Climbing the Rating Ladder: 1200-1400

hey guys this is John and welcome to part 3 in my series on climbing the rating ladder today we are playing players in the 1200 to 1400 range and we start out with a 13 94 rated opponent who's played the Sicilian I like playing Knight f3 followed by d4 gets the Sicilian and this is the open Sicilian it's considered to be theoretically the strongest way you can play against a Sicilian so not a bad idea to follow this pack and white opens the middle and tries to play actively in the face of black lagging and development a little bit so black is playing the knight or variation you will see players at this level have more theoretical knowledge you know as we climb the ladder that makes sense people are going to pay more attention to the opening and they're gonna study it in more depth and 1394 is a serious rating like that indicates that the player has spent some time they probably reflected on their own game and they're doing a lot of positive things with their chests they practice a lot of good chests habits probably but they also still have glaring errors so this is all theory still I like playing f4 in this position and I'm going to follow up with Queen to f3 this is a little bit aggressive I wouldn't recommend that you play this line blindly without knowing the theory I am going to Castle queenside and see how this turns out I'll go back and demonstrate a couple alternatives that I think you can play against the specific line to be quite honest the Sicilian is a theoretical minefield and there's no single line you can play that will just be a cure-all for the Sicilian woes it's a very serious opening for black every world champion has used it at one time or another most grandmasters I would venture to say 95% of grandmasters have probably relied on the Sicilian as their black defense to e4 okay my opponent plays Knight B d7 so we've talked a lot about quick developments and I'm going to make a quick developing move here to just get our last minor piece in the game Bishop c4 so Knight bt7 I believe is supposed to be a slight inaccuracy because now my knight might be might be setting up for a sacrifice on e6 the better move would've been Queen c7 which would have prevented the bishop coming out to c4 okay so now he does this and I am going to make a sacrifice and this is not a sacrifice I'm just doing because it looks good I actually know it to be good based on my knowledge of this line so I give up my bishop and after he takes back I'll take with my knight at that point I have two pawns for the piece but I'll be attacking his Queen on c7 and I'll also be hitting the pawn on g7 alright so he declined to take the piece looks like he was scared off by the complications so now I'm up a pawn I can take on d7 and try to exchange down a little bit I can also just drop this Bishop back I'm not gonna leave it on e6 although I would have a fork in the case that he does I think it's better to just Bank the pawn and get on with our life here I could also play Knight f5 and attack his Bishop on the e7 but you know I'm just gonna drop this Bishop back to b3 so even though is there's some theory at the beginning of this game we can still practice good fundamental chest concepts and try to win with our extra pawn Knight c5 so hitting the bishop attacking the pawn on e4 couple more times this is a good move I think nine c5 also opens up Bishop g4 so notice if I Castle queenside right here that would be overlooking one of my opponents threats Bishop c4 which is funny because my my last video the rating ladder video for the 1000 to 1200 rating range got posted to Reddit and someone actually posted a game that they had played right after watching that video and they fell for an identical skewer Bishop c4 on a queen on f3 so I could play a prophylactic move like h3 in order to stop that I can also eliminate this knight on f6 which solves the problem like I'm thinking about Bishop takes f6 Bishop takes f6 95 attacking the Queen and the Bishop on f6 that looks pretty good off the top of my head but they do have Queen afire check at that point which kind of disrupts my my plan so probably a sensible thing to do is just castle short if I Castle short and they take my bishop I am a little concerned that after pawn takes they might play queen c5 which would be pinning my knight on d4 so that's the only thing I'm considering right now we do have an undefended piece this knight on d4 is loose so I don't want to allow my opponent to go and attack it or somehow win it could move it away from the center but that seems a little weak you know it also might be an acceptable way to continue is take out out six and then after he takes back then Castle queenside I think I'm going to do that because that gets rid of the Bishop g4 idea and by castling queenside my rook on d1 will help defend the knight on d4 and I'll still have ninety five as an option coming up so after Bishop takes f6 I'm not just blindly playing 95 because it looks like a good move attacking the queen of the bishop you have to consider your opponent's reply so Queen a5 check would appear if I did that all right so he takes in let's continue as planned protecting a loose piece always a good thing to do so if he takes on b3 I would likely take back with my a pawn and I'd still be looking to play Knight d5 it is important to consider the implications of castling queenside usually when you have opposites like castling like this you will have a position with mutual attacks black would be trying to attack me on the Queen side I would be trying to do the same to him on the Kings side but I would like to still trade down and I'm not really thinking quite yet about playing something super aggressive like g4 g5 because usually you want to aim for a pawn storm I'm more looking to just use my pawn advantage and hopefully make the game as simple as possible I'm head upon I have a better pawn structure he's got a weak pawn on d6 so Queen a5 what is black threatening he wants to bring the Queen down to a-1 it's debatable if that's a truly dangerous threat because I could play for instance night b1 or even King D 2 although my B to pawn is loose but I don't want to deal with that so I'm just going to play a defensive move King bee one stopping King Queen to a-1 I'd still like to sink my knight in to d5 possible so if you're in this reading range 1200 to 1400 I do think it starts to make sense to pay a little bit more attention to openings and if you're consistently finding yourself in unfamiliar territory out of the opening and your opponents are playing normal openings it is okay to crap crack open an opening book or consult a database for instance like the chess comm openings explore and try to improve the lines that you play you don't have to go crazy I would definitely recommend that you keep your opening study to a minimum but you want lines that will be serviceable to you you don't have to lock yourself in a room and spend hours studying reams of theory but you want good solid serviceable lines that you feel comfortable playing okay so Queen B for attacking the knight on d4 however I think my opponents overlooking the fact that I have 95 so I get this nice fork in hitting the Queen hitting the bishop he is attacking d4 twice and I'm only defending it once but if he wants to win that night he would have to lead with his queen right now since the Queen is the piece that's under attack and I would simply take and I'll be winning a queen for a trip in a knight I'm happy with that trade so if this Queen moves away let's say to c5 I'll probably just capture on f6 I could maybe try to chase the Queen further like something like Queen c5 be for my I might be able to banish the Queen all the way to a7 maybe that's not a bad option because I do notice that if Queen c5 b4 if they go to c4 with the Queen I would have b3 and I believe the queen is trapped in that line so he backs it up to a five yeah so here have pawned b4 looking to chase the queen black can play queen d 8 which would defend the bishop so I think I'm just gonna take this guy it gives him double isolated pawns he's not going to be happy with that situation around his King now as king is wide open we can still try to play to simplify if we want but with his King being so exposed I would like to go for an attack of some sort so his queen is kind of defending along the 5th rank so I can't play move like Queen h5 I'm thinking about playing f5 right here to cut off the Queen I'm also thinking about trying to rook lifts to try to get on the G file you know it might be the simplest those just give it to check I'm g3 and then after King h8 play Queen h4 attacking the pawn on f6 then you'd have to play Queen d8 a very defensive move I could also a mini player retreat move like 92 which would uncover an attack on the d6 point that might not be so bad yeah I'm gonna do this so rook takes d6 is the threat this looks odd but I'm also looking at that d5 square is a place to put the knight in the future so Knight c3 to d5 the position is now becoming sharp so I'm not entirely sure if 92 is the best move but it looks good and I have under a minute I'm up upon so I'm going to go with my first instinct so several ideas behind that move attack d6 try to maneuver the night in that Queen g3 Queen h4 line was also looking pretty good yeah so here I can just take this pawn Queen e1 is not possible because my rook on h1 guards I mean he was naturally concerned about his King being on the G file a little bit exposed so that's why he probably played king AJ you can play Bishop e6 now to block rook takes f6 as the threats okay so rip g8 now are we just gonna take the pawn on f6 without thinking about it we could but then Bishop g4 is going to appear on the board I don't know if that's a big issue I can play Queen to f2 and just defend the knight but you know I think his bishop is such a bad piece I'm just going to stop his main threat Bishop g4 and I'm going to ask him what he's going to do with this piece because if he puts it on e6 like I said I can play pawn at five prophylactic chests like this is a very powerful thing it shows that you understand what your opponents are up to it often frustrates your opponent's - I've noticed like once you shortly you start shutting down numerous threats of theirs often they'll self-destruct I've seen this happen many times good players will not but at the lower end of the rating spectrum people will sometimes become increasingly wild with their attacks when their primary attacks are not succeeding okay b5 I think I can just go take this pawn it's undefended we've stopped Bishop g4 looks like he might be trying to put the bishop on b7 perhaps he might have decided that he can't bring the bishop out the conventional way now f7 is under attack the bishop is bearing down on the e4 pawn but we can take this in attack his bishop to ideas with with our last move attack the bishop and also prepare Queen h5 maybe although if his bishop moves to say c6 Queen h5 could be met by Bishop takes e4 defending age 7 however I see I do have Queen e5 then so even that is very good for us okay so here we have a choice we can just pick up the bishop or I can try to play for checkmate since Queen h5 is met by rook to g7 I think I'm just gonna pick up the bishop yeah I don't see any danger to doing this we're both getting a little low on time I'm yup a ton of material I don't have to play for checkmate right now he has some aggressive moves he can make like that let's just bring our rook over to for a defensive situ and move my work yet probably a good opportunity to assign it to a defensive task he just doesn't have much he can do okay now I'm gonna move in for the kill Queen takes h7 as the threat yeah and he didn't notice the checkmate okay so let's go back and take a look especially at the opening because I do want to give some specific advice when facing the Sicilian so I'm sticking with e4 as white this rating level if you start to notice a preference for d4 you can certainly start playing that move too but under sticking with e4 and my point of play the Sicilian so as you rise up the rating ladder you're gonna face the Sicilian a lot more as I said high rated players rely on it because it provides a good theoretically sound way to combat you for that also provides black a lot of winning chances unlike a 45 you immediately unbalance the game when playing c5 you create an imbalance in the position you're attacking the d4 square with a flank pawn and there are many schools have thought about how to combat the Sicilian I would recommend just going right for the main line which is the open Sicilian the open Sicilian is characterized by playing Knight f3 I move to followed usually by d4 on move 3 now it would be impossible for us to discuss the theory nor do I even want to with a player in this rating level because it's the the theoretical layout as a minefield let's say you don't want to ignore the theory if you're playing Knight f3 and d4 but don't feel like you have to as I said before lock yourself in a room and study everything there is out there before you confidently can play this just go ahead and play it just play Knight f3 and move 2 and d4 to follow and if you take some lumps and you take some losses early on with this that's fine just like how white develops and opens lines at the same time so playing d4 in many people's eyes I move three here is a minor concession because you are offering to give up a central pawn for a winged pawn but this has been shown to be the easiest way to get your pieces into play and you do have a nice night in the center on d4 usually black will play an early night f6 and this particular line and you respond with Knight c3 so here just to give you an idea of how many lines that are possible my opponent played the night off which is a six this is one of the most reliable lines in the Sicilian but they can also play knight c6 which is the classical Sicilian g6 with which is the dragon and a six as well as another line called the SHO Bennigan's I know I'm pronouncing that incorrectly for you Dutch viewers out there but I'm gonna call it the show then again g6 so again don't feel like you have to go overboard but it's just helpful to know that this is an acceptable way to play and you can do some research on your own play it and some games look some stuff up and an opening book that you might have a really good one by the way is fundamental chess openings I believe by Van der starin is the author that's a good opening book that provides a nice overview of many lines so play it study a little bit and just see what happens after a six on move number five here a good rule of thumb if you're not sure what's set up to follow in the Sicilian is to play Bishop to e2 and then Castle short so if you want just something that's going to give you a simple position then Bishop e2 followed by castling short is not a bad way to proceed you can put this other Bishop on e3 basically there's a number of bishop arrays that are possible you often see these bishops going to various squares like for the light square Bishop either e 2 or C 4 for the dark square Bishop either III or g5 and I would say the most conservative arrangement that doesn't sacrifice theoretical sound that soundness is usually Bishop e2 castles and Bishop e3 and proceeding from there I played Bishop g5 because this is a line I'm pretty well familiar with it number six here and after east six I played f4 so this line is aggressive and is characterized with castling queenside some of the sharpest and best lines in the open Sicilian for white do entail castling queenside like against the dragon variation for instance g6 the best plan for white is Bishop III Queen d2 and a quick castles Queen side so even against the night off as I did here I have prepared castling long so Queen f3 Knight B d7 and that allows this Bishop c4 idea so if you study the theory in this line you'll you'll know that Queen c7 is usually the preferred way to play in order to cover c4 so Knight bt7 Bishop c4 Queen c7 attacking my bishop and I took on e6 so if he had captured I was going to take with my knight at which point I would have two pawns plus I'd be hitting the Queen and the pawn on g7 so my opponent Castle but then I was able to bang cap on and I think the weakness of the d5 square is also telling kind of a theme and this one was not not just playing the natural move but which would be Knight d5 here but taking a good look around and making sure you're recognizing your opponent's threats because if I had played ninety five looks great attacking the Queen and the bishop but he was going to respond with Queen a5 check so hence I Castle queenside and simultaneously defended the weak knight on d4 that had no prior protection Queen a5 and a good and again a prophylactic move King bee one stopping Queen a one check Queen B four now we get the night at to d5 where patience and allowed the play to develop now we get this fork took the bishop and again it might be possible for me to play in a more decisive manner right around here but I like 92 because it opens up at rook and also I was thinking about sending the night ends d5 rook takes d6 and h3 some would consider this to be excessively cautious but I like how it recognizes the opponent's threat of Bishop g4 and we started gathering pawns and still paying attention to the opponent's threats I took his bishop but even after this he's fighting Queen d2 his Queen takes c2 fatal probably not I mean I can always escape with the king rook takes c2 might be a problem if that was allowed because he would be ganging up on the b2 pond so just one more defensive move Rep c1 after which he's devoid of many threats and we were able to threaten checkmate on h7 okay I'm gonna look for a new game I'm glad we were able to discuss the Sicilian a little bit because as I said that's an opening you will face as you rise up the ladder and my open Sicilian would be my recommendation if you want to get the most bang for your buck when playing in Sicilian is wait unmoved number two by the way black can also play knight c6 or upon e6 both of those lines are common as long as I'm waiting for a game here let me say that if knight c6 d4 C takes d4 Knight takes d4 if black plays an early Eve I've in order to harass your knight it's usually best to go to b5 so in doing that you try to sink your knight in to d6 if possible and you're not losing time for those of you who are just new to the open Sicilian you usually do not want to take black's knight on c6 because if you do that they will take back with our b pond and that helps them in the center ok this player board of the game gonna look for a new one I'm climbing the reading ladder on chess calm right now but I'm thinking that in the future okay he offered rematch let's take that I'm thinking that in the future if all goes well with this series I'm going to climb the rating ladder on other sites too so I might do Lee chess and ICC and try to get a nice crosscut of the various chess servers out there all right Akhilesh ROG aha 13:41 is he going to make a move it's a connection seems kind of poor all right I'm gonna abort this game because he's taking way too long all right we have an opponent 1247 a NIEM see what he throws at us people are a little slow out of the gate today yeah his connection is also for all right let's get a new game I'll probably be sticking with a 45 and d4 d5 from the black side just for consistency's consistency sake and what I was explaining about the Sicilian the same guy does he want to play this time all right we got a game so I'm gonna stick with a 45 see how it goes maybe I'll mix in the Sicilian or two in this video or the next video so we continue rising up the ladder roy lopez and if you recall from last time what we do against that is play a six I like this move you can also play Knight f6 on move three but a six is a fundamental choice Paul Murphy's preferred move so he backed the bishop off last time we had an opponent who took on c6 and if you recall playing D takes c6 and replies the correct thing to do there okay so white castles here black could take on e4 but that's a slightly dangerous proposition when we have our King in the center if Knight takes e4 white could open the middle with d4 very quickly and I'd have to be cautious not to get caught in a pin so I'm just going to play Bishop e7 and a rule of thumb that I described last time is that if your opponent does not defend their pawn on e4 you don't really have to defend your opponent on e5 quite yet it's black okay you play c3 here I actually I'm going to take on e4 it would have been more accurate for him to play tricky one on the previous move now I feel okay playing this because my King is a bit better covered so even though he can play this move I'm just going to back my night off I'm not going to play d5 and try to support it because then I'd be walking into a pin here you could play moves like Knight takes e5 for instance but I will back my night off and I think we're gonna have a simplification in the center because he's likely going to take and try to win his pawn back as he's doing here okay let's take him and after rook takes I'm going to castle and escape the pen along the e-file playing b5 is also probably a decent idea maybe b5 is better is if b5 I can back his Bishop off and then play d6 yeah let's play b5 I like the look of that it opens up this diagonal like you can stick a queen on f3 and attack or rock on a8 but that's fine we can always play rip be eight and reply to that so let's play d6 and back to Brooke off I'm lingering with my King in the center for just a moment but the bishop on e7 is well protected Bishop g4 could be interesting right here developing and hitting his queen you'd have to play f3 which looks slightly weakening around his King yeah let's do that so I'm postponing castling usually not a great thing to do but I think under the circumstances it's alright maybe Queen e2 is interesting yeah he plays it okay now I won't claim that I'm impervious to making mistakes hey you know I think my last move might have been an inaccuracy cuz now Queen e2 and it's a little harder for me to castle as if I Castle he can take on e7 I think I perhaps sure to drop my bishop back to e6 okay let's just play c5 and I'm going to do is probably put my Brooke on a7 and protect the bishop in preparation for counseling short yeah I think I should have played Bishop e6 if I wanted to do this whole Bishop g4 induce him to play f3 and then move the bishop away I think it'd have been better to play the bishop to the e6 Square and block the e-file okay he pushes d4 let's take that so now we're both going to have isolated pawns I think we're c7 albeit an unorthodox move is fine so defending laterally and preparing to Castle he's lagging if with his Queen side development a little bit so I think I can get away with this I would expect Knight c3 yep he plays it all right so now we can successfully castle we have E seven sufficiently protected I don't have any grand plans right now I'm just looking to complete my development and as I pretty much just did by castling and I'm going to wait and see how he proceeds because he's got this piece to bring out and whatever path I choose after this could be influenced by where he puts his dark square bishop okay puts him on III so I kind of like to see that because it does block the efile I have a feeling he's trying to load up for d5 cuz that would be a discovered attack on my rook on a seven I could play d5 and try to block him think I'm gonna flavor up c7 though my rook was a potential target on a7 I think putting it on the C file is useful in the future b4 might be a threat at some stage I could in fact play b4 right now b4 get his knight to move and then maybe stick the knight on d5 it's an interesting plan it also played bishop g6 and just look for a trade let's play B 4 so we'll attack the night then I'm gonna put my knight on d5 on the next move you know 94 I won't take is I think that might strengthen his pawn structure if I do that so we'll just come here and attack his dark square Bishop there's a nice square for our Knight if he puts the bishop on d2 for instance looking to escape the attack then he would just drop the c2 Bishop so he plays rook they're sensible now do I think the bishop pair or do I wait the ship g6 looks like a good move my bishops not doing anything on this diagonal anymore so I think putting it on g6 could be a good plan yeah let's do that I like my knight on d5 I think it's well placed so I'm not necessarily going to take on III at the earliest available moment he may play something like Bishop b3 and try to force the issue attack my knight on d5 so far in the like one and a half games I've played my opponents are playing a little closer to the vest as far as undefended pieces our previous opponent drops some stuff down the stretch but that was already in a difficult position they did let us play Bishop takes T six at the outset but this player is keeping most everything garden okay so here I might have something in conjunction with Knight takes III so by moving the night away our Bishop is attacking c2 but it is defended twice so I could play like Bishop takes c2 but they would play rook takes c2 and then after rook takes c2 Queen takes c2 even though the Queen would be no longer defending the bishop on e3 he does have the ruckus backup however if I start with Knight takes c3 that's kind of tricky because if Queen takes that I could take on c2 with the bishop if rook takes there might be a possibility for a Bishop g5 move moreover defeat d4 is very weak so I'm gonna take here and just see how your response he can play Bishop takes g6 might be the best move but I could always recapture if necessary this is getting sharp Bishop takes g6 I can even take on c1 if I want I can try that okay he takes back now this the two rooks are lined up so Bishop g5 is a potential idea right here and let's just try to get the move order right so if I play Bishop g5 right away he can play f4 but then I could take on f4 he takes the Queen and then I take on c2 and I've banked a pawn now before I play that that line I want to check the other move order because this is a pretty good idea it seems so when you have a good idea it's important to try to twist the move order around in your head try different permutations of the move order so what if I take on c2 first like let's let's say Bishop takes C to rotate c2 and then Bishop g5 I see that that is not as effective because I'm not skewing both of his rooks the rip that was on c1 would be on c2 so he could just move that rook away so I checked both move orders I'm gonna play Bishop g5 because I think this is the stronger one with the plan of playing after f4 just Bishop takes f4 little bit of a deflection idea so his queen is deflected from the defense of c2 he'll only have one defender of the c2 bishop then after Queen takes f4 I could take on c2 either way I'm going to take with my rook just in the interests of pursuing further simplifications he's a bit more actively placed than us at the moment but I don't see him having tremendous compensation for the pawn so let's go take that guy he could try to bring his knight into his hacking into an attacking position like that age 5 or something but I think my bishop coming back to g6 should cover a lot of squares I'll be looking to try to get my rook in the game soon that piece has not moved since i castled i think bringing the bishop back makes a good deal of sense right here i'm going to do that it was undefended on c2 was a loose piece he played in honda hurry to move h3 so i feel ok and also playing a move to consolidate King age 2 also an unhurried to move so I'd like to trade up trade rooks and play rook e8 but Tom there's some issues with that like one issue is he could just trade rooks and then take my pawn on d6 so it could make sense to move my queen so my rook can go to a different square like say Queen b6 and allowing rep c8 but before I do that I'm going to play age six this just gets rid of any potential threats to my king along the back rank in the future so I can play rook moves with more confidence later and I won't constantly be having to worry about rook to e8 you want not okay Brooke got three so he's lining up on f7 but I don't see a huge problem with that Square yet for me but just to be safe I'm going to play Queen d7 over protecting f7 and allowing this rook to come to one of the desired squares here probably eight or c8 the to open files h4 was our opponent trying to do probably age five I think we could allow that that could also play pawn age five right now in order to stop that let's do that yes Queen g5 if he wants but I do have queen g4 defending so again a prophylactic move just putting a stop to the opponent's threat still be looking to move this rook soon the difference is already pretty noticeable and just the overall strength of the players at the 1200 to 1400 level versus like let's say two runs ago players under a thousand the games of the players under a thousand were pretty random to be honest like they have difficulty at that rating level formulating plans and also playing a coherent game from start to finish whereas this game aside from the my opponent dropping the pawn and has been very well played I think on his end you can tell that like each move is a continuation of his last move for the most part yeah I'm gonna go here in order to defend aged five and he's really not giving me a whole lot to work with and he's doing a good job of putting up a great fight down upon the opening could have been a little bit better as I said before people will still make blunders at this level I mean just because you've reached 1200 rating doesn't make you immune to dropping pieces but we just haven't observed that yet okay so now I have doubled pawns I think given that I just got the Queen's off the board that's an acceptable trade for me if he plays rook f4 I saw that I could play f5 and defend the pawn on g4 so let's see what he does with this rook he's getting a little low on time let's play f5 and just support the pawn if h5 I'll play Bishop h7 that way we keep our f5 pawn well-guarded it's defended by both the bishop and the rook it's a little bit of a bummer that my rook and my bishop have to state guarding that pawn for now like I can't do other things in the meantime he moves the knight away I think this could give me an opportunity to maybe play like rook e8 and attack the knight or maybe rook c8 and go after the C 2 square yeah let's do that if he plays this Knight back to g3 I can always repeat with rook f8 if I'm unsure but I'm thinking Knight g3 and then maybe come into c2 anyways and try to go after is b2 and a two pawns okay King g3 I think that's kind of a weak move let's come in here our Bishop is bad for now but a rook is doing great work yeah and here you go he dropped the piece so he dropped his knight on me too you could tell that was a product of time pressure he's getting a little low there and yeah you just let the knight go I'm going to bring my King up a little bit can also play brick e5 let's play ricky 5 i think this is a sensible way to do it he could go rip the a check but um after king f7 he can't really go after my [ __ ] if chris burke h8 I would have bishop g8 so i like ricky 5 because that attacks the t pawn yeah and he comes right back now i'm gonna bring up my king activating your king should be a central goal of most end games so I'm bringing it up to f6 and I'm gonna look to play my Bishop to g8 and attack that pawn on d5 this way alright so we can take either way on d5 but I'm okay with simplification so I'm gonna do this he is marching with his a and B pawns but we have enough resources in the vicinity to stop that his pawns are not far enough advanced all right trades but this is probably gonna be the end for him soon he's down way too much material let's take my bishop will always control the path of his pawn so after this I can play my king to g5 and maybe play f4 check or gobble his h-bomb he's down to ten seconds now looks like he's gonna flag okay alright so let's go back and have a brief look at that game so this is a royai Lopez and again we're playing a six if he took on c6 I would take with the D pawn so as to enable after Knight takes d5 Queen d4 attacking the pawn and the knight so instead he backs the bishop up to a4 and then Knight f6 so this is a little strange when you're first learning this opening but there's kind of like mutually assured destruction going on like he can't just win my e pawn because I win his epoch if you were to take on c6 now I would still take with the D pawn and in the event of Knight takes e5 I would still play Queen d4 however after he castles now I have to be more concerned about his rook making an appearance on e1 I still do play Bishop e7 because he has not defended his e4 pawn yet meaning we don't have to defend e5 but if he had played rook e1 which is the main line at this point he would be threatening to take followed by take here and blacks usual Queen d4 would not be worth working anymore so let's say black were to castle or something he could take on c6 take take here and I have difficulties getting this pawn back if Queen d4 he could play Knight f3 attacking the Queen I can't win e4 it's defended by his rook so if I go back to the game so after Bishop e7 he should play rook e1 whereupon I would have played b5 which ensures that he could not take my knight but he played c3 and here it is fine for black to take on e4 whereas previously you know you can also take on e4 in this position but it's a little more dangerous when there's nothing really blocking your King they can play d4 and you have to be careful because if you take this pawn rook e1 and already you're pinned up on the knight d4 Knight takes d4 for instance threatening f3 and also double attacking c6 but once I get my Bishop to the e7 square I feel a lot safer right there so this move right here Bishop e7 c3 now I can take because I won one move away from castling at all times so Rickie you want I just dropped back he took e5 which created I might have played this little fancy it's possible I should just Castle right away and not worry about it I was trying to play some attacking moves prior to castling but you can see I kind of got myself in a small bind after Queen e2 because now I can't castle for a fear of the bishop dropping off probably should have played Bishop e6 but um I think my opponent miss played the position right about right about here I have some pressure 90 tonight g3 seems like a weak move not a terrible move not a game losing move but he does lose a pawn out of that although maybe he could have taken on g6 cuz after I took here it is possible for him to take you there to attempt to avoid some of the problems he had in the game so although actually that would be interesting too so like let's say he takes here say I take with my H upon and reply or maybe here take c1 getting a little complicated here it's something he could have calculated I won't waste more video time talking about that but he could have tried Bishop takes g6 at this juncture okay I'm gonna look for a new game but you're gonna have to work harder at this level people are gonna be giving you less free pieces as you saw this game this guy put up a very good fight ah McConville is our next opponent okay this is uh someone who actually follows my videos I believe his name is James so hello to you James and he's playing the Scandinavian defense he's choosing my own opening against me will he play Queen takes d5 all right so let's play 93 just attacked his queen and develop I'll play Knight f3 all the same alright d4 not doing anything too fancy just developing Bishop c4 I'll play Bishop d2 and see how he reacts so so far we haven't wasted too much time on extraneous moves we're just developing quickly he shows that he's not afraid of his queen being on a5 I could do discovered attacks with my knight but instead I'm gonna play Queen e2 now if I get a chance I'm gonna try to bust open the center here because in the Scandinavian even though I love this opening dearly those who don't know I like playing this opening as black but in the Scandinavian black does fall behind a development because you are moving the Queen a couple of times at the beginning okay this is a very dangerous move by him castling now I have options I can try to play d5 and open the middle that probably makes a little less sense when his king is not on e 8 or I can try to play to trap his Queen so I could play for instance 95 right now and his Queen is on the brink of being trapped if I go Knight d5 he has Queen a4 but that would be his only safe square notice that 95 takes away the c7 square friend or 3/2 so let's calculate this for a moment so Knight d5 let's say Queen a4 and we're like that close to to trapping it Bishop b3 he has the b5 square you can go to though hmm so maybe maybe 95 is not ending the game right away I could play 95 Queen a4 Bishop b3 Queen b5 and then I ran after Queen B if I play c4 but he has Queen a6 in that case so he's always got like 1 square he can go to in defense okay I spent a little time thinking about it I don't see like a clearly good way to play so I'm just gonna Castle I think you can't get too wrapped up in your blade and your standard games in trying to find a win in a position where you consistently noticed offensive resources for your opponent you have to be practical and try to use your time adequately if you're not coming up with anything because I could have spent an additional minute there and maybe not found something and I would be regretting all the time I had spent so we'll just castle castles short guess Ling Wang was also a possibility but given the way he's played the opening I kind of like canceling short and he probably should pull the Queen back to the c7 square for protection that way he gets out of any discovered attacks yeah all right good move good move by James all right so we have opposite side castling now I want to start pursuing an initiative on the Queen side so let's play a four I'm going to start pawn storming in a five a six just go after them he's underdeveloped on the kingside so he would love to counter-attack my king but he is lagging a bit in the development department so I feel like I'm gonna have it to jump on him on the queenside sensible moves for black would be like Knight gf6 or maybe Bishop d6 at this point place Bishop b4 okay so this move also allows some discovered attacks like Knight b5 would attack his Queen and also open up an attack on his Bishop but if Knight b5 C takes b5 Bishop takes b4 he can take on c4 so I don't like that he's also kind of stopping me from playing a5 so what to do maybe this should be three with Bishop e3 I'm setting up Knight b5 I want to see if he notices that because now after Knight b5 C takes b5 Bishop takes b4 there's no bishop on c4 that would be hanging he could play a 5 right now normally when you're getting pawn stormed on one side of the board you don't want to make a pawn move or too many pawn moves over on that same wing because that tends to like bring the attack to you okay so I'm gonna do this now thank b5 and if he takes I get to take on b4 and then the C file has opened up and we've seized the bishop pair so I like that trade-off if Queen a5 right now trying to use the Queen to defend a bishop then he's opening himself up 496 check so Queen a 596 check he's unable to take it with his bishop because it's queen behind with hang so I get a chance for 96 and then I can take on f7 and that should be awful for him so he should take on b5 right now he's giving it some thought which is the correct thing to do I think 95 kind of surprised him okay so yeah now the problem is I'm gonna get this move in check and like I said he's unable to take it because he loses his queen behind it now assuming he plays let's say King b8 I could either take on b4 immediately or play Knight takes f7 I'll probably play Bishop takes b4 it just looks a little bit more clear another move that's good here by the way is Knights e-form I could play Knight c4 attack his queen and also hit the bishop it's kind of a tough call do I play Knight c4 and go after a full piece or do I play Knight takes f7 and go after his rooks hmm you know I'm gonna do this it would have been interesting to take and then ensure that I get one of his rooks for my knight - but maybe this is the more clear-cut way to proceed in either case I'm winning about the same amount of material like three points so yeah he doesn't have a square to move his queen to that is safe that also defends the bishop like b6 + b5 recovered c5 is also covered by my pawn a six I can just take on b4 so he's just losing a piece he can move his clean away or he could take on d2 whereupon I would take his queen and then he would take back with his Bishop and I've won a queen for two minor pieces that's what I would do is black I would take d2 and then go take a five and try to fight on but it's not going to be fun yeah he dropped the Queen back and now we win the bishop and notice we're also threatening Bishop to d6 now with the pen so I would say blacks play was a little bit reckless I mean the implications of the Queen on a5 especially with a white bishop on d2 in this opening or a little delicate a good rule of thumb as if white is threatening 95 with the discovery on your queen on a5 if you're unable to play Queen d8 as a defensive measure something might be wrong so even though I wasn't able to find a win right after he Castle queenside it was very close and that's not a position black wants to be in all right so Knight here we can trade on b6 I can play Bishop a5 which would pin him down pretty nicely I think trading is fine let's just do that maybe Queen e5 if I want to swap the Queen's coming up he takes with the Queen okay so I could play Bishop c5 notice my bishop is under attack right now so Bishop c5 Queen here and then Queen e5 looks pretty good that would ensure that the Queen's come off the board this is a good tempo move to attack his queen with the game of time so if Queenie five and he takes it I can take either way actually pawn or Knight takes and I like the clarity that this offers we're also threatening Bishop takes a seven if he doesn't take on e5 immediately if he takes I'll probably take with a knight because I see it's a little awkward for him to defend the f7 point he can't put a rook on FA because my bishop here so if Queen takes e5 Knight takes e5 if you'd have to play Bishop g6 and then I can look for even further simplifications if I want yeah you found it it's place c3 just defending d4 a bit better now we're up a piece the game plan is always the same I probably sound like a broken record at this point but trading down of winning unnecessary complications and trying to reduce the imbalances in that position not letting our opponent get some crazy imbalance like a material imbalance that is that might complicate our task okay King c7 if I take on a7 it looks like a free pawn but he can play 8th b6 maybe to trap it oh then I can play a5 and get the bishop out so in fact this is fine to do sometimes though if you're taking a rook pawn with your bishop you have to watch out for them trapping you by pushing their Knight pawn has happened in a very famous game Spassky versus Fischer game one of their 1972 World Championship match okay let's just go a 5 I like the clamp that that gives me on the square if this Knight moves I had Bishop b6 check skewering the King to the rook okay let's back this guy off he's very long time now [Music] I'm just gonna go here bring our rook to a good file these movies King around a little bit I think c4 is a decent move keep the pressure on him yeah he is too low on time to really figure out what to do and he's in a losing position so he resigned okay so let's take a quick look at that I think the the first few moves were okay for black I won't get into the theory too much in this opening but as I said when you're putting your Queen on a5 this early you do have to be very cautious about the possibility of 95 and after he castles his queen is deprived of the d8 retreat when I do this discovery and that makes me very nervous for his position so after Queen e2 probably would have been best to play Bishop b4 that way his uh he puts a buffer in between his Queen and my Bishop plain castles is really asking for it he said good game I'll tell him good game back and let's look for another game I have time for one or maybe two more all right send Thiago mano 1513 52 okay let's open with be four against him and he's playing the French defense good rule of thumb if your opponent plays upon up one square on the first movement you play d4 is white push d4 right away don't delay okay so here most players at lower levels when faced with the French or the Carroll Khan they will either take the pawn on d5 or push past because as I've explained before low-rated players are often very uncomfortable with the concept of tension but a middle option that I really like that you don't see very often at this level is just developing a piece of defending the e4 pawn so you always want to err on the side of choosing openings when you're starting out choosing open that allow for quick development so he's playing Bishop before this is the winner were variation so if you want to ask yourself what is blacks threat was black threatening to do the answer is D tasty for my night is now pinned so I have to address that somehow Here I am going to push the pawn to e5 so I was just talking about how you may not want to close the position immediately but in view of that threat it is correct to play d5 here and we're into some theory you know c5 that's the theoretical move I'm going to play a three I feel okay playing a rook pawn move this early because it attacks his Bishop it's not like just a time wasting pawn move there's a clear purpose behind it get him to clarify what he wants to do with this Bishop so if he takes on c3 we have a damaged pawn structure slightly but we do have the bishop pair so a big theme for this game could be the weakness of the dark squares okay so c4 so this move closes the position down which kind of makes sense from blacks point of view because he does have the knight pair and I have the bishop pair so he would like to keep the position closed however I think the damage he's doing to his dark squares is pretty significant now let's play Queen G for an early Queen move but one that has a threat in mind Queen takes g7 this is a move in the French that can often pinpoint the drawback of developing the bishop to the B Foursquare early on so this is kind of specific to the French winter wear but this happens quite a bit queen g4 all right so now look how many pawns he hasn't went on light squares his dark squares are very weak so I could immediately think about ways to get my bishop in like Bishop g5 is a sensible looking move I can also play h4 but you know what I'm gonna do I'm just going to develop just bring another piece into the game hmm makes another pawn move okay yeah let's play h4 now this seems a little aggressive but I want to make him think about the possibility of h5 in the future and we'll see how your treats that I don't know that there's any specific way to punish c4 of this early it is kind of a weak move but the position is close enough that I'm not going to be able to just assault blacks position right out of gate his development is completely backward at the moment hasn't brought out any pieces he's probably thinking about where to put that I already I'm aggressively placed right now I mean he might be hesitant to move this night for instance thinking that age six is weak plays Knight d7 maybe c6 would have been a better square for that piece okay I'm just gonna get a piece up into the game Bishop e2 Knight b6 all right so maybe he's headed for the a Foursquare I could play pawn a for myself maybe looking to put the bishop on a three that's kind of an attractive option actually my bishop might not have a good square to develop to otherwise the only thing about putting the pawn on a four is that it does become a target like if a four maybe he plays a five and I could have trouble defending this pawn in the future I'm still gonna do it though and then getting the bishop to a three is pretty interesting so let's play it this way but yeah a five is a possibility he plays Bishop d7 on lavance a a five he could send the knight into a four you know so now he's attacking c3 and also the pawn on a5 is undefended but I don't think I'm gonna lose sleep about him taking that pawn I will play Bishop d2 kind of a bummer that I can't put my bishop on the long diagonal then instead have to consign it to this one if he takes any gold his castle on the short side he'd be in a bit of a self in there although honestly he could probably take the pawn and then scurry back and I would have to prove compensation yeah he's gonna do it alright so now yeah I can castle h5 is also interesting to try to open the position up if h5 almost certainly he'll play g5 I think let's throw in Age 5 it does weaken his King side a little bit after g5 I'm already thinking about sacking on the g5 square that would be very interesting but I could also just Castle and play it a little more assembly so g5 let's say Knight takes g5h takes g5 take with a queen then Queen g7 as a threat he could play 97 though looks a little unclear I'm just gonna castle well played by my opponent this barb yeah this reading level has really shown up yeah they're not messing around okay now I'm better developed than him I would like to break open the position but we need a pawn break to do that unless I'm going to sacrifice on g5 so I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna play this Knight back here and then I'm going to go 4f4 and look to try to swap pawns on g5 his King is still in the center and he's not gonna seek shelter on the Kings side I'll tell you that so he's probably gonna end up having to go long in order to protect himself so the time is right to open this up he's kind of wasted some time in playing this whole ninety seven to be six takes a four or into a four queen takes a five operation and if we want to prove compensation for the pawn we have to be ready to open the position so that's what I'm trying to do right now alright he plays f5 so he's beating me to the punch a little bit that is a good move actually so if I take a pass on he's gonna tape with his knight is what he's saying good move from my opponent okay well I'm still gonna take and open it up and after Knight takes probably Queen g3 he does have Knight e4 then but I think I still need to open lines and try to get some play going 94 Queen III probably defending the bishop and also the pawn on c3 he takes okay so he gets rid of the dark square bishop I am still down a pawn but maybe I can sneak my knight up into the game like Knight g4 and try to come to the e5 square that's a really nice outpost square if I'm able to get my knight there here he could Castle kingside before was a little risky but now that the landscape has changed a little bit he might be willing to do that I'll still play Knight g4 though that's my immediate next move more than likely so let's do that if he goes Queen f4 looking for a queen trade I can win a piece and if you want to ask yourself how that's possible you can pause your video and try to figure it out so if black plays Queen at four how does white win a piece well I thought the answer was Queen f-for Queen takes EF for G takes f for Knight f6 check and then take his Bishop on the next move however after Knight f6 check King e7 Knight takes d7 removing the defender of the night he does have the in-between move Knight takes c3 in fact attacking my bishop on you too good so maybe I wouldn't win a piece in that line to Queen now for might be might be a possibility hmm I wonder if he calculated all that so Queen takes out for pawn takes F for Knights check King e7 Knight takes d7 he does have Knight takes c3 attacking the bishop and my knight would be hanging hmm so in that case maybe I shouldn't trade Queens yeah let's just drop her Queen back if he calculated that very good on you Santiago magno good job I could trade Queens and then try to like set up that threat by playing a move like rook a3 but that gives them a chance to move the knight back so I want to play a little more directly right now not happy about having to put my queen on the back rank but I think it's okay Knight B to mmm I don't know about that move the night seems vulnerable done on that square because where is it going doesn't really have a whole lot of follow up squares to go to all right I'll just play 95 taking a look at this Bishop on d7 oh I'm also threatening mate she's 6 by the way forking the queen of the rook mmm was the night right back to a form okay so he was playing very well up to this point but now he's going to lose material and to keep this as simple as possible I'm going to take his Bishop and then take on a four I could have also gone Knight g6 but he would have had Queen f6 defending the rook with his queen I didn't want to do that takes a four and yeah we're just off a piece right now okay let's play trick a6 get out of the attack his King is also pretty exposed - we got to get these guys on tangled but once we do that we should be winning without any major issues he's pretty low on time as well Queen c7 okay so now what's a good move for white that would apply a lot of pressure to a weak point in blacks position all right the answer is Bishop g4 so now we're hitting east six three times by playing Bishop g4 we add the bishop and the Queen as an attacker on that point okay let's come in with our Queen now rook d6 check is a big threat the pawn on d5 is also hanging okay you had your resign um very well played by my opponent though in the opening I think this is all theory but playing c4 is not quite correct but then again I don't know that I can like punish this move necessarily I think I honestly miss played it a little bit because he seemed to get a good position it's a little hard here like for video purposes I'm trying to make the explanations in my play as simple as possible but it is possible that in at a higher level it may be better we're not even at a higher level just objectively it may be better for white to play more aggressively against the line like this like for instance I mentioned the possibility of h4 here possibly that's a move I should just play right away and try to get my pawn up to h5 and try to start breaking down his pawn structure I'm a little hesitant to make such moves when I'm trying to keep the video pretty pretty much instructive and I don't want to just be moving rook pawns already I would have moved to rip pawns and people might be asking why are you moving rip pawns right away didn't you say like a couple videos ago you shouldn't do that but I think it kind of highlights the fact that in chess you always have to be thinking what as to what the position demands and you can only follow like general rules in positions where those general rules will work right so you should always be willing to override rules in in the case that you think it's acceptable to do so in the position demands it so it's possible that h4 was simply correct here so after Knight f3 h6 he was making a lot of pun was but then again I ended up losing my a for pawn I think I had some compensation for it but he played well a lot of these moves are pretty time-consuming though and once I was able to play f4 or once I had in mind the idea f4 Black had to respond pretty actively but he did that though f5 was a good move he takes f6 on vasant Knight takes f6 Queen g3 94 here take take I think all these moves are great Knight g4 and yea Queen f4 I don't know if you calculated this but after Queen takes pawn takes I did have Knight f6 check however after King e7 take I thought I was winning a piece initially but he does have this move counter attacking my Bishop and the knight is hanging so I may not be winning a piece in this line okay so I think there was a clear difference in the strength of play in these opponents and games that we got under our belt here at the 1200 to 1400 level versus 1000 to 1200 a lot of the same concepts apply like playing classical chess and making sure you're keeping track of your undefended pieces but you can see that this level of play is of a higher caliber and it demands greater and greater accuracy like I said I think it makes sense to spend a little more time on your openings at this level start introducing some opening play and also taking a very critical look at your games so reviewing your games as much as you can and trying to discern how these slightly higher rated players are out playing you if they are playing you so thank you guys for watching I'll be back with another installment of climbing the rating ladder very soon I'll talk to you guys later bye

Channel: John Bartholomew

Views: 436,013

Rating: 4.9015303 out of 5

Keywords: Ladder (Invention), Chess, Chess Improvement

Id: 66E1S3urRM0

Length: 73min 33sec (4413 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/SixZerg]

Best youtube chess channel atm!

[u/AntonSquaredMe]

I like how quickly he's getting these videos out. Thanks again, John!

[u/goldenspiderduck]

This new video series is fantastic. Thanks John!

[u/dispatch134711]

"Players at the lower ratings attack's will often become increasingly wild when their primary plans don't work" - this is me to a tee. Any advice on the best way to break this habit?

[u/Jadeyard]

Some of those games looked really close. In one of the games he likely had a disadvantage half the game (pawn down), however all the opponents make some mistake down the line and get crushed. Very interesting. Looking forward to the next!

Sidenote: Have to mention that he limits himself a bit and tried not to play in a way that is too exotic, so that new players watching dont get confused. And the amount of talking costs a lot of time.

One of his opponents played so well, I was worried it would turn out that he uses an engine for a few moves, but then he blundered.

Edit: To clarify I meant that for example "Santiago" was able to hold the game even for a lot of moves. No-one actually came close to winning. But I am still impressed by that game!

[u/ribenaboy15]

I got into chess a few months ago, and in my process of finding educational material, John takes the prize with this series.

[u/[deleted]]

Fire

[u/Hexofin]

Woah! Definitely a pleasant surprise when you mentioned that quick game I posted with the queenside castling skewer/trapped queen issue.

I will confess that I fell for that in a quite interesting OTB game, but I'll save that for a later date. :)

[u/closed_guard]

John you're so good natured and thoughtful in your videos.

I have a lot to learn, and some of it is even chess!