A Beginner Lesson in the Ponziani Opening

from what i heard you actually you had a lesson with andrea where you learned the ponziani opening right yeah do you remember much from that lesson um i remember it relatively so so the thing with the ponziani by the way is is really funny i had a lesson with andrea and they were like yeah ponziani is really cool and then i played against a few people then i had a new lesson with nemo i believe it was nemo and they were like oh yeah don't um ultimately it's up to you ponziani i think it's a very effective opening against players below like any rating below 2000 but it takes some work to understand like what you're supposed to do right so i i i would go i would go uh g3 with the knight uh i think you mean f3 f3 you also have the ability to make moves oh so yeah yeah and then knight c6 uh and then that c3 so the the whole point of ponziani you just want to take over the center and i think this is aligned with kind of your understanding and opening you want to get two pawns in the center have good control have nice development now when you play this opening there's a few things you kind of have to be ready for is what happens when black attacks your pawn either knight f6 or d5 um and i'll go through um so first of all if black doesn't attack your pawn like a lot of times black might play a move like d6 or bishop c5 these are like the i'll call them the beginner moves first of all bishop c5 it's an attempt to prevent you from playing d4 it actually makes d4 stronger because you attack the bishop and your pawn is supported three times and if black goes for the trade trade if they try taking on d4 again you're going to be winning material because you'll have the last capture yeah on top of that black's gonna have to move the bishop again if they play some check you just complete developing and you have really nice center everything's offended um i play this a lot like when i stream chess and play against viewers or noobs online i'll get this position a decent amount and players will walk into the trap after d6 i'll play d5 they'll move their knights and now white to move and win a piece that right very good yeah queen a4 the same tactic as previously in the sicilian position so yeah this queen a4 move will come up a lot also in ponziani um if they play d6 you just play d4 it's like if they don't challenge you you play d4 yeah i'll show you one trap from here which is kind of a nice one let's imagine they play knight f6 the move i really enjoy playing here okay is pawn h3 which looks a bit strange but the point is you're preventing the bishop from developing actively and if they want to develop to e6 you fork them right so that's that's a simple trap the more complicated trap is what happens if they take your pawn yeah i was going to say what if they just take it um this is a question for you white to move you can win material by force even though you just lost a pawn you can win one of the knights um and be on the table oh you can just do that good yeah pawn d5 really nice move removing this knight wow and setting up queen a4 yeah you open the fourth rank and the diagonal that's good very common ponziani trap uh this can also happen like if they take first and then take you still have the same idea and i can't tell you how many games i've had this i even had this against nemo like i played her in the splits match she took the pawn i played d5 and then she resigned after queen a4 i'll play a ponziani ponziani time fun opening very effective opening against like beginner players but maybe it's it could be effective against her if she's not usually an e5 player yeah d6 is it's playable sometimes leads to a passive position oh no my pawn please take it please if if knight takes i i push knight moves and i fork the the king and knight it's a classic trap maybe she's thinking about it wow it worked yeah this is like um kind of unique to the ponziani it's a nice opening trap i had this uh one year at us open like the first round now i think she's realizing yeah so even strong players will walk into this that's cool yeah um that's one of the things i like with ponziani there is uh there's of course uh approach where you're just trying to control the center and be very solid but there's also kind of these tricky traps that can catch a lot of players off guard [Music] um let's look at like the more challenging moves uh perhaps starting with d5 i did look up some of your games like you've had this position and you know the right moves yeah i it was it was something to do with this good yeah where you pressure black from very early i know you had one game where your opponent played bishop d7 and this just loses the pawn you take the pawn and you're okay with discoveries the worst black can do to you is knight d4 hitting your queen you just move back if they take you take now i know the one game i don't know how recent it was but you played knight a3 in this position i did i believe so okay it may have been a while ago like i just kind of what i did i downloaded all your games and looked into uh this opening um what you would want to do is is focus on your kingside development get your king castled and also defend this pawn yeah it would be something like um bishop to c4 bishop c4 great move yeah and then you just want to play d3 castle bishop g5 even if you end up losing back upon uh then it's just equal material and you'll have a fine position um what a lot of players will do is take on e4 like they'll see the pin but they see oh you can trade pawns um this is a move i encounter most online and here you keep your queen on a4 you win the e5 pawn so creating this pin um and now you have a double attack you're threatening to take on c6 but also to take on e4 so the only way black can defend everything is to play queen d5 so defense this is actually very multi-purpose move defending defending attacking you very simply take back on c6 and you're not quite winning material here material here unless black takes with a queen then then your eyes should light up because what does white do oh uh bishop to b5 there should be five bingo and you you win the queen so black would have to take with a pawn and then the problem for black is the structure is really really weak um c6 is weak e4 is weak and i'm starting to like the ponziani more now that's my goal is to to make you like it to give you some confidence uh to prove all the doubters wrong yeah and you continue here with bishop c4 black doesn't have time to develop the minor pieces because the queen's hit you're um you're still pressuring the pawns the queen has to stay defending this pawn black might play a move like this then you just castle get your rook in there's a concept in chess it's called developing with tempo or developing with attack where you bring in bring in pieces to the game while making threats so bishop c4 was developing with tempo rookie one will develop and it gives you time and it slows down the opponent from completing their own development and a plan like this and this box cannot be under major major pressure right so um [Music] i know we're going through like a lot of different lines but uh that was basically after d5 queen a4 i think you you'll you know enough to to look forward to going into that if black doesn't play d5 the most common move is knight f6 which i've seen you you've had a lot of games in and you've never played the right move in this position no okay i think you've usually like been concerned about your pawn you've played either like d3 or queen c2 and just trying to like be solid the rule in ponziani if black doesn't play d5 you play d4 no matter what the d5 is met with queen a4 everything else is met with d4 so 96 you play d4 um and you are allowing black to win a pawn but you're going to win it straight back so the two main moves here for black are either takes or takes whatever black does you're going to push a pawn forward and attack one of the knights yeah so let me test you if black takes this pawn what'd you do d5 yeah and black takes this pawn you push to e5 awesome let's start with this line okay because um i think it's most common you'll push e5 i can't tell you how many times i've had this position where black will go wrong because there's only one good night move for black which a lot of players just don't play um i'll actually pose this to you as a question like if you were black what would you do with your knights realistically i would literally put it in e4 and just think about it that's one of the the main mistakes here for black the reason this is a mistake is because after queen e2 the knights attacked again black would really want to defend it with a pawn let's say d5 but how can you really punish black here upper shot yeah okay you've you you know it i saw you on passante yesterday the crowd was going wild here it's extra powerful because not only do you remove the defender of the knight but you vacate the e-file so now the knight is pinned to the king on top of that you're controlling e7 so black doesn't have queen e7 [Music] right and the knight is attacked and pinned if bishop to f5 um i'm actually trying to remember i think just knight t2 and you're gonna win the knight black doesn't have another way to defend right so after queen e2 black's already in trouble if they play knight c5 you take again you you keep your initiative you keep making threats and lights being kicked around to some awkward swear if here you can fork and uh yeah you're actually not winning material here because knight d4 but um you can trade and just you're fully dominating the center with a great position so that's very very cool um yeah again one of the reasons why i like ponziani is there's so many ways for black to go wrong if black plays like this move this move or this move you just take and you have really nice center pawns very easy development um same thing with queen e7 which a lot of players will play thinking they're so clever like they're pinning your pawn they're attacking it twice but after you take black is in a situation where now the bishop is stuck behind the queen and then the king can't easily castle and the kings will be stuck in the center for longer if they try and play d6 attacking your pinned pawn you respond with a counter pin and that way you reinforce e5 if there's a trade you just take back and you're gonna have a really nice position like black can't win the pawn uh maybe black could try with knight g4 but then you just castle don't even attempt to defend the pawn now in this position you can you can say oh no my pawn because black can win it but if they win it uh how do you punish them oh this is rook e1 rookie one yeah it's very common theme in ponziani where you you castle sooner than your opponent you get to the file and the center is open like this there's bound to be some problems for black okay so i'm trying to be thorough here but like going back to this position the only good move for black is knight d5 so saving uh saving the knight putting it on a good central square and here i'll show you show you like two more moves and then you'll be good to go okay the first move i recommend is queen b3 not taking the pawn yet but just improving this is another developing with tempo move you activate your queen and you make a threat the only good square for the knight is uh back to b6 and then you take on if on d4 and this is really all you need to know at least in this specific variation if you get to this position great center more space easy development with your bishops maybe one more tip if black ever moves a d-pawn the best square for your bishop is to b5 to pin the knight i had a game once um against an 1800 rated player they played d5 i played bishop e5 they checked me white to move you could just take the yeah you just take the bishop yeah you just take it whatever nightly my opponent resigned after this so a nice little trap so bishop b5 is nice because you pin the knight but you prevent black from developing actively right yeah so um yeah if you get this you're good to go this is actually one of the main lines in the panziani so um it's possible if you play the ponziano correctly you could get this a decent amount let's go back actually actually seems very cool all right now the other pawn now the other pawn yeah so if knight takes e4 e4 we push to d5 you push the d5 uh good right the knight's attacked most players will play knight e7 and now you just win back the pawn you take on e5 yeah and now i want to pose this as a question let's imagine you're playing black here what move would you play hmm [Music] maybe either d6 or probably probably d6 yeah d6 is like the most natural intuitive move like open up the bishop attack the knights d6 is a terrible terrible blunder okay so now let's let's flip a situation white to move and punish this move white's not going to be retrieved all right all right okay okay i see it now i see that you can win the knight with what okay so good it's good you remember queen a4 you actually have a better move here queen a4 actually trades after bishop d7 you win the night then you lose back your knight yeah yeah sure um although maybe maybe 97 you're still doing well but there's a more powerful move um [Music] see this is scary right maybe maybe hmm i i'm not against this because i i feel like it's something to do with with czech good you have the right idea it's just about kind of being confident with execution right um to try and make things as simple as possible you're checking the king only way for black to get out of shack is to block you're controlling both these squares more times than black so if black plays c6 oh actually first of all black plays bishop d7 you take okay and then you're gonna win the queen yeah that's true if c6 you can take and now you leave your knight undefended but if takes this is where things get really fun like to move you have that you just take and you're gonna be making a new queen if bishop here yeah your queen i would say uh you could also take first um i would take first because if if oh i guess they can take with the oh no they can't take with the king there's so many ways to win this like takes on d7 or takes and making a new queen everything works um the reason why i like to take here is because after takes it's immediately mate oh right right they can't take but if you wanna like there's so many ways to torture black too like you could take and takes and then you make a queen and then you have two queens and um black's already dead here yeah uh the best try for black is to take back with pawn but then you have time just to win material on c6 you take you set up the discovery [Music] and if there's a trade this is a uh really nice tactic oh wow oh that's a lot too yeah and if here you actually don't take the rook because then black gets the bishop for it you just take the knight yeah if you take the rook you're only up two points and then denies three yeah i actually want to test you one move further queenie seven what would you play um i might just do queen eat two queenie two completely fine if you want it to be tricky castling is a cool move where you you say oh no my bishop but you win the queen so oh yeah yeah you're right so i think casting is a bit more useful because you get out of the pin and you set up rookie one so whenever the king and queen are aligned like this and the files open just try and get your rook to the e-file as quickly as possible yep anyway um yeah someone is pointing out in my chat i like the castling one that was that was cool yeah yeah there's like so many uh so many of these ideas will come up in in different types of positions but uh even different types of openings so yeah um going back to actually going back like to this key position we were just looking at takes pawn push here you take back so it's a blunder for black to play d6 because of bishop e5 um if black knows what they're doing sorry i guess we have f6 there's f6 but this would actually f6 is kind of interesting um i'd really want to punish this move like looking for queen h5 but then there's g6 so [Music] uh let me see if there's any way to punish this move immediately yeah with f6 you just move back and this pawn is a bit out of place and you just want to play bishop d3 teacher i want one too and then in a better position exactly like you're gonna have uh [Music] more more potential to attack like you're gonna castle sooner um if knight g6 which is probably the best move for black again you just take takes bishop d3 castling very stable position nothing much to worry about really because now now oh they do have the file that's true but you're attacking the knights okay so the knight will probably move back um yeah i remember this this is reminiscent of what we looked at earlier you're okay casting into this because worst case scenario you just play h3 and they can't really do much and the prospect of rook e1 is much more powerful you're also also bishop f4 if you want to um be solid um of course depending what black does if black tries to win the pawn then the knights left undefended all lined with your queen you actually have a nice kind of tactical shot here bishop takes g6 yeah i was thinking that i was thinking that it it looks good and yeah then i mean black's really underdeveloped rookie one's coming the light's attacked life is really good here um so i i tried to give you like the the ponziani in a nutshell i know we went kind of deep into lobby's lines um you're more than welcome to like review this uh this will all be saved in the vaude too but um i'd recommend like trying it out in in practice yeah i'm definitely gonna try uh the ponziani a little bit more now um cool rewatch the vod really just don't do the wrong move in the ponziani because i feel like i have played the ponzioni before i feel like i just don't necessarily make the right move at the right time that's why i wasn't too keen on it yet yeah sometimes when learning a new opening if you go wrong early then you're just left in an unpleasant situation but if you know if you know the right ideas and kind of the right sequences then it can be a lot more enjoyable to play and a lot of it is just putting in like the practice like getting it in your games if you run into something you didn't weren't sure what to do or not so comfortable with um try to make note of it uh if you have questions feel free to just reach out but um be cool to like see you playing this and uh in games and just see how it goes

Channel: Eric Rosen

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Keywords: chess, imrosen, Eric Rosen, Chess Openings, Chess Tactics, Blunder, Chess Strategy, Twitch Chess, Chess Stream, lichess, IM Rosen, IM Eric Rosen, Eric Rosen Chess, Best YouTube Chess Channel, Best Chess Channel, YouTube Chess, Blitz Chess, Speed Chess, Chess Commentary, International Master, Chess Tutorial, Chess.com, chess game, chess video, chess explained, Checkmate, rapid chess, chess 2021, ponziani opening, fundy chess, fundy, pogchamps, opening traps, eric rosen ponziani

Id: tqZLFyZbfDk

Length: 25min 1sec (1501 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 11 2021