A Grandmaster Plays a Beginner | Chess Mastery Explained

hello everyone and welcome this is daniel uh and i'd like to welcome you to another video that i'm doing uh specifically and exclusively for youtube now this will be part of a series of videos which i talk about various uh instructional aspects of the rise to chess mastery so there will be a series of videos where i talk about common mistakes that beginners and intermediate players uh make and in today's video what i'm gonna do is play a 15-minute chess game against someone in the beginner slash intermediate rating range and i'm going to talk through my moves very carefully and i'm going to talk through my opponent's moves and point out the mistakes that my opponent is making uh as well as the things that i'm doing in order to well hopefully i'm gonna win the game in order to win the game and afterward i'll do a quick analysis session and extract a couple of lessons that you can apply uh in your own game so we're anticipating that this is going to be a pretty one-sided game but what i'm going to do here is very very carefully and in a detailed fashion i'm going to talk about every one of my moves the decision-making process that's leading me to make it as well as how i go about identifying mistakes within my opponent's plane well how that can teach us to be a better chess player so without further ado i am going to seek a game in chess.com's 15 minute plus 10 second increment pool now what the 10 second increment means is that every move that you execute you get 10 seconds added back to your clock and both of us start with 15 minutes on our clock which will give me plenty of time to well hopefully talk through my moves and think about things normally on my stream i play blitz chess which is three minutes per game and bullet chest which is one minute per game or lower playing a slower game is a new experience for me and here we go we're playing niyoyu 25 from belize and my opponent opens with one e4 i am going to open with one e5 which is my main move it's also the most popular chess move it's the king's pawn game he goes knight f3 well i'm going to go knight to c6 just defending the pawn this is standard fare and he plays this should be five which is the rye lopez opening also called the spanish game and the idea of this move is that he's indirectly putting pressure on this pawn on e5 now you might say well how he has this move has nothing to do with that pawn well it does because this knight on c6 is defending the pawn and well white's bishop is potentially threatening to take that knight so what i'm going to do is play the move a6 and this might seem to merely bring on my fate because he can take on c6 and then capture my pawn but after the game i'll talk a little bit about why that's not as effective as it might seem so he drops his bishop back correctly and in turn i will simply develop my knight and pressure his pawn on e4 now once again once again i'm not really attacking this pawn on e4 and in short the reason why is because i haven't completed my development when you haven't completed your development especially your kingside development as you can see i haven't developed my bishop haven't developed my king you want to be very careful about grabbing pawns now it's become a moot point because he's brought his knight out and defended that pawn so i'm a little bit annoyed by the pressure that the bishop is exerting over the night so what i'm going to do is go b5 and and chase his bishop away and this will allow me to develop my pieces uh in a harmonious fashion i'm looking at this bishop for my fate when you're developing a piece a lot of beginners they just choose the first square that comes to mind so they'll develop the bishop here or here and they won't realize that every development square has its strengths and weaknesses now what i'm trying to do is find the most active development square for every piece that i'm developing when i'm looking at this bishop i'm asking myself where can it develop most actively where can it control the most central squares and i'm seeing that that square is definitely c5 because it's also contesting the weakest square on the chessboard which is f2 that could be a precursor to a potential attack that i could load up with a move such as knight to g4 now i'm anticipating my opponent will just continue his own development by castling this is still theory this is still very much common fair i've probably had this position before in some of my blitz games and we'll see what mr niyoyou comes comes to the table here with and he does castle as anticipated now i'm looking at this bishop on c8 and where i'd really like it to go is g4 because i'd like it to pin the knight to the queen pins are you know a huge asset all things held equal i could also do what's called a fianchetto and a fiance is when you place one of your bishops on what's called the long diagonal there are two long diagonals that criss-cross the chess board but i'm looking at this development square for the bishop and saying well if i put it there it's going to be blocked by my own knight i want to open up the diagonal the other diagonal for the bishop to put it on g4 still completely normal and what my opponent could do here potentially is play the move h3 uh in order to stop my in order to stop my bishop from coming out to g4 this is called prophylaxis which is a very intimidating sounding term until you realize that all that it really means is the stopping of what the threats posed by your opponent that is literally what prophylaxis means you know a lot of chess terms can sound intimidating now it appears that my opponent has unfortunately uh disconnected the game so he's got two minutes to reconnect um and i certainly hope that he does and you know internet problems are just the reality of of chess in the covet age um when a lot of tournaments have moved online and you know it's just important to have a stable internet connection um and i've certainly lost a lot of games by knocking out uh the connection to the router with my feet so it looks like my opponent has luckily reconnected as he continues to ponder his move so once again he plays d3 and he does allow my bishop to access this very active development square now notice how i've positioned all of my pieces on optimal squares this bishop sort of lining itself up with the king this bishop pinning the the queen he chases my bishop away now a lot of beginners they have a tendency when they see a capture to to to go for that capture so here i can capture the knight but that would defeat the whole purpose of what this bishop is doing which is essentially immobilizing that knight on f3 so i'm just going to drop that bishop back to h5 he pins my own knight he liked that idea okay so this is a very interesting situation that's that's now arisen now i'm annoyed by the pin and i'm sure he's annoyed by the pin the question is who can get rid of their pin first well i think that that person is going to be me i'm going to do the same thing he did and chase his bishop away and tempt him into taking my knight he drops his bishop back and here what i'm going to do is just say goodbye to that i'm going to play the move g5 attacking the bishop the bishop has to drop back to them to the g3 square now you might be looking at this move g5 and saying wait wait wait wait a second you're pushing pawns out on your king side aren't you about to castle short and if you castle short won't you have a very weak king now the answer to all of those questions is undoubtedly yes as my opponent plays a bit of an enigmatic move but after the game i'll unpack that a little bit further and explain why this is in fact justified in many cases the better you become a chess um the better you also become at violating strategically violating opening principles now as we can see my opponent has just left his bishop on h4 so i'm just gonna grab that guy and he's also not gotten rid of the pin so in parallel i'm going to think about what i've gained with this capture first i've gained a bishop and that's a pretty big game but i've also gained access to this g-file and when you're thinking about your opponent's king want to think about avenues to access that king avenues just mean diagonals and files that you could occupy arteries paths that eventually could lead you into an attack against the king so he's played knight d5 first question i ask myself is he threatening anything it might look like he's threatening my knight but that night is securely fast and securely fastened that's some airplane talk it's securely defended by the queen and so i can proceed with my main plan now what is my main plan well can i exploit the fact that my bishop is pinning his queen i'm looking at this knight on f3 and asking myself can i apply pressure on that knight because remember this knight cannot move if this knight moves he's going to lose his queen so what i'm going to do is play the move knight to d4 this has two purposes first of all i'm attacking his queen second of all i'm putting pressure on his knight am i attacking his knight not really because if i capture his knight with either one of my pieces he's just going to take back with the pawn but in chess it's very important to evaluate transformations whenever a piece has been captured with a pawn you want to look at the fallout and as he takes my knight i'm going to recapture his and the fallout is going to be that he's opened up that g file first of all i've taken his bishop so now i can put my rook on g8 and once this pawn leaves g2 well my rook is going to have a direct avenue toward my opponent's king and that's basically ladies and gentlemen is precursor to checkmate so let's take this guy knight takes f3 check again i'm not trying to win his piece i'm trying to open up an avenue toward his king which i'm now going to occupy with my rook this is a check he's moved his king to h1 and now it's time to deliver a series of crushing blows now what form are those crushing blows going to take well i'm looking at this f3 pawn the fastest way to evaluate whether or not you can take a pawn is by counting the number of attackers and defenders if a pawn is being attacked or any piece for that matter is being attacked more times than it is being defended you may take that piece or pawn in the absence of any other extenuating or indirect defenses if a piece or a pawn is being protected the same number of times that it's being attacked you usually cannot take that piece because you're going to run out of attackers that's just sort of there is some math behind it here we have two attackers and only one defender so i'm taking that pawn with my bishop this is several effects first of all ladies and gentlemen i'm winning that queen this is a fork some people think that forks can only happen with knights not true forks can be delivered by any piece yes even the king can deliver a fork a fork is just a specialized way of saying an attack against two pieces at once it's also known as a double attack that's the more generalized uh expression this and i think forks have you know a connotation as being knight forks but this is a bishop fork i'm attacking his king and i'm attacking his queen unfortunately by the rules of chess he's got to move his king or he's got to give up his queen for the bishop now it turns out that i'm not even looking for his queen here i'm looking for his king and a very important thing to do is that when you well there's this famous expression when you see a good move look for a better one and you really do have to do that when you're attacking it's very easy to get waylaid by the promise of taking a piece or taking even a queen but you need to be always asking yourself well can i do something more in this case can i deliver checkmate so he has decided to take the bishop i'm gonna take the queen with check but again it's not about the extra queen it's about the fact that white's king is cornered i have the rook and the queen in the attack and i have a checkmate in this position and that checkmate is to place the queen onto g2 his king has no squares and the rook is defending the queen that's why it was so important for the rook on g8 so this was a short game but it was a good one and let me just very quickly walk through some of the topical moments in this game and um explain i'm gonna tell them good game and explain some of the rationale behind some of the moves here that i made now let me call up this game in a separate window now i played e4 e5 you played the spanish game now this was the first very instructive moment he could have taken the knight and he could have taken the pawn but several centuries ago a chess player by the name of paul morphy many of you probably have heard that name one of the greatest chess players of the 19th century originally from new orleans i believe that he was the first one to come up with this idea to discover that in fact black can play the move a6 and seemingly give up this pawn now when you're thinking about chess tactics and finding good moves one thing that you always have to do is detect undefended pieces an undefended piece is just a piece that's not being protected by any other pieces or pawns by the way when i say the word peace i'm also including pawns are pieces in my eye so everything that relates to pieces also relates to pawns they're basically one unit so i'm looking at this knight on e5 and this pawn on e4 and both of those are undefended which means that if i attack both of those at the same time well one of them is going to have to move probably the knight and then i'm going to be able to take the other one which is the pawn so here i'd encourage you to pause the video many of you will know this move but those of you who don't have a great chance to practice some tactical vision well the move is actually queen to d4 bringing the queen out early but it's justified attacking the knight attacking the pawn this is another fork the knight has to move back and not only do i take the pawn back while i take it back with interest because i'm checking the king and the king is going to have to make a move either by blocking with the queen now the king has to move out or the king has to move from this position to f1 now it's not a good idea to move your king out like this in the opening because obviously we want castle now the rook on h1 is hemmed in and while this king is pretty weak so that is the reason why a6 is justified now bishop takes c6 is still possible that's called the exchange variation but usually white doesn't follow up by taking the pawn now the next couple of moves were very much justified by both sides we're developing our pieces he castles i go d6 to open up the diagonal he goes d3 and follows suit and i think that really the critical moment well there were two first of all he plays the bishop g5 now he could have done the same thing that i did to him in playing g4 and i think that he probably should have done that uh because once i drop my bishop back he can breathe a little bit easier and perhaps now he can play bishop g5 and the funny thing that happens here is that i can't try i can't do the same thing because well my pawn is being obstructed by the bishop so he keeps the pin for the time being now instead of this my opponent played bishop g5 and i think his really his pivotal mistake the first of two was to play bishop h4 what i think he should have done is actually taken my knight and then notice that this knight on c6 is undefended and this rook on a is also guess what undefended can he attack both at the same time well not quite but what he can do is play the move bishop to d5 skewering the knight to the rook and in this position i was planning to play knight d4 sacrificing the rook for a very strong attack attack i won't delve into these complications in this video because they're pretty complicated i think the sacrifice would be justified and in future videos i will talk about the art of sacrificing properly so stay tuned but something like this or maybe knight to d5 in this position hitting the queen would have been something that kept a very much reasonable position for my opponent instead of this he dropped his bishop back and now if he drops his bishop back further i have the very unpleasant move knight d4 again applying pressure on the knight and i'm going to his pawn structure on the next move by taking that night with either the bishop or the knight instead my opponent made a big mistake by going queenie to and i don't know exactly what explained this sometimes you want to be very very careful whenever you meet an unexpected move especially if you're a beginner out there um just the range of chess moves that you've seen before is limited so a move like g5 might have caught him off guard and that mechanism in his brain that is responsible for detecting threats that might have failed so the lesson here is that when you meet an unexpected move take some time slow down and try to understand what your opponent's threat is and another way to pose that question is if it were my opponent's move again what move would he play and by framing it that way you're often able to kind of tell your brain to look for the right kind of things and once he gave up the bishop the rest is very simple knight to t4 hitting the queen putting pressure on the knight taking with the queen taking here and finally realizing that the g file has been open giving a check had he gone to h2 by the way i would have given him another check driving his queen king back and then i would have done the same thing i did during the game taking on f3 and then checkmating him in a couple of moves now he played king h1 i take on f3 with the bishop again i'm not doing this in order to win the queen although that's kind of a nice byproduct i'm doing this in order to deliver the final blow to the king check queen g2 you could have put three queens here on all of these squares i highlighted red four queens and this would have still been checkmate checkmate transcends everything in chess so first and foremost you should be looking for the safety looking out for the safety of your king and making sure that none of the moves that you make permanently compromise the safety of that king so this is very very very good game um i thank you for being a good sport for reconnecting i was short and i'll definitely be doing this in the future maybe with some higher rated opponents but hopefully you found this little video instructive once again i'll be coming out in the near future with another series of videos on common mistakes that beginners and intermediate players make and i'll be basing that of course on my own tournament experience and i'll be also doing more of these youtube specific videos where i play games and talk them through well that's it ladies and gentlemen i hope you found this video instructive i would love to hear from you in the comments below and i'll be seeing you again very shortly with another video thank you

Channel: Daniel Naroditsky

Views: 1,589,539

Rating: 4.9563255 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: XzgnlvT5-6Y

Length: 18min 2sec (1082 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/SpicyPrahokPls]

I’ve always wanted some insight from a Chess Grandmaster so thank you so much for sharing this video.

After watching The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, it really reignited my interest in Chess. I’m dumb though so it still goes over my head :(

[u/iamamuttonhead]

Dude is a very good teacher.

[u/Thoughts-about]

It always amazes me that chess players seem to know so much about the history of the game, the prominent figures and the moves that they created. I don't think there is another sport with such a long history, especially one that appears to be so well known amongst its players.

[u/CitizenTed]

That was pretty good. I've been watching Agadmator for years. He's the only YouTuber I've actually donated to. He's a Croatian guy with a very endearing patter in his chess game analysis. He recently analyzed two games from the Netflix show "The Queen's gambit" that were really interesting. Any of his videos on Paul Morphy or Mikhail Tal are really entertaining. Even a beginner can follow his commentary.

[u/Srirachachacha]

Never thought I'd see Danya on r/videos. Awesome.

[u/Gideon81]

This is an awesome post - I very curious to learn more.

[u/thewafflestompa]

I’ve been locked up a few times, and even in jails you see some fucking amazing chess players, just from doing time. I am terrible, myself. But I like to play, but I enjoyed watching two of the Gs play.

[u/count_frightenstein]

I don't play chess and I watched that entire thing. No idea what he was talking about but he seemed to explain things very clearly.

[u/Boethias]

For more like this look up Pogchamps coaching on Youtube. Its a tournament on twitch and chess.com that pits beginner level players against each other. But each participant is coached by a master or grandmaster. The coaching sessions are then posted on youtube for free.

Here's Hikaru Nakamura coaching twitch streamer Fuslie on the London system