Magnus Carlsen loses sometimes, especially in fast events, because he takes too many risks or prioritizes fun over efficiency. But it is very rare for him to be swept off the board like in the game in this video, which he played with white in the 2017 World Cup (slow chess), when he had been the undisputed champion for four years. His executioner, the Chinese Xiangzhi Bu, gives up a pawn in the opening for the initiative, which he conducts with virtuosity, and finishes with great beauty and accuracy.
You have to have enormous talent to defeat the Norwegian like this, and Bu (born in 1985) has it, without a doubt. He was the youngest grandmaster in history until that time, when he was 13 years, 10 months and 13 days old. And he was also the most splendid exponent of the first batch of male Chinese stars – several women had previously shone – two decades after the leader of the Government Den Xiaoping, successor of the mythical Mao Zedong, took power and revoked the ban on chess. . In view of the succession of enormous successes achieved by the next generation of Chinese players, one wonders how far Bu would have come if he were born ten years later.
