C4, I mean, there's so many possibilities
here, okay, so there has to be some trades in the center, and now, yeah, if you could
step up the D-pawn, and then that would be like a pure pan-off botvinic, but that hasn't
been chosen.
Pawn takes Pawn, 9-F6, 9-C3, well, I think a long, long time ago, a young David and myself
he's had a lot of battles. And once, once, once, once, I managed to just get a very,
oh yeah, I beat you on a bus, that's true. I remember that, an open top bus or something
and there was a chest woman on the bus. Yeah, and it was quite tricky because the bus was
suddenly break and the pieces would just fly and would have to kind of recreate it. Bear
in mind, David was quite young. And I think that's having as soon as you get to more dangerous.
You should post about that. I was way better than those days.
No, but like, and I remember that we had like in the Staunton Memorial, I think there was
one game where I was so jammy and I got a draw in an end game, but I was lost. But we had a lot
of fights in the plan of but vinegar's David was pretty like gung ho. And I would be like
of Razortley defending against his isolated Queen's pawn.
But one thing I've got to say is that this position carries a lot of energy.
And usually you are capturing on d5 with a knight,
so I don't quite know why the hesitation from Goukeshe.
Spending eight minutes here when there's only one really logical move.
Like maybe he's thinking about g6,
maybe his preparation against the pure Pan of Botvanik,
as Yovankovs were saying,
like this position with d4, e6 actually often transposes to the Nimzo Indian defense directly.
But g6 is one of the main lines. So maybe he's thinking here, who's going to play g6?
But after cxd5, like is he going to do it now? White hasn't committed to d4, maybe White can spend time guarding the pawn.
But ultimately taking the pawn, there can't be anything that bad with it.
Magnus clearly isn't that well prepared with something so sharp, so why not just take the pawn back?
I think that has been one of the more concerning patterns for Gukesh in this tournament where
he comes in with what looks like an opening surprise and this is not the first time that
we are seeing at least a semi opening surprise but then he is the one who starts burning
the clock and what looks like it should be a response moment that you should have been
ready for and should have been prepared for and even if you are not at some point you
just can't calculate this position out right you have to have the feel that this is where
you pick up that bond right now also you are giving additional opportunities for white
If you delay the white, the queen can actually jump into the game and start protecting that
pawn and then you have to find ways to actually win material back right now.
So Gakesh, over the last nine games, I've lost count how many times he's come up with
a really interesting and creative idea, given up a pawn and then not been ready to show
the initiative.
When his opponent has made the most natural looking move?
You're right.
His last two losses in the classical, and it's been a tough run for him.
He's lost two in a row.
He did give up a pawn and then stopped to think only afterwards when it was already too late
And he was kind of all in committed. I mean, he's not all in here
he could probably get away with G6 and
just feying Keto and this pawn is quite weak probably drops off long term, but
It gets some point you've got to think is it worth ten minutes time has been his biggest weakness the clock
this tournament maybe the openings as well, but
You know, I don't really see what else just to point out the database
vast majority nearly everyone just takes on D5
the only other move of note being g6
But that's the thing it's one or the other and this is something that you would expect to have been
Predecided by Gukesh going into the caracan. It's not something that you think on move 5
It is that the world champion just goes into a thing to decide his part. Yeah
Surprising as well, you know and especially because we have this time control
where the players are not getting an increment per move and
And once they hit time travel, they never managed to build up enough time to get themselves back out of the trouble.
Then I don't see why Kakesh is thinking. Just take the pawn on d5 and then you can start thinking.
Because after you take the pawn on d5, then there's choices for black, right?
White can go Nf3, white can go d4. And then here you have a choice. You can go Nc6, you can go e6, you can play a whole load of other moves.
But that's where the choice is, not the move earlier, well at least, unless Goukèche has
some magnificent idea, I don't know.
I mean, also Magnus has a bunch of choice, like Nxd5, you can play it after 10 seconds
or you can play it after 10 minutes.
No matter what you do, Magnus might go Nf3, he might go Bc4, he might go Qb3, he's got
so many options, why burn 10 minutes here when you don't know what your opponent's
going to do anyway?
Yeah.
Psychological I've been there myself so many times when you're in bad form
Like you overthink everything. I saw a featured chat from Julius. I think it was saying yeah, just got a move and
At this point Goukash's coaches that is their responsibility. It's not on him. This is natural for any player
It's their responsibility to say make the moves fast in the opening
Especially when the part is narrow and they're forced don't try to over complicate things keep it simple
You know, it just feels like a very different Goukash that I'm looking at. I mean, it's like he's double-guessing
not sure, not feeling the confidence that we usually see from him and all of
this everything that we're discussing has to be data point for the world
championship right? For Sinderhav and his team they are watching all of this
being played out. It's Gukesha's tendencies under time pressure, how he reacts
to these opening situations, how he's playing under pressure, how it is his
decision-making in the end games when the clocks are low and the thing is this
is not crisis moment for Gukesha, he doesn't need to prove how good he is,
he's already done that. But the question is a form. And it's all on tape right now for the
other side to look into, to actually draw out points for the big match coming up. And for
Gukes, every single moment spent like this, contemplating such decision, passes the ball over
to Cinderov. The contrast is so stark. Like Cinderov is in his hotel room playing Counter-Strike.
Gukes is spending 13 minutes on a simple recapture. The attitude between them is,
It's going to be such a fascinating world championship much because in my mind, they couldn't be any more opposite.
I know they're the same age pretty much, but they're such different people, such different players, totally different approaches to chess.
But I tell you once Goukesh overcomes this bad patch, he's going to come back so much stronger.
This is really going to toughen him up and I think he'll be able just to face absolutely anything that comes his way.
But for the time being he has to deal with the issue on the board
He has to make a choice as to what he is going to be playing against Magnus's last move
The theory says take the pawn Goukesh make the move
But on that note we are gonna go on a very short break
But don't go anywhere because if you're lucky enough to be subscribed and switch remember you can listen to
Exclusive pre-game thoughts and moves of our players and if not, well, we'll see you in a few minutes to start this break
Weste, I'm just curious, if you see on the other table that Pragnananda is suddenly beating
Vincent, will you be more aggressive in your game?
Yeah, we'll see when he gets to that.
Yeah, that's a good question.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I mean, if I'm going to have to win the tournament, yeah, for sure.
But in my opinion, that's very unlikely to happen because Vincent is very strong on the
classical and Prague did the impossible winning three classical games in a row. I think to
win a fourth one is like next really really impossible. But we'll see. But I'm very excited
to see how the final day will end. Anything can happen really. Everyone has chances.
What would it mean for you personally to win Norway chess?
Oh, it felt great. It felt wonderful. As I said the other day, it's a dream. I never
one Norway chess is my sixth time. Yeah, it would really, really mean a lot, but I can't
really think about that too much. I'll tell you more if I do.
Westerso, I think I can speak for almost all our viewers when we say good luck today.
Yeah, thank you so much.
Westerso, you're always around, reading the tournament and somehow you never have any
pressure, but now it's final round. Any pressure now?
Well, only if you think about winning.
Yeah, I'm very excited for the final round.
Personally, for me, there's less pressure when I'm leading, because it very rarely happens.
But I'm very excited to see, hopefully, it'll turn out good, but anything can happen in this last round.
And also, of course, the other pairing, which is extremely important, Frag against Vincent,
will you also follow that one during your own match?
Yeah, it's hard not to because you have two large screens, so everyone can see it.
I should have followed more than my game sometimes.
But I have full confidence on Vincent, as long as he has more than 5 minutes on the clock.
Best of luck to you Vincent, final day at Norwiches.
First of all, how does it make you feel?
Oh well, it's been a nice tournament, so I also kind of said it's over.
Even though I've been on the road for nearly a month now, but yeah, it's been a very interesting event.
lots of fighting games, also a little more blunders than I would have liked, but still
it makes it very interesting of course.
Even in the last round nothing is really clear, a lot of tough matches on the top board, so
what is your take in your game?
Well I suppose everyone fighting for first board will be kind of aggressive and I have
no intentions of shutting that down, so I'm hoping for a big fight.
Looking forward to see your game.
Thank you.
It's safe to assume that Pragnandanda is going to be fighting today for a win, because he needs it.
Is that something you embrace, or is it something you want to take off and go for a draw?
I'm planning on playing the way I would play any other game as well, basically.
I mean, I'm not paying for first place anymore, so I will just try to play a good game.
That doesn't mean that I will go into a draw, it also doesn't mean that I will do something crazy.
just gonna play the way I would normally would.
So essentially, can I read out of your answer
that if Prague wants to play fighting chess,
you're up for a fight?
Yeah, sure.
Look forward to seeing this game.
Thank you Vincent.
Thank you.
Prague, do you see this day as a day
to try to take some risks
or you're going just to approach what happens on the board?
Yeah, I just try to play my chess and see how it goes,
but yeah, certainly I hope there'll be a lot of fight.
Will you follow also the other important match
which is ongoing?
Yeah, mainly I'll be focusing on mine, yeah, I mean, I certainly have a... I don't know about this one.
Best of luck to you.
Thank you.
Are you able, Vivisada, to really focus on a game in a tournament that you've already won?
I hope so, actually, because there's a lot of congratulations already, but I just want to play my last round good.
I just met actually the Kazakhstan ambassador to Norway on the side. It seems like this is very big back home.
what kind of messages have you received from Kazakhstan after your win?
I didn't receive it yet, yeah but I think for our country it's very important win because I think
it's our first big win in the classical tournament, it's one of the strongest tournament in the world
so yeah, I hope children's will start to play chess more often.
I think you're a good role model for that baby Zara, thank you.
Thank you.
Magnus, you have your family here to support you.
How does that make you feel?
Yeah, it's very nice.
My sister and husband and kids showed up today and it's her kids' first time going to a tournament,
so that's fun.
So you're smiling before the round, is that something that you need to go into the game
now?
No.
It's a pretty meaningless game, so it doesn't really matter that much.
It's not very personal for you to play against Goukash in this round.
No, I mean, he's had a tough event, like I don't have any particular desire to inflict more pain on him, but we'll see.
Good luck.
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We are back with a championship round of Norway chess and this is where the stories will be
told the money will be made for out 12 players and boy is it gonna be an exciting one. So many
stories will be finished today going to our bird's eye view. Well if you just join us you join us at
perfect moment because the
players are locked in thought.
And during the break. Well,
David told us that he wanted
his own story time. So David,
take it away. Thank you,
Ivanka. Let's jump into the
game. Anna was you trick
against Divya Deshmukh
because Dr Dave has an
anecdote. Exactly. It's
C3 Sicilian and before I jump in just very quick action replay C3. I've
actually played this against Anna Mozzie Tripp before and she didn't really as
black, used to have too many good weapons I noticed against the C3 Sicilian
but then a few years after I played her, I think it was in 2009, maybe a long long
time ago, she started playing the C3 Sicilian quite a lot herself so this is
one of the main lines and this is a position that arises so often and here
personally I've played everything under the Sun, I've played Queen to E2, Rook to
E1. I'm not going to do a Magnus and go through all the moves for A3, which takes
D5. There's so many options, but one of the most direct attempts to get a similar
pawn structure to the Magnus Carson against Goukesh game is to take on D6.
Now it's a pure isolated Queen's pawn. Attacking players tend to like this with
white because yes it's a weak pawn, but it gives them a lot of space, a lot of
squares. Knight C3, castles, rookie one, natural developing moves to both sides.
And here with black, I think the best from my old analysis from many years ago was to play a rook to d8
Just to keep the tension to sit and ask white. How are you generating attack?
Because after night AC three suddenly whites
Responsibility in the center is slightly less the focus can shift the pawns are connected not quite hanging pawns yet
But b6 and Anna Muzitruk has been thinking for eight minutes
But in this position, the main move on the database and the move I played in a game over
15, 16 years ago now, I think it was 2009 maybe January in Vaikanzai in the C group
back then, was the move Knight to G5 and I remember this game because it's one of my
favorite games ever, not just that but those were the days when I used to be able to attack.
Nowadays I'm a grinder, everyone knows that.
this position is extremely dangerous for black in general. I was actually
free-styling and I played 95 after a lot of thought in that game but I do still
believe it's the best move. Black here potentially should be removing this
knight because it is so dangerous but here white can still whip up all kinds
of attacks with moves such as Queen g4 and black's king lacks any defenders.
That's the main theme of the position. Bishop to f6 or a relief threatens to
conquer the dark squares. Mate in the air, rook to e3, rook lift, bishop
jumping back to d3. This is very scary for black, and evaluation bar also agrees, but
okay, to shorten my story, h6 is the other main move. Ne4 gains a tempo against the
black queen, queen drops back, Qg4, threatening bishop takes h6, and I think this is already
a big, big advantage for white, unless black finds all the best moves. Interestingly, f5,
forking two pieces doesn't quite work because the white queen drops back, saves itself,
the queen and if there's a queen exchange black can't really hold the e6 pawn and same with
e5 white just drops back and this pin, bishop takes h6 everything hanging and my game actually
ended in a miniature after Qc7 Qg4 black tried to get out of the pin by playing king to h7
and the main there we go the eval bar shoots up my main memory from this game is not my
opponent's face. I think he was a Dutch IM. My main memory is Wesley So and Anish Gehry
playing against each other on the board next to me. They both looked over, they both made
eye contact me with me. Anish was like, what? And then he literally stood up, stood over
the board, was like calculating. Then he looked at me, he was like, and he was like, yeah.
And I was just sitting there being like, you're kind of not supposed to make eye contact with
me right now. But Bishop takes H6, boom, white wins because of the Fischer tactic. G takes
H6 night f6 check a book fading move Bishop takes and I say Fisher because of
Fisher's famous Rook f6 I gave me inspiration you block the f-pawn can't
block Queen 86 Queen 87 mate incoming now I've got its stunning but just imagine
if Arbor to have been watching like any and Wesley looking at you go yes yes
yes carry on play it I'd already played the winning move Bishop to H-6 when
was happening they were looking at me in like appreciation not as in like you've got something here
mate the game actually ended king takes and after king 26 g4 queen on it queen to h5 mate is unstoppable
and each was only eyeing that pawn to pick it up and put it into his pocket is what he wanted
that eight six pawn looking very delectable to him but that is beautiful sacrificing two pieces
and and it's on the board so divya needs to be extremely careful now eight six walks into all
All the ideas that David, you had in that masterpiece of yours, Bishop takes Knight objectively
a better try for black here?
You've all just turned on the computer.
Apparently H6 and Bishop takes G5.
I mean not great for black, but those are the two best moves.
Bishop d7 is the next best, but that's never going to happen if blacks just play b6.
White's got threats already of Qh5.
This is terrifying for Divya.
You want to play H6, right?
you're black exactly is like your bishop pair in an open position like this yeah
exactly h6 is like the main kind of idea here kick away that night it's on
your side of the board and just to remind everyone Anna is yet to score a win in
classical yes all draws nine all draws exactly it's been in the arm again where
she's had a lot of fun and adventure but what a moment it would be for Anna to
get her first classical win. Do you think you've seen your game?
For sure. I'm pretty sure Anna was there at the tournament. I actually played at the
YL after I think in the event in the D group, but yeah, I don't know. If she hasn't seen
my game, then she's strong enough to work it out over the board.
All I'm going to say is she better not blank out David Howell like a certain Magnus Galsen
did a few days ago. Exactly. And shout out to John there, enjoying
my travelogues, enjoying my long opening nerd fests.
I'm going to just add to that before we move on to our next game, our marquee match-ups
in the open where the championship battle is completely wide open in that one is that
the amount of time that Divya has taken, she's a player who really blitzes out her opening
moves fast, she likes to play on the clock, but right now, 10 minutes short of Anna Muzichuk.
She's thinking in the last couple of moves every single way.
I have a feeling that she's not as well prepared as she needs to be with the dangers that are
here lurking in this position very likely be going to that line of eight six
because if you haven't prepared it you don't want to give up your bishop there
you want to push that night out of G5 create some lift for your king and it's
just a more natural response here and also Divya had a great event was in
second place even fighting for first and then two heartbreaking losses first up
up to BB Sara. She was winning that kind of completely killed her yesterday. She also
lost Jujune. She is staring down the barrel of a third defeat here if she plays h6 and
she does not follow in the most accurate way.
What is the way to survive the checkmate that you earlier mentioned, which almost looks
after h6, the knight retreating, hitting the queen. A pretty false sequence of moves there,
David.
Gary I remember over the board maybe we can show this that h6 I thought might be fine night you for and maybe the Queen goes back to
D8
Just so not now. Well, I see the evil bar right so my my old
analysis with like Houdini 3
Is no longer viable, but at least now Queen g4
I was gonna say isn't possible because of f5 and there's no hit on the black Queen on c7
But apparently white has something strong here
Maybe Queen g6
sacrifices in the air or maybe just a capture on e6 and at the end white just
transforms the advantage instead of an attack just to picking up the black knight
picking up a pawn advantage and there's so many traps to avoid here pitfalls
that Divya could step into and you just have to kind of rely on your sense of
danger right now right you just feel that that knight is too strong to stay
alive with the move like 8-6 the hook on 8-6 that can be picked up with the
bishop all the sacrifices and just decide to get rid of it on the board.
I would be very tempted with black to take that knight away.
Just put it out of the picture.
No 94, no queen g4 for you.
But for that I think you have to have an understanding that these particular positions
are super dangerous for black.
Because a lot of us would in our minds get to H694, queen c7 and say yeah king h7, what's
the big deal?
That's so natural.
Also so easy to miss the idea of in this exact particular position f5 and the beautiful queen g3 just transforming it into a strategic
huge advantage in an endgame
Yeah, this is a huge advantage
if the black Queen moves then Bishop takes h6 which is wins the pawn and
It's interesting here that like this can't be held rook f6
You can play knight to h5 hitting the rook knight back to f4 hitting the rook winning the pawn everything comes with tempo this whole line
I have such fond memories. I'm so surprised Divya's walked into this because she is such a good opening
Theoretician and that's the thing about the C3 Sicilian
It's not the best opening like black has so many decent answers to it
But you can't freestyle against the C3 Sicilian. You can't just wing it
You have to know your stuff because white players the moves are quite natural the attack
Suddenly once it appears it's hard to stop and it's an incredibly smart choice by Anna against a player like they're you know
Divya chooses a Sicilian wanting a fight. How do you kill that fight for any Sicilian
lover? You play 2C3, you go into the Alipen Sicilian, taking away all those dynamics that
we see whether it's a night off or a dragon, which I'm pretty sure is what Divya really
wanted to get into. So Anna Mozichuk here with an approach, not just to the position
with the player she's playing against. Going in for that and I don't think Divya was as
well prepared as she should be in the Alipen.
Well, it looks like Divya may have stumbled into this position. We're going to keep an
eye on it. Let's go back to the bird's eye view because we've got to keep an eye on our
marquee matchups there at the top on the championship. It's for the championship title because,
well, first up, I'm seeing in top left that Ali Raza is playing this in an unconventional
way, you know, with Queen coming out to F3, going for some kind of scholar's mate-ish
formation at least. And then we have the game on top right in blue where I see Vincent
in order to fight against White's 95 plan has actually put his night on C6, which is
strategically a little bit unsound. But then on the other hand, the White Bishop is stuck
there on C1. So, you know, swings and roundabouts and that. And I can also see in the middle
between Magnus and Goukèche, that's very much following the realms of mainstream theory.
So Goukèche, after that long pause, he just decided to go for what everyone else has done.
Just to point out, Goukèche and Carlson, that could pretty much almost transpose to
the Mosley-Truc Divya game, if Black plays Ntc3 very quickly, then Qc7, the White Knight
goes to g5, very similar stuff. Same exact pawn structure almost. So we could be seeing
lightning strike twice this round but of course the big action is between the
leading pack. Ferozha trying to chase down Wesley so must win scenario maybe
we can jump in there because we've seen some moves and some very committed moves
by both sides. I really like what Ferozha has done in this game which is
essentially a must win for him if he's looking at the championship you know he
starts with the Bishop opening doesn't show his hands with the Knight and then
And eventually, not only does the bishop come out before the knight, the white queen jumps
on the board before the knight develops.
And I think that has all the makings of the kingside attack.
If we just play the moves with Wesley, so focusing with an expansion on the queen side, you know,
he pushed the white bishop down.
He pushed the other pawn, now threatening to trap that bishop, had to be defended by
creating some breathing space for it.
And after that move, Wesley now looking at developing his other piece, I'm that g4 square,
which would hit the queen.
And this last move by Alireza Ferocia, he's getting set up.
He says, I move my knight, you come in with your bishop, I'll put my queen on G3 and then
eventually start pushing all your pieces back, H3 coming in, G7 tender and once again F4
still always in the air.
Full of potential in this position.
I love it.
I know the Eval Bar says black is tiny bit better but it's so imbalanced that that could
change instantly and no easy move for Wesley.
Wesley likes a bit of clarity I think especially in these kind of money rounds.
does like to swap things off go to simple positions as he did against Magnus
just yesterday. The one thing that Wesley has done with the expansion on the
Queen side is that he ensures that at least Alireza's discourage from any
castling possibilities on the Queen side. He's kind of ready with the brakes A4
B4 coming in so kind of trying to get it into safer waters if there is a shot
side castle Wesley will repeat the favor and then at least you know that the
avalanche on that right flank will not be as dangerous. I was gonna say actually
that that still is there because white I think is obliged to castle king side
but then you're gonna tuck the king on h1 and then queen moves out of the way f4
still very much on the horizon also you got ideas of going bishop e3 and
trying to swap off the dark square bishops and then getting in f4 one
thing I gotta say is that f4 is gonna come as a certainty for Ali Reza he's
going to be planning that one
for a long time. I think he was
planning it since he took out
his bishop before the night. It
is going to happen. It's going
to be through Ja four on the
board very soon. It's just a
matter of when not if.
Wesley tends to be very dangerous
if you force him to play. If
you really provoke him. So what
will he come up with? He won't
want to just passively allow
why all of his plans. This I
have a feeling is going to be a
really tense game and then it's
going to just suddenly explode.
It has all the makings of that with all 32 pieces still on the board
Quite a bit of time spent already by Fersha
I'll say the biggest surprise in this game so far is that he started thinking now he spent 10 minutes on a
Move back and move forward and 10 minutes on move 5 even though it's quite well-known stuff back then at least
But now quite a rare position
I have a question for you in this position if you're Wesley so and you know playing with black all the dangers that do exist
Are you wanting to neutralize that light-squared bishop?
For Wesley, would one of the plans revolve around putting his bishop on E6 just to make
sure no more scholars made for you and to try to at least ease off the pressure on the
king's side?
Definitely.
And just as I say that, I check the database and Alereza's had this exact position before.
He spent 25 minutes, Alereza, to get to a position he's had just last year against
Jan Napomneschi.
I think it was online in blitz because I see that Alereza's rating there was 3,200.
200 and it's definitely not 30 200 in classical so it must have been blitz online on the chest.com
Should we just quickly show that game how that went because those lines and ideas must be on the radar of at least
Ali reserve for Russia after the move night to eat to Wesley
Now Wesley Yan upon machine decided to actually trade the bishop immediately and Bishop to E6
We shot we saw castle in that one the night comes out very natural moves here David H3 shock castle
Fruja put the knight on G3, planted it on F5, and I have to say it does look the way
it went on, that there was pressure on King's side. Knight F5, Bishop 8, 6 ideas.
Okay, so maybe Wesley should have been checking Alaraz's Blitz games on chess.com. Nowadays,
it's not enough to check people's classical games. There are OCD games. You have to check
online as well, but maybe Alaraz didn't remember because it cost him so much time.
You know what, I think that's a very good advice for the standard person, it's not so
good advice if you want to be tracking what the top players are going to play because
I can tell you they've got like hundreds of thousands of games, like I think one David
Howell, like when you try to compile an opening database of the games he's played online,
I think I did it once and it was like three hours, it was still working away, you know,
You've played that many games, so it's very difficult.
Wasted childhood.
And also, what I noticed is that online, people are playing absolutely anything and everything.
I think that's quite a good thing to do.
You know, that's the place to experiment and try out all of your opening ideas.
Yeah, I actually purposefully did that, as you say, Yavanka.
Like, every title Tuesday I used to play, like, I would play a different first move.
I played bad variations on purpose to try and force my future opponents to think about,
okay, this weird line of the French defence, is David really going to play this?
And then they'd play into the opening because they thought I'd repeat the same mistake.
But I always kind of come with an improvement prepared.
So yeah, mind games.
But sometimes it does work.
Like, if Wesley had checked the bishops opening, he would have seen this game as one of the
main lines in B6 play.
It was the move of choice by Yana Pomnushi in that game.
I just did a quick check.
You paid about 17 and a half thousand games on chess.com.
How do you explain that, David Howell?
That's a lot of time.
Yeah, that's just on one site as well.
I know.
I was going to say.
You don't want to know where else.
I mean, back in the days of ICC, Internet Chess Club,
play chess, I mean, you probably times that number by 10.
Do you know, I once had to play first round Fabby,
Fabriona, Carolina, and I was black.
I was like, how can I prepare against this? So I basically decided, I thought he was going
to play E4, so I prepared a Karakhan, I get that, he plays D4. Well, there you go, well
done, Niovi, you guessed correctly. And then I just kind of made it up and we kind of got
this type of normal position. But I honestly felt like there were too many games that the
best thing that I could do was just conserve my energy and not bother preparing.
Yeah, I just think like relying on online games for a classical game and checking all of them
Is this almost impossible because you could be derailed so easily and like David was also mentioning that strategy has been employed by many strong
Players so best not to fall for that
But the question here is Alireza Ferozha if he remembers his game against the Anna Pomnichey
He will go shock castle. That was the move of choice
By Alireza in that the other option is that you immediately grab the bishop in E6 and get this imbalanced spawn form
and then try to decide whether you want to go for F4 once the Queen sidesteps or not.
For Alireza, he has been thinking.
I don't know how much he remembers that game against Yanapamnishi.
David, we might see a new move in this position right now.
You might well do.
I'm being told that our producer, Bic, has played 53,000 games.
Wow!
I think Bic is allowed to play on any other websites.
It's all on Chescom.
And Tanja, you want to know how many you've been playing?
I'll say that I'm not much into online chess.
I think I started playing on chess.com.
I started playing online only when the pandemic hit.
So my number is not going to be that high.
But let's see, Jovi, what's yours?
I was going to say, I don't tend to play on my title accounts.
Oh, that's the other thing, right?
We've got all these other accounts, the burner ones.
OK, I've gotten close to nine thousand.
That's not very much. That's the decent number and mine is awful on my main account only not giving away too many details
It's it's less than 1400
Tanya
Cool yourself a chess player and you're not online playing but I will say one thing
I feel like that's been a lot of Indian chess players
I think it's been over the board focusing more on classical chess
I think Nihal Sirin really changed that narrative for Indian chess in a big way, but
otherwise for most of us I don't think you'd find the numbers in in many many
thousands it will be pretty low yeah so nine thousand's impressive that you'll be
it's actually really poor I mean seventeen thousand more seven thousand most of
mine are paid on my phone though I'm one of those players he's like I get on the
bus and I'm bored and I get flagged okay so be it I don't care all right well
Speaking of getting flagged, we've spoken about the time control here so much, no increment
until 40 moves right now.
And I look at our top row, Winston Keimer seems to be the one who's burnt most amount
of time out of the opening.
That's the top right board.
By the way, Gukesh, top center has picked up a bit of pace after taking a big think
of capturing the center ponds.
Lots of move there.
And we've already dived into the Ferozha board where Bishop to E6 challenges Ali Reza's
bishop right now, trying to neutralize the pressure.
David, should we continue our world tour and move over to Magnus Gukesh before we go into our top right, Pradhananda battle?
Let's do it. The Prague against Vincent Khyma board hasn't changed too much. We just saw a couple of committal moves
But yeah, still very very tense. Let's go to Magnus and let's see what he's done to try and put pressure on the world champion
Very quick action replay because yeah, we were questioning Pradh Gukesh's decision to spend almost 16 minutes on
night takes D5. It is the best move. I think if you're unprepared, you don't want to be
a pawn down, might as well take it. So the fact that it cost him so much time may be
a hint into his mindset, not the most confident after a tough few days. But night to F3,
night C6, bishop to B5. Magnus has played this before. I won't go into story time mode
now because I think everyone's sick of that, but Magnus has played this against me in Blitz.
I remember both in-person, like friendly games in the evening, late at night.
We've played a few, but also online games, I think he's played this against me.
And exactly what happened in the game, I remember this all playing out, and Rookie won.
I remember I was playing Bishop to F6 to try and get my knight back to E7,
and Magnus there was taking this knight and Planty's knight in the centre,
trying to play positionally against some outposts.
That's Gukesh goes, Bishop to D7, allowing a change in pawn structure.
And before we deep dive into this live board, I've got a question for you, David, because you were mentioning playing your late night battles against Magnus.
Is it true that Magnus, on his wedding night, was on Chess Talk, gone playing Blitz?
Yes.
Oh my god.
Also, I heard on the birth of his son while they were waiting for him to be born.
He was also playing online as well.
Both fans against Daniel Narodicki.
Some big life moments, Magnus.
I guess it's memorable in that way, at least.
Yes.
With Magnus, we were at some bar on his wedding night, and then I don't know what happened
afterwards, and then the next thing I know, I think I was playing Blitz as well, and then
I logged on, I was like, wait, why is he still up?
And I ended up watching those games that he was playing, so...
I have a question for you.
Does Magnus remember every single classical game that he's played?
Do you think?
I think to some extent he might not remember every single detail, but if he really forced
him to...
Well, I have something in mind. Well, I have a game that he's played right in front of me
and this was played back in 2009
Maybe in the viking say that you are at
Because it was between him and Jan Svades and they got to this particular position
Jan Svades played Bishop f6 a la Goukash Bishop f4 was the response and
And G6 was played in Queen b3
interesting so I'm kind of curious as to where the Magnus remembers that game
confession time we need it we do need a confession time maybe Magnus is very
good at going to the confession maybe we're gonna get a confession later on
but I have the game in front of me the question is does Magnus remember it
does he have fond memories because he actually won that game because after
night to a 5 you went Queen before and then there was some ideas are going H4
H5 at the right time. It's funny, Yavanka, as soon as you say this, like something in
my mind says I've seen this game before. I think I was there in person. Yeah, it's
could very well be because what happened in that particular game was knight a5,
queen b4 and then bishop e6 and then bishop h6 after the trade of bishops
then H4 happened. Magnus started applying some pressure. Blackwing can't take
because the knight hangs. And it's a Magnus type of position. And indeed you're
right, Yavanka it was group A at the Vaikonze, now Tata Steel Masters.
Yes, I was in the C group. I was quite a bit lower rated than Magnus back then.
and yeah he was in the a group and the Dutch the Dutch players playing key
roles in all of these opening battles it seems today yeah but then that gives me
an idea right Magnus instead of putting the bishop to f4 could actually choose a
different square in this position and I wanted to make Queen B3 work and I
wanted to plant it on D2 but let's also point out that the D4 pawn in the
previous move not the wisest decision to pick up because of the tactics that
exist. You can take 8-7, you restore material balance with all the strategic advantages.
Black's king in the open, d5, beautiful pieces for white, another pawn most likely going
to fall in this one. I wanted to be clever and instead of the game that Yavanka had
early on, put the bishop on d2. By the way, Magnus is about to make his decision. It felt
like a longer move with the bishop. We might be seeing bishop to f4, but bishop d2 walks
into knight takes pawn. So that does not work. And the main point was that after g6,
Now I have Qb3 and you don't have Nd5.
That's very, very clever.
And yeah, Nd4 now can be met by, I'm not sure which pawn grab, but yeah.
This one, this one, db7.
Yeah, hitting everything.
a7, d5, many weaknesses.
Definitely feels like white's not risking too much, or has black had some questions to
answer.
Like it is symmetrical, so I don't think black should be doing too badly.
Yvarl Bar also says it's pretty much equal, but it's definitely black who's forced to
proved that equality.
But David, probably after Bishop d2, Knight takes pawn, you'd still have a move like Bishop
b4 and a lot of tactics coming in with a 7 on the fire as well.
By the way, a decision by Magnus, none of this we're going to get to see, as he sticks
to playing from that game of 2009 and maybe he does remember it, Yavanka.
Yeah, well hopefully Magnus will go to the confessional when we can get the inside workings
off his mind because I'm also dying to know, does he remember this game or is he just simply
following those familiar patterns.
Yavanka, if I can remember a game from 2009, literally the exact same tournament in the other game,
then surely Magnus remembers his own game from that exact same tournament.
It was only 17 and a half years ago.
Did you know what's been really impressive about Magnus and all the memory testers?
Not only just his own games, he remembers games played by other grandmasters years ago,
elite tournaments, not so elite tournaments.
When I watch Magnus's interviews, it feels like he's watching the whole chess world play out.
He's following every single game, every single tournament all across,
and it somehow seems to stick into his memory.
Yeah, I saw him on the rest day actually at this event, and he was just on his phone,
and I looked over, I was like, oh, are you playing Blitz? He was like, no.
And he was watching this memorial tournament that Nihao Sarin's currently playing at,
and it was some random position. He was like, oh, this is an interesting novel,
I was like, dude, just take a break, it's your rest day.
Didn't I once hear that he was following some under-12 championship?
He's an addict. I mean, we're all addicts in terms of playing chess, but he's an addict in terms of watching.
And maybe that's why his baton recognition is so incredibly on another level, you know,
where he's able to draw out ideas from something he's seen and he just understands chess well better than the rest of the world.
Bishop f4 on the board, but at least objectively the position remains in the balance.
balance. Maybe we check in on this in a bit. Let's go to our bird's eye view because let's
have a quick glance of what is happening around the horn and maybe we can just make an assessment
on Jujine against Hampi Canaro because earlier on we saw that it's very similar in terms of pawn
structure to the game that was played between Prague and Vincent but the bishop had come out to G5
and they're not like an assessment on Joanne Junigan's Bibi Sara.
I'll also just point out quickly before we dive into those games that Divya still hasn't
made her decision. That's the bottom right board, a very critical moment in that one.
Divya, a few setbacks in the last few rounds, but she's looking at a good finish and has an
outside chance of winning of coming second. She needs a few results to go her way,
but more importantly needs to take down Anna Muzie-Cherke in the classical.
8-6 would walk into a lot of tactics, Bishop takes Knight, also a difficult decision,
and Divya are a big thing.
Big thing, but a good sign at least that she smells that danger and is trying to find a solution.
So we'll check in on that if and when Divya tries to come up with a viable defense.
Yeah, maybe just very quickly, jump jumping into the other games then.
Zuzinaire against Humpy. Let's start with that one. That was the bottom left board. Here we go.
Big clock difference. Humpy. Yeah, the clock has been an issue for her, I think, throughout the event.
It has cost in the classical Armageddon, but yeah, we did see until the last two moves quite a standard
Queens gambit declined
We actually I'll jump back just to hear when we were talking about the big difference
From the pride game being that price Bishop was all the way back on C1
And if you put the white knight on F3 it would be very similar to that other game
But night to E4. This is a very well known trading mechanism the Bishop hanging on the edge of the board
so exchanges
White continues to exchange things and a few moves down the line
Bishop to d7 and boom. So you should have breaks through with d5. She's trying to
After a bunch of trades at least create a nice beautiful outpost for her remaining night
She wants to get good night versus bad bishop
And that night will remain unchallenged on that in your bank hole
So the easy plan right once the d file opens up you've got a clear path to double down on that as well positionally
Strategically, it's exactly what you want you take it you come back with your rook to d2 if it's hit you double up
you plant the knight on d4, just a very pleasant position to play this out. The black bishop,
the light-squared bishop will be stuck behind his own pawns. What do you want to do if you're
humpy? Pick up that pawn from e4 and chuck it out of the board, just to have some open
diagonals. Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you put that pawn back on, say, e6 or something, suddenly
black has got a great position. But because it's on a light-squared, because it's jamming
in its own bishop, then yes, the black bishop is simply going to be on the defensive. So
Jiu Jiu know a very comfortable position.
Let's move in and check in on Jiu Wen Jun
against Bebe Sara.
Bebe Sara, she must have been celebrating last night.
But here it looks like there's been a lot of simplifications,
no pawns in the middle of the board.
But in these type of positions,
there's all the question of timing.
If White is going to be very aggressive on the front foot,
you know, just targeting the squares,
then Bebe Sara could find herself in a lot of trouble.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure if they're a direct threat to one big plan is to jump in with the knight to d6
This is still I think relatively well known this type of position. It's not this exact one, but you know what?
Do you think she's considering here?
The most natural moves would be to unclog the position a bit of a traffic jam on the queen side
So you want to get the fish about only safe square will be d7
But first you need to move to the night so maybe one of these two
I kind of like that, right? Move it towards the center of the board, get the Bishop out,
but it feels like it's Vengeant who's got the healthier pieces, more active pieces once
the Bishop gets out of the way. Rook about to line up. Instead, another option by Bibisara
right now. She pushes the eight pawn. She wants to go B5 and plant her Bishop on B7.
She also controls the B5 square for any night jump, but it feels like it's delaying momentum
here. Yes. Okay. So here, this is the type of position
that could sizzle, could fizzle out. Let's get back to our bird's eye view.
as we see A6 being played from BBsara and you know last night I was a little bit mean
I'm not I'm not gonna lie I'm saying a little bit triggered by the fact that I have zero in the
prediction game I still have zero I came so close yesterday and so I forced you guys to make your
predictions who won yesterday or we can you remind me he was the seven there was a glitch in the
I think the players are just deliberately conspiring to say, you know, that Yorvi, she's not going to get a single point.
So I've decided because you took two, didn't you? What was your prediction? Yours was two and you took three.
Okay, I decided I'm going to take the rest. Me and the chair, we've teamed up. I spoke to the chair.
the chair agreed that we are now a team, we're going to take the rest.
So if there's only one, well, if there's zero decisive in the classical or one.
I'm taking the rest.
Five, four, five, or six, we've got them all.
I've got them all.
We give it to you, Joey.
Today's the day.
Today's the day where my chances have practically for you to get this one, but you know what,
you're winning at life.
It doesn't matter with a prediction game.
Oh, thank you very much.
I do feel like.
I'm trying to make you feel better about it. It does, Maca, Yobi.
I know it does.
It's crazy that you haven't won a single day in the last, I don't know, how many years
now.
I'm telling you, we've started...
How many years?
2027 will be a year when Yobi finally gets a point in the prediction game.
Okay.
2028.
Oh, Tanya, David, you guys are skating on thin ice and just to let you know, we do have
a professional from Magnus and that is going to be available to all of subscribers. So that is
going to be super interesting and we have fascinating day ahead so much on the line
and the big question on the top row is who is going to be emerging the champion. It could be one or
three. Will it be Pragnananda? Will it be Wesley So? Or will it be Ali Reza Ferozja? Those are our
three contenders. We're going to go on a short break and if you're a lucky subscriber, when you
you get to enjoy Magnus's thoughts. See you in a few.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Old Man's Chess.
I played this, although I sound completely mistaken, which, yeah, I might always be.
I played this against Jansmites in what was known as Qutus back in 2009.
This is like right before I started working with Gary and like I was kind of preparing
on my own and my prep is kind of f***ed to be honest, but I remember like looking at
this specifically and there were so many ways to equalize for black but I ended up
like winning in ice game so we're going for the whole this I mean I guess he was
technically two and a half years old when this game was played so he was born
but I doubt he saw it back then at the very least but I mean the the problems
that I'm setting are pretty like marginal I would say.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
Woo!
Come on!
Woo!
One, two, three, four.
Woo!
For the first time in 13 years, Norway chess moved from Stavanger 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 move.
They had four.
Ooh, the bar drops though.
This year's lineup is ridiculous.
Magnus Carlsen returns once again and faces challengers like Kukester Marashi,
Isen Kymar,
Wuzly So,
and Ali Reza Farusha.
Every single round looks like a world championship match
that accidentally wandered into another tournament.
He's feeling the nerves now, Vincent Kynald.
The women's event is just as fierce.
Ruzucineert, Huy and Huy, Humpik Neru and Animus Duke
already defy for every point like it's personal.
But here's the thing that makes Norway just different
from any other event on the calendar.
There are no peaceful broads.
The Glasgow game ends style, the players go straight into Armageddon.
One game, one winner, maximum threats.
After last year we know exactly how intense this tournament can 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 we are back to Oslo for the last round of Norway chess.
And as always, it's a good one!
because so much on the line it's now where the players will either leave the tournament happy
or unhappy and going to our four board view we can see that things are tensed for our players
and keep your eyes just peeled on the top row because that is going to determine who is the
championship winner but let's do a quick roundup of what is going down on all the boards. Tanya,
David take it away. Well, I love where your heads. Sorry, guys. I love where your heads are here
because all the action indeed in the top row right there. It's a three-horse race in the open,
but the bottom row. Vivisara has already won Norwich S. Her first Norwich S wins it in grand
style. One round to spare. What a boss statement by Vivisara. She's playing bottom center there
against Xu Wenjian. A very liquidated middle game, especially the pawns off the board in the
center. Peace play, advantage, Wenjian there. Compare each of White's forces to Black's counterpart
for Bibisara there is a bit of pressure still to respond to. Next to that, Jujina is one of the
hot contenders for second place. She's playing with the white pieces, bottom left there and the
same storyline. White's just got the better army there. You know, you've got control of the C-file,
the control of the D-line, a beautiful D4 square for the night. For Hampi, it's a task ahead,
even with material balance far from equality. I'm going to go straight to bottom right there.
Teviyadeesh Muk taking a decision of actually getting rid of that night after a long think,
relinquishing the bishop pair but at least not getting checkmated anytime soon but a big threat
with that last move that Muzichuk has just played on the board the queen coming out with the idea
of lining up the bishop against the g-pawn lots of pins lots of questions still to be answered by
Devia Medeved as Yvanka mentioned it's all eyes on our top row everything on the line and a script
nobody could have written at the start of norway chess exactly and all eyes on frag on the top
right as he hopes to win. He also hopes to be dealt a favor by Alariz, the
ferusia will come to that board in a second. That's a Prague top right, very
tense. All pieces still on the board, just one set of pawns being traded off,
typical Queens gambit declined with opposing plans, pawn advances, very
slow, very strategic. Magnus Carson against Goukesche in the center. We heard
from Magnus, we heard his confession over there. Interesting that he used to say
his openings were beep very good these days of course but he's going back to
something from the exactly fantastic he's going back to something that he knew
from years ago the pre-Peter Heiner Nielsen days I'll call them and yeah
he's actually got the exact same position he had back in 2009 before
Goukeshe started picking up chess pieces I assume and yeah we'll go into that one
But Alarosa against Wesley. So that is the key one. Wesley with the win would clinch it. Alarosa with the win would put himself in
Well in with a great chance, but yeah, this threats on the board. I think maybe we start with this game
Knight to F5 has just landed
Hitting the G7 pawn and when Wesley returns I have zero doubt that he's gonna bring his knight to E6 to defend quick action replay for everyone
We left it after Bishop to E6 saying that Alarosa had actually had this in the Blitz game online just last year
He played h3, so I think slightly different from castling against the pom-nishy, but knight d7, knight g3, bishop exchange, and really nice maneuver from Wesley to put his knight on a brilliant defensive post, and he has just done that, not just evansive defending g7, but beautiful square to hop forward to a bit later in d4.
I actually love how Wesley's handled this opening surprise by Alireza, right?
he's expanded on the queen side he's gotten rid of a dangerous bishop that
alireza had he hasn't
burned too much time not so much of a clock deficit there as well he's kept
his king flexible in the center
which just means that ideas like g6 pushing the knight away yes they weaken
squares on the king side
but at least it won't be a checkmating attack and that's always an option
knight right to hop over to d4 as well
an idea to watch out
Yavanka would you agree that Wesley might have won the opening battle in this one
Well, I would say that Ali Reza now is very much on the back foot because he has to react to this Ne6.
Why am I saying that? Because his next move is going to be G6, kick out the knight on f5,
then the knight will jump into d4, and then whoops, how are you going to defend the pawn
on b3 and also the check on c2? There could potentially be problems. So I'm seeing that
that you have to cover the D4 square.
And that's not an easy ask, right?
I only see two ways to do it.
Either you get your bishop out or retreat with your knight.
I'm not liking either of these options too much.
Yeah.
I mean, Alireza, it's so committal when he's done.
I understand he's in a Muslim situation
because he's, of course, got his eyes on the prize
and wants to win the event.
But yeah, he's kind of burned some bridges,
like strategically now, any middle game
where he lacks initiative or any attack, he's worse.
any end game. He's worse. This is a huge weakness. Like if you could put the white
pawn back on A2, maybe it's not so bad. Like everything's defended. Like, okay,
there are still those forks that you've mentioned on C2. But if you cover those,
you live to fight another day. But now the arrival of this knight just terminal.
So he's basically said, okay, I have to try something aggressive. But if his best
moves are to go defensive now and play knight E2, which, yeah, I mean, kind of
makes a lot of sense, g6. Is he putting a knight in h6 and just saying that's annoying for
you? Like it doesn't really threaten much for white but maybe he just has to hope for
a position like this that Wesley can't consolidate, protect everything, can't get his king to
safety. Can I show a fun trick in this position?
I just want to chase your queen. I feel like that queen is running out of squares. Let's
say I go knight to g5. Oh I can't, the bishop is on c1 but I'll show it anyway. Knight g5,
G3 I wanted to get really clever with 9h5, Queen h4 and 9f3 check. But none of that works
because I completely forgot about a bishop and c1. It might work soon. It might work
soon. Watch out for this with Alaraisa, Ferrugia, Geras, Queen in trouble. It does feel like
that's the problem piece. Like the white Queen's pseudo-active I would say. It looks
really nice but it's actually a target for Black's pieces. And can we just evaluate what's
going to happen? Because I was reacting to this G6 idea and going 9e2. Oh, then I got
my note in. It's a show. It's 93. Now it works. I found it, Tanya.
And now the Queen is back set back. Oh, what a disaster for white. No, this is not what
should be happening to Ali Reza's position. So I was going to say, let's have a look at
what happens off the castles, just kind of keeping it calm. And say black castles too.
And I see the evaluation bar saying already that black is the one taking over. And here,
I mean, what next for white?
Knowing Alaraiso, it might be g4, g5.
It does feel like he needs to do something about this square.
He does decide to play knight back to e2 first.
So he does cover the d4 square.
Given the question, Mark, although...
I mean, to my eyes, it looks very natural and the eval-bar didn't react too much.
Knight d7.
Black's best. That is...
Not easy.
Yeah, mysterious, I'm going to say.
I think the idea is to actually bring the black queen out to f6 and only prepare g6 rather than
go for it immediately but that is not the most natural move. No, not natural at all because here
a lot of us would be, actually a lot of us I read me would say castle king side I don't see what's
happening because the knight on e6 covers absolutely the g5 square and I don't see any problems with
anything arriving on h6. But I do love this approach of knight to d7 and it gives the feeling that
actually Wesley doesn't need to commit on the castling as quickly but if there's no direct
threat you can do it on the next move. He might even decide to just keep the king where it is.
Get the knight out of the way, push the queen forward, push the pawn ahead, get the pieces back
and only then decide where he wants to place his king if he's Wesley so also important to set the
stage right? Wesley is really the only player who's got his fate in his hands. He wins this with the
black pieces it's championship over story over no questions to be asked if he feels
that he's managed to get out of this opening in a good way he might try to push for more
with these dynamic options definitely and the same is true for Ali Reza for Ali Reza
he cannot afford an armageddon that is not good enough to get him the championship title
instead he has to win in classical so if Wesley plays castles kingside was the mover i was
advocating. Alireza is going to go on the front foot immediately and kind of make moves like you
were suggesting David G for H4. Hello, Black King. Yeah, Paul Storm and it's funny because one of the
most exciting games I've commented on this year in 2026 was the clash between Vincent
Kramer and Alireza Frucia just yesterday. This kind of seesaw battle up and down and
back and forward it looked like Vincent was about to win then Alireza was holding then
then suddenly he was going to win, then it was back to a draw.
But if Alireza had won that, he would be in the lead now,
and a draw would be enough.
Like, yeah, and he going to Armageddon with White,
he would have been the big favourite to win the tournament,
but suddenly he's the chaser, and suddenly he has to win.
It's totally different dynamic.
Winsons got a lot of fans,
but I think yesterday Wesley was his biggest fan.
Yes.
Just to survive that and not go down there.
And now Alireza is also half a point behind Prognandanda, right?
There's that dynamic as well,
which is the reason why Alireza needs a win in the classical, taking it to the Armageddon
would just not cut it for him. For Pragrinanda as well, a classical win puts his one leg
towards the championship, but it's not over till this one is. And the only way we get
a tie is if Wesley takes it to Armageddon, loses the Armageddon and Pragrinanda wins
in Armageddon. In Armageddon. And then we get a two-way tie. And the party goes on at
No Hs it does it continues until midnight until the witching hour and then we'll find out who is the winner of no Hs and
Of course there are three players in contention
Let's take a pause from this one because here we're seeing blue arrow a bit night to D7 and
Will you find Wesley?
Because I'm not sure how castle actually because
People have one eye on the fact that Ali Reza needs to win and so he's
will be running a little bit square scared of like H4G4, all of those
pawnstones that we mentioned. So let's take a pause from this one and let's go
back to the birds eye view because I want to check in on another contender,
Pragnananda who is currently chasing down Wesley by half a point and for him,
as you met you guys mentioned earlier on, he doesn't need to go all out to win in
in the classical. It is possible that he could become Norway champion by winning in the Armageddon.
And let's go into his game because we have a conversional. Let's hear what Pragmananda is
thinking about his position.
Yeah, I think the opening, I just wanted to play something normal and try to get a long game.
And I think what we got is sort of a weird alzparched structure with usually the bishop
will be on like g5 or f4 but now it's on c1 and also black knight is on c6 so it's sort
of a weird version but we have all pieces on the board so it should lead to a lot of
fight in the middle game and I think it's an interesting position so yeah there's a
lot to play.
a lot of pieces on the position he also mentioned the cars back porn structure but a lot to
play and that's the main thing especially when he keeps it very tense so let's break
down what is happening here the bishop on c1 finally found itself a home on b2 but let's
see how the players got here let's do it we left it in this position and vincent had
quite a long think over the next few moves we talked about how it's quite a standard
position except the bishop on c1 doesn't look great although at least that
bishop can't get chased around if it were on g5 for example it might get hit
exchanged so we saw Vincent play this move knight c6 which I think is two
fold in its ideas knight e5 now much less attractive because it can simply be
captured although that has to be calculated and Queen c2 would have
been a nice waiting move but now that would walk into knight to b4 and this
would be annoying black would nab the bishop pair with advantage. So Pryd continued waiting
h3 taking away all active squares from the black light-squared bishop. The dark-squared
bishop now fully covered the e5 square. White's knight can't jump in. Pryd said okay, I'm not
going to get too excited yet. I'm going to just castle the king. Rook to e1 to my eyes
was a bit mysterious because is he really going to break forward with the e4 after playing
So slowly give himself an isolated pawn. Maybe would have been the answer but h6
Vincent just continues to wait. h6 is nowadays always met by a3. It seems in
modern theory both sides just taking squares. Every square in the white
half now is covered by white's pieces, which will be 6. b4 stepping forward. No
space allowed though. a6 covers that square. And yeah, Qe7. I think for
everyone at home it's not really a threat now. Bishop takes h3. I think not
yet because white does have this square vacant for the bishop to step back to f1. If the
white rook was on f1 this would be terrifying but the bishop comes to f1, jumps in front
of the king and there won't be any mates but it's still something to be careful of.
I like where your head's at because that's exactly what I was thinking about and I think
another universe where that would become a reality not just if the rook is on f1 but
imagine if white makes one of the most natural moves of the queen's gambler decline. You
put your queen on c2. You make the bishop battery and suddenly the knight on f3 isn't
feeling good and I'm not sure but the bar really goes down which makes me feel it has
to be a tactical blowout. Bishop takes pawns suddenly becomes a reality. You're hitting
the knight on f3 watch out for that tender spot on h2. You can't move the knight out
of the way. You fall back with your queen. Choose your poison d1 or e2. Knight g4. Checkmate
incoming. I don't see a way for white to survive this but queen d7 doesn't only set
up all these tactical ideas. It also comes with the positional idea. Black always wants
to trade off the light-squared bishop. That's the problem child in this position. You don't
have so many active squares. So, Winscent wants to get bishop f5 and you can't stop it with
the move queen to c2 anymore. No. And the question is, is that normally at wise white,
you want to be handling this kingside pressure with moves such as knight to e2. You want to
be transferring a knight over to the kingside. I would be a bit hesitant about putting my
knight on e2 because of your bishop takes h3 ideas that you guys have mentioned and
maybe it works, maybe it's okay but I'm not sure. Can we put it on the board?
Yep, let's do it. Knight's e2, one more move, knight f4 comes but
eval bar does drop a little bit. Let's see, is it bishop takes h3? This is fine for black but
apparently white can survive. If it says 0.0 and blacks a piece down then it normally
means it's quite a promising attack. So I guess knight's f4?
Yes, but I guess you can take, or Knight comes into G4 anyway.
Take first, right?
Yeah.
And then maybe we take this, ooh, I don't know.
The White Knight has to fall back, but that does free a square for the White Queen.
Let's say Knight G4 is...
Let's start with Knight G4.
Ooh.
Now maybe White does get time for Bishop.
F1.
Oh wait, no, which is E1 there.
Bishop takes Queen?
Oh, sorry. That should show that.
And there's a pin.
And Queen takes a rook. There's Queen takes a knight.
And yeah, knight takes a rook. We don't want to get mated.
So this is a bit scary. Maybe Bishop f5.
Hmm.
It's still not easy. Oh, maybe just to capture first.
There we go.
And then Bishop f1. Nice.
And white blocks. So maybe...
Oh, I don't know.
I mean, there's always a question of checks.
can white escape all the checks? Maybe not actually. Maybe it's just a draw. That's why it's 0.0.
This F1 is always checked this way. H1 here, you can't go not H2 because of Ritx Rook and
Quintex Bishop. Black support up with the ongoing, two points up with the ongoing attack.
And there's some music in the library now. Is it someone's birthday here? Who's going to be
celebrating? I've heard it's going to be party time after the tournament. I know a lot of players,
commentators, we're excited about that.
Three of them on this very table. Exactly. So you guys have a good night.
But in the meantime, Prague, he's not going to be celebrating if he ever falls victim to Bishop H3 ideas,
or Bishop F5 when Black gets a nice bind on the light squares.
That's the feeling, right? Because for Winston, it's about trading off those light squares,
Bishop, so your knight can then land on E4, and you've gotten rid of the most active Bishop that Prague has on the board.
and White does everything, fights tooth and nail to not allow this move in the structure,
to not allow that Bishop trade in a Queen's Gambit decline. And unfortunately,
Queen C2 just falls to this idea. I don't expect Prague to miss it, Bishop takes
pawn, but if not, he can't be feeling too positive or happy about the opening outcome right now.
You know, you're left with the only Bishop, which is a pretty dead piece behind its own pawn chain.
Right, but I would ask to kind of speak for Prague here. I don't think we should panic
that much about the potential king side attack because there are some hopes for white and they
are based on a knight appearing on a4 jumping into c5 that's one plan another one is to jump in with
the knight to e5 at the right time obviously the knight on c3 has to get out of the way
and there could be an argument for saying you know what bishop takes h3 is scary so i'm going to
react accordingly and put the bishop back on f1 and then i'm going to act like nothing has happened
and then continue with those night jumps.
Yeah, I think in a blitz game, rapid game,
I would play BF1 in a heartbeat,
just so I don't have to calculate,
just so I don't risk blundering and getting mated on the spot.
But I guess that does allow and invite Black's knight into E4,
Suprague weighing up those consequences
for the knight jumping in the near future.
This one definitely looks in the balance.
I quite like how Vincent's handled the early surprise, to be honest.
Like, as we said earlier, Black knight in C6
normally doesn't sit well there just because a black pawn wants to connect and defend everything
black pawn wants to be on c6 but with knight e5 off the cards for the fussy will future he can
focus locking on the center on the king side and chris mares mentioning that that my pregame
positive feelings for prog are lessening feels like a wessley's year it has felt like the summer
of wessley here in oslo this is what a tournament he's had the wessley resurgence it's not just
has been fantastically in classical controlled performances there but is Armageddon with
trees as well. You know when the position, the tournament situation, the player has
demanded it, we've seen a tactical Wesley so. But he's also at other times kept everything
clinical, just not given chances to his opponent, raking up so many points in the Armageddon
early on, taking down the world number one in both their mini-matches, once in the classical,
in the Armageddon. Incredible stuff by Wesley. If he does take this down, the other side
of the finish line, very well deserved. Absolutely, and I just kind of want to add to that, because
Wesley has had so far a good year. He did very well at the World Rapid and Blitz. He also
won the American Cup and now doing super well at Norway. It could be the next winner.
Look what he's done. A move so unexpected. David, you said, almost impossible to find
from a human perspective the best move the top engine line and Wesley finds it
when it matters the most and it does matter the most right now night to d7
what a move just keeping the options open and for Ali Reza he's gonna be
feeling really frustrated because what he wants is direct play he wants to be
able to expand on the king side because there's a target lying there in the
shape of the black king but that's not there anymore and the maneuverings are
going on. Let's dive into this position because just to remind everyone at home that if Wesley
wins this one in classical he will walk away as Noy Champion 2026. Yeah, and he'll walk away a lot
richer. Around 70,000 euros, is that right? I would say 70,000 dollars. 20,000 dollars, it's so good.
I mean that's just lazy maths because it's like 700,000 kronor and I just do lazy maths divided
And Wesley mentioned earlier, he's played now which has six times, hasn't won it a single
time so it will be that one title, one more trophy added, the elusive trophy added to
the Wesley So cabinet right there.
And the thing is whenever we talk about fantastic moves, moves that blow our mind, it's usually
around tactics, right?
And we tend to overlook such ideas.
It's how difficult it is for a human to find this night retreat in a position when you've
got obvious choices like G6, like shock castle instead.
And how hard it is, David, talk to us about that, to actually just keep everything flexible,
keep your options open and find these knight retreats which are more positional in nature.
Exactly.
We'll just show it again.
The blue arrow appeared here saying that black's knight had to go back.
I think he discovered this kind of retrospectively here.
I think he first looked at G6, just trying to kick the knight away.
But now knight to H6 firstly stops the black king from castling,
but there's also a pin on the f-file.
this pawn is slightly tender. In order to defend it, you either need to use your rook on a slightly
kind of mysterious superficial square, or maybe you use the queen. But the whole idea next would
be then for the black knight to move out of the way, and then for the black queen to maybe come
out to f6 to challenge white's queen. But this would cost an extra tempo, so he was like,
wait, I don't want to castle it into any attack. And here, why not get the knight out first?
If white castles, then he might be hitting the knight. And he's doing the same thing,
But instead of taking one step and then two steps for the Black Queen's challenge, he's going to do it all in one.
So he's found the right order and it is extremely difficult.
Like, to have the self-control to go down the main variation, to look at the most forcing moves, which all players do first.
G6, realize maybe that wasn't working.
And only then to say, okay, I'm going to go back to step one, back to square one.
How can I make it better? That same idea, better move order.
It takes so much discipline in terms of like the structure of thought.
Most people it's just like myself included it can be a mess of variations in the head
but there like he saw that this was needed anyway at some point 97 and another point is that like
if white castles G6 if white just goes back later maybe not immediately jumping in but later the
black knight's coming around to the C5 square and it's going to eat up a very weak pawn and this
is definitely going to be a positional uphill battle for Ferozha if he ever has to be forced back.
It's also the kind of battle that Ferozha doesn't love to play, right?
He wants those chances, he wants those dynamic positions where, again, there are opportunities
for both players to go wrong, but this feels like a more positional fight and a player like
Ferozha can sometimes lose patience in that. Do the stuff, the rash stuff that he wants to get
his kind of positions in and maybe that would be too much for White in this situation when your
pawn structure has already been destroyed for the rest of the game. Strategically, White is
worse right now totally agree it's because of the double people horn but
let's try to get into Ali Raz's mind you know what he wants to do is he wants to
attack a castle king so maybe let's play the waiting wait and see game which is
like bishop d2 was one move I would be thinking about I thought you were gonna
go Queen g3 by the way I'm with a more direct idea but Bishop d2 no I wanted to
wait it out I wanted to induce castles king side and then let's go H4 you are
English school of chess, G4, H5.
But I have to say that to me, Ivanka, your brandish chess has always been more
meeting game than waiting game.
Some slightly surprised little by bit of beauty, but then you throw on the H4 G4
and I'm like, Yobi's back.
Well, this was the thing.
Yeah, I'm trying to avoid castling king side.
Cause I feel like that's not going to be so easy to attack.
So like this is the dream for Ali Reza.
He'll be in his element here.
I think the big question is like if white waits then what is the answer to what
Wesley just set up like G6 and let's try your night age six business where we
just say okay no Kingsley has side castling for you and Wesley he would
love to trade the Queens off just because safety but also long-term whites
got the damaged structure weak points and obviously white says no thank you
Queen to G3 okay this is the key moment I think the evaluation bar look at it
It's saying that black is significantly better.
What's the reason for that? Is there a night jump?
I'll try it.
Let's do it.
Oh, night D4.
Big threats, B3 hanging, C2 hanging.
You've got to take that night.
I don't allow it to live there for too long.
Exactly.
Take it with a bishop.
Well, there's a whole beauty behind night C5.
Oh, sorry, night D7 is that the night comes to C5
and suddenly white pieces are really far away
from ever defending this flank.
So White pretty much has to do something here. Maybe it is something to do with F4, Rf1 and try to
just mate Black before he castles. But the whole queen side is going to go down burning in the
meantime. There's also B2 hanging immediately as well, right? Everything falling apart. Can you
just say, well, in for the penny, in for the pound, I made a mistake. Whatever. Castle, king side.
I'm inspired just to go completely bishop takes bishop a pawn sorry and then
rook moves any oops so it kind of goes up because of my big idea is that the rook
moves to a2 or wherever it needs to go I think maybe we might find out in hindsight
then step us step out of the way with the king and f4 is well evaluation bar not
liking my play. I know it's quite a little. I like your play. That's a creative. Black's
never going this way. A5 would hang. That's also very airy. But this doesn't feel like
a winning attempt if you're white right now, right? If unless you get f4, also after you
get f4 the black knight is ready to jump to e5 if needed to defend that f7 pawn. Meanwhile
you've lost all of your queen side as well. I think Alireza's got to be feeling the pressure
right now. After this last move, knight d7 by Wesley Soh, idea plan clear, g6, queen
f6 coming up next. A brilliant find by Wesley. I don't see the path for Alireza to actually
make sense of the pawn formation that he's walked into. Okay. The very committal decision.
Bring it on, Yovie. Okay. Well, you guys have inspired me. Queen g3. Let's start with Queen
This Queen G3. I don't know what that is.
I'll tell you, Knight H6.
Alright, let's go ahead. There's no Queen F6 in the position.
Because the thing is, again, always in the back of my mind, if Alireza wants to win, he needs to take down Wesley in the classical.
Let's go back for it. Let's do it. Exactly.
Let's go directly and play F4.
What are you jumping in with this time, David Hall?
I don't know. It's suddenly a bit scarier. You might not cast it, you might just play with F1.
Let's say I do the same thing. How scary is it for black?
You have to take it.
And let's go F. Should we go F4? Or I say we go, let's just try. Let's try F4.
Let's try F4 and then if it doesn't work let's castle and do it the slow way.
Apparently just doesn't. We're not prepared for this.
We're not ready for F4. All of black's army raider jump in on the other side.
Okay, back up. Yeah.
Just to point out like Rf1 that black can probably take on B3 but always it'll just be defended and
And it's weird that black isn't castled, but the white knight maybe not doing enough heavy
lifting in terms of the attack.
Okay, let's backtrack.
Queen g3 is also a very frugia move in this position.
You know, in the spirit of this position to try to get f4 as quickly as possible and not
just yet.
Alright, you're threatening 9-d4.
Can we fight against it?
Maybe we could actually do this f4 idea, but do it with the knight back on e3.
because the knight didn't feel like that powerful on h6.
Coming back here.
Yeah.
And if black continues doing the same.
I didn't really have a plan for this, but knight takes time.
Knight takes, yeah.
Maybe you just start playing more position, you just start, like, trying to boot out this
bishop.
Just if it goes back, then just try and swap things off.
But again, this isn't playing for a win, this is just to...
No, I know, David.
No, but...
I just really like black's position, actually.
we have maybe just messed it up in this over ambition of trying to get a game
to fight for that classical win and now you're just stuck with a really bad
bond structure and once Wesley finds this plan of getting that knight to
C5, Alireza is just in trouble. No good moves in a worse position currently.
In the meantime, talking of no good moves, sometimes these situations must win
situations. You have to be really brave and just continue steering into the
into the skid here you just got to go for it. So Bishop d2 we were talking about g6 but let's say if
Black were to castle what do we think would white ever get tempted to just hike it up and just say
okay time to go let's go long. Ooh I like it. I like the king here. It's also once again Sosin
Alireza moves to make right and suddenly the doubled pawns in the b-file make perfect sense there
the perfect shield for the white king on the king side a4 will be met by b4 b4 will be met by a4
Blocking everything down. No open lines. No pathway to Al-Razaz king.
Meanwhile, Qg3, Bg6, throw that h1 up the board. All the ideas on the king side.
I was going to say I love it. And I was going to say
I wouldn't put my king bebo. The chicken in me has come out. I would like first go h4g4 and only
when needs must then go castle queenslide. But otherwise I love it. The concrete reasoning is
maybe after Bd2, sorry, Fg6, that's the question of where the knight goes. If it does go forward,
Qf6, it's like, okay, we want to castle, but it's going to be hard to achieve this now after Qf6,
firstly because of the Queen exchange, but also because f2 will hang. And as we said,
though, these ideas and like, it's hard to achieve castles, Queen side, depending on what Wesley
does because of f2, but also, I mean, is the White King really going to try and defend everything
from C2, Queenie 6. I think casting Queen side is a dream if I can get it in the right
scenario but according to what Wesley seems to be planning and setting up, might just
be logistically quite hard right now.
Okay, so we are actually struggling to make sense of Ali Reza's position, difficult to
kind of orchestrate an effective attack. But let's move away from this, let's go back
to our bird's eye view and let's go to our other marquee matchup between
Pragnan under against Kymer but I just wanted to before we do that I wanted to
also just do a quick assessment on what's going down on the women's because I
see that Anna Muzicic she's got your dream C3 so sitting everything is going
perfectly for her she's now got control over the dark squares and in the race
for second, Anna is setting herself up very nicely.
Yeah, if Anna Mozzie trick wins, then Zuzhi now will need to win in the classical to stay
above her most likely.
Maybe we can actually check in there just because, I don't know, it's my childhood opening,
my pet opening, and also I smell some checkmates.
There haven't been so many moves on the pride board.
I think there's one big commitment, so we will jump into that one next, but yeah, Zuzhi
now with a small advantage if you went June maybe a tiny tiny little advantage
to the maybe looking a bit more on the draw side but animals you trick is there
a checkmate that's the question it's like puzzle rush I think this position
let's test our puzzle rush skills let's do it I know after some to their morning
so I'm ready for this one okay but can I just tell you that I'm just checking the
database we've been here before there's been another game played and it didn't
Last very long so it went like this after Queen f8 Bishop d3. I like that move
King h8
Bad move that the Queen in Queen h4. Yep
Queen to g8 bring the rook up
One nil that's it because they take the bishop root g3 game over
Yeah
It's Queen lander checkmate. I don't h7 on f6. I mean this could happen, right? This is very
like within the realms of possibility right now.
It's the most natural moves for White, right?
Bring that Bishop back, which is already lined up on the C-file.
You start loose pieces, drop off, which is the best diagonal,
the one closest to the Black King.
Line up the Queen, threatening checkmate in one.
A Rooklift? Absolutely decisive.
Three is the magic number here.
It's going to be four, so you can even give up that Bishop on F6.
Exactly. Fantastic four.
About to land right now.
Okay, I'm going to try my best to...
And although I realize I might just lose a pawn here.
No, back to 7.
Alright, firstly, if nothing else, I can't take on 8-7 and win that one, but I want more.
I think you have to find a way to checkmate David Howell right now.
Oh, he just says it's very good.
Oh, this is a good way to checkmate.
Oh, I mean...
It's goodbye on the dark squares.
Why checkmate me when you can be a pawn-up and then checkmate me?
Yeah, this is...
That's a dream.
This is so horrible for Divya, I think this is just game over, no?
How are you surviving after Bishop g3? Let's try to find some defensive resource because White is going Qh4 on the next move.
It's a pre-move after Bishop falls back.
Also, Rd3 can be a very nice... if King h8 doesn't play then Rd3 as well.
Right, I was just going to say like if you went Bishop d3, g6, Rd3, I mean how are you going to stop Rh3, Rh87, Qh5.
Not a threat yet, root 267, so maybe black can...
Queen h4?
Now queen h4 first, you know.
And you know what I want.
I know what you want, but...
But it's not.
Does it work?
Like d5?
Yeah, maybe not queen h4.
Luckily, black can throw the queen in the way after any sacrifices.
Let's just show that what we were trying to set up, because these ideas, these tactical
motives can't come into play.
Yeah, puzzle rush, normally it works, but here, this would be checkmate, unfortunately
black can block with the queen. And they're same for any rook sacrifices.
So I do have a feeling like maybe you're right Tanya, like if sorry if g6 after
bishop g3, g6, maybe queen h4 first just to stop the black knight coming back.
And then rook e3. Yes. And then rook e3. I mean black's pieces are just stuck on
the wrong side of the board. They're not doing anything. They can't transport
themselves teleport over to the king side. And even though in this case the queen
the king are not divorced from each other but it is just not enough to keep the love story going
yeah exactly and there's so many beautiful lines like I was thinking after say for instance
knight a5 just to flick it in rook e3 and if you that's picking a queen a3 no that's picking h5
okay h5 h5 okay now should we be taking the queen takes h5 I mean for aesthetic reasons exactly I
probably don't need to for g3 or g4 or anything wins but Quintet takes my
feeling yes distraction and then Rick g3 and you have to block with the Queen
and it's going to be absolutely disastrous quashing maybe black doesn't
get mated but yeah this is gonna be game over in various ways maybe white
brings another piece into the attack it's gonna be checked from this angle
Westcombs where you take this pawn that is promote your own H-pawn
Yeah, this looks like disaster for Divya Deshmukh. You see three Sicilian strikes again and Divya had a fantastic start here at
Now HH
She's the only player who took away the lead from Bibisara in the middle of the tournament and then two back-to-back losses
Against Bibisara in a completely winning position and then Jujina yesterday
And she could very well be staring at a 3-2-0 to finish this tournament right now with the way this is going and Anna
looking at her first classical win at a moment when it matters the most.
Yeah, it just seemed that she couldn't recover from her loss early on to BB Sara.
Just to mention, it was the exact same storyline for the candidates.
Like, the candidates, it was an okay start, but then she won a few games in a row.
She was joint leading for a couple of rounds, and then it was many losses in a row at the end.
And, okay, she held it with a draw in the final round, but it feels like Divya at the moment.
Like, she's got the ability, she's got the creativity, definitely the openings as well, not here,
not here but in many games. But then maybe it's just because she is quite new to the top level
these elite women's tournaments. Maybe it's just a bit of experience to last the distance
because it feels like the end of tournaments it's spiraled quite quickly. Candidates here as well.
Okay, well Divya in huge trouble but good news for Anna Muzichik. She fights for second place
and I also see that things are still really uncomfortable for Humpy as she
plays black against Jiu Jitsu is still very much a case of his bishop on c6
just staring down and having to defend its own pawn and early on we had a
confessional for Magnus where he did mention that he was planning to follow
his game from 2009 against Jansmits. Magnus has been in the confessional once
Let's listen to what he has to say.
I feel like...
I just have this weird feeling that Smites played the same way.
And maybe I went Rc1 instead of Rd1.
It seems very familiar.
I think you could take on d4 after Qb3.
and then queen b7, which b6, like I have some vague recollection of that, like apart from that,
like I distinctly seem to remember that Nd5 was worse, so like I think I'm a little bit better now, we'll see.
We will see from El Magnito there in the confessional, but he was right, Goukes did play the same
way as Jan Smates, but it was Magnus who voluntarily or maybe unknowingly diverged from that game
because instead of the rook moving, Magnus played bishop h6, so if we can backtrack
I'm going to show you that to everyone.
Let's jump in and show what actually happened 17 years ago in the game that Magnus said he vaguely recalls.
It was in this position and Jovanka, you mentioned, okay, Root 801 copy of Badmoof, but Bishop H6 brought him victory all those years ago.
Yes, that was the big idea to go Bishop H6 and then after the trade, then he was going for this H4 plan.
And no, his Rook never went to C1.
I was trying to see further along the line whether Magnus went Rook C1 or Rook to D1.
No, he never did.
So what he did in that game is that he just went H5 and then doubled on the E-line.
And, yeah, I just think it's a time of life thing.
Like when you're young, Magnus during that game had just turned 18 years old.
Like, when you're young, you look at the king and that's all you look at.
you're like, that doesn't have defenders. I'm going to go H5. I'm going to go Rookie 3.
Is that an amuse trick plan from the other game? Basically, swing the rope and go for
checkmate. When you're a bit older, you forget about the checkmate and you try to get small
advantages. I think that's why we've seen him be like, okay, invite all the pieces to
the party, Rook A to D1. Can't be bad. That Rook was doing nothing. And maybe on C1 also
would have made sense. But now, I mean, typical old man move, like H3. No H4s in this game.
King safety, lift, air, why not taking away G4, just in case the White Knight ever goes back, there's no Bishop G4, maybe Knight G4 is now a new idea in some positions.
Magnus is playing much more positional these days, and Bishop to E7 hitting the Queen.
I'm surprised he hasn't moved immediately, but I guess it is a choice of these two squares for the Queen.
And Magnus does go down on the clock in this one. The game that was being mentioned, Gukes was a little less than three years old, so he was definitely a player who wasn't aware of everything that's happened there.
I will point out the queen being attacked. There are some pleasant options that you've got if you're Magnus Carlsen
You could line up on a4 against the black knight also with ideas of pushing it away with b4 next
But David you say old man chess
I'm just wondering if at some point we'll see Magnus even potentially still go for a king side attack and Martin the queen falls back
To d2. I'm eyeing the dark squares Bishop to 8 6 next and potential sacrifices on that g6 square once my queen lands on f4
I mean he's still capable of attacking that's for sure. Magnus he's less old and grumpy
than me. But I think he will try and play it positionally if he has to.
And that's the thing right? I think Queen to a4, place for those strategic ideas. A Queen
side expansion, the knight on e5 looking really good. Maybe you want to line up your bishop
with your Queen next and ask some questions to that Rook on e8, Rook f8, thank you very
much Bishop a6 that's game over for that Rook as well. Not so many squares so it comes
in with some threats of its own. While Qd2 will hint at a potential change of strategy
towards the king's side.
The reason I'm reluctant with Qd2 is because I thought maybe Nc4 might be more of an idea,
although here maybe White can actually seize the moment just before black blockades to
strike with d5. So this does also make sense. I think that's what Magnus might be calculating,
but yeah both squares look fine. Magnus is a bit more centralized, nice strong statue
of a knight in the center and I think small advantage for the near future.
It's also the only two squares the Queen has. So for Magnus it's either Queen
0-4 or Queen d2. Yeah. No third option here. No third option. Well I was gonna say I
love your Queen d2. I was also gonna say that I felt like this was almost a big
advantage for White because this Bishop on e6 it's a bad piece. It's a good
defender but that's about it. The Queen d2 and I loved your concept of you
know just going h4 h5 going for some
king side attack at the right time you
can wait it out it's Queen B5 or Queen
trap with a6 B5 do you end up losing
material I think so Queen B5 look at the
bar look at the bar whoa no my queen and
there's no way out there's no solace here
I guess it's only a bishop loss but at
this level two pieces for a bishop this
is not what Magnus wants to as he said
earlier Tanya back or slide across but
definitely get to go forward if you're Magnus Carlson right now.
Oh, what is it?
Breaking news.
It is breaking news.
OK, I'm going to mess with you guys.
Someone new is in the confessional who's never been.
He's never been.
Oh, I've seen it.
So I'm out of this.
But OK, Tanya, Tanya, on the spot.
Put it in chat.
Who you think is going to work it out as well.
I think it will be.
Is it Wesley so?
No. Oh, not Wesley.
Is it Cinderhoff?
Oh, wait, it's not me.
Oh, that already has already been with the Confession one, two.
OK, oh, my God, oh, my God.
Vincent Keimer is in the Confession right now.
Wow, that's the first.
Exactly. And I can't wait to see what he's thinking,
because he's facing off against Prague,
who is in contention for the first place.
He's chasing down Wesley by half a point.
So we've got to check out that game.
and then we got to hear from Vincent himself.
It looks like he just got back to the board, just as we were talking about it.
And Prague's turn to leave, so maybe Prague is running back in.
He's like, anything you can do, I need to do again.
Have you noticed that Prague went to the confession for the first time?
That's when his win streak started, did it?
I know, I was actually going to say that earlier and I forgot,
but I don't think it's a coincidence.
I think Ukesh needs to go back in.
Ukesh went a couple of times, stopped going, and then started losing.
Prague started going in, started winning.
started winning he lost two games in a row showed up at the confessional it takes
down Ali Reza then takes down Magnus then takes down Gukesh has come every
day since that first win three back-to-back wins maybe that's the
magic ingredient the confessional. Exactly I don't understand why Gukesh stopped
to going because he went on his all the day after his 20th birthday he beat
Prague exactly and I think he went the next day when it was a draw and then he
lost the Armageddon but like he should come back he should have come back it's
not working anyway so why not? Is it going to be Vincent's first win then to do? Exactly.
I think he's one one classical but this would be the biggest win of the 20th century. Exactly.
Vincent beats Goukache along the way but this would be a massive win if Vincent takes
down Pragnananda. He would basically ruin Prague's chances of being Norway champion
but yeah let's break down this position though before we get to hear any confessional and
see is this unhappy with his position?
Hard to tell from Vincent's body language. I played him a few times and I played him in the Grand
Swiss a few years ago and it was actually final round. Both of us were in the top 10 just outside
the qualification for the candidates. But there, like, I had a massive advantage and he was looking
so confident. I was like, wait, am I worse? And I was looking at that. I was like, wait, I'm material
up and I'm better. Like, definitely. He was looking at me like smiling. But then I played him
last year and he crushed me and he had a big advantage and he was looking really down and
really I was like wait am I suddenly fine like with Vincent I could never read his body language
some people are very easy to read Vincent I always found difficult but I mean the live position
there is a big question for him like what to do with this pin knight and I mean for a while he
was spinning around in his chair but now he looks locked in. It's not the easiest question to answer
as well right because it almost feels as if Winston's going to be forced to give up one of his two
bishop if he wants to defend that pawn which is being attacked. Well the knight's being
attacked twice and you're going to end up winning that pawn. So bishop d7 or bishop
takes e5. Are the two ways that I see you're fighting it? I don't think you consider giving
up your exchange at this point with the move knight takes knight although I see a little
bit of a head nod there and a bit of a shaky look by David Howell. Knight takes knight,
is that positional compensation? Are you attracted to that option, David Howell?
In blitz I play it just because I'm still attached to my bishops.
I thought you were materialistic like that.
I am, but there's an order of hierarchy.
It's like Bishop pair first, then pawns, then pawn structure,
and then number of pawns. I don't know.
I mean, it's possible, right?
I think the fourth option, other than the two Bishop moves
and giving up the exchange, would be to grab on A3.
But when the dust settles, I think it's level material,
but white has a better structure.
And actually, maybe there are some other tactics along the way.
So, yeah, where do we start?
Where does Vincent start if he's trying to calculate all of these options he has right now?
Well, I was going to say that giving up the bishop, maybe there's no immediate direct refutation to it,
but it just feels unpleasant to play a position where you've got these really strong,
the dark-squared bishop ults are ready to jump into the game, given an opportunity,
the light-squared bishop looking good. I want to check that line with Knight takes Knight,
but let's start with Bishop takes Knight, David. You had it on the board, I take it back with the pawn,
I hit your knight, the pawn on d5 under fire as well.
Yeah, I mean he needs a very good move here, the first instinct is to jump forward, but
then, oh wow, I was going to say Nxd5 and things work in white's favour.
Queen can zoom out to h4.
Ooh, that's better.
I was looking at c5, but Nxc7 was playable, now there's no time.
Wow, this might be very important actually, suddenly the white pieces look very loose.
And by the way, because we love our subscribers, and we want to reward them, we're going to
be saving Vincent's confessional for our subscribers during the break.
So now's the chance to hit the subscribe button, and you get to hear the innermost thoughts
of Vincent in this position.
Is he comfortable?
Is he feeling uncomfortable?
Does he want to play the role of spoiler?
And maybe he might do something else.
Maybe he might burst into song.
Who knows?
Maybe he might give us a shout out.
I mean, that was something as well, but I will say...
Did we pin him down on that?
Because we tried to pin it with everyone.
I know, I know.
He went bright red when you were like...
But we were pushing him quite hard.
He went red, he was like, oh, maybe, maybe.
He does come from a musical family,
there's some comments, so maybe he will see.
He knows.
And Kanna's been the hottest player on the circuit, right?
His rise over the last year has been really something
to watch gaining over 50 rating points,
and it started early of last year,
and he's been sort of unstoppable in so many events,
so many different formats, just proving himself over and over again. It's been fantastic to
watch him climb over to the world rankings in top four, world number four at one point,
currently world number six. For the first time at Norwich, has to get a peek into his
brain will really be something. So hit that subscribe button right now. Absolutely big
critical moment on the board. Can he capture that night on E5? Well, maybe we can just
quickly dive in. We've got to do that. And then we'll see whether that's even possible.
And then we'll take a break. Yeah, this feels like the first big critical
moment of the game. Like until this point, they were maneuvering a bit. Proud play B5
to get his bishop here earlier, breaking his structure. Just to point out, if Vincent
is feeling, we'll find out soon from the conventional, but if he's feeling like he
draws enough, he's fine. He just wants the tournament to end. If he's brave enough to
fight another Armageddon, a ninth, maybe ninth time lucky, then he might try Bishop
takes a3. I think the tactics are fine here for black. Knight takes c6 for example. It
looks like there's a fork on the rooks but black is able to take the bishop and when
everything gets traded off he takes the knight as well. Two pieces for a rook. So it does
look like this would basically force Prague to start trading everything off and I'm looking
at a position like this and I'm thinking okay maybe bishop takes knight and the white queen
defense. Okay, maybe actually
there's a better square. Queen
to see one, for example. And, um,
black's temporarily a pawn up,
but this is doomed long term.
That's got a worse pawn structure
bad Bishop. Most likely result. I
think here is a draw if you
want to play it super safe in
St. Kramer. Um, but then I'm
also thinking. I don't know my
spidey senses for tingling. I
was like, Okay, is this playable
and Tanya, you were trying to
bait me into saying yes, because
If you get a pawn for the exchange and if you get something else like a target a king or bishop pair or something
Then it's worth it. Yeah in your hierarchy. You've already got the bishop pair, right?
So that's already a great advantage
I just want to point out before we go into this position that after bishop knight takes knight
You can't capture the rook immediately if you're white
You have to actually give up that pawn because black otherwise just jumps in to see for the bishop and b2s hanging
You just lose big material and David if you pick up that knight on e5 that final position
You know, I thought this wasn't even possible and should be good enough for white
But I see the bar and I see the ideas of Queen D7 Bishop takes pawn getting lined up next the bishop on B2
Pinned 94 ideas at the right time as well
I think this is actually sufficient compensation for Kaima. It's how much he believes in it
But will dictate if he goes for it. This would be very brave
So I can't wait to find out Vincent's mood having these feeling about the position. Yeah, okay
and on that note we are gonna step aside for a few moments but if you're subscribed on Twitch
well the fun is not gonna stop because you can get to hear Vincent Kymur's thoughts on what is going down.
See you in a few minutes.
I do feel like it's time I come here at least once, you know, share the experience.
Yeah, the game today's guess kind of what we expected, Prak was interested in a big fight, he got that.
I do think we have a very complicated position, as of now I do believe I'm still fine, although I missed a few things along the way,
but if my calculation right now is correct, things are still quite interesting, but should be fine for me.
I'm currently in the other games, you know, Alireza is doing some fancy business, basically playing some sort of reversed Italian,
which I guess also means that he is in a very fighting mood.
So of course I'm mostly focused on my own game, but it's also interesting to see how the fight for first place evolves here.
What I like about chess is that there is actually a lot of similar things.
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 do, you like it punished. You have to sometimes surprise the opponent.
Chess has a lot to learn. In life, you have a lot to learn.
so everything in life you can always get better and you can always improve.
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We are back to the championship round of Norway Chas.
It is now or never for our players.
Three of them are in contention.
It's a big fight for Alia Zafaruzda, Wesley So, and Ragnandor,
the opponent of Vincent Kymar as we saw Ragnandor take two.
And Vincent Kymar both take two of the Confessionals
and share their thoughts.
It's really tense there in the top row.
So things just to kind of just give a quick overview
on the women's things are looking really good for Anna Muzic there on the bottom right everything is
going to plan for her and between Jujina and Hampi Kinaru well Hampi is still suffering on the board
and she now has to face off against a queen a night dream duo for Bibi Sara is just about
developing the pieces and putting them on the opposite squares but ultimately she has won the
the long game. She is our Norway chess women's winner. So she's very happy. But we've got
to go to where the action is. We've got to go to the game. So our most critical and a
decision has been made between pregnant under and Vincent. So let's head there. That's
the top right board is sequence of trades that have just happened since we left it last
and we'll do an action replay on that for Winston Kahn, but today his role is to pay
a spoiler to prong's dream and dream that he's earned the right to wear it three back
back to back with trees has Pragrinanda taking down Alireza, taking down Magnus, taking down
Gokesh. If he wins against Vincent Kheimer today, Prague with the white pieces and Westley
fails to win in the classical, Prague takes the championship. Half a point behind the
tournament leader currently and David, a lot of trades on the board. I do see the bar seems
to prefer white with what we have going on but it's tactics, tactics, tactics.
Yeah, it's tactics for now but it could soon become very strategic and it's white on the
better side of it. We left it here, we went on a break, bit of a cliffhanger for everyone
at home. If you did see Vincent's confessional, you'll know that he was talking about Prague
being up for the fight, that it's a long game, that there are some big decisions to be made.
This was one of them. 965 we were talking about as an exchange sacrifice. The computer
says that this would have been fine for Black, although very committal. I think Vincent maybe
not suiting his style to speculate like this. It's still no immediate attack for Black,
conversation very much long-term. So he wanted something that clarified the tension quicker
after 90 e5 and I did say as well before the break that if he was feeling like he wanted
to bail out maybe bishop takes a3, bishop takes pawn, Vincent this isn't essentially
a draw attempt, pieces flying off the board, bishop takes knight now hitting his rook and
he decides to trade off the other rook. But when the dust settles, Prax is going to come
back to the board take that rook off and we'll see this position it does look
like why it's just got a better pawn structure I'm not sure whether he can
keep the knight on a square like this or whether he goes back in one of these
directions but if Vincent can't break out with c5 this is a backward pawn a weak
pawn and that's got a very bad bishop to boot and I'm just gonna follow that up
because exactly right if Winston's able to get that central break into the game
you just don't have enough to play for you will be unable to take that pawn
going for the weakness on d5 because the knight on e5 hangs but I think
Prague's advantage hangs by a thread that here you've got the option to move
off with your queen to a3 and use the pin on this diagonal so not allowing
Winston to quickly get rid of that weakness. Very annoying move there maybe
Vincent calculated all of it from afar but back when he played bishop takes a3
up to the point where this c5 move happens queen a3 that is 22 that's six
moves each that is a variation you could stop one move too early and say okay I'm equal but
I don't think he is actually equal here. No it doesn't quite look like he's equalised
in the sense that knight a4 is coming and there's going to be extra pressure on the c5 point
and we are seeing some moves in play and I just wanted to just ask you both the question so
Prague, if he gets to Armageddon here and it will he be happy with that because he is
training Wesley by half a point and Wesley with an Armageddon win or a win in classical he'll take it.
Prague's not happy. He thinks he's better here. He thinks he's a lot better. Like I think a draw
and Prague will be a bit annoyed at himself. Every chess player likes to be in control in general
but like especially with tournament fate he wants to win this game and not risk
Wesley winning the classical and ending it or Wesley winning the Armageddon sorry in ending it
might read on this seeing how the opening played out and Prague's choices and approach
it felt like the math strategy is if the opportunity was to present itself
Prague would grab it will he overextend will he over push with some super active line against
the Queens gambit decline he didn't go for that meanwhile by the way the line that we were discussing
has been played out on the board and this is the moment where Winston, if he wants to solve
his problem of the pawn formation, needs to push that c-pawn but there are concrete
issues with that. Yvanka coming back to what you mentioned, Fupraget feels like if the chances
arise he wants that fight but maybe not over extend himself to try to get that going and not try to
over provoke a player like Winston who has been so incredible in the classical format at Norway
chest right now. If it was to go to Armageddon, I would say he wouldn't be devastated or unhappy
about it. Somewhere you have the feeling that Alureza versus Wesley, Wesley playing with
the black pieces, good chances of it going to Armageddon, how are you balancing your
own risk-taking capabilities, it all comes down to the position on the board. If Prague
feels that this is something to fight for and he misses out, yes, he'll regret it. But
is he going to go all out, all chips in, go with those pond stomps, weaken, take those
big risks, I would say no. Yeah, so you're just saying he's gonna be pragmatic about this.
He'll take the opportunity if it's presented, but otherwise he will just simply play out the
position, do what needs to be done. Okay, well, big moment on the board and indeed
Vincent Keimer thinking about whether he can do that breakout or whether it's possible
just to sit there and hold the position. Nobody's sitting anywhere.
Someone should sit somewhere. Maybe they're fighting it out not on the board in maybe in the confessional. Yes, maybe they are
Look at that. Empty chairs chair championship empty places
Beautiful chairs by the way that the players have signed. They have signed their own individual chairs
I'm not sure whether those will be up for auction or what?
What comes next with chairs? What would you want if it was?
I've put in a good word and have it shipped to you
Ship just 20 minutes down the road
I'm good. I don't know. They do look comfy, but we're also comfy here in the studio.
Would you like some mango crisps instead?
I've been snacking on the mango every day as well as the muffins. There we go.
What a setup. What a place to play chess.
It has been a delight here in the Dakeman Library.
Is that a hand sanitizer?
Yes, I think it is. Very nice.
Just before you go in for the food, everything's there on the board for you.
for you. And you've got still sparkling water, you've got upside down mango if you want. You can
live your best life here in Oslo and the camera angle is also working it. But let's go back to
the bird's eye view because we've got to have a look at what is happening between Ali Reza and
Wesley, Wesley leading the tournament 15 and a half points. A winning classical, that means he will
walk away Norway champion if Ali Reza wins well then Ali Reza will leap from Wesley and then
everything will turn on Pragnanda so gotta go to Ali Reza. Wesley what is happening here?
Well Wesley is hanging out with Vincent and Prag in the confessional that's what's happening.
Just to mention Vincent's lost three minutes just being away from the board. Wesley in the meantime
yeah confidently playing the last few moves there has been some interesting moments so
very quick action replay. In 1907 we left it here, we thought brilliant move, strategically
strong, great understanding of the position. Castles, I think there was one question about
whether g6 followed by a quick queen of six, quick attempt to trade queens. Maybe this
was best, but Wesley didn't want to risk being prevented from casting if the white knight
had ended up on h6 covering the castling square on g8, so he gets his king to safety first,
bishop to d2. But now there's a difference. After g6, he doesn't need to react. Alaraisa
finds the fantastic b4, healing the bishop, which now retreats. I guess he didn't want
to risk opening up his king. Now white has a choice, but might even get tempted to take
this pawn. Okay, maybe taking the bishop first better, but the black king now really open.
So instead, the bishop did drop back to b6. And the question is, lifeboard to take or
not to take is that night just trapped if it gets greedy it does look it it looks
like it'll get hit by the Queen or the Bishop and I'd want to hit it with the
Queen because Bishop to C7 you still have an escape route by B7 so you want to
start targeting it and I'm not seeing a way back home for it
we're hanging on a second let's just put it on the board yeah so Knight takes
D6 Queen comes in the taxid C7 C7 and let's go back to where it came from
night to f5 so you want to take it he's gonna come at the cost of opening up your
king challenge accepted I'm going for it yeah on text night and by the way we
might need not see Wesley and his chair but I do happen to know what Prague is
he's in front of the microphone and he's telling us his innermost secrets now
he isn't really but maybe maybe maybe he's our fourth commentator today
Confess your sense
All right, but this actually looks pretty scary right context night context spawn in that position David
And I was hoping to plant my knight on d4 and try and trade off some more pieces and just hope and pray that I'm not
Getting checkmated after f6 after you grab the knight and go f6
Yeah, this is sharp stuff f6 one move bishop h6 another move
Ultimately, it feels like whites compensation won't be sufficient
Maybe when the bishop jumps in black will be happy to give back some material
ending up with a dominant Bishop, a decent knight for a rook, although the game, of course, continues.
Yeah, it's kind of a do or die time for Alarais. If he takes, he has to sacrifice. He has to back it up with high energy.
He goes the other way. I think this was maybe a safer bet. And yeah, of course, words of this king will go to this square,
not dropping the valuable F7 pawn. So the blue arrow appears, maybe the easiest only move that we'll see today.
see today but when that happens no easy choices for Faroozha who still has to
figure out what to do next that night at risk of being trapped. It really feels
like that right and also there are threats of 94 at the right time and if
you come back with your knight to G4 it keeps getting chased back and back and
back with the H-Born moving forward. Wesley so shocking news figures it out
that King G7 was indeed the only move plays it pretty quickly and he's also
putting pressure on Ali Reza's clock. Do not underestimate that advantage currently with
still 23 moves to be made, 37 minutes, a very complex position to boot. The night on 8.6
you fall back to G4, you're looking at F5 H5 coming in. If not, it's still very, very
tricky for White. How about this, 9 G4, King G8, 9 H6 check, King G7. Ali Reza will say
against the black king and say at least my knight isn't getting trapped any day soon because
I do have a check on f5. Yeah, love it. Oh another repetition for you, Yobi. King H8,
Queen F3, King G7. No, start with his repetition, guys.
Then another one for you, like, I don't know, bishop, oh sorry, maybe I should maybe check
G7 or something. Knight check, I'll hide in the corner. Knight H6.
No, not gonna happen. If that happens, I will sell my house.
Are you sure? Can we get it in writing? You've got a paper next to you on the block.
Yeah, we won't hold Yvanka to it if the game ends in draw a bit later, but if it ends in the next five moves...
With the next five moves?
It will not. Okay, yeah, that is about 100% going to take.
Wait, are you selling it or are you giving it? I'm not giving away my house.
I don't know what you're gaining here, Yvanka. You're risking quite a lot.
Well, I'm a... yeah.
Stop making me back down.
No, I think the game will not end with the next five moves.
There will be no repetition in the next six, seven moves.
I think it makes a lot of sense to see because Ali Reza cannot afford to let that happen.
Six, seven, yeah.
Do you know that's gone away now?
You need to stop doing that.
I'm an unk, that's all I do. I finally learned a meme.
That's cool.
Yeah, old guy.
Right.
Get rid of Kavanka.
Earlier you said like Queen C7, I literally in my brain I was like wait did you say 6-7?
I was like no, C7.
That's how my brain works now, I've been so corrupted.
But in the meantime, yeah, big, big decision for Alereza Frugia and I saw a feature chat
saying he plays better the closer he gets to 0 on the clock anyway.
But he shouldn't, I guess, in a championship game like this, risk too much in time trouble.
But that's the thing, for Alereza to...
I might be homeless today. What is this? Is this like a signed contract?
I mean, there's thousands of witnesses. A verbal contract is binding in the country of Norway.
And we know you're a woman of your word, Ivanka. Once you put it out there, you will just not back down from it.
But you know what the good news for you is that Alireza needs to win for a shot at the Champions League.
Exactly.
That's what's going to save you.
Nobody know it makes how many moves was it now the repetition pretty much yes
They will not happen in the next six or seven days
I'm just gonna reassure my husband. I'm sure he's watching it's not gonna happen. Oh my
Because he's been talking about buying like a one-year house in Sardinia or somewhere and I'm like I've been like shutting down the idea
Maybe I shouldn't say
So he's probably like oh
What is happening there? Okay, nobody will not happen. 100%.
So for Ali Reza, that's the championship on the line and Yovanka's home as well.
So I expect him to continue.
Knock off for any repetition with reaching out for his rook.
You guys are making me nervous. Stop it.
So Rixi, yeah, look, Rixi won.
Rixi won, threatens C6. None of this 19-4 business.
That's a great move. Far, far away from any repetitions on the other side of the board.
He spots a weak pawn. He's going to hit a weak pawn.
and that is the question for Wesley as well. I guess Wesley at some point will want to trade off on B4
just to prevent White doing it on his terms, but yeah when the pawns are exchanged I'm guessing
that Black will just defend with his rook. And maybe the reputation's still in the air, so Yvanka's
house still, still almost on the market. Bids are starting if anyone wants to get involved. Yvanka
No more hellscape.
My starting price would be a lot more than that. Thank you very much.
Okay, let's say Ruxi won. Excellent. Excellent, Alireza. I have faith in you, man.
Come with me.
And for Wesley, he needs to fight the direct threat of defending the C6 spawn currently.
Ruxi, it feels like the most natural response.
Can we bid for Yavanka's house? You absolutely can. What's the starting price, Joey?
40,000 Kroner, we saw it.
45,000. My cat is in there. Going, going.
No, it's not going, going, gone. Thank you very much.
We keep on going up.
Can I get 50,000? Can I get?
They speak so quickly. Anyway, come on, Wesley, don't keep me guessing.
Yes, Rixie, excellent. Come on, one move, please.
and
you know it didn't take your time here
just keep on rushing
and i just want to point out that if uh... white wates here if aliza doesn't do
something like queen g3 trying to get the night out
i mean for west of the next few moves are pretty obvious right you want to
place your night to f6 kind of denying that square and g4 and if the black white
queen then lands up on g3 you always have the idea to go knight h5
and then you're making a case for the f4 jumps the knight on h6 kind of running
out of moves there
Mm-hmm. Love it. Yeah
I do notice Wesley, he's done this before especially that game against Goukash
We kind of bailed out from a position of strength especially on the clock
He was getting a bit nervous in the opponent's time trouble as soon as he saw the opponent's clock ticking ticking down
He started blitzing out and Wesley there spent only one minute on his response given a question mark
Maybe we can jump in and try and figure out why this was a mistake from Wesley
So, arguably his first real mistake in the game so far, because the eva bar suddenly on white side,
Alarraza hasn't been able to say that since move one really, and what could be the downside?
The only thing I can think is that if the knight ever gets back to f5, if it ever takes d6,
it won't be trapped as it was earlier, because it would gain tempo against this rook.
It's either that or something to do with the deflection, maybe taking on a5, deflecting the
black bishop and queen away but okay he's going for his queen and as he sets up a
threat here Queen g3 we talked about this knight f5 big threat on the board
yeah and the stun taking that pawn with the rook and see it hanging as well
okay well wisely cannot allow this you can't go knight f5 check so King h8
looks to me the most natural move you're gonna lose your house then with Queen f3
Exactly. Quincy 3. We've had two moves. We said between the next six or seven moves.
So you've got a little, you've got a small window, I mean not on the house anymore which
is gone, but a little window of opportunity to save it now.
Does it come with free elo? Yes it does, it does actually. It's got a lot of chest books.
That's true.
You've got to get the, you know, the, also the energy, the RR, you live in your own house,
you increase 100 elo points.
Minimum guaranteed. Yeah, the view from your bankers house is stunning as well. I should mention. Yeah, David's been
I feel really nice. I love how this has become a real conversation about you'll be losing your house
I didn't realize that actually
Ali wears a kid force to drop, but I know he won't he won't some yes
You're saying did make me question
Life a little bit. You should have at your house and your car. You'll be house car
You'll be no house car.
You'll be living in the car.
Okay, right.
Yeah, big threat. I do think that's the most natural move.
The only other option I see is Nf6, although...
Actually, that doesn't work anymore.
Nf6 is maybe the move you want to play.
What does it work?
I want to suddenly take this pawn and deflection again.
Suddenly the black queen is overworked.
You can't take and allow BxA5, queen, being deflected
because now knight f5 check and the pawn does drop again, not just one pawn, but two pawns.
Actually, Wesley's walked, talked himself into a corner here.
Would it help to throw in a pawn-tick spawn if you're black before getting the knight to f6,
just simply hiding away from any threats on a5?
Yeah, you'd love to.
Now the big question is whether Alereza takes it back or whether he can drop in a check.
And now take the pawn.
And if the rook was to step up you simply recapture on b4. That knight on d6, that's the only weak spot here.
I'm going to take the bishop, keep it safe.
I'm just wondering if you want to put your king on g8 if your black is out of 7 pawn, looks a bit tender in a lot of positions.
I just saw the bar rise after king h8 so I was like, got to be g8.
Good call. But yeah, if you can't trap the knight, like c5 now will let the knight out by a b5.
If you don't trap it, this is a pawn loss from Wesley Surrey.
Knight c5 does not help.
E5 is hanging David Hall.
Yeah, but there is d3.
Okay, it's a move.
Yeah, Queen takes now, Knight is d3 and Black's back in.
But maybe the white knight still has this square to escape fire.
Still d3, right?
There's a pin as well.
Yeah, super sharp.
Queen takes d3.
Who knows?
Who knows, but apparently there's something really strong for white, for League D4 or something crazy.
When I see the computer get excited, it's always something like D4, maybe a white knight is just going to be a stone in the black side for the rest of the game.
Okay, Queen G3 on the board, questions for Wesley Soto-Anto with championship on the line right now.
And more than that apparently as well, so big decision.
Your back has got more on the line than let's see right now.
Don't do the stakes!
I've gone sky high.
Especially here in Oslo.
So, okay, let's...
King A-Chate.
But the stakes are so high for Alireza.
He's an ambitious player.
He will not want to be a repeating moves
with Queen G3, Queen A3.
Even though I admit he has that in the back of his pocket.
But he has something better.
Exactly.
With the win.
Exactly.
Question.
Just reassure me, guys.
He's always in it to win it.
So I think he finds a way.
Yeah, I've rarely seen Alireza bail out, especially when there's life left.
He might not think he's better, but I think he'll play on because of the tournament.
And I mean, we talked about Wesley, how this might be one of the biggest
tournament wins of his career in terms of classical closed events.
Alireza has struggled traditionally.
So this is definitely going to be one of the biggest wins for him as well.
If he is able to somehow leapfrog Wesley and if Prague's board goes his way as well.
Exactly. And I was going to actually say that I checked online.
like when was the last time Alireza won a big event and as far as I could tell it was back in 2024
when he won the GCT and he won the Sinkfield Cup and also the Sinkfield Rapid and Blitz
sorry the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz so it's been a while for him he's gonna want to at least
press Wesley to the max and there you go with the decision there's my man King H1
never seen such relief you guys had me worried you had reasons to be your
vodka you walked right into that one I know and I know you you would find it's
so difficult to back down from that situation luckily your bank also knows
Alireza she wasn't risking it too much I think
I risked the house so immediate response by Alireza Feruja and King2H1 comes in with an idea right
He's freed up that f pawn to move up the board. So he wants to clamp down on the black king here
I live as a ferusia going for the attack Wesley
So he takes care of the entire left flank pawn takes pawn no more deflection tactics for that black queen
Which might be required closer to the black king later on a decision time for ferusia
You capture with the pawn destroy upon structure
But at least take control of the queen side and deny c5 access or do you pick it up with your bishop?
hit the D6 pawn, but in return allow a free floor for those black pawns and a
piece to jump on to C5.
Or.
Oh my god, there's an or.
Or do you play F4?
Well, the fact that he's hesitating right now means to me, is he considering F4?
Go on, put it on the board, David.
What is going to happen if you set the board on fire like that?
It's very possible, boys and girls.
Very playable, and it's his style.
In Blitz, he would play this in a heartbeat,
and he would just deal with the consequences. It is a pawn, like, Black's going to continue
munching at some point. I don't think he needs to play F4, which might hold him back. Also,
the clock situation, he shouldn't really invest 10 minutes and then not play F4. If he's going to
play F4, he'd play in a heartbeat, but yeah, it's got to be so tempting for him. I would just
style a player I would take back on before every day of the week, but Alareza is unique for a reason.
I think there's a big threat, right? If you go f4, your big idea is quite simple. You
just want to be opening up the f-line, start targeting f7. That's a soft spot in the position.
So for example, if B takes a3, does white just continue? Does white take time out?
I feel like this time you have to take a bit of a timeout, right? B2 hanging as well. We
can go wild. Let's see what happens after f5.
It's like a bit too much, you simply take on b2 now and the rook can see you on hanging.
So you got to take that pause a little bit even if your name is Wesley.
So right now is even Alireza for that matter.
Pawn takes pawn, pawn takes pawn, f5 coming in next if we just have that line up on the
board.
Now there's a big threat on f7 and let's say you try to defend it with queen to e7, Yogi's
idea of f5.
You're never going to pick up that pawn.
I'm also threatening to go f6.
You move the knight to G7, David Howell, I think that just looks...
Tactics, tactics everywhere, knight to spawn, do you land on G5?
Yes, and queen F3 and that's triple down.
Does my H5 at the end?
Queen F3, oh you mean FH5?
Yeah, let's give that direction to you.
Luckily the white knight defends the queen, so the white ends up a piece up.
Otherwise that would be a total turnaround, but the G5 is the other knight lands then.
We have three or Queen H4.
Oh, yeah, same, same.
Yes, same, same.
Winning the night, winning the game.
Be ready, slushy.
You know what?
Alreza does it.
Do you want to give your house away on this one?
No, I don't know.
I don't want to give it away in my house anymore, that's all.
I will stop once I'm winning on that one note.
Then I feel like this one, Jovi,
would be wise to not think about selling your house
because I have a feeling that Ferozha goes.
You know, it's Ferozha 4 coming up.
F4 tough find but he does it especially the fact that it's a must-win game for Alireza today
You know it's these two players who've been ruling the top of the leaderboard
They've been the one fighting the championship from the start
So it kind of just makes sense for it to boil down into this crazy battle with F4 on the board
Look at his eyes. I don't know if we can get a zoom in but he's only looking at for he's not even trying to hide it from Wesley
He looked over at for the clock just for a second. That would have been also the same side as
taking back the pawn on B4 but okay here we go he's looking down he's looking
at the enemy king he's not looking over at the clock side of the board look at
that okay then he was there he was but he's gonna play F4 it feels like a very
center angle right there fire Ruzha on the board is what it will be if we do
see F4 land I love it and it's not clear at all I mean it's essentially a pawn
for a tempo, like he could play atxb4, take the pawn back and then play f4 next.
Like he's still getting it but black will get an extra tempo to defend, to cover things,
to hold squares, to maybe trade off some pieces.
Like he's just throwing a pawn off the board for full tempo but sometimes chess is about
that right?
Yeah.
It's about speed.
It's a race.
Exactly and I'm just thinking you know if you do take on b4, does Wesley have the tempo
to suddenly just get a good defense going?
And then that idea, you take on B4, David, 9-D4 maybe you were pointing at, I also really
like the idea of black going 9-F6, 9-H5 in the starting position, just denying you access
for that move F4 without a ton of exchanges.
That is annoying.
Okay, if he doesn't get F4 after all, then play it, play it now.
Do it, Alireza.
And that would be entertainment guaranteed.
I did see the bar suggest that West E, he does take on B4.
He slowed down, but he decides to play it safe, or is it for Rucha?
I think it was the clock. He's down to 26 minutes only, and this is just move 21.
There is a time crunch. I think it was looking at F4 for sure, most of that time,
but he's already didn't even calculate this move that he's just played.
Calculating the other one, he's like too messy. Can't guarantee.
I've already spent six minutes. Boom. Just keep it safe.
I wanted to see F4 on the board.
Yes. That would have been something at least, but okay.
this one is still messy f4 still in the air Ali Reza still has the attack and for Wesley now is
the time for him just to start thinking about some defensive measures. Knight f6 is something that we
considered Knight jumping into d4 is another move. Let's go to our bird's eye view and see what is
going down in the game between Pragnananda. Vincent remember Pragnananda is chasing down Wesley.
he currently has a little bit of a nice bind going on. There's a target on c7 as a backward
pawn. Maybe we check in on Vincent and Prague and see what is happening there.
Just an update that Magnus Klausen against Goukeshe, Queen's off the board. Magnus is
temporarily up a pawn. We'll get back to that one shortly. That's an end game that
will go on for a long, long time. Magnus trying to squeeze with the Bishop pair. Let's go
into let's talk about our title battle here let's go into the pride game because if he gets two more
moves it's hard to arrange but yeah vincent lashes out so I think quite correctly if white had had
two more moves and was able to plant his own knight on the c5 outpost that black pawn that was on
c7 would have been backward forever like the black bishop would have been inferior forever now if he
can get one more move for vincent this time and take the pawn in the center it becomes symmetrical
and draw very likely. So Prague has to be accurate now. Hits the queen. You might even
just take this pawn next before it advances or captures and he's going to get an outpost.
That's going to be left with an isolated pawn. How do we estimate the winning chances here for
Prague? That's the big question, right? It's 4v4 when we talk about the pawns. Once the
set is traded off, because I don't think Prague wants to allow a protected past pawn on c4. That
looks incredibly dangerous if Vincent's able to push that pawn. Let's say the queen moves away,
You capture on c5, you take back with the queen, the knight lands on d4 and it looks beautiful for
white, right? You're playing against a pretty much dead bishop on e6. You have stunning knights.
You're controlling the b-line and the a-line, looking at infiltrations along the seventh rank.
If you're Pragyananda, that is it enough because with all the pawns on one side of the board,
the bishop's ugly but it's also a great defender. The knight doing this exact same job. The queen
and the rook nicely lined up as well. David, I would say that this is closer to a wincent hold
than a Prague win. Yes and actually we don't have to wait too long because we're going to find out
what Pragananda thinks about his position. Have a listen to this.
Yeah so when I played b5 I forgot that he can... I just assume for some reason that
bishop a3 is not really possible and yeah I realized once I played bishop into b5 that
but he can just take Bishop A3, I was really hoping for this 95 and these positions they
are like, double edged, but yeah, Bishop A3 is quite solid, but still I think I can push,
so we'll see.
Well, Bragg believes he can still push, but we are feeling very confident that he has grinding
opportunities here.
But he was talking about the moment when Winston had the chance to grab on A3 and he said that that is what he was worried about.
It looks quite solid, but he has something to play for and it's kind of played out in that narrative, right?
Where Winston found that idea, we saw so many trades, four sequence of moves there.
And here we are with a slight edge for Pradhananda in this position.
But it just feels like Winston is within saving territory.
I will call this out as Armageddon, the most likely of the outcomes.
Okay, I think there's a long way before that. I still agree. It's most likely but I don't know Vincent
He's a bit lower on time. I don't seem solving the problems immediately like if you're gonna draw this game
It's probably in 50 moves time. He's gonna be suffering forever with that bad bishop
White's Knights are gonna be beautiful, especially that night. It's about to land on D4
I think there's a lot of suffering ahead
Not fun for him
Okay, so you think this gets decided and
I did predict that there would be only two decisive results this round so I'll say this
is one of them and then we'll see who's about to win.
You know what my dream scenario is that this really goes down to the wire for the battle
of the championship where we have the tiebreaker where it gets decided on the board where they
play those best of two Blitz games to find out the winner but Jovi there's only one scenario
in which we get the tiebreaker.
What is if it goes to Armageddon in this particular game and Fragnandanda has to win.
But we also need in the Alireza, Wesley Sogame, we need that one to also end in a draw in
the Class School.
And in the Armageddon, Wesley, who's leading by half a point, he needs to lose his Armageddon.
Now, if we get that, it's going to be more fun, more chess for the evening and we're
going to have a playoff.
The dream.
be a dream out come here at now which has with the fight that we've seen the
drama the absolute cinema we've seen over the last nine rounds play out you
know the leaderboard shifting up and down Alireza, Pragananda, Westy so all
finding a way to stay in the fight till the very end and the other fight that we
haven't spoken enough about I mean there is a clash today between the world
number one Magnus Carlson and the world champion Gakesh Domaraju and you know
when there's a day in chess that that's not a marquee matchup what on earth is
going on? What kind of a reality are we living in?
Exactly, it feels like we've walked into some parallel universe and suddenly these guys,
uh, yeah, I mean, new situation for them as well, I believe, uh, fighting it out to avoid
last place. Currently Magnus is ahead of Goukesh, so with a draw, would ensure he doesn't come last,
but Goukesh, with a win, would leapfrog Magnus. Uh, we see a position where Quinta come off,
white with beautiful bishops, but black is about to restore the material balance by taking on D4.
just a very quick action replay for anyone who was here earlier. We left it
with white's queen being attacked. We said don't go forward, you'll get trapped.
Queen b5 and Magnus would have lost material with this queen sidelined
now. He did step across to a4, queen b6. There was a blue arrow. I noticed this
out of the corner of my eye earlier. Apparently, bishop to b5 would have been
very strong for Magnus Carlsen. Big advantage because in this variation
there would have been a hidden resource. The rook is hit. If it slides to f8
it could also continue getting attacked. So route to D8. And now this move, which I think might have been the one that Magnus missed, dropping back, and the problem is, this night is pretty much trapped.
Wherever it goes, it gets captured. At the very end, Bishop to A5 is a skewer, and Magnus might have stopped here, but check it out.
There would have been a winning tactic for Magnus. I'll put you both on the spot here. If he'd gone for this variation, all forcing moves, big advantage at least.
not so easy very work this out putting on our puzzle rush hats right now
currently very difficult I think Magnus maybe got here in his calculation and
stopped but then each takes to take fish up just give the whole house and then
you want to come back and then I want to come to Queen C2 but then King G7 and
And then Bishop, okay, well, you can see the evaluation by saying nonsense, but right idea, Yavanka
You just need to finesse it slightly
Sorry in that variation after Queen to A6 switch up the move order right here. We hope it's not takes F7
Yeah, let's do that one. Let's do the other one and then you can't take with the Bishop because the Bishop's hanging
Yes, you got to take with the King. Yes
And then we've got to do it if you take on each yeah
That takes, take on E6, give a check on E1, and then we take on E7 again.
And then you give a check with your crew.
Yeah, you're good, you're good, you're good!
Sorry guys, together.
It's got excited a little bit. The chess players are now staking over right now.
That was incredible teamwork. I'm going to say that was impressive to watch.
Yes.
And you know, I mean, this is easy. Like, I sat there with an engine and I just saw that the bar went up.
But Magnus, this was all forcing moves. He could have maybe found it, but extremely difficult without someone like me being like there's something here, what is it, what is it?
I think then Magnus might find it, but hard from a distance. So Bb5, the blue arrow, would have given him a big advantage with that huge sequence and yeah, that would have been a shock I think to Goukash as well.
But Magnus played a very natural move, Ncd7, forcing Goukash to get rid of that knight. The question mark appeared because there was something better.
But now the Black Knight comes back, the pawn disappears, and we see Magnus trading off
Queens, and live board is this one.
We're in the end game now, as Doctor Strange would say, and it takes D4.
What do we make of Magnus' winning chances?
Is it risk-free, his advantage right now?
It has to be right.
You have the bet-upon structure, you have the bishop there, it's an open position and
it's Magnus Carlson playing the greatest end-game player of all time, and he's done a lot more
in these end games with much less than what I see in front of us. It's not going to be
a good feeling being Gakesh right now having to defend this, trying to escape the lost
place here at Norwich S. I think Magnus has a very good chance at this end game. The knight
on c6 trapped there can't jump up. If I take on d4, you're forced to pick it up with your
bishop in this position. I can line up my rook with either d1 on or c1. Coming in with
more threats. There are squares against the black king. Dark square weaknesses. Rook d7.
Idea coming in. Maybe we just show that really quickly. Rook takes rook. Bishop takes rook.
I'm thinking about, I don't even care about my b2 pawn here. David Hall. Rook d1. I'm
threatening bishop takes nai. You take that pawn. I go in with my rook. All in it is b7's
hanging as well. And if you go rook b8, I've got bishop d5 coming in. Rook b8, you lose
your rook? Yeah, no, I like this. My big concern though is that the pawn structure is pretty,
it's not symmetrical, but it's very balanced on both sides. And I think the knight is going
to be very good at fighting that kind of thing. So here I'm just thinking you've got to get
rid of the bishop. So maybe bishop to e5 or maybe knight to e5.
boom
how do you know you see now there's an imbalance right now there's a possibility
the one thing the knight needs is stable squares
so if e5 isn't stable there
maybe there's something better but
I like Jovi's idea of going bishop to e5 to try to trade
because it just kind of neutralizes the bishop pair
you end up losing a pawn but then there are checks and rook c2 at the end of that line
And I just want to point out,
Sorry, go on.
Perfect. No, no, this looks like it's a possibility for black,
but I just also wanted to point out there is a big kind of idea.
If you did retreat the bishop,
Rcd8 is not a possibility.
It's not a way to neutralise
because, again, you can't go as white.
Rc takes pawn, bishop takes knight.
Whoopsies!
Yeah.
It would have been bad, but...
Bishop takes knight and that would be a disaster for black.
Yeah, he's up to white
Game for two results is my call on this
It's an either Magnus Carlson win or a difficult Gukes hold the send game
The clock is maybe the one thing not a Magnus aside right now
Back to all patterns the habit of this tournament dropping low on time. It's really haunted in Magnus and
Yeah, I think if it were level times
I would say Magnus is a huge favorite to win
But maybe Gukes having up the speed played a bit more quickly confidently nice to see from Gukes
Maybe he's going to give himself good practical chances to hold here.
But I think ordinarily Magnus at his peak would defeat most players in the world from this type of advantage.
Two-bishop, slightly better pawn structure, but of course a lot of work ahead to be done.
And Goukash is a very good defender if he can somehow defend actively.
Magnus has to do it with a lot less time on his clock as well because different time control.
Normally he's used to playing up to move 40 and then getting a big lump sum in terms of time.
and then he has time to think out all the final details.
Is there time controls in a struggle for all our players?
It really has and surprisingly so for Magnus Carlton,
who's somebody who said he's got the best clock management
and of course he's got seven Norway chess titles with him, right?
This was the conversation that started, he's looking for his eighth.
It's been a tournament to forget for both Magnus and Gakesh,
but I will say it's not a fight for a top spot, but it's fight for pure pride
when we look at this matchup.
Magnus Carlsen wants to avoid one of his worst tournaments ever with a fifth loss.
If it came down to that for Gukeshe, he desperately needs one win before the World Championship.
You know, this was supposed to be the tournament that's sort of part of the preparation of the big picture.
That is Gukeshe back is his form back.
And right now that's a big question mark on the World Champion's, in front of the World Champion right now,
with the match Cinderov here in Oslo watching this being played out.
I think he wants to avoid the last round loss against Magnus at all costs.
Totally agree with you there.
Okay, let's move away from this game and let's go to the bird's eye view
and just a catchy glimpse of what is happening all around.
Because we see a lot of potential fireworks happening and top left,
Ali Reza Wesley, so building up very nicely.
That one's going to be tense.
For Pragnananda, it's going to be whether he can squeeze out an advantage against Vincent Kajma.
But on the women's board, we have Eugina against Hampi Canaria.
Eugina currently in second place.
Is she going to be grinding out a win?
It's down on the bottom left in the brown.
And if we look at G1 Gym BB Sara, it does look like BB Sara.
She might be a pawn down,
but it's a rook and opposite color bishops.
And Anna Moetitoud just looks like she's doing the business against Divya.
So, can I just have your quick assessments on what's happening in the women's?
That's a plus one from everything that you just said. I mean Anna Moosichuk with the biggest
advantage there. I think you've entered most likely to go into an Armageddon. It looks like
it's enough with the Rookpon ending opposite Kala Bishop-a-Draw. Jiu Jitsu trying to push,
we'll see how that turns out. I am very excited to go to that top row right now as the battle
heats up. We're reaching time control. Yeah. Okay, let's head exactly in that direction.
and well where should we go? Should we go Alireza, Wesley or should we just pop in on
Pragnananda and Vincent? Hall of Time! Which one which game are we going?
1-3. Let's start with the green board. Let's be a green flag right now. Alireza
Furuja, Wesley so after all Wesley it's his fate and he wins it. It's
tournament over. He takes the championship. And it's just a simple case
that he has to win right if he has to win in classical that's guaranteed and if
he wins in Armageddon well then everything hinges on the Prague game
but either way he has to secure a victory and we are seeing so much
tension on the board Queen to d7 stepping up and what is Ali Reza doing
he's kind of moved his rook to c2 given up on the idea of f4 after Wesley's
night to say f6. Maybe we could do an action replay. Yeah, I really don't like what ferozha has
been doing. I think time now, time trouble is really costing him. There's been a lot of indecision.
We left it here saying that f4 was possible. Alaraisa didn't need to recapture this pawn. He
could have gambitied it, ignored the whole of the left flank. It's all about the Black King.
Black King backing defenders. I think this would have been much more his style, even if
kind of objectively the evaluation doesn't change too much. He did take back
the pawn, knight f6 something tiny points out a brilliant move here
defensively from Wesley threatening knight h5 which would hit the Queen and
cover the f4 square but now Wesley started kind of going into reverse gear
he's played Queen f3 the Queen just came from there a few moves ago and if
he's not playing f4 now which it looks unlikely with the Queen booking then
what was the point of playing King to h1 so he wasted King h1 he wasted Queen g3
he's wasted two full tempi and now black's king comes back where it came from cemento
defending the knight putting some pressure on white's knight as well looks he too looks a bit
odd unless he's going to double up which he hasn't decided to do yet put his rook on the
the f rook on the c1 square the black queen defense c6 everything looks defender for black
i don't see how alares is going to make any real energy happen in this position and the clock is
getting really severe now that situation. 16 minutes this is just move 23
under a minute per move before any increment kicks in. And this last move
before Queen d7 happened by Alireza to go rook c2 it felt like he was coming in
with the idea of doubling up on the c5 to hit c6 and Wesley preemptively
defended it with his pawn. But the problem is that if the Alireza there's
no way to triple down on that weakness right now the Queen on f3 on the far
side, the knight can never move out of the way giving an in-road into that queen side
because knight d4 jumps are devastating.
So knight on e2 can't move.
The queen on f3 is essentially trapped unless you find a pathway for it, unless you find
active play on the king side and it just feels like Ali Reza has divided the board.
He's taken half his army to play on one side and the other on the other and it feels like
jack of all trades, monster of none right now if you're Ali Reza.
Ferozha because where are you breaking through?
Right, that's going to be an interesting question because at some point, remember Ali
Reza is basically in a must-win situation. He needs to win the classical if he wants
to keep his hopes of winning Norway chess alive. And he's just saying, hey, I'm taking
control of the queen side. Maybe I can also play on the king side as well with an eventual
g4. Is there any surprise I'm suggesting? No, of course not. G4 and then the whole plan
is either you go G5 as Dave is indicating, or Nite to F5. Check.
Give it up.
Spicy.
Yes. Wild.
That's my middle name. I didn't get a middle name.
I didn't get a middle name. Do you have a middle name?
No, it's just direct.
Yeah.
Actually, the way I play is sometimes I find that chicken such, Dave.
I would not go G4, Nite, F5, but I love it when you say it.
Well, normally I'm a chicken too.
But for this one I say I'm spicy
Sriracha level I would love G for night at five to happen
But I'm just surprised with the Farooja's Rook C to Rook C one because it doesn't imply like he's too ambitious on the king side anymore
Yeah, he's either playing a really like long-term deflection game. He's trying to
Kind of make Wesley focus just on this left flank all about the C file and then it'll suddenly switch directions again
Or he's really struggling for a plan. I think it's actually a bit of both
but yeah the clock situation I'm a bit worried I think Wesley's very comfortable
16 minutes yeah good luck I mean if anyone could do other as it can but
with 16 moves so 16 minutes going in for G4 night F5 will be very brave because
you better have a checkmate coming in or you're getting flagged or you're lost
right on the board but this is the thing though it's the kind of position that
requires that you take some risk you have to start advancing at one point and
The problem is is that there's no way for it. It's not like
White is suddenly out of nowhere gonna go rick takes C6 or get in an F4 because Wesley's kind of handled and all of these things
You know the one thing I feel about chess is we talk about how does white make progress?
But very often the question is also what are your opponents moves and it's sometimes harder to be on the defensive side finding moves
While we're struggling for Ali Reza's plan. How easy is it for Wesley to navigate this position with black?
Great question. I think that's the key right now like knight to d4 is one move
we talked about swapping pieces off but suddenly black loses a big defender like
the black knight might want to cover for example squares like this one not so
attracted by that this black knight could also move not really sure where at
some point I was wondering whether one of these two pawn breaks happens at
some point maybe black builds up for that by using his rook but yeah there's a
of maybes in my words because it really is unclear can black just wait and say
whatever you do I am waiting so you just go rixie seven that's the past move
that's good g4 you know I you suggest I wasn't sure whether to go like bishop c3
with that whether that would be a good way to move as well just to kind of
preempt any queen side breakings breakouts it's night tonight to g4 and
And also the knight is hanging as well on H, so that's needed.
This knight is also hanging for now.
Are you thinking about the e4 pawn at all?
The 95 looks really good actually.
Yeah.
Okay, so the bishop is needed on d2.
I forgot about the 96.
The 96 e4.
Yeah.
Okay, so let's try g4.
I like Rx7, but let's try g4.
Let's do it.
If black goes, continues.
Ooh, spice.
Oh, do we try the spice?
I'm the one person who can't handle any spice, life, food, chess board, no spice, but look at that.
I'm in here and I love me some spicy, night at five, let's go for it.
The bar doesn't leave. One takes night, take it with the jeep on.
We're coming on to G1 next.
Ooh, the bar's moving.
They look at this.
Wow.
Just need a little bit of encouragement and Tania is there.
Night takes night, obviously.
I'm in Norway, I'm really missing some spicy food by the way.
spicy food, but some spicy chess. For now. For now.
This is just terrifying. Black is cramped, so cannot defend. Like the board is cut in
half suddenly. Bishop can't get back to the defense because it's got a pawn in the way.
The rook's unable to defend. Queen, the only way to defend is to self-pin and that is high
risk. Not many people can handle it, but okay, talking of spice, can Wesley handle the spice
incoming knight back to G8? I do like it. You know, that knight on 8-6, a bit of a taunt
in black's position, you get rid of it, not just that Wesley setting up F5 at the right
time.
Yeah, and also kind of preempting this NEG for 9F5 business.
I love it.
So Wesley just going into family mode as he protects his king.
Great, great chess.
Going to the game between by the way, Magnus Carlson Goukèche, massive swings there as
we see the evaluation bar rise.
Who called it?
Who called it?
I did.
It's going to be one of two decisive games this round, most likely.
Magnus suddenly winning after some strange moves by Goukash.
We left it only, what was it, three or four moves ago, and suddenly Magnus is totally
winning a pawn up.
Black's whole idea is to hit the bishop and now he wants to come in next move and Knight
to D3 will indeed pick up the B2 pawn.
But I don't know if Goukash has calculated this or whether he's just kind of given up
hope in the tournament.
the white bishop moves maybe there's a better square d5 for example white will
just play bishop b3 I mean it's still a pawn and it's a huge pawn right it's a
passer that just starts going up the board with the assist of the bishops I
mean bishop pair and a passer rolling up no makings of an opposite color bishop
and then there'll be no trade for you I mean this has to be a Magnus wind right
now you're up a pawn and it's a ready-made passer being gifted to you
Absolutely true.
But Goukash is a total nightmare.
No it has been a horrible tournament for Goukash, it just has not worked.
And it's really shaken his confidence.
Maybe we can just zoom in, I just want to make sure the DGT board has been a bit funny
this round.
So I just want to make sure everything is 100% correct.
It looks like it is.
Looks like it is.
You've got the five ponds, you've got the four for Goukash, yes this is the position.
the position and Gukesh in huge huge trouble staring down yet another loss
and yeah you can see it on his face. 15 moves, nine and a half minutes.
Magnus I think the clock is the one thing that could stop him but this is such a
Magnus position like he used to win positions like this in his sleep back
10-15 years ago this is how he broke onto the scene just grinding people down
with a bishop pair with better pawn structures and Gukesh has been blitzing
I think he's just checked out of this tournament. Goukesh still got 42 minutes on the clock
He's literally played every one of his last
what is it five moves within a minute or so and
Yeah, I mean he's just totally self-destructed from a position. Maybe we can show it just a few moves ago that looked
Tough but holdable. We literally left it just here. It looked fine
But Rook takes he spent only 18 seconds instead of taking with the bishop which we were predicting
He spent only 18 seconds taking with a knight giving up a pawn, hanging a pawn on b7.
After Rxc2, Bxh6, maybe he just forgot he was getting mated, but he kept blitzing Goukash.
Played very quickly here and after Rxc1 maybe he just forgot that the white rook was coming up
to make the black king.
I think a couple more moves and he can resign.
Like Bd5 looks so natural. Maybe Nxa4 is the other idea that Goukash has, but shouldn't be enough.
You know this is just very concerning to watch this play out because this has also been the storyline of Gakesh over the last many, many months where he's let slip winning position and given a draw to his opponent where drawn positions have been lost that on a single moment momentarily elapsed of concentration and in this position
and I think Magnus can decide to put that bishop anywhere else, he's 74 and he'll keep his advantage.
The clock going down, it's not the kind of extra pawn, whether there are complications and tricks that you have to solve.
This is an end game. You don't have to be precise. I don't see that as a factor that's going to save Gukesh.
And the signs of checking out for the tournament, I think it happened on move 5.
When Gukesh went into a 17 minute think after employing the Kaurakaan and then not playing,
what was the most obvious choice in that position?
Yes, it's not being Gukesha's best tournament, but like I said, one of the things that he can take hope from is that there are a lot of lessons to be learned and it's better that they happened here rather than the all important match.
But you need that form to switch at some point and it will switch.
That's what we're all hoping for because we want to see a big fight at the World Championship match. Again, both these pairs fantastically are nothing to prove. Gukesha has already proved himself.
himself but when we talk about form it's been now about a year and a half since
the world championship since start of steel and it just feels like now the
deadlines approaching and you can't unsee it it's on the horizon you've got
your candidate in fact he's here chilling playing Counter-Strike. I completely
agree with you it is concerning for Goukèche but at the same time I feel
like okay if you can just push past this bad patch and if mentally you can still
remain strong. Gukes is a fantastic player, he's an incredible talent and he will be able
to do things.
He needs his coaches to tell him to try new things, to switch things up. He's been doing
the same thing for the last 18 months, he needs to maybe just play a few games a bit
safer, play them a bit more solid. Today I think he tried to play more solid but just
the way it's gone downhill so quickly, he looks like he's not even locked in like he
he normally is. Yeah, something's off. I think it is confidence and David, you've commented
on so many of the events that Gukesha has been playing on right calling the action in
it. If right now you had to tell him the most important changes switch up that he needs
to make going into the world championship, what in your eyes would that be? It's hard
to pinpoint one thing. I mean, this game may be less so, but in general the clock he has
to play a bit faster. He has to prepare a bit deeper. I think his openings will be automatically
fixed by the World Championship, so that one I'm least worried about. But most of all,
I think I would give him the same advice that Judith Polgar's husband gave her in the documentary
Queen of Chests. Just a draw is a fine result in some games. Just because he's World Champion,
nobody expects him to beat Magnus twice. Nobody expects him to go 10 out of 10 in this tournament.
He's taking so much risk every single game, even when he's not informed. When you're not
informed, that's when to go back to basics. Keep it super simple, take minimum risk, play
for two results, like yesterday, he was already in bad form, played this opening against
Prague, we basically just lost out the opening, never had a chance against Ferozha, lost out
the opening, never really had a chance because he's taking massive risks. So I think, yeah,
easy for me to say, I mean, World Championship level is another whole different ballpark,
but I would just say, okay, take it easy a few games, save some energy, because his
style of play needs a lot of energy, and he seems to be burning it every game.
Well, some good advice there as we're seeing Magnus grinding out this game against Gukesh.
Talking about a grind, let's head over to Pragananda against Vincent. Pragananda trailing
Wesley so by half a point. We'll see whether Prag is doing the business, whether he's managed to get
more than a slight pull against Vincent. What do we think?
Rook to B6, the last move in this particular position.
Okay, at least there's a threat. It feels uncomfortable. How to defend this bishop. Does
Black have some counter play? I'm looking at a weak f2 pawn, although Craig would really
happily push this pawn forward. If the Black bishop moves, it could get pinned. That feels
uncomfortable. I don't like it for Vincent at all. Even if the eval bar says it's not
that bad, this is really unpleasant.
I actually don't think you could defend that pawn on e6. David, the only square for that
bishop is bishop c8. You definitely pin that bishop and guess what the king can't unpin
itself because the f7 pawn is soft there. Rook to b8 comes in with a deadly threat of
knight c6 disconnecting the black rook to the bishop. If you have to sidestep on a
7 you end up losing that f7 pawn in this position and everything will fall beautiful
pawn formation for white as well. Vincent might be about to go down a pawn because
I don't see a way to actually double down on defenders for that bishop on e6 on our
live board yeah and there's no way to swap pieces initially I thought oh maybe
97 but whoops rook takes e6 will remove the bishop and two nights versus a rook
pawns and just one flank they'll be too strong same tactic with bishop to d7 you
start with rook takes knight and when the bishop on d7 and this position d7
rook takes knight beautiful even better for white nice spot and I have a
question can you go on the counter so you just say I'd like to keep that bishop
on e6 thank you very much and go knight to e4. I think he has to and this is first move
that came to my mind as well but it continues what next after the knight gets hit. Can you
drop it back to c5? I'm desperately just trying to keep my pawn alive. Not going to g5 simply
because it gets hit across the board h4 coming in and I think you just end up winning the
on maybe even more if you have to go back maybe take first on e6 so there's no block black gets
pinned this would be terminal so knight e4 if the path is narrow already knight e4 knight c5
this is it's really scary for vincent maybe it's hanging by a thread here rick c6 is one unpleasant
move that you would have to figure out with a pin here.
Then could you do G5?
No, you can still go G5.
Nope, that was a bad move.
I wanted to stop F4 and F5 business,
but it seems like that is not the priority.
I was going to say maybe still F4, but there's something stronger for white that
see yet maybe it's just simply winning the pawn okay there's something better
but I was gonna say here you can play moves like 97 because pin and pick up a
pawn but maybe this gives blacks some counter play there'd be in this position
can I can I hit your rook with knight e2 and maybe hope to place it on a less
not even knight e2 rook c2 hits the knight you might be forced to just come
back wow move here hmm she just simply start going Nigel shot mode well you
can't you can't even match up the board with your own king but maybe King G3
Knight takes Bishop King G4 King H5 yeah win the board slowly but surely nice
very strong still winning but apparently there's an immediate knockout
which I didn't see yet I feel like it has to be a Knight jump Knight B5 Knight D6
might be seven. No, don't don't. The bar is gonna prove me wrong. Knight takes
bishop. I just want to like do some checking, do some checking. The black
can't come forward because of some night checks. Maybe just go pawn hunting
something like this. Yes. Good enough for an advantage, but is it winning? That's
the question. I mean, I don't think Vincent's gonna be holding this to be
He's down to 15 minutes, and this is just the beginning of his trouble
Like he's gonna have to find probably only moves at some point if he needs to start with 94
Otherwise, he just goes down tangible a disadvantage here with losing a pawn on e6
Still hasn't made that move, but he's been on the think for now over six minutes
He's reaching for the rook in fact. He does hit yes to pawn, but a different way Wow, okay
Okay, rook to f1, another move played, but this is inviting the f1 to just move out the
board to f3, f4.
Another option would be to go king to g3.
Yeah, and also let's point out the psychology of this game for as long as this game is going
on and as long as Prague is putting pressure on Vincent Keimer and it's not that equal.
But that much time Wesley So is struggling on his board, right?
Because so much of it depends on what happens here.
Wesley So has to take decisions with his half point lead based on what's going on between
Prague and Winsson.
Exactly.
And if Prague is searing the game to a win, that means he's going to pick up three points
and Wesley has to do the same if he wants to be Norway chess champion so much on the
line in this championship round.
We're going to go on a very short break in return.
gonna break down all of the action. So see you in a few minutes.
I
I'm not sure if you can hear me, but I can't hear you
I'm not sure if you can hear me, but I can't hear you
Don't run, run away
Don't run, run away
Don't run, run away
I
We are back with the final round of Norway Chess.
And you can see the empty chairs and the setup pieces means one thing.
It has been decided between Wessiso and Ali Reservoirsja.
It was a draw which basically means that Ali Reservoirsja has given up on his chances of becoming
Norway chess champion and they're gonna fight it out in Armageddon and maybe we
can actually break down what happened in that game but let's also discuss what
is the impact of this draw. This is absolutely huge now with the other
game still going on and David before you jump into to show what happened this is
the last position where Alireza Ferocha just captured a piece and offered a
draw which was taken by Wesley so this means in a sense if Pragrinanda wins this
classical game against Winston Keimer. Pragrananda is champion of Norway chess. If Winston Keimer beats
Prague in classical right now, we've got our standings in front of us, the position, I think
that's an impossibility right now for Winston to win. But if that was to happen, Westeasaw wins
regardless of what happens in their Armageddon. However, Yobi, if Prague and Winston go down
to their Armageddon, it's still a fight on. Then it matters what happens in the tiebreaker between
All these players, Westy's results matters, Frog's matters anymore, and we could also have the Tidebreaker.
If Westy wins the Armageddon and Frog, if Westy loses the Armageddon and Frog wins the Armageddon,
then there's a Tidebreaker for the championship. It goes down to the wire.
It absolutely goes down to the wire. We could be seeing a playoff if now,
Pragnananda's game against Vincent goes to Armageddon. Well, everything will hinge on this game, but let's, let's
first up, let's backtrack and revisit this one. Allie Reza-Ferusca, Wesley. So what happened? How
did it finish so quickly? Yeah, and our producers have put Prague and Vincent Kramer on the camera
right now. I was going to make some awful pun about Norway chess, becoming Norway chairs.
Yeah, the players agreeing to a draw after a few exchanges here. We left it with Wesley
offering a trade of knights. I think here Allie Reza had to accept. If he had gone back,
then Wesley could have turned the tables by pushing some of his pawns forward.
So we saw Alereza decide, okay, I have to take these off the board.
The black bishop now superior to the white bishop, so he offered this exchange,
which Wesley also accepted. And after c5, more pieces falling off the board.
It was now f4 from Alereza. Before he got a bit stuck for space here,
a backward pawn, very weak pawn that black can target, he decided, okay,
I have to simplify even further. But a few moves down the line, knight's coming off the board.
This was where the drawers agreed because if Wesley had taken why would also taken this pawn and yes
White has a slightly weak e4 pawn, but white is so active here reduced material that he didn't fancy his chances
I think any hit on the white pawn would always be met by a counterattack against blacks f7 pawn and ultimately this is gonna fizzle
Queen
Endgame draw rook endgame draw the players didn't fancy fighting further
Okay, so everything will be decided and Armageddon for Ali Reza and Wesley so remember was it Wesley
so basically now needs to win the Armageddon but as Pratt as Tanya mentioned if Prague wins his
classical game against Vincent Kramer practice the champion undisputed it all comes down to the
same game right now that we have and Prague has created his chances better pieces better ponds more
active rook, more harmony between the two knights and the black king feeling a bit lonely
but the only move to keep the advantage, the blue arrow appears, rook be a check. It's
not the very tempting option of picking up the bishop and winning upon, but it's to give
a check on the black king.
This is not easy. You will have to see the winning sequence, whatever it may be, we'll
try and figure that out. But yeah, question mark, just put it on the board. Like this
is so natural. Take a pawn, why not? But the pitfall might be that black is creating
some counterplay. Black is getting active. If Black has two more moves, H4 locking the
door, Ng3, and slamming the door in the white king's face, that's just checkmate. And just
to show if White is careless, makes a silly move here, then this could end really painfully
for Prague. So maybe this is the thing that will scare him away from the other variation,
but it takes a lot of self-control, not to see upon and refrain from taking it.
there we see the scores that the boats players have right now winston kaima at
eleven prognananda at fifteen
to take it down to the fire he at least needs to make sure to take this to
armageddon sixteen and a half for him is where
westerly so is right now
the total score that he has
huge huge chance he gives a check
he's playing for a three pointer
prog will leap frogs in the standings and take it to seventeen and a half if he
gets the win
right now. And in so much, well he goes for the check. It's game on, Frogru Nanda in it to win it.
Wow, he's touching distance away now from winning Norway chess. He's going for checkmate.
It might be an end game, but he's got his eyes locked in on the Black King.
He's going to bring his knight back. There we go. Watch out. The other knight's coming forward
with a nasty check. He's blocked the Black Rook's vision. F5 is coming, closing the door. No escape
route then for the Black Bishop, for the Black King. Another knight landing with a check.
This is terminal Vincent Kheimer is up against it night F3 such a multi-purpose move stopping blacks H4 plan as well
This might be it Vincent doesn't have so much time 14 minutes. He needs a miracle. He needs a miracle indeed and
How to safeguard the king and at the same time hold on to the
Bishop there on E6 because with a night jumping into G5
This is a po-knot for grabs at the very least.
Frag in full control.
It's incredible to see this happen right now with the tiniest of margins.
The tiniest of advantages there right out of the opening.
For him to create this, he's really squeezed this.
You know, squeezing water out of stone is a phrase that we use from Magnus Carlsen.
I think today we can say it for Praveenanda in this endgame.
Now going in for the kill.
kill. David, what is Winston's best chance to survive this position to keep this going
to try to take this to Armageddon?
Yeah, it's difficult. The most human move I would say is to plonk the black knight
into the center. Stop white's check at least, the knight coming in with a check. But then
f5, I mean the black bishop is running out of squares. I don't really see what black's
best is. I mean g6 is a very sad move to have to play. At least it stops white's f5 plan,
it allows the other one that Yavankov was mentioning a knight check, a capture of a free pawn.
You have to decide. Either you stop f5 or you stop Ng5 check, you can stop one but not
both. And I think that's the poison. He has to pick his poison here. Is it Ne4? At least
he's slightly active. I think that would be my choice but maybe g6 is the sadder choice
although perhaps the objectively best. But it's unbelievable because if we were to rewind
back to round seven.
Frag loses to Goukeshe.
Then he loses to Wesley Sow.
And then this is where he just turns things around.
Win against Alireza.
Win against Magnus.
Win back again against Goukeshe.
And now on the verge of beating Vincent Keimer.
With four back-to-back classical victories.
Exactly.
Not Keimer Gaden.
Three pointers again and again and again
with the toughest of the field.
And what a tournament storyline has been for Prague because
Jovi, it's not just
where you're speaking of, if we just rewind it even a bit more, he started a
tournament
with a win against Wesley So in round one.
Went down to Alireza Ferozha
in round three and then strikes
against Magnus Carlsen taking a three-pointer. He's taken down the world
number one twice
at Norway chess. Something that not many can boast of in their entire career.
He's done it twice in classical here
right now, Pagananda.
And what's the magic juice? It's the confessional yet. He joined us in the first half of the tournament Prague and we were putting some pressure on
We were like join us come to the confessional
Please and it was only after that a couple of losses in the middle of the tournament
He started going to the confessional started talking about things. He looked visibly more relaxed
It's no coincidence, and then he started winning
It was only when he thought he was out of the running for first place when he didn't kind of come to the games with such huge
Expectations that he started bringing his best. That's a tip. I think that a lot of players could benefit from
And I know we were joking about the confessional box, but I mean, it's what a streak it's been and just the fighting spirit
Okay, that's a practice showed eight decisive results if you win this eight decisive classical results win loss
Whatever it's still a very impressive out of ten rounds and also I just want to reinforce
Pragna under
Beat the world number one not once but twice in the same events
you know that's just absolutely fantastic and now with this hat trick of back-to-back classical
wins he's on the verge of beating Vincent Kheimer with this precise night move knight to g5 that is
threatening to slam the door on the black's king exit points we're seeing f5 in the air knight to g5
also in the air wow the emotions must be running really high for Bragg as perhaps he's realizing
this could go his way. You can see it, you can see it in his body language. He's completely
locked in right now. As Winston's struggling to just find a way to keep the game going,
how will he respond? Prug got to be feeling it. This is going to be the biggest win of his career.
Getting this in the bag, you know, it started with a game against Magnus Carlson in 2024 at
Norway chess, a career defining moment for every player. And now he's on the brink of taking this
tournament with perhaps one of the strongest field that Norwich has ever seen.
Exactly, very impressive stuff, levelling up in front of our eyes. Maybe we can show why it's so lost for Vincent Keimer.
Also, I really want to highlight that Vincent's played a plan over the last few moves.
I mean, from this position, it didn't look so bad. Maybe a few moves back after the Queens came off.
He could have found other ways, maybe brought his bishop back, started retreating his rook.
But Vincent here went for a plan that he criticised Goukesh for a few days ago.
He said when Goukesh was down and ended up losing to Vincent,
he was like, why did he play these weird superficial moves?
Rukhev won.
He was like, it just looked like poor coordination.
He was trying to force it when he could have defended passively.
But he did it himself here.
He literally criticised Goukesh, then committed the same exact mistake.
But Vincent here, falling victim to fantastic play by Prague.
Night E4 has just happened. I was going to point out G6 to stop White's advance, which is about to occur.
Would have allowed, yeah, pawn to drop. This would have been a check and
here it's almost hopeless, although the game would continue.
Night E4 is an attempt to solve things
immediately, but F5, the blue arrow points out, Pragg's move, and if that happens, I think the bishop just short squares.
So many tempting options. I see the rook coming behind. At some point the White knight will jump forward.
This bishop is so stuck for squares.
It's stuck for squares. It's also stuck for opportunities as we're seeing. Look at the
King as well. Knight takes F7, Rook H8 in the air. Now, earlier on, I got a question for
both of you. Do you want to hear it? Do you want to be put on the spot?
Always.
Always. Okay. Well, don't blame me. Play my production team. But it's a good one. Which
Dutch grandmaster beat Magnus 2-0 in a double round Robin tournament back in 2004? So, well,
this year we saw Pride do it in this tournament. I actually know the answer to this.
A Dutch ground master. I want to say, I don't know, was Jorden around back in 2004?
No, he wasn't.
Jorden was born in 1999, so he would have been five-year-old Jorden there first.
So it's not Jorden?
No.
No.
It's definitely not an Eesh.
Yvonne Sokcalor, no.
Is it?
He'll be someone young, I think.
Yes.
Wait, who did I play in those days who is slightly older than me?
Irwin Lamy? No.
Well, I'm assuming...
Give me a bit more time. I need to get this. I'm going to get this.
You're going to get this. Okay, excellent.
So you are here at home as well can answer this trivia question and...
Meanwhile, f5 has been played by Krog.
He's finding all the best moves on the board.
Bishop to d7.
Pragnanandar doing unbelievable things here.
You know, it's also not just the position he has.
he's managed to build this up to this point. Coming out of the opening the
slightest of advantage going into the send game feeling like there's something
to play for and then playing it out the entire plan lining up the rook on the
eighth rank pushing the f-pond before bringing the knight back boxing up the
black king on 8-7 and then going for the weaknesses f-7 and d-5 you can put the
rook on d8 you can put the rook on f-8 and I'm not seeing a way for black to
defend either of the two pawns. Lots of tempting moves so Prague it's always
tough though when you know the finishing line is in sight. That's when you start to get nervous
when you're like, wait, I'm about to win one of the biggest tournaments of my career. I'm so close
now, then you start to get distracted, you start to hyperventilate. And they do say most accidents
happen within a couple of miles of home. That's because you start to relax, or you start to get
a bit nervous either way. If you can keep playing like he has done the last 10 moves where it's been
pretty much perfection. Then I think he's going to bank this one. He's on nearly 99% accuracy.
I can just imagine Indian fans going completely nuts and wild right now.
Prague getting this super tournament victory. I think it'll be the first after Tata Steel
for him at the early part of the year with his tiebreaker against Gakesh, a huge win for
Prague Nanda and since then it's been an up and down year for him. Quite shaky, losing a ton of
reading points he's dropped down to 27-33 himself and this will be massive to win Norway
chess straight out. Yeah he's had a very volatile year you know so he 2025 you know he started
off with a bang winning Tata Steel he also won Prague chess masters and also the Oost
chess cup but then he kind of had a little bit of a tough patch and it didn't go well
for him the candidates wasn't a great success he's spoken about it recently like how he
just burnt himself out playing all of these chess tournaments in all these different countries
and how lonely life at the top can be. But when you play like this, you get your rewards.
And what momentum is gathering in this game as we see Rik2DA targeting the d-pawn. Gonna
put you on your spot, on both of you on the spot. So can I get an answer from you?
with a Yan, no it wouldn't be Yan, Daniel Stellwagen.
Ooh, that's what I read on Twitter,
and that's what I think is the answer.
I might be wrong, it might be fake news,
but yes, the answer is Daniel Stellwagen,
and it was in the Essent tournament.
I was thinking, I played him in a World Junior Championship
a couple of years after, so I was trying to go through
in my mind all the young Dutch Grandmasters.
That's impressive, I didn't know that though.
2004, Magnus was the team, so yeah, quite a while ago.
He is wasted as a grandmaster, he should be a detective, right?
Yeah. Dr. Dave.
For a reason. But I have to say, I mean, 2004, Magnus might be 13, but still a super talent, so quite an achievement.
By the way, Proc keeping the pace on the clock, he steps it up with the knight.
Knight takes pawn, it's not just the pawn, it comes in with a deadly threat of a checkmate against the black king.
And if you go f6, thank you very much, knight g6 anyway.
Yeah, f6, knight e6, I'll just put that on the board and that is a dead king in the corner.
Black's going to have to sacrifice his rook to get it out because if the king steps forward,
I mean there's h4, there's all sorts of finishes here.
h4 shuts the door, threatens the mate around the back as well.
So how to deal with this pawn?
I don't think you can defend it.
No, you can't go d6.
If you go knight to g5, that knight just gets hit with h4.
Get out of there.
seven. Bon, give me your king.
Wow. Okay. And it's looking critical for Vincent as the night and the rugs start to swarm around the black
king. Let's go to the bird's eye view because it seems like the players have saved the best for last. Take a look at the
evaluation bars. Looks like it's a great day to be playing with the white pieces.
I'm so annoyed. I nearly said as a joke, there'll be six decisive games. And of course, there won't be because
Farooja against so it's going to be a draw but everywhere else very very white day for the way yeah for those with white
Just pressing at the right amount and it looks like they'll all be rewarded
Feels like it's gonna be a bit of a bloodbath right now. I will say though Wesley and Farooja haven't started yet
I wonder if they're waiting for a result on this board watching this play out because that does have ramifications for Wesley and
Farooja taking on their battle
Yes, it definitely does because if Prague wins it, then it doesn't really matter whether
Wesley wins the Armageddon or not.
But he's going to take second place regardless, but it's super exciting here.
Is Prague going to put the finishing touches onto this position?
How is Vincent going to put in resistance?
By the way, centreboard, Magnus is down to five seconds on the clock, maybe that move
with about four seconds.
team's for me. And you know,
It's a very long haul. Played
the best move Magnus, despite
having no time.
Kakesh is not as out of it as
we thought it's not a porn
down yet for the world
champion Magnus, though should
be winning with his Bishop
pair should be a simple plan
of advancing his porn of the
central board and we'll just
very quickly show that There
we go. The evils bars are
going sky high on both board
Fincher when it starts finally rolling down the board, but Prague so close now
There is a knockout blow apparently the bar is almost totally white. Where is it? Is it a checkmate? Is he winning material?
What is the maximum for pregnant and how does he do it without?
Risking the fact that he's on the brink of winning the tournament and what that does to your mind the nerves and the tension of that the feeling of that he's got to be
Just so many emotions going through Pragnandha right now. Here at Norway chess, incredible decisive chess by him so far.
And that's what Norway chess awards and rewards, right? With its scoring system. You have to be ambitious to get up the leaderboard.
Always an eye on the leader was Pragnandha and now about to take it. But what's the easiest path here if you're white?
Do you take the pawn on G6? Do you put pressure on F7? Do you pick that pawn up with your own knight?
or knight, decisions, decisions, decisions and not so easy. Not so easy for Prague because
he's got so much choice, right? You know, as you mentioned, pawn takes pawn. One thing
that does come to mind, you know, Richter f8, hunting down the f7 pawn is really good,
but you know, also the pawn on d5 is up for grabs.
I mean, at this point, it's just a question of whether there are several winning paths
or whether he has to be accurate Prague, and it feels like he can do almost anything
and keep an advantage.
It's just whether he realizes that he can pretty much settle it here and now.
That's hard at the board to control your nerves, contain that, and just lock in on finding
the accuracy when you know that everything's good.
I do love the very direct idea that Jovi pointed out, and Prague is a calculator, right?
So he's going to be looking at lines that come in with a threat.
I'm looking at rook f8, a move that you mentioned right now because you're not only hitting the f7 pawn,
let's say the black knight falls back to defend it. There's an x-ray vision on that f-line as well.
If white on that right board places,
Prague places his rook on f8, you fall back with your knight and d6.
He's gonna be thanking you. Pontex pawn is a deadly check and can't be captured anywhere.
Let's jump in, let's show it. Magnus on the left board is winning.
He doesn't have much time, but we'll keep everyone updated if he does flag or if he does convert.
This one rook to f8 is the clincher. I was also looking the other direction. I was thinking this bishop is actually almost trapped
You can go for it with your rook, but rook f8 is the one just show Tanya's idea. Knight back to d6 doesn't work
Because of that beautiful x-ray long distance fxg6 you can't take it because you lose your rook and
Therefore if black tries to for example capture this pawn that this looks like a mating that against the black king
I'm looking at ways to try and get at it. Maybe you just take with the night and
Just wanted to show this beautiful checkmate. Yeah, but
Beautiful pranks so close just needs Rook a fate or a similar type of move to end this here and now
What would be a mistake for Prague like if you were for instance to go Rook takes D5
Has he squandered away the win?
Still better, but I think you would have to do it the hard way
maybe just taking a pawn and I mean here the white king is under a bit of fire
maybe H4 coming in at some point that's still in full control
Prague maybe trading the pawns I was gonna say a mistake but okay still a
pawn up and still looking good feels like everything is winning it's just a
case of whether he lands the immediate blow or whether the game goes on.
Well he found Rook to be 8 earlier on he understood that he needed to go F5 he
He understands that the target actually is the black king, Rook f8, just weaving a mating
net around the black king, that would be the move.
You know with David, the option that you mentioned, knowing Prague, that's also a very direct
approach.
You hit that bishop on a4, the only square I see for it is d1, and he's like, the place
Incredible stuff by Praveen Nanda. He's about to win Norwich us.
Wow. Wow. What a tournament it has been for Praq so far on the verge of winning his fourth game in a row.
The storylines are just immense for him. He's had it all.
And he was the one player who was never in the lead but always chasing the lead, always in the mix.
Yeah, he was actually in last place before all these wins, you know. He was in
sole last place and then he caught fire. Incredible. After two back-to-back losses
he was staring at the pit and then what a response it has been so far about
Pravnananda with the white pieces. Just a few more accurate moves and the title is
his. So, nothing Vincent can do. No way to prolong the fight. It's two
two threats, both Rook takes pawn check and F takes G6 check and that X-ray vision. Black's
rook going in behind was the cause of a lot of his trouble. It was superficial, it didn't
actually create anything. White's pawn advancing was part of his plan anyway, so Vincent forced
Prague to find the winning plan, but boy has he taken it with both hands in such ruthless
fashion. I mean, his accuracy sky high in such a title game, a championship game like this
one. Prague, I don't think it's the defense now. I think Vincent just has to give up some
material and hope that Prague hallucinates. It's touching distance away.
And Vincent, he's got to keep fighting, but he's got five and a half minutes on the clock
as Prague gets up and leaves the board, leaving Vincent to his miseries right now. It's not
just the clock, but the position falling apart. David, are there any chances of survival with
the knight falling back? Point takes point, you move the king and you start hitting Prague's
Rook on F8. Is that something that Winston could hope for in this position?
It might have to be something along those lines a capture and the Black King
just sidestepping. When the dust settles, White is going to be a pawn up with an
ongoing attack there. The King will hit the Rook but the Rook does have a nice
tempo gaining hit on the Black Bishop. I think we'll see that play out just very
quickly show it as Tanya's pointing out. Knight back defending the pawn, maybe this
is the more valuable one of the two. FHG6 check, King moves, Rook hits the
Bishop and the Bishop has almost no squares Vincent's going for something else about to make a move
He does go back and this variation is actually going to play out
We're gonna see this happen on the board watch as
Prague picks up the pawn on g6 and puts the finishing touches to this one
Unbelievable turn around in the last round here at Norway chess and you can see it in his body language the confidence that he's feeling
Just needs to stay calm and as our future sat said it there
you know completely deserving after taking down the gorge twice in a
tournament he can barely contain his excitement you can see how he's poised
he's just working out what's gonna happen after porn takes a g6 black
cannot capture because of the loose rook there on f1 and Vincent he knows it's
all over frag came to the game looking for a fight he chose something
unusually in the opening and he got a position that he could just squeeze
Vincent Kleimer and this is the result. What a fantastic game, flawless.
Yeah, it was perfect play when the nerves are high. That's why he was walking around there.
I mean he hasn't hit the time control yet. He has six minutes to make four moves
before any increment kicks in but within four moves he might have clinched it.
He might have delivered made or won enough pawns that Vincent's forced to
the team. The team is going to
be able to get the team to
resign. Prague takes one. Check
the king has to sidestep because
of that pin on the file. The
extra vision White Rook now can
save itself with gain of
tempo, hitting the black
bishop. And only next would he
take that porn. Crit more
squares for his nights to jump
into. Right, getting excited
now. Another move about to
land. Vincent is not going to
be happy with these past few
forcing Vincent to give up the exchange. What a blow. Prague not letting up at all.
He's full steam ahead going for it. Vincent's exchange down about to pick up
the G6 pawn but the white king can soon travel forward. The white rook still the
much valuable piece. This is so close to over. Westy so led this tournament for
the last five rounds. Alira's up before that.
Carlson was supposed to win Norway chess for the eighth time.
And now, Kravnananda shows up in Hau and doing this, finishing it off flawlessly.
Bishop falls back, you're up in exchange, and you can see it on Winston Kaima.
He knows this is all over.
It's been so tough for Vincent, it could have been an incredible tournament for him,
but he left a lot of missed chances on the board.
Of course, losing all those Almageddon's didn't help for Vincent.
That was a lot of bonus points he could have picked up.
picked up and to end it on this note. That is a rough, rough end. But chess is sometimes
like that. It rewards the brave and pregnant and that is the definition of brave this event.
This would be his fifth classical win. Yeah. And Frank has really embraced the spirit
of Norway chess. You know, he's come to every game fighting. He really was in the pits when
lost two games in a row he was staring down finishing last place and then he just turned it all around
and now looking at winning his fourth game five decisive results incredible and along the way
you take down the world number one twice and the world champion as well once and then and around
when it matters the most with the white pieces you squeeze the sand game out David is there any
any hopeful Winston to survive this endgame. Down in exchange, not even for a pawn.
Great question. I think he needs another pawn. He needs to win one of the white pawns somehow.
If the white G or H pawns were somehow just dropped off the board, maybe some dream of a fortress.
I think with a bishop, you don't create a fortress unless you can somehow get a king to a dark square.
You need to trade off the knight pair here, get those off the board.
Or you need to somehow a suede white just play knight's bishop while the black knight continues getting active.
But I'm saying this with a lot of wishful thinking.
I think Vincent Kimer, if he's being realistic,
cannot get everything in order here.
White's got pawns running.
White's got a rook that's about to activate.
White's got the most beautiful dark-squared grip possible in the center.
I'm trying to find reasons, but I'm struggling.
And I think Vincent Kimer is struggling.
Yeah. And this is the big problem.
The White Army is simply going to be penetrating on the dark squares.
And there's nothing that Winston can do to fight that.
White's knight on e5 is so beautifully placed, controlling all of the right squares.
And the white king threatening to come in at the right time.
And the white rook ready to come in from the a-file or the c-file.
Choose your pick. Enter on the seventh rank,
combine it with the king and the knight.
And Winston's king still not out of trouble.
Both players around the four-minute mark, but the clock does not matter.
No. The clock is the least for friends and problems, exactly. It's what's happening on the board, but, of course, one game's not all won until the clock has been stopped, so Rijk has to hold his nerve.
Do you ever want to trade that knight for the bishop and try to get in your king, but I'm seeing ideas of knight c4, and I wonder who those trades actually favour.
Ultimately, I think it probably is winning for White, but why give Black the hope of
jumping in with a knight trying to win some pawns?
You can win it the slow way.
At some point, he can go back.
Maybe not immediately, but go back and win this bypasser that's crossed into the White
Half.
At some point, I think, just moving the rook in is going to be a really nasty idea against
Vincent Kramer's king.
Vincent leans back.
He knows it's almost hopeless, but at least he's trying.
And if you tip over on a home, play to the bitter end just in case.
And that bitter end, he's setting up some ideas, right? With H4, Bishop E4.
Watch out for that G2 pawn. The more pawns that get off the board,
wins in Kaimers, chances and hopes for that draw.
Trying to survive this position, taking it to the Armageddon,
might start to appear at some point.
I love the idea of just getting the rook onto the game.
Why trade that beautiful knight right now?
Rook A1, Rook A7,
start lining up the rook against the H-pawn or the E-pawn, win them all.
He's reaching for the rook and it happens.
I agree with you Tanya, there's a lot of dreaming going on for Vincent.
One of them would be that if you managed to swap off the knights and all of the pawns
barring white's H pawn, it actually would be a draw with the rook versus the bishop
and the rook and pawn. It's really interesting but okay that's just a wishful thinking.
The rook comes into A1 and now it's getting ready to activate. It can come up to A6 to A7.
It's has his pick.
There are some mating nets on the board if the White Rook gives a check and the Black
King ever pokes its head forward to f6.
Knight to g4 is a checkmate.
That is just one of the many, many threats that Vincent Kramer has to deal with.
But yeah, he's just looking for a final hope.
Bishop can come into e4.
Maybe that's the best of the sad bunch here.
Prague though, such control.
This is the style that we were talking about earlier.
Maybe Goukeshe is going to be watching this thinking,
okay, I can play for two results.
I can play it safe.
That's what Prag was doing, but when he got his chance, he has seized it so strongly with both hands.
Very clinical and very controlled there by Pragnananda. That's our left screen.
Oh, no, that's actually our right screen as we get that in order. Ali Reza-Feruja,
Wesley Sotty, Armageddon's on, but maybe the decisive factor is the right board.
Yes, all eyes on the right board as we see Pragnananda in full control against Vincent Keimer.
He clenches those three points. He will walk away as Norway champion and in the Armageddon,
Ali Reza is in trouble against Wesley. So, Wesley has the draw odds and Wesley has lots
of time on the clock as well. So, Ali Reza, problems.
Yeah, looks like Wesley, who is the exchange up, is about to win that game. Shouldn't be
in any danger. The Black King, there we go, moves. That's the left board. The Black Knight
in the corner isn't going to survive, but it's going to cost White a few moves going
to get it. And in the meantime, Wesley will be able to consolidate his advantage, should
be close now to winning that. But in the end, meaningless, Wesley's Armageddon win, if
Prague closes out this game now, and he's getting ever closer every single move.
And you've got to be feeling a bit for Wesley, so right now, who's played a fantastic tournament,
what's happening on the Prog board completely out of his hands and Wesley
doing Wesley things in the Armageddon right raking up those wins he's done it
fantastically with the black pieces against Alireza needing only a draw but
with a completely winning position up in exchange the knight comes back the
king feeling completely safe but Winston King on that right board now with the
Rook pinned on that seventh rank E6 about to fall next this the pawn is
right for the taking no way to defend it he might resign Yogi he might resign any
moment. Bishop at 5.95 game over.
Both might resign at a risk. It could resign and there we go. Championship moment. It is
pregnant under. Norway chess champion. Incredible. No Indian has ever won Norway chess. Madness
Garthun has won it seven times today. Both those facts change. Remember this moment.
Ramesh Babu pregnant under. Shopping of more chess 20-26.
It's been 10 days of relentless, ruthless chess but one man has risen above it all to
to be crowned the way chess champion.
And what a strong storyline it was.
You know, we had comebacks, we had hat tricks,
we had the special world number one,
not once, but twice.
Just fantastic performance here,
but probably not that.
Incredible mental fortitude here,
shown in this last round for Wesley.
So he gets the win against Alireza,
but just not good enough to get the championship.
be as decisive as Prague.
It's been a great one. For him
to very impressive stuff.
Unable to get that final hurdle.
We're hoping to see him back to
full health soon. But, yeah,
it's just been a story of Prague
this last 24 hours. I was going
to say, but actually, the last
four days before round, saying
he's won all in a row. He needed
to imagine that he was so far
behind. So last place that you
need to win every single game
in the world. I want to give
just to overtake Wesley. It's incredible, right? And to think about it, it's not just
for wins, it's for classical wins. And that's not a storyline. Many players
have been boosted off back-to-back for classical wins to take the championship
at Norway chess. I've never seen a play out like this before. And this means,
Divanka, times are really changing in the world of chess. You've got 22-year-old
Bibisarra Asubaeva winning Norway chess women, 20-year-old Fragnandanda taking
win. I'm going to go back to
the game. Winning No Hs
Absolutely. Bebe Sarah winning
No Hs woman yesterday with a
round to spare. Today's game
did not matter for her. But one
game that did matter was
pregnant under who defeated
Vincent Clima to net a full
three points and there you see
at the top of scoreboards. One
point ahead of Wesley, so it is
get over the incredible storylines that we saw this round and in the meantime we still see one
games going on and that is Magnus Carlson who has been pushing his luck with the clock but winning
on the board. Winning on the board but he's cutting it fine. White is running out of pawns here
and Goukesche at some point could flick in a move such as f3. White's pawn cannot take that because
the Black Knight will give itself up for that pawn, distract the bishop. Magnus needs to keep at
at least one point alive but the Black Knight is so poorly placed and dominated
right now that Magnus should be able to trap it or at least keep it at bay long
enough to walk his own pawn forward. And the other good news from Magnus Carlsen
here is that the A-pwn is the right color pawn so the Black Knight can't give
itself for the G-pwn you know with the light-squared bishop that Magnus has
that will still be technically winning for him another color on that you shift
the board the wrong color square and I think Rakesh would have saved this but
None of those factors working for the world champion and it's it blows my mind that this is the last remaining game of Norway chess
And it's between the world number one and the world champion and both of them trying to survive last place right now
Yeah, they are definitely
Wishing that this tournament had finished in a different way. I mean the stories could have been so different
But as it was it is
is definitely Magnus Closen here with the edge as he tries to eke out a win.
It's very difficult to play, but just 22 seconds left on the clock.
He does get a 10 second time bonus per move, but Goukèche, another forgettable tournament.
It's been just a case of bad luck, bad calculation, bad opening.
Everything's not works for him.
It's been a series of bad tournaments and I think really the time is there now
to evaluate what's going wrong and he's got the best team, he's got his coaches there
telling him what to do but something has to be fixed and he's got less than six months
to do that. It's the big world championship match coming up. Ending Norway chess with
a loss against Magnus, it's going to be a downer. In a tournament to forget, to finish
it like this, it's really not what Gokesh wanted. Coming into this, coming into Oslo,
wanting to make a statement, wanting to make a comeback to reestablish his form. He goes
for your idea and he does take it with the bishop and just feels like it's not going
to be good enough. All Magnus needs to do is to stop Gukes from giving up his night for the Jeep on.
It's a time crunch though, both on board and clock from Magnus centralizing his bishop,
keeping the Black Knight dominated. The Knight only has two save squares. I was going to say,
if the Black King is able to travel far enough over to the other side of the board, it might be
a draw. So Gukesha is going to try and race it over, but Magnus is going to embark on that race
as well. And what happened? Magnus somehow set up his pawn to promote on a light square,
Just as it was on the other side of the board, the Black Knight isn't quick enough, Black
is just one move too slow, and Magnus is going to get there.
You start calculating the Black King not in time to get to that G7 square, the white pawn
incredibly fast, so Gukesh relying on the Knight to come back, to try to get it to those
light squares on H5 or F5, to just put a halt to Magnus' pace with the G-pawn right now,
heading in that direction, but with the Black King offside.
You put that king on G7, pick and drop, and it's a draw, but far too off.
And we see a lot of applause happening here.
It is for the champion, Dragananda.
Yes, making an appearance in the vicinity.
I mean, I think, I can expect non-stop round of applause for his performance, and so well-deserved.
It's not just winning the championship, it's the style in which you do it, right?
Four back-to-back wins, classical, taking down Magnus twice.
down Gokesh, incredible win over Wesley and just the comeback story, the comeback arch
that Throg had with two losses and then goes on to win the title.
Incredible stuff and a great day for Indian chess of course but for Bukkesh, a day to
forget he tries to bring his king back, Magnus continues pushing, he's calculated this,
Black Knight has to go back now, it's stranded there on the edge of the board and it gets
It's going to be kicked further back every move comes with a threat by Magnus Carson every move forcing
You simply have to bring your night back, but the white king is going to chase it hunt it down a handshake
Magnus ends the tournament on a high
Well, who does it in style keeping us all guessing with the clock for Magnus finishing with a victory
But for who cash the world champion
There are lessons to be learned
Wow
It is heartbreaking to watch this for Gukesh to unfold right now with everything that's happened and I have to say
It's also inspiring to see that despite that he sits down and wants to analyze with the world number one
I was thinking this would be one of those cases where he just doesn't want to do that sets the pieces in leaves
Will we see a little bit of a brief discussion there?
Magnus eager to leave as well a tournament to forget for both these players
five classical losses for Goukesche in this event. He did get the one win against tournament winner
pregnant Nanda, but there we see the standings Goukesche down there at the bottom and Magnus at
least moving up to fourth place. He will want to forget about this event, but at least some racing
points and pride reclaimed. Absolutely. Oh, they always say that London buses, you wait for them
a long time and then suddenly they all come at once. We had five decisive gains in this round.
We finished with a bang and at the top we see Pragmananda. There is the winner with 18 points.
We are going to go on a short break from Rutan. Hopefully we'll have an interview
with Norway chess champion Pragmananda. We'll come back.
Baby
Ladies and gentlemen, we are back and it's official.
We have our two new Noe Chess champions, Bibi Sara Asababa in the women and the gentlemen
sitting next to me, Brian Ananda is Noe Chess Champion 2026.
Brian, this must feel like a fairy tale, winning four in a row and now Noe Chess Champion.
Yeah, yeah, I didn't think think about this when I lost two games in a row. I just
Yeah, I just wanted to play chess, but yeah
I mean somehow like things went all the way and I also feel that I started playing
Start playing with more control which you know in this time control. It's it's always a good thing
Bro, I want to ask you about the final moment of the game
You know you converted this end game when the last move was played
What was the first emotion or the first thought, the first feeling in your head at that moment?
Yeah, already by a few moves I knew that I was going to win, but I still wanted to make sure because
yeah, I couldn't actually think that's like once I played 96 I couldn't think anymore. I was just
making moves with my hand and I was worried like I think it's such a good winning position that
you just can't mess it up but I was still worried and yeah once it was signed is when I kind of like
Like, I kind of relax.
And, Craig, what would you say kind of spurred on this change
in fortunes?
Was it a change of mindset?
Was it something about your routine?
Was there anything specific that helped you turn your luck
around?
No, nothing specific.
But it's just, I think, I decided that I would play a bit
more faster than I was doing.
Yeah, I was having time advantage in every game.
And I was also able to play decent quality moves.
So I think that that suddenly helped I was just telling this in the other studio like my mother
I was speaking to my mother on first June before Ali does a game and she was telling me, you know, it's a new month you
You know if
You will play well like I and I was like, okay, it's just you know one of these things that mom always says and then like
Then okay, this twin like four games. I want so
So, yeah, she knew something, I guess.
That is so sweet.
Have you spoken to Nagalakshi aunty after winning yet?
Because I'm sure they've been following the whole tournament,
where Shali and your mom...
Yeah, no, I don't know.
Even I have my phone here.
I kept it in the room, so I'll go back and speak to them.
Yeah.
And we noticed, actually, when you started to relax,
you started to visit the confessional booth.
And we kind of thought that might be the secret ingredient as well,
Just getting those wins. Yeah, maybe I should have visited confessions all the games
Yeah, I mean I I think I started to feel more relaxed. I just started visiting confessions
I know I wanted in the first half I sold but I just forgot when I was playing the game was just
I'm proud. You're the first Indian ever to win Norwich S
What does that mean for you? Does that?
What's that feeling like?
Yeah, I think all these things are great, but I think more happy that I am.
I mean, any tournament you win, you're happy.
Especially when Magnus is there, it's extra special.
And also to win in such a way, I am super happy.
And how will you celebrate?
I don't know. I think I'm right now just angry.
I think me and my second lesson will try to get something to eat.
Praveen, if you give that 20 second Oscar style speech where you have to thank people for everything that's gone right here, who do you think, who were the people who I think made this a reality and what would you like to say to them?
Yeah, I think 20 seconds will be less for that.
Yeah, okay, I want to start with my family.
I think without their support, it's just not possible.
Especially like having two players from the same family,
it takes a lot of sacrifice from the parents.
So I think their support is the key, I think.
And also like my trainers, my seconds, Ramesh Sir and Vibhavu was here with me.
He was working hard throughout the event.
He was also there in Bucharest.
So, and also there are like other seconds,
which I don't want to reveal right now,
but they are also like doing a great job.
And also I want to thank Adani Group in this moment.
They have been supporting me for the last 20 years.
And I think as everyone knows,
training and playing tournaments is like,
you do need support.
So like, they're very supportive in the sense
So I thank them in this moment and there are a lot of people who can freely go on and...
It's a great speech.
Yes, it was, yeah.
Thank you.
And Prank, you mentioned you were celebrating by getting some dinner since you're hungry,
but after dinner, could we tempt you to come to the Good Night Chess Pub with us?
It's going to be some last night celebrations.
We'll see.
I don't know.
I'll find a way to persuade you.
And you won the tournament, it's massive high, but you have been quite honest in the
past about how being a chess professional can be a lonely life, like how you spend time by yourself
and you also mentioned just now about the support network. Can you tell us a little bit more about
that? I wouldn't say lonely, I would say more of like, you know, you have to be so disciplined and
like so focused that you have to give everything for this game. And sometimes when the results
don't go your way you're like disappointed like for example for me after candidates
candidates was one thing I was thinking for last two years and when that didn't go well I was
yeah I was like not sure like I mean I wasn't sure like what's going on and then I decided I'll
you know I don't want to think about the next candidates already at this point I just want to
chill and enjoy the games and I think that's what I'm doing and I yeah I enjoyed this much more
I'm just playing my games and fighting and yeah.
Prague Varshali winning the candidates.
You coming into Norwich has winning it.
What have you guys been eating?
What's been going on?
What's the secret here?
No, last like 10 months or something just didn't go my way at all.
I was 27 or 90 or something then dropped down to like 27, 30.
So it's not really what I'm eating.
No, but I'm very happy that she won the candidates.
She's been working a lot and I'm happy that she's getting what she deserves.
And that also I think helped me cope up with my candidates results.
Okay, Praga, I know you have to go and I know what you'll be about to do before that.
Can I ask you for one favor? Can you please take a selfie with us?
The commentators, here you go. David, come on in.
I was about to get super busy guys.
Sikes proud, thank you!
Thank you guys!
And congratulations to Norway, a chess champion, Pragnen and the...
Oh, he had a dream event, he had absolutely everything, and the score line tells it all.
The man at the top is the one who rose above it all.
He beat Magnus Carlsen twice, he suffered back to back defeats, and then he went on
just winning game after game after game. And there he is at the top. And for
Bevisara Asalve Ava, just 22 years old, winning NohHS women with a round to spare.
Massive congratulations to the pair. What worthy champions we have had here.
And I think it's a storyline few would have predicted at the start of the
tournament, right? Looking at NohHS women, the debutante, Bevisara comes in and just
dominates the field. And guess who's with her? The world champions of challenger, Jamukir
in the building as well, so much entertaining, a chest by Vibhishara and super deserving.
What a statement by the three times world blitz champion. And then if we move on to
Norway chess, led by Alireza Feroza, then overtaken by Wesley Soh. Kragnananda in the
chase loses the spot, goes down to the pit of the table. And then what happens? Two losses,
back-to-back wins, four classical wins, gaining those 12 points, takes the
championship, the first Indian to ever do so to be champion of Norway Chess.
Yeah, you've got to love it. The hierarchy being shaken up, so many players played well
this time. Wesley So, shout out to him for leading half the tournament, playing
fantastic chess back to his best, Faroozha as well. Even Vincent Khyma
gaining rating points, it was only Magnus and Goukesh in Norway Chess who
struggled and in the women's. It felt like she went during the favorite, Humpey,
one of the most experienced. They also struggled. It's a good time to be young.
There's a potential changing of the guards while it has been an unforgettable tournament here at
Norway Chess. And I'd like to give a big thank you to the Wrapped Queen and this is the only time
I'm ever going to be able to call him this, the Muffin Man, David L. And also I'm going to
crown myself the prediction guru, even though I got absolutely nothing right and I had to have
I have the assistance of the chair.
Norah has been a massive joy to have you both as my commentators.
You've made it all just go.
I'm actually getting emotional at the thought that Norway just comes to an end.
It has been such a wide ride this tournament, guys.
Dude, come on, you know.
You're not allowed to leave Norway.
You're not allowed to go.
No, we're not allowed to go.
But a massive thank you from all of us here.
massive thank you to our production team to big to channel to everyone working
behind the scenes so tired as you guys have been chef's kiss absolutely
stupendous to our mods to our subscribers to all our viewers at home
thank you so much for joining along this a wild ride and we're gonna leave you
all with a video of all the noise thank you for watching and until the next
Take care!
Magnus suddenly winning after some strange moves by Gukash.
Huge huge trouble staring down yet another loss and yeah you can see it on his face.
The player is agreeing to a draw after a few exchanges here.
It all comes down to the same game right now that we have.
Let's see what did Bimson do wrong? I thought after Rook F1 it should be holdable.
Ah shoot H5 is just a mega blunder yeah by Bimson.
He goes for the check, it's Game On, from Renanda in it to win it.
Bimfem cannot let us down today, any other day is fine.
The eval bars are going sky high on both boards though for White.
Magnus dropping back his king, and on that left board the A-Porn is going to be the clincher
when it starts finally rolling down the board.
But Pragg's so close now, how does he do it without risking the fact that he's on the brink of winning the tournament?
The only square I see for it is D1.
And he's...
It plays as a play safe!
incredible stuff by Pragana Nanda. He's about to win Norwich us.
Vincent is going to go in for the 10 years. Beautiful move. Forcing Vincent to give up
the exchange. What a blow. Pragana not letting up at all. He's full steam ahead. The pawn.
It is ripe for the taking. No way to defend it. He might resign any moment. Bishop by
5.95 game over. Most might resign at a resucade resign and there we go. Championship moment.
is pregnant under no HS champion incredible no Indian has ever won no
HS Madness got one of seven times today both those facts change after my Armageddon
game against Frius guy we both congratulated each other on a good play
there's really not much you can do someone wins if someone gains 12 points
on the last four rounds I don't think anyone can really stop that
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What I like about chess, there is actually a lot of similar things.
With the football as well, you need to plan your moves a bit ahead.
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If you can't lose one second of focus, if you do, you might get punished.
have to sometimes surprise the opponent. Chests have a lot to learn. In life I have a lot to learn so
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Total chess can turn chess into an even bigger sport for new audiences.
I