How Magnus DESTROYS Pins 

🎙I apologize for the poor audio quality! I'll be working on fixing this ASAP!

Next: How Magnus responds to checkmate

I now see the difference between Magnus and me. That is, sometimes I ignore the pin as well, but Magnus doesn't lose the queen in the process.

The way I see it, Magnus does not ignore the threat 55% of the times, he just delays his counter by a few moves.

I think it's tempting to focus on the 55%... but it's also important to note that almost half the time Magnus does react. You have to have the right positioning to ignore the pin. And Magnus is probably much better than most at being in the position to take advantage of ignoring it

Timestamps: 1:25-2:29 Moved Queen 2:35-4:00 Defended with Knight 4:06-5:15 Defended with Queen 5:40-6:44 Blocked with Bishop 6:50-9:12 Attacked with Flank Pawn 9:30-12:43 Ignored 12:43-13:22 Summary

A mindset I developped by playing shogi is "if I can't react in a way I'm ok with, I have to attack where it hurts" and it's actually the concept here, focusing on influence and aggro when under pressure.

Damn Nelson thank you for working so hard on one topic for us which occurs a lot in our regular games

3:29 By moving his Queen there he also pins the knight to the white king, which was previously defending e4

“It isn’t a checkmate, it’s just a king sacrifice.”

I appreciate the effort that went into video. Very interesting. Cheers

Thank you for taking the time to post and analyze this! The bishop pin to the knight is the most common early opening... Almost every game I play my opponent does this, and it's my least favorite move. It's more annoying than anything, and I always find a way to un-pin as soon as possible, and then punish them for daring to threaten my king or queen.

My favourite opening with white is the Blackmar-Deimer Gambit. With black, it's the Dutch Defense.

GREAT video! This is becoming one of my favorite chess channels. People talk about chess style all the time with GMs; that's easy enough to see in a broad sense, but the specifics are not. This kind of statistical breakdown over commonly occuring positions (here, a pinned queen) gives real, teaching insight beyond just characterizing style of play in a word. I wish you success to keep making these specific types of videos. This seems like a ton of work, and it's very instructive. Gonna share this with some friends now. Making a contribution to your channel atm is just too hard for me to do (hopefully soon, I'd love to support this channel) , so sharing is the least -- or most? -- I could do. Either way, thanks again for this great video!

You say he "ignores" it but he eventually Castles out of it, that's why his next two moves after the pin was to make room for the king to castle ASAP

can we just appreciate the fact that he had to find 100 games that Magnus was pinned ⁉️

Thank You, Nelson! Very enlightening, I will be using these examples tomorrow at my Chess Club. Also, wanting you to know that there are so many examples of such diligent work on your part in the sharing of many such excellent examoles. Your Ch. is always greatly appreciated. Have a Grand Day!! ..... Mike.

I love how your videos are straight to the point and you explain clearly.. most chess channels want to give too much of their input, confuse you with a lot of moves the best players dont even do for a reason, and never get to the point! Great content brother

Very interesting bit of information. Thank you for putting this all together.

Excellent focus on the subject about "pin" on the knight! Thank you for your effort in presenting this subject . More success to your endeavors sir!

Such a useful video, great work on the research, this channel is golden

This channel has to be amongst the top 3 channels on youtube when it comes to learning Chess! Love your work mate..

Excellent video! Thank you so much for putting the time to analyze all of these games, NM Nelson!

you really do your research. kudos and love your channel, man! can you maybe also share a vid on openings beyond e4e5?

You must have put in many hours in analyzing all those situations, thank you so much for yet another amazing video!

This was great, please do more of these!

So he seems to look for ways to have his defense serve his own attack and otherwise just lets the opponent capture. That's a great lesson!

Wow, really informative. Thanks for all the work you put into gathering this knowledge for everyone!

3:24 me when I'm trying to form a damn simple phrase in English 😂

Amazing way to explain, so complete and really full of examples and information, thank you!

Did you do the data yourself or do you have a team? These are impressive findings

Magnus' reaction to that pin:

Nice work finding and summarizing all these games, thanks! Since all these pins happen in different scenarios, and not all of them threathen doubling the pawns, it would be nice to see how he responds to the actual threat of doubling a pawn.

Great info. Thanks for putting in the work.

You should have made two seperate charts for knight pinning to king and knight pinning to queen and other things as there he can move the knight too

I think the reason that he ignores for more than half of the cases is that, the king and queen will be moved away a few moves later even without the pin, so it's really not worth to waste a tempo to deal with the pin, unless the opponent has a good follow up to exploit the pin

I think in the case of a queen pin, you can flank pawn attack because queen just recaptures and pawn structure isn't damaged. It also prepares the escape square for a kingside castle. Additionally, in a king pin, I think its best to move the bishop as it defends the knight and develops a piece. Despite Magnus ignoring over half of the time, my observations are probably better for lower rated players because we may not know how to take advantage of the position and just being a pawn or other down. I'd like some feedback to know if my analysis was good as a low rated player. Edit: Considering the counter attack option, it does seem good but again, its a lot easier for a low rated player to not know how to counterattack correctly and defending may seem like the more solid option.

I really like your videos, not only are they entertaining but I learn something with every video, thanks.

Hey Nelson, I have a challenge for you Play a match against Martin, but "without" your Queen, and both of your Rooks. You are allowed to promote your Pawn to a Rook, but not to a Queen. Good luck!

thanks for putting in the work on this video. I used to always either immediately break the pin or threaten the bishop. Now I try other things first

This is a great video. This video will surely improve my future chess gameplay and skills. Thank you very much.

One could argue that moving the bishop in the first example is not ignoring it, but is preparing to castle so the knight is no longer pinned. Great info, thanks

Next suggestion: how Nelson responds to hate comments Edited: I don't know how serious Nelson analyze this. This dedication is so underrated

I like these analysis videos. You might even consider using all grandmaster-level games as an initial starting point, although the dataset would be much larger.

Your efforts must be appreciated. It is not easy to find 100 good games and analyze them. The video is very helpful and it vanished one of my difficulties

That was so interesting. keep doing great work man.👍

Nice deep dive into studying Magnus' games. Thanks for sharing.

In example one, moving the queen, it would have been nice to see the next move by Magnus. I'd imagine he defended against the knight but still seeing his next move and (depending on your expertise, 1st time viewer) if he wanted the knight to come in or if he should have just moved the queen to defend against the knight initially. Love the content idea. Edit: just saw you're titled so your expertise is obviously valued.

Great extensive analysis. Cracked me up when Nelson failed to say "easily"

I'm absolutely brand new to chess, so this is probably an example of what I should not be watching at this moment, but brilliant food for thought, so many options scenario dependent. Thank you for taking the time!

brilliant!! that is true chess analysis. I wish I could see more like this one!

Super helpful! Thank you for this vid!

This is a very good idea from you. You can make othet analysises of magnus responses to certain positions/openings/inputs

Very interesting study! Thanks

Note the “ignore” play happens in Q gambit w the pawn gone so no double pawn in recapture. Major factor.

When you say he ignores it, it looks like this only happens in specific scenarios: i.e. he sees an easy oportunity to move the piece behind the knight outmof the way in a way that helps him more

Appreciate the time and effort you put into this video!! Thank you very much!!!!

Thanks for the analysis. You must have put a lot of effort in. You definitely got some useful results.

Great analysis. Thanks 🙏

Very good Nelson. Thank you for the effort.

Thanks for another excellent video Nelson I have learnt alot from you!

Actually at 3:30 and moments leading to it, it's just the cambridge springs defense and all theory.

Nelson, you're a real one! Keep up the good work.

I’d say castling address the pin on the king there, rather than completely ignoring it.

Incredible job for us, Nelson 👍 Thx a lot 💖

crazy video, huge props! you did a really good job there!

What I have always thought about chess strategies is that the offense is the best defense. I guess it is true. You want to constantly create threats to the opponent. And by defending, you're actually giving more chances to the opponent to put you even worse situation since you are not developing your pieces and creating threats, but the opponent is.

Aren't you assuming that the move immediately following a pin is always in response to the pin which I would think is not necessarily true. The move could be motivated by another factor entirely! 😁 love the channel by the way.

Thanks for sharing the hard works man. Much appreciated..and God bless

I think it would have been nice, if you had included some examples of the flank pawn attack with a pin on the king. Usually the pawn structure feels very awkward if the opponents decides to capture (especially early on in the game). And: Are there any differences in percentage when it comes to "attack with flank pawn" on King vs Queen pin?

I almost always immediately kick with the A/H pawn. I’m going to mess around with not responding immediately to it and see how that feels.

There's Magnus ignoring the pin and winning and then there's me ignoring the pin and getting smothered or ending up in a fork

VERY insightful. Thanks!

How do you find the time? I am learning so much and truly am gratified with your expeertise.

Brilliant narration dear... ❤️❤️❤️

Great analysis! I appreciate it very much.

Can you do about queen and king fork, queen secured, or queen pin

TY for the video. Bobby fischer had the same mindset, that the best defense is a good offense.

I really love your sense of humor. And everything else!

"You can do it Nelson" 🤣🤣🤣

7:44 thats a solid opening, the anderssen

thank you nelson now i wont fail to win in a boxing game as i now know dogs bark

I love this video. This was a lot of effort.

I think it's because he values development over attack or counter attack. Keeping his options open do he can focus on winning the game instead of getting dragged into a minor scuffle

Great video, thanks Nelson.

you have really put work in this video and its cool

Nice work nelson!

I'd be curious to see win/lose/draw% for each of the slices, also

Thank you. So informative 🎉

Cut to Hikaru gratefully watching this in his hotel room the night before his next match with Magnus. Fantastic video btw!

What a hard working man lol. I always wondered what the best move was against a king sided knight fork. I hated having that doublepawn and when you start with something like the italian game i dont want to move the bishop back

These type videos are amazing content

The whole video is spoiled on 0:44, we know what the blue slice will be

thank you well appreciated! this is so good for my play.

One of your best videos. Makes me wonder how other players handle the same thing

Magnus truly embodies the saying "The best defense is a good offense"

Thanksgiving for putting this beneficial analysis together

Another common way to deal with a pinned knight is to out a knight inbetween instead of a bishop. That breaks the pin even if your other knight will now get pinned should you decided to move thr originally pimned knight. It's even theory in some openings.

I noticed in not one of the examples the pin happened very early in the game (as usually happens in beginner games). So I wonder what's the best response for that scenario

Sometimes i realize a pin too late, and in those situations just trade or attack on the other side of the board. Basically trying to make a mess with the board. It works out sometimes