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.

  www.chess24.com for full coverage 

 
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

Carlsen tactics (Carlsen-Ding Liren 2020 Chess24.com Finals)

today I'd like to go over the game from Magnus Carlsen against Ding Liren, a sharp sicilian defense game.www.chess24.com for full coverage

Critical position 1:

Both players went into a dynamic types of positions ( Sicilian Najdorf by Ding Liren). with Kings on opposite sides. 

White to play in diagram above.

Hint: Magnus was looking at 27 Rf3 and 27Rf7+. Can you calculate the lines ?

Critical position 2 (analysis):

White had to evaluate 27Rf7+ Kf7 28 Qe6+ Kg7 leading to the following diagram, white to play.

can Black defend and what is White's best move ?

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Solution

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Magnus looked at 29 Qe7+ Kg8  30 Nxe5 but 30..Rh7! saves Black.

White would win by playing 29 Ne7! , and here's why:

if 29..Rab8 30 Qg6+ Kf8 31Rf1+ wins

if 29..Rh7 30 Rf1! Qc4 31 Qf7+ Kh8 32 Ng6 checkmate

if 29..Qxc4 30 Qg6+ Kf8 31 Nf5! Qe4+ 32 Ka1 wins.

in the game Magnus played 27Rf3 f5 28 gf6+ Nf6 29 Qg2 Qd7 which allowed Ding to come back into the game. But eventually Magnus won the game anyway.

Carlsen-Ding MCI Semi-Final Game 1 : May 2, 2020 chess24.com

Here is the game featuring Magnus Carlsen versus Ding Liren, Magnus Online tournament semi-final Game 1. opening was the London  (d4, Bf4) which Carlsen plays quite a bit in rapid and blitz, for instance world blitz 2019 against Nakamura.

Here the position after 14..Nf6, White to play

The possibilities are 15 0-0-0 or 15 Qg2. Carlsen chose 15 a3!?

Here is where you can replay the full annotated game

https://share.chessbase.com/SharedGames/share/?p=HW3sNkHzg5/Fj9X9CMesvzBdmhgEziqNUqK8pqBZS/TR9wQ8ktaPnLNb7Mb81iI0