Ding Liren wins Brilliant Game against Magnus Carlsen in King's Indian Defence: chess24 magnus tour finals Aug 2020

In this entry, I will analyze a game where Magnus plays the King's Indian Defense with Black and Ding outplays it with near perfect play. lots of tactics to calculate and Ding was up to the task.

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Great example where Ding Liren quickly built pressure againt Magnus who wasn't really up to speed with KID structures. Ding has mastered positions with 1d4 and g3,Bg2 fianchetto. His calculation ability is world class level even though he started poorly in candidates 2020 first half and will not challenge Magnus for World Championship ( it will be either Nepo,MVL or Caruana again).

Ding was impressive with the line starting with 24Bh6! and played perfectly until 31 Qf4 checkmate. Magnus could have defended better if he found Bd4+ in several instances but instead lost very quickly

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 Magnus going for Kings Indian 4. Bg2 O-O 5. Nc3 d6 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. O-O e5 8. d5 Ne7 9. e4 white will play on the queenside, black will move Nf6 to start f7-f5, but needs to play h7-h6 first to prevent Nf3-g5! 9...  b6 10. Rb1 a5 11. Re1 Nd7 12. a3 h6 13. Nh4! the best approach against f7-f5 plan from Black 13...  f5 14. exf5 gxf5 15. Qc2 Nf6 16. b4 Bd7 17. c5! Blacks plan of Nf6-d7,h6,f7-f5 and Nd7-f6 is too slow. White is making progress on the queenside and does not have any large weakness 17...  axb4 18. axb4 e4? this is clearly a mistake as white can attack e4 and f5 which will open up kingside. opening went wrong for Magnus. ( 18... Bc8 19. c6 ) ( 18... Qe8! the best move 19. c6 ( 19. cxd6 cxd6 20. Bb2 Qf7 ) 19... Bc8 20. Qb3 ) ( 18... bxc5 19. bxc5 Ra5 20. c6 Be8 ) 19. c6 Be8 20. f3! [%csl Bg6,Be6,Bf5,Be4,Gh4][%cal Gh4g6,Gg2e4,Gh4f5] Ding undermines the center right away. Black has lots of weaknesses on light squares 20...  Nfxd5 21. Nxd5 Nxd5 22. fxe4 fxe4 23. Bxe4 Nc3 very sharp ( 23... Bd4+! check first was much better than the game 24. Kh1 Nc3 25. Bb2 Rf2 extremely complicated ) 24. Bxh6! the best move deflecting bishop would allow White to win the knight on c3. losing the exchange is not important, the blacks king is wide open 24...  Qf6? Magnus tries to defend but White has a tactical resource here. Ding calculated very well ( 24... Bxh6 25. Qxc3 ) ( 24... Nxb1? 25. Bh7+ Kh8 26. Rxe8 Qxe8 27. Ng6+ Kxh7 28. Nxf8+ Kxh6 ) ( 24... Bd4+! This was the only move to survive with Black. Magnus used a lot of time and is in big trouble 25. Kh1 ( 25. Be3 Qf6 ) 25... Rf2! ) 25. Bh7+! ( 25. Bxg7 Qxg7 26. Nf5 Rxf5 27. Bxf5 Qd4+ 28. Qf2 Qxf2+ 29. Kxf2 Nxb1 30. Bxb1 Bxc6 31. Rc1 ) 25...  Kh8 26. Rxe8! Brilliant, White wants to play Ng6+ with devastating impact #impactchess 26...  Rfxe8?? ( 26... Bxh6 27. Re7!! Qxe7 ( 27... Bg7 28. Rbe1 Qd4+ 29. Kh1 Qd5+ 30. Be4 ) 28. Ng6+ ) 27. Ng6+ Kxh7 28. Nf8+ Kxh6? ( 28... Kg8 29. Qh7+ Kf7 30. Rf1 wins the queen 30... Qxf1+ 31. Kxf1 Rxf8 32. Bxg7 Ke6+ 33. Bxf8 Rxf8+ 34. Kg2 winning for white ) 29. Qh7+ Kg5 30. Qh4+ Kf5 31. Qf4# 1-0 White wins by checkmate. amazing finish with checkmate played.Ding played an excellent game and showed much stronger understanding of Kings Indian Defense than Carlsen. Magnus was too confident after winning game 1 and decided to play an opening which is not part of his standard repertoire. Ding is very strong in g3,Bg2 structures. 1-0