A day after chess legend Magnus Carlsen said that he was most impressed by Turkish phenom Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus at the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament, Hans Niemann handed the 14-year-old a defeat in just 26 moves in round 7 of the Samarkand event.
Carlsen, while talking to the Take Take Take app, was asked which young player had impressed him at Grand Swiss. The world no 1 said: “Erdogmus is really, really good, at almost unprecedented levels at that age. So, he’s clearly impressed me the most from the young, non-established players.”
Just hours after those comments aired, Niemann — who was involved in a $100 million lawsuit with Carlsen over unsubstantiated allegations that Niemann had cheated at the Sinquenfield Cup — crushed the Turkish youngster after negating his opening surprises.
Playing with white pieces, Niemann got an advantage early on and kept pushing the teenager till he resigned in 26 moves. Niemann thus became the first player to defeat Erdogmus at Grand Swiss, a feat that world champion Gukesh, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Vincent Keymer, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (who is also Erdogmus’s coach) and Aditya Mittal could not manage in previous rounds.
INTERACTIVE: How Hans Niemann beat Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus in 26 moves
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All the moves from Niemann’s win over Erdogmus
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. O-O Bg4 8. c3 f5 9. Nbd2 Qf6 10. Qa4 O-O-O 11. Bb5 Nxd2 12. Nxd2 f4 13. Re1 f3 14. h3 Bh5 15. Bxc6 bxc6 16. Re5 Qg6 17. g3 Bd6 18. Nb3 Rhf8 19. Be3 Rde8 20. Qxc6 Bxe5 21. Qa8+ Kd7 22. Nc5+ Ke7 23. Qxd5 Qf5 24. Bg5+ Rf6 25. dxe5 Qxg5 26. exf6+ gxf6
“He seemed so nervous, I wanted to keep pressure (on him). I wanted to get a positional, technical game against him, he’s quite a concrete young player, so you should take the kids to the endgame,” Niemann said on the FIDE livestream of the event while talking about the game. “I’ve looked at his games and technically and positionally when you are younger, you lack some experience with the endgame. You can tell by his opening choices that he’s trying to complicate the game at all costs. Mainly with younger players, because they lack experience, you want to get them into a position they have never played before. Another 2650-rated player who has experience would not get into trouble like this in the opening because they are a bit more pessimistic and they’re jaded from being crushed by stronger players. You have to learn lessons the hard way sometimes.”
Asked if he was helped by Erdogmus trying to be ambitious, Niemann said: “Definitely. It’s amazing when your opponents are ambitious with black pieces. You see some players are trying so hard to get a good game with white…”
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Niemann said that he was surprised with a couple of early moves from the young Erdogmus.
“The Petrov (defence) was quite a surprise, I don’t think he’s played it before. I was actually quite happy. He likes playing this weird forcing stuff,” the American added.
Niemann said that he had prepared “more” for this game, but not for the opening phase “because I knew he was going to surprise me”.
“I analyzed a lot of his games and his coach’s game and watched a lot of his online games to get a sense of his style,” Niemann added.
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