I was once paired with Magnus in a game but he just left without starting so I won. I proceeded to scream around the house, I called everyone and told them I beat Magnus, I appeared in the village tree billboard, I signed everyone's cow, I wrote a book about dealing with the pressure of being better than the world champion, I sent Magnus a chess set with my face carved on all the pieces, refused the world chess championship trophy, put Kasparov on hold for a week, accepted a diamond membership for me and all my descendants in perpetuity from Danny Rensch, got a special intrusive gift from Hans Niemann and declined a foot massage from Agadmator. Then I woke up and saw that Magnus had opened with his knight to f3 so I threw my laptop out the window
The fact that the greatest endgamer of all time didn't know that rule is also amazing in its own right. He doesn't need to learn rules, he just figures them out instinctively
botez: *intense thinking and breathing* magnus: *laughing and talking to his friend explaining why one is more handsome than the other* me watching: what on earth is going on-
Pretty much, I believe in this clip Botez gained more effeciency than Magnus as the games went on. The playing was super fast because of the premoves made each game. As you said, both sides of this epic battle were playing roles : Magnus and his friends the mafia trying to recruit Botez to increase their ranks, even inticing Magnus to get in a couple with her at some point 😂. I wasn’t there on stream but that’s what I got from watching the video and reading somme of the comments, so if anyone feels like adding something to my comment, feel free to do so ^^. I am new to chess btw and this was super fun and entertaining to watch, as well as a bit instructive, somewhat ✌️ Clearly rooting for Botez here, even if she was played to be the underdog 😉
This guy is soooooo good. A master is screaming beating him when he only had 30 seconds and they had 5 mins. And it took them like 6 attempts. I’m not slighting Alex. I’m just appreciating how gifted his mind is. Like wow
Funny thing is she wouldn’t have beat him on time if he didn’t spend like 5 seconds looking away from the camera and talking to the guys He would probably be the favourite with like 12 seconds as well, and Alexandra is a WFM, insane
@@hankmoody666 idk how insane that is.. WFM equals to approximately 2100 FIDE. Magnus is 2850 FIDE The difference between them is like the difference between a 1000 and a 2000.
He uses less than 1s on each move while talking to the other guys and wasted many seconds looking away. If he was serious like Alexandra then gl to Alexandra
@@aaaab384 Right, but it's a nice thing to see when you know that most people in a similar or equivalent position don't really acknowledge their colleagues/co-athletes in the field. Magnus has bragging rights in a way (since, yes, he is really good at chess) but he's not full of spite for people who are lesser than him. And in this day and age, it's just a bit refreshing to see. Chess used to be a very elitist sport.
7:18 Are you telling me Magnus Carlsen, arguably the greatest chess player of all time and the person who has studied literally every move in chess, legitimately learned something from Alex Botez? That’s a W on its own right there tbh.
Before that he could always see when a king was going to get there in time but using the square technique uses less cognitive power. I wonder if it also makes him calculate it 0.1 of a second faster.
Despite having only 30 seconds, there is always smile in his face, but sometimes having 5 minutes can make a person nervous all the time in every game. It really proves how great player he is....
30 seconds is a lifetime…ok it’s not, but if you play bullet, your mostly playing from memory, your not playing a game in uncharted territory, however, playing with 30 seconds against someone who has 5 minutes is a completely different ball game, or board game if you will, she can make moves that would throw you out of familiar territory and force you to think on your feet
Having five minutes is not great either. Sure she has more time, but if she doesnt play fast, he will have more time to analyze the board, which just results in her losing.
That endgame in 13:00 is a beautiful one. Alexandra is a solid player and it shows you how much knowledge magnus has about chess to have that much defense with the few pieces that remain
Alex is not joke. She is really strong. It is almost impossible to beat Magnus even for some grand masters. It is only single win with difference time limit but totally worth it.
She is strong, but Magnus made her look like an absolute beginner by beating her with such odds. Giving those odds to an actual grandmaster would be an insult, and even the GOAT will never ever pull something like this against a GM
Something alot of people don't know: the trick with having more time isn't to stop and think about your move it's to play just as fast as your opponent because the time you take to think is the time your opponent uses to look at the board but if you playing just as fast as your opponent at the end of the game you might be a couple minutes up.
This felt like watching a superhero movie. Just incredible emotions all around. Was expecting Alexandra to go full Gladiator with "are you not entertained!" in the end 😂
this reminded me of a tennis player with a quote: "And let that be a lesson to you all. Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row." - after defeating Jimmy Connors at the January 1980 Masters.
@@matthieuschmitter6676 nah, im too young to new him at his playing age, he's just from lithuanian decent, so somehow he came up when we talked with colleges about lithuanian tennis players.
@@Phyletus let's say Magnus Carlson won the games against you about 1000 times No body bats an eye But you win one time Everyone losses their minds. It's not because Magnus is bad at chess it's because nobody expect you to win because Magnus is actually very good at the game. (If I spelled any thing wrong please don't correct me I don't have any respect for this language tnx)
Why do I see so much hate in comment section? You're very good one, 95% of all chess players can't even beat him when he just premoves... You've done a great job Alex!
@@TR-4 True. But that's not what the point of my comment was. My comment has to do with the fact that he was looking away from his screen for all that time while playing this game of chess where every second matters. He may not care a lot here, but he certainly isn't trying to let anyone win. The point of my comment is that he looked like a clown doing what he did-regardless of the circumstances of the game and whether he was trying as hard as he possibly could or not. To look away from the screen that way for that long is 🤡 stuff, period. Btw- I'm KBP120
Imagine the level of play required by Alex here to Botez gambit just to put Magnus into a false sense of security and beat him like 3 games later. That is true strategic mastery.
It's just a crazy part of the human experience that in any competitive arena, at the very high end of the distribution, there's still so much differentiation. Alex is a great chess player, but Magnus is Magnus.
This is sooo funny, I laughed myself to tears. I watched the final minutes over and over again. What a cliffhanger. 20:55: "ahah he is thinking!!" Meaning: he needed a whopping 2.5 seconds for his next move! Look at how the facial expressions change in both of them. Even Alex getting silent (very uncharacteristic) in the last seconds, completely devoted, I love it. And then: yes! Yeeeesss! She is completely bouncing of the walls while she tries to hold back her tears of happiness. Lovely. Meanwhile the clip shows the enormous difference between a very good chess player and the utter genius Carlsen is. Look at how casual he is playing despite only having 30 seconds. He plays chess like I breathe.
"How I Beat Magnus Carlsen" The recipe is to have ten to one time odds and try seven times to finally have a game where Magnus doesn't pay attention for 5 out of his 30 seconds (19:02-), and let him lose on time right before he checkmates you.
@@TheRuns2 No, it wouldn't work. I'm a weaker chess player than Alexandra Botez. So I should set Magnus' clock to 5 seconds against my 5 minutes. Then I could beat him one out of seven times, and make a video about my glorious triumph. ;)
@@andraspongracz5996 You don't understand chess as well as you think you do. If you continue to study, and mature as a person, you'll realize that you're embarrassing yourself when you say things like this. People cease to learn with attitudes like yours
I love how when giving up the queen he had a moment of doubt that you were trapping him with your own personal gambit invention. hahaha, but then realized actually there was no trap.
This was an amazing video!! What’s crazy is she rated more than triple my elo and she had to win on time about to be mated. The sheer joy was incredible. Well done.
That is definitely a legit win and she deserves to be proud of that win! Magnus is not only the best chess player in the world, he is a chess genius, and is 1000 higher than Alex. This win is like winning the Mike Tyson 1 round challenge during Mike's prime, but instead of winning money, Alex has this accomplishment to brag about for the rest of her life!👏👏👏
Epic. :) The sub-1000s in the comment section saying "hurr durr, he only had 30 secs" have no idea how tough it is to beat Magnus even with those time odds...
Remember when magnus played, 30secs vs 5mins with a grandmaster in a tournament when he stuck in traffic and still won the game... , no doubt it is easy for him to play with alex with that time difference..
LOL... I think this just adds to Magnus' genius... took you 10 games to win one because of time when he was only given 30 seconds... 2 more seconds and he would have beaten you again. Not saying you're bad.. you could probably do what he did to you to me... but WOW.. he is brilliant.
He is 2852 in blitz, she is 2059. That is an enormous difference. It's like an amateur gets in the ring with Mayweather (the greatest defensive fighter that's ever lived) and gets schooled for 11 rounds, but in the 12 th manages to catch him with an uppercut and sends him to the ground scoring a knock down and stealing that round. Yes, he got massacred, but he can proudly say that he managed to score a knock down to one of the greats.
@@Andrei-Marian I wouldn't say that was anything akin to a knockdown. The clock just ran out while he was in the process of knocking her down again : 🤣
@@Andrei-Marian that is in no way the same thing. If the amateur ran around the ring running for their life and Mayweather tripped and fell down running after them and somehow knocked themselves out then it would be a fair comparison lol.
@@BCD10 hahaha. Thank you for the laugh with the mental imagery. Just give the girl a break guys. She's not Judit Polgar to beat him without some kind of advantage, but the name of the game was "adoption = 10 wins in a row" and she managed to escape that.
As a 51-yr-old trying to learn chess from nothing, I can only dream to play as well as either or both of you. Thank you for this fun video! I was rooting for Ms. Botez despite the time difference, and celebrate with her! As a dad of 3 daughters, I admire strong women who are confident and classy in the face of intense pressure. 99+% of men in chess could not beat her, much less show the class she showed in this video.
If they are still in print look for the chess books by Yasser Seirawan. They teach you the elements, tactics, strategy, openings and endgames. This is the heart of good chess.
The fact that she had to play with him with 30 seconds and make him play black and plays him like 4 times of losing until she finally beats him is just funny.
While Magnus was casually relaxing on a typical Tuesday evening, for her, it was an intense and competitive game that required great effort and dedication.
At 0.7 seconds I think Rc2 was his winning move but he did check instead. It’s like he can’t see every possibility when spending only 0.2 seconds on each move.
I never saw a person saying "he is thinking" with so much happiness and excitement. Very nice video, the breathing and all that forehead hair touching means you are legit player, girl you lived that game in its all intensity, I sub just for that.