Magnus Carlsen turned up at the last minute to join Jan Gustafsson and Laurent Fressinet commentating on the Nihal Sarin vs. Anish Giri Speed Chess match. The players didn't disappoint as it became a thriller, with Giri surprising everyone by losing the slower blitz sections before dominating in bullet — at least until Nihal Sarin edged a wildly entertaining tiebreak.
Magnus Carlsen surprised Jan and Laurent by joining the commentary on Giri vs. Nihal
In case you missed it, it’s well-worth rewatching the whole of World Champion Magnus Carlsen’s over four hours of commentary on Giri vs. Nihal. It’s jam-packed full of reflections on players, opening insights and revealing explanations of his practical approach to the game and the choice of moves in a blitz match.
Nihal Sarin is just 18 years old, but he went into the match against world no. 7 Anish Giri as the favourite. In the recent Chess.com Global Chess Championship Nihal beat Anish in Armageddon in the semi-finals, but that was rapid chess. The expectation was that the faster things got, the more trouble Anish would have.
Jan asked Magnus if he had “power rankings” of the Indian juniors:
For classical, probably Gukesh, but overall probably Arjun [Erigaisi] at this point. He’s also a little bit older… They’re so different all of them in styles, that it’s hard to say who’s going to take the leap. Nihal has the most elite skill that any of them have so far, that he’s basically already one of the best blitz players in the world. But in terms of classical it’s really hard to say whether it will translate, especially without great openings, whether he’ll ever break into the very top. It’s very hard to say, but he’s certainly by far the most suited for this particular format among the Indian kids.
Magnus had earlier elaborated on Nihal’s particular skills:
Nihal will do the usual thing where he's much worse and 3 minutes down, and from then on he'll just start playing like a god and not blunder, which is super-frustrating, but I don't think he can rely on that to win the match!
The speed reminded Magnus of another youngster, whose decision not to play surprised him, Alireza Firouzja.
I remember the camps with Alireza. He would often play a blitz game and a bullet game on a different platform at the same time... I imagine Nihal doing the same kind of thing!
It was Anish Giri’s skills that were on show at the start of the match, however. In the first game his handling of the opening had Magnus waxing lyrical.
Anish had sacrificed two pawns, but for total domination, and he managed to convert well enough that Magnus commented, “that was extremely classy!”.
Game 2 was more of the same, as Magnus briefly doubted Anish but then had to take back his words as it turns out the Dutch no. 1 had prepared the winning blow 25.Bf6!!
The only fear Magnus had for Anish was how much it might have cost him:
He's really going all-out! He's using all his strength for these first games. He really needs it.
Giri’s perfect start ended in Game 3, however, when Nihal played on in what looked like a dead drawn position and was rewarded with a win. When the opening of Game 4 went wrong for Anish, Magnus already saw the writing on the wall, commenting, “This game is a disaster for our boy... He's tilted already!”
But just when Anish seemed to have chosen an insanely risky way of trying to defend, he found a series of only moves, and then a knockout blow to win the game. Magnus was stunned.
That game, giving Anish a 3:1 lead, turned out to be the highpoint for Anish in the blitz sections. He had a chance to win the next game, but then stumbled into a checkmating attack.
33.Nd6+! Rxd6 34.Re7+ and it was mate-in-4: 34…Kg8 35.Re8+ Kg7 36.R1e7+ Kh6 37.Rh8+ Kg5 38.h4#
Nihal was really on fire in the next game, when he saw a win that Magnus and our commentators missed even when they knew there was something there from the evaluation bar. 22…Ng4! was the first move.
The point was that after 23.fxg4 Nihal had 23…Bxg2!, when 24.Kxg2 runs into 24…Qg3+ and mate on h2 next move. Anish played 24.Rxf8+, but it just delayed the inevitable a couple of moves.
That game took Nihal level, and wins in the final two 5+1 games gave him a 5.5:3.5 lead. “I feel this match is kind of over,” said Magnus, who agreed with the conventional wisdom that the faster the time control the better Nihal’s chances.
The first 3+1 game didn’t make things look any rosier for Anish, as he spoilt a completely winning position, with Magnus coming up with the somewhat barbed, “For his fans… that must be extremely disheartening”.
Anish didn’t let his spirits drop, though, winning the next game and in general giving as good as he got in the 3-minute section.
There were very fine margins, for instance in the 6th game, when Anish was winning after Nihal went for a flawed piece sacrifice.
37…Rxc7! was the win, but in a time scramble Anish played 37…Nxe6? 38.Rxb7 Rxc1 and had perhaps forgotten that the knight was defending c1, so that 39.Nxc1 forced resignation.
Nihal also won the next game to take a 3-point lead, causing Magnus to say, “that may have been the dagger” (in the heart), and the 3-minute section ended painfully for Anish as he failed to win this position.
Magnus had seen it coming, since he felt the 41-second think over playing 19…Bg6! gave Nihal too many practical chances. Once again, however, it came down to extremely fine margins.
So Nihal’s 4.5:3.5 win in the 3+1 section had given him a 3-point lead, and it seemed certain he’d ease to match victory, so much so that Magnus had an interesting point about Giri’s win in the 1st 1+1 game.
As the leader in the match it would have made sense for Nihal to prolong the game as long as possible, to deny his opponent time to catch up, but perhaps Nihal felt his bullet prowess meant he didn’t need to worry about such details.
It would all change very fast, however. Anish raced to a 3:0 lead in bullet, tying the match with 20 minutes to go, and then won a 4th game to take the lead, causing Magnus to exclaim, “this is amazing!”
Only a sharp tactic in what had been a lost position allowed Nihal to avoid going further behind.
Nihal was back and finally went on to win a game and level the match, but then Anish landed another blow of his own, stunning our commentators.
“Nihal has to play literally anything else in the opening!” said Magnus about Nihal repeating openings that were getting him into trouble, but nevertheless the Indian youngster still managed to level the scores again. The 1+1 section ended with the scores tied 12.5:12.5 after Anish had won the bullet 5.5:2.5.
The tiebreak was four more 1+1 games followed, if needed, by Armageddon, and the mayhem continued. Giri won the first, Nihal the second, both with the white pieces, and then Nihal struck with Black, so that Giri had to win the final bullet game on demand with the black pieces.
He couldn’t possibly have got off to a worse start.
The mouse-slip didn’t quite lose a piece, since the bishop on c5 is in any case doomed, but it did lose a couple of pawns and give Black an objectively hopeless position, especially as Giri needed to win.
Final deciding games have a logic all of their own, however, and Anish fought his way back into the game and actually got real chances. He levelled the game and could have won an exchange on move 44. Watching it all live with our commentary team hugely invested — it may have helped that a fun bet on the outcome was involved — was hilarious.
In that clip as well as 44…Ng3+! being a chance, Anish could have won a pawn with 46…Nh3+ (instead of 46…Rb6!?) and then taking on f2, though in both cases it would still have been very tough to squeeze out a win.
As it was, the game ended in a 111-move draw that meant Nihal Sarin was through to a quarterfinal against Ding Liren, after beating Anish Giri 15:14.
Magnus summed up the epic finale memorably!
There is more action, however, with 3-time US Champion Wesley So taking on 18-year-old World Rapid Champion Nodirbek Abdusattorov at 15:00 CET on Thursday December 8th. Jan and Laurent will again be commentating.
The winner plays MVL.
Then that match is followed by the final Last 16 match, when 4-time Speed Chess Champion Hikaru Nakamura will be a huge favourite against David Paravyan. The winner of that match plays Levon Aronian in the quarterfinals.
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