Hard to Beat

丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) – Magnus Carlsen
Champions Showdown; match game 6 (20 minutes); Saint Louis, November 12, 2017
8/n3kp2/1p2pp1p/7P/2P2PP1/4P1K1/4B3/8 w - - 0 36

Position after 35. ... Nc6xa7

I think that Carlsen, if he had been playing with White, would never have lost this ending, but... he was able to win it with Black! You might think that 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) committed several mistakes, and probably you’d be right. But I suspect that his biggest error was conceptual, beginning with his very first move (from the position shown in the diagram). As old people would have said, in such an ending, featuring quite a compact Pawn position, a Knight may even be stronger than a Bishop, and White must play very accurately in order to draw. 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén)’s velleitary campaign on the Kingside cannot be anything but radically bad, since in his hurry to create a passer on the h-file, the Chinese Grandmaster did not take in account the weakening of both the passer and the Kingside. Maybe White could have saved himself anyway, but, from a practical viewpoint, after 38. ... Kg7xh6, his game has suddenly become not so easy to play. So bravo Carlsen for building his win with stratospheric technique, because, as Clarice Benini used to say, “Don’t ask me how I lose. It’s very easy to lose. The only difficulty in chess is winning”. 36. Kh4 Kf8 37. g5 Kg7 38. gxh6+ Kxh6 39. Kg3 Nc8 40. Kf2 Nd6 41. Ke1 Ne4 42. Bf3 f5 43. Ke2 Nf6 44. Kd3 Ng4 45. Kc3 Kxh5 46. Kb4 Kh4 47. Kb5 Kg3 48. Bd1 Nxe3 49. Bb3 e5 50. Kxb6 exf4 51. c5 f3 52. c6 f2 53. c7 f1=Q 54. c8=Q f6 55. Qc7+ Qf4 56. Qxf4+ Kxf4 57. Kc5 Ke4 58. Ba4 f4 59. Bc6+ Kd3 60. Kd6 Nf5+ 61. Kd7 Nd4 62. Bb7 Ke3 63. Ke7 f5 64. Kf6 f3 65. Kg5 f2 66. Bg2 Nf3+ 67. Kf6 f4 0 : 1.