Magnus spends a big amount of time trying to figure out what to play as his first move, and finally opts to take the center immediately.
Only two pairs of pieces have been shuffled in the opening, making only subtle differences from a regular position. One of the main points is the knight placement on the kingside, which could potentially develop quickly to a square that it usually spends a lot of time getting to in several normal setups.
A lot of the time spent was likely to figure out if Magnus could be able to go for an improved version of a regular opening.
1Mikhalevski quickly replies in the same fashion, also taking space in the center.
Is Magnus looking to normalize the position?
Magnus quickly gets his bishop out to its' most natural square.
A very natural plan for Magnus would be to get his queen out of the way and go for castling on the kingside, making his position close to indistinguishable from a normal position.
2Mikhalevski continues mirroring Magnus' moves, also getting his bishop into play immediately.
Magnus moves his pawn forward, allowing his dark-squared bishop to see the light of day while solidifying his center.
As opposed to a regular game, Magnus now has the threat to deliver a check against Mikhalevski's king. If Mikhalevski now keeps mirroring without much thought, he would already be losing material in this position.
Mikhalevski now needs to take another approach to defend against the threat.
3Mikhalevski defends against the threat and is also clearing the way for his king to castle on the kingside.
Having to react to the threats of Magnus forces Mikhalevski on the defensive early, giving Magnus the initiative.
Magnus continues his development while potentially threatening to get his knight into play early.
4Mikhalevski stops Magnus' knight dead in its' tracks, which also was the clear best move in the position.
5Clear edge to Magnus out of the opening
Magnus was once again threatening to jump into the position with one of his knights, and Mikhalevski stops the plan for a second time.
The position remains more comfortable for Magnus due to his lead in development and potential grip on the light squares of the board. The more passive setup of Mikhalevski will force him to make some difficult decisions later on.
Magnus now shuts out Mikhalevski's bishop, which was pinning Magnus' pawn and potentially letting Mikhalevski create a threat with his light-squared bishop.
Now, a a check from Mikhalevski along the light squares is not an issue for Magnus, who can just block it with the pawn that no longer needs to cover up his rook.
Magnus has found a more harmoneous way to deal with the opening difficulties, leaving Mikhalevski with a position that is more difficult to play.
His main problems for him to solve is now the development of his knight on the queenside as well as opposing Magnus' control over the light squares. None of these problems are easy to solve for him, giving Magnus a comfortable position.
6Magnus with a long-term advantage
Mikhalevski decides to castle on the kingside, but this allows Magnus to damage his pawn structure! Mikhalevski will gain strong control over the darks squares in the center, but this decision leaves him with permanent weaknesses in the position.
Magnus quickly obliges and captures Mikhalevski's bishop.
7Mikhalevski makes the only possible recapture, and his pawn structure has been weakened in the form of doubled pawns.
A strong move by Magnus, immediately hindering Mikhalevski from going for a pawn storm on the queenside!
Shutting down chances for immediate counterplay, Magnus' opening has been a big success. He has a permanent structural advantage in the position, and this is the kind of game where Magnus is at his best.
8Magnus keeps his strong initiative
Mikhalevski now continues his logical development.
One of the big problems with weakening your pawn structure early on is that creating counterplay will prove more difficult. If Magnus decides to castle on the queenside now, an attack against Mikhalevski's king will come much faster than Mikhalevski's counterattack, meaning that he will be forced on the defensive.
Things can quickly go wrong for Mikhalevski here, who is clearly under pressure.
Another logical move from Magnus, getting his queen to a more active square.
10Mikhalevski recaptures the bishop with his pawn! This gives him isolated, doubled pawns, giving him a severe structural disadvantage.
In the short-term, this decision keeps his position stable, and the chances of Magnus starting a attack on the kingside. However, Magnus' advantage now is a long-term, positional one, where Mikhalevski will have more weak points in an endgame.
Magnus changes gears
Magnus calmly moves his pawn forward one square, completely changing gears due to Mikhalevski's decision. We now have a positional grind on our hands, and Magnus maintains an advantage.
11Mikhalevski finally gets his knight out, looking to create threats against Magnus' queenside.
While his structural advantage will remain, he will now be able to put on some counterpressure against Magnus' pawns.
Magnus immediately reroutes his knight, looking to get additional support on the queenside.
12Allowing the game to slow down wasn't very tempting for Mikhalevski, and he instead opts to create some weaknesses in Magnus position. This comes at the cost of one of pawns, but he will now get counterplay on the queenside!
Magnus quickly captures the pawn, as no other option would be better than grabbing the material.
13Mikhalevski delivers a check on Magnus' queen.
Magnus replies in the most obvious way, blocking the check while keeping his castling rights.
14Now the queen enters the attack on the queenside, threatening to capture one of Magnus' pawns. However, has Mikhalevski gone wrong with his choice of move order?
Magnus has the additional option to move his king rather than castling! This would leave much needed support to his pawn on the flank, making Mikhalevski's attack much less dangerous. This is one of the rare cases where simply moving the king instead of castling is, in fact, the superior move!
Mikhalevski's decision to deliver the check with his rook before getting his queen into position has allowed this extra option for Magnus. If he switched up the move order, Magnus would be forced to castle queenside, making this option unavailable.
Magnus realizes realizes his opponent's mistake and doesn't hesitate to punish Mikhalevski's move order! This allows him to keep his all his pawns queenside defended, leaving him with additional material.
Mikhalevski still retains pressure on the queenside, but it's not clear how he can make progress on this side of the board. If Magnus manages to stabilize, he should have a very favorable endgame.
15Mikhalevski swings his knight into action, targeting Magnus' pawn at the edge of the board, but now Magnus has enough support to keep it under control!
Magnus shuts out Mikhalevski's knight from getting into play. This game is far from over, but Mikhalevski needs to find a way to keep up the pressure on the queenside in order to avoid having a significantly worse position in the long-term.
16Mikhalevski tries to keep up the pressure
Mikhalevski is getting ready to double up his rooks on the open file, trying to get all his pieces into the attack. While he has some compensation for the pawn in the form of active pieces, the position can quickly fall apart if Magnus can manage to coordinate all his pieces.
There's no clear breakthrough for Mikhalevski, making this position very promising for Magnus. However, he needs to find a good defensive setup.
Magnus adds additional support to his knight, anticipating Mikhalevski to get his other rook into action.
17Precise play needed by Magnus
Mikhalevski completes his plan, and there are potential threats in the position. While the tactical variations don't work out in his favor objectively, Magnus needs to keep playing precisely to avoid things from falling apart.
Magnus realizes the potential danger, and moves his rook up to provide aditional support to the squares in front of his king. This move simply avoids the most complicated tactical variations where Mikhalevski potentially could sacrifice pieces to open up Magnus' king!
The position remains extremely complicated, and we could potentially see the queenside blow open at any moment. Magnus has things under control for now, but understanding all the tactical subtleties of this attack is difficult for both sides.
Mikhalevski is the one who has to make something happen, as his endgames are much less promising being down a pawn. Due to his pressure that can potentially make Magnus' position collapse, however, all three results are still possible.
18Mikhalevski restricts Magnus further
A very strong move by Mikhalevski, who avoids a dangerous tactical threat from Magnus with this move.
Most of Magnus' pieces are tied up to the defense of his weak points, and he will have to slowly remaneuver to get his pieces back to life. Both his knights are currently tied down to defense of key squares, and Magnus will need to add additional support these weak points before he can make any progress in the position.
Magnus chooses to relieve the pressure against his king, but this allows Mikhalevski to win back the pawn that he lost.
With this move, things are likely to quiet down, but this means that the chances of Mikhalevski being able to equalize the game increases. An endgame looks slightly favorable for Magnus due to his better pawn structure, but Mikhalevski will get dynamic compensation in the form of active pieces.
This game is still far from over!
19This was an interesting try by Mikhalevski, sacrificing his queen! However, this dynamic decision has left Magnus with a clearly winning position.
Mikhalevski is looking to go for a checkmating attack, but Magnus has a defense against the threats. If he finds it, it's game over.
21When the dust settles, Magnus is left with extra material. Mikhalevski will try to keep the complications going, but Magnus will not have much issues defending against any threats.
This game took an incredibly sharp turn, from Mikhalevski keeping the position somewhat under control to going all in on an attack that simply doesn't work.
22Mikhalevski's intention is to try go for a checkmating attack with his rooks, but Magnus has several ways to defend the threat. If he finds one of those options, winning this position will be trivial for someone of Magnus' caliber.
Magnus is preparing to get his pawns out of the way to give his king some much needed breathing room. Magnus is just in time to make an escape with his king, meaning that his material advantage will lead to a completely winning endgame.
23Mikhalevski tries to grab material, but now it's Magnus' turn to attack.
24Mikhalevski gets his rooks into action against Magnus' king, but they cannot force checkmate. In the meantime, Magnus can target Mikhalevski's pawn on the queenside and create a passed pawn that cannot be stopped.
Magnus finds the right plan, eyeing down Mikhalevski's pawn while restricting his king at the same time.
This pressure will simply be too much to handle for Mikhalevski, who can't defend all the threats at once.
26Mikhalevski avoids the infiltration of Magnus' queen, but this comes at the cost of allowing him to get a very strong passed pawn.
There were some issues with the transission of moves from Grenke, but we're finally back!
The position has completely changed in character, with Magnus sacrificing his queen for a rook and all of Mikhalevski's pawns on the queenside. Even though Mikhalevski has an extra knight, it will be completely impossible for him to stop Magnus' pawns from advancing, winning him the game.
Mikhalevski is simply unable to defend against all the threats, and magnus has a trivial road to victory now.
Magnus wins his fifth game in a row!!
Once again, Magnus shows his complete dominance of the Freestyle format by defeating Mikhalevski in a tense, double-edged position. A huge misevaluation of the critical phase lead to a huge advantage in the endgame that Magnus was quick to convert to victory.
Magnus got a very comfortable position out of the opening, creating clear weaknesses in Mikhalevski's position. Mikhalevski fought back, however, and managed to create a huge counterattack against Magnus' king on the queenside at the cost of a pawn.
Magnus was forced on the defensive, but kept his position under control. Seemingly out of nowhere Mikhalevski made a drastic choice to sacrifice his queen, clearly misevaluating the ensuing position. Magnus happily grabbed the extra material and ended up in an endgame where Mikhalevski's position quickly collapsed.
Magnus is now the only player with a perfect score and is in the sole lead after 5 rounds of play. While few of his games have come cheaply, he has proved to be in a class of his own in this tournament.
The position has been decided!
The position is very close to the regular starting position! Can the small differences in piece placements have a big effect on the game, or will we see a more standard-looking chess position?
Already, all the top boards are spending time on move 1! Having such a similar position to regular chess is making the players think carefully about their approach. How will the shuffling of the kingside affect normal theory?
The pool of players with 100% winrate is thinning out!
With the tournament having reached its' halfway mark, we're left with only four players with 4/4 points. Among them are the two players in this matchup between Magnus Carlsen and Victor Mikhalevski.
Mikhalevski is a relatively unknown name at the top, but has made a huge impression in this tournament. The chess veteran has managed to win all his games thus far, including an upsat against Jordan Van Foreest in round 4.
The last two games for Magnus has not been without risks, but so far he has come out on top against every opponent. With the white pieces in this game, he's once again the clear favorite. As we have learned by now, however, anything can happen in Freestyle Chess!
Mikhalevski has had an impressive run, but can he keep it up when he faces Magnus? Let's find out!