 "How Magnus Carlsen defeated European Rapid champion in a space of just 11 moves")
Magnus Carlsen made sure that even with his sixth-place finish in the latest ‘Titled Tuesday’, he continues to make the headlines. The Norwegian Grandmaster’s drubbing of Russian-turned-Slovenian Grandmaster Vladimir Fedoseev is all over the Internet. Carlsen defeated Fedoseev in the fifth round of the Titled Tuesday, which is a weekly 11-round blitz tournament in Swiss format.
American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura won the latest edition of Titled Tuesday and Carlsen finished sixth. However, one of Carlsen’s game stood out where he forced the reigning European Rapid and Chess960 champion Fedoseev to quit after luring him into taking a pawn and then unleashing a series of 11 moves that forced him to resign.
Carlsen’s innocuous pawn sacrifice
Carlsen, playing with white, was greeted with a Caro-Kann Defence from Fedoseev and the the two soon exchanged a pawn in the centre. Carlsen soon castled while the Slovenian GM kept developing.
Fedoseev tried putting pressure on the e4 pawn and Carlsen defended it at first before pulling his knight back to leave it without defence. Fedoseev jumped on with his knight on e4 to take the pawn and that was the start of the demolition.
Over the next 11 moves, Carlsen would make life so tough for Fedoseev that he will have to resign.
World No 1 opens up the centre
On the next move, Carlsen lured the his opponent knight to move out of the centre as he put his own knight on g3. Fedoseev quickly latched on to the knight on g3 but Carlsen did not take back the knight and instead targeted black’s e5 pawn which was undefended. Fedoseev’s king and Carlsen’s rook were now on the same line separated only by white’s knight at e5.
Fedoseev brought out his bishop to e6 and Carlsen then took back the knight on g3 with his pawn. The Slovenian then played out his dark-squared bishop on d6 to which Carlsen replied by sacrificing his knight on f7.
Fedoseev took the knight with his king but Carlsen hit back Qf3+. Fedoseev hid his king behind his light-squared bishop which got pinned by white’s rook. Carlsen followed it up by Qg4 threatening checkmate at e6. Fedoseev solved the checkmate problem by putting his dark-squared bishop on e5 with his queen defending from c7.
Carlsen next took his opponent’s light-squared bishop at e6 with his own light-squared bishop. Black’s knight was defending the e6 so Fedoseev took back. Carlsen played bf4 and perhaps at this point Fedoseev knew he was in a tough position.
Fedoseev gave a pointless check and two moves after that he resigned. Carlsen won the game in 22 moves and made sure that this match will be rewatched in videos all over the Internet.
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