Sinquefield Cup round 6: So lost between 'being' and 'doing'

The last couple of moves were repetitions by the black king because of being checked by the rook via e1 and f1 on the previous moves. Time pressure discourages us from forming a definite standpoint here but we cannot ignore the similarity altogether. Unexpectedly, instead of sticking to repeating the position -- the presence of bishops for the opponent should have been a caution -- So, went into ‘active’ mode here, and played 40...Ke8?

The motive is obvious to see: black knights are eyeing b3 and b6 and So was lured into capturing one of them by force. But what he overlooked was the power of the bishop as a long range piece. But more importantly, he psychologically missed White’s possibility of creating a counter-threat instead of defending his pawns, and his bishop pair helps: 41.Be4! (Ignoring Black’s threat and creating play of his own)

Now the crucial variations were clear: Black may threaten to win a pawn but White gains much more than that: So played 41...Nxb3 (41...Nxb6 runs into the simple 42.Bxd4 cxd4 43.Bxb7 and the a6-pawn falls too) 42.Kc3 Nd4 43.Bh2! and Black resigned, as 43...Nxb6 runs into 44.Bxb7 winning the exchange.

Black’s attack on b2-pawn is nothing more than a momentary distraction, and So would have regained a fairly good advantage here with the simple 19.b3. But he was in a complete ‘doing’ mode and went ahead with 19.Bf4? and after 19...Rxb2 20.exd6 Bxd6 21.Rxe8 Qxe8 22.Bxd6 cxd6 23.Qxd6 Qe2, it was White who faced a tough defence ahead and lost the game in just 5 more moves.

Two aspects of the position stand out: White’s potential to grab the centre, and Black’s knight on a5 - rim, grim, dim and all that. A cautious approach to the position could have enabled Black to play 17...Qh4 18.f3 (18.f4 doesn’t make it any different for Black here) 18...Nc6 (Watch that knight!) followed by 18...Ne7 will simply improve Black’s position while sticking to the basics. But what happened in the game was surprising:

19...Bxe4? Shocking, almost. This extreme example of 'doing' at the cost of 'being' sees Black's position going rapidly down the hill. Instead, 21...Nb7 called for - another move which encourages ‘being’: trying to re-route the knight to a better square and letting the opponent play, after checking first if he faces any tactical threats here.

Grinding away, the World Champion reached a favourable ending where his material advantage of a pawn wasn’t clear enough to decide on a win. Nakamura admitted that he was quite ‘careless’ in his play here, allowing Carlsen to reach a favourable endgame. Carlsen played energetically and exchanged off the Bishop, reaching a very favourable Rook endgame.

In this position, white uncorked 10.Qd3, a variation whose waters even the computers and correspondence chess games have not visited – a true novelty which is a very big achievement in these times. Caruana later credited his Norwegian friend Torbjørn Hansen for the idea, who also happens to be Magnus Carlsen’s first coach.