Crash Course in the Queen's Gambit Declined | Climbing the Rating Ladder vs. 1827

hey guys this is John welcome to a climbing the reading ladder game against Garen sethian 117 rated 1827. now this is 10-0 but I'm happy to inform you guys it's unrated this time my opponent wants to chat he says yo let's tell him hello it says I am huh that's right okay and we're playing a uh Queen's gamut declined exchange variation this is the capture on D5 I'm fond of this variation I've been playing it for years it's probably one of my highest scoring lines is white I think the plans are pretty easy to assimilate there's a fair amount of theory in this these days but I'm comfortable with it I would recommend it to you if you're a D4 player and you're looking for something simple because you tend to get these positions where white has the two versus one Center and easily accessible plans too okay Place H6 let's keep the bishop let's pull it back you want to look at Bishop takes F6 in some instances but because I'm not ready to tee off with Knight takes D5 it's not a good idea if I had my queen on C2 then that would actually be working Bishop F6 followed by Knight takes D5 okay please Bishop E6 yeah this is a pretty interesting way to handle the position I have seen this played before Knight bd7 Bishop D6 black can also place the bishop here kind of a more conventional option yeah now this is often a decision for white whether to put the Knight on F3 or E2 I'm going to go to E2 my reasoning being that Knight F4 might be annoying for black looking to attack this bishop if Bishop D6 is played I have in the past played Bishop G3 in this type of setup and challenge the bishop on D6 so we'll see if I go for that I might play H3 first H3 is a useful move rules out any Bishop takes H2 and hd4 if I Castle but let's see okay Queen C7 wasn't expecting that move my first instinct upon seeing that is that the queen could be a Target down the C file that does commonly happen now should I Castle first or play Rook C1 first kind of leaning towards Castle first because I don't think Rook C1 really creates a threat because Knight B5 could be mapped by Queen A5 check so assuming I Castle Bishop D6 let's say H3 there King King is safe even though there's these Bishops coming at it I think that ought to be just fine yeah I'm gonna Castle Knight G4 I think I can deal with with by playing Bishop G3 so let's do it yeah Bishop D6 played and probably H3 as planned F4 another interesting option if I want to try to threaten F5 problem with F4 though it does create this this backward Pawn on E3 so I'm probably gonna do this could play Bishop G3 right away but I want to keep a bit of tension in the position let's go here maybe I can induce black to play G5 despite it looking like black has and black does go ahead and play it despite it looking like black has the makings of a pawn storm I feel my degree of safety is very high here and while Black Goes long now Knight B5 is on my radar immediately even though I haven't played Rook C1 because if Knight b5c takes B5 then Rook C1 watch out down the C file black would have to play Knight C5 in that position and I think Rook takes C5 is winning on the spot so I think this move creates big issues for black just running through that calculation again yeah take Rook C1 black could insert Bishop takes G3 just thinking through their options because then on Rook takes C7 Bishop takes on C7 back but I think if I calmly recapture Knight takes G3 that Queen is is going bye-bye so I got plenty of time here let's just pause take a sip of decaf coffee this is 10 o'clock P.M right now as I record this so this better be decaf yeah I think Knight B5 this is one of these moments where the knee-jerk reaction would be to play Rook C1 but my tactical antenna is is up right now because castling Queen side is not something black typically does in the qgd exchange there's a couple lines where that comes into play but not the way that black has handled it here and this queen on C7 right in front of the king that creates this alignment possibility yeah I don't see how black is going to keep this together so let's go ahead and play it they can maybe escape with losing a rook and a minor piece for the queen but I think their structure will also be shattered is the problem so not only here am I threatening to take the queen I'm also simply threatening to play Bishop takes D6 so I think black probably has to play something like Knight B6 or maybe King B8 Rook takes C7 Bishop takes but after the trade on C7 and Bishop takes B5 I'm in very very good shape to convert that position picking off this Pawn is is nice along with winning the queen by the way I saw a debate on Reddit a while back what do you guys think about chess.com listing the name of the opening up up top here when you're playing I personally think they shouldn't do that because that could get information away it does give information away as to um the acceptability of a certain line there's a big discussion about you know if someone's playing like a poison Pawn variation you see poison Pawn variation up there and you're thinking about snatching upon you're gonna think twice about doing it maybe it affects your decision making okay they take but I'm taking with the queen how is black gonna hold on to the bishop right I think we can just take a check in Bishop C7 Queen takes C7 is mate yeah so more material being one here wouldn't be shocked if black resigned at this point okay they play Bishop to C5 do I have anything artistic I'm controlling this diagonal so I'm looking at ways to really try to put the exclamation point on this game but let's just take capture on C5 Pawn C6 coming I was thinking of some bowdoin's mate style idea maybe I can still engineer it if black plays on yeah let's push through a C6 mm-hmm now let's take could also take here of course double check uh that was actually mating yeah I think that was checkmating uh take here Queen C7 I guess they could run to A6 I didn't see the queen C7 follow-up but Bishop takes B5 is so obviously winning I won't fault myself too much there okay let's just tell my opponent thanks for the game they asked if they could play again but um I think we'll keep it with just one game here obviously not the most competitive game this illustrates some danger though and changing up the move order how changing up the move order can have an effect on the position probably not a bad idea to post kind of a short video because I've had some long ones recently with the analysis from the Charlotte tournament so you guys probably won't mind yeah so this is a playable setup I do believe for black but I think they go Bishop D6 maybe G5 later but definitely Bishop D6 first queen C7 if you see that Queen there in this type of position uh consider your Tactical options especially on the C file if you've played into this exchange variation yeah and I was hoping for G5 that might have been what tipped black in favor of playing Castle's Queen side which I was very happy to see even if there's not an immediate Knight B5 like let's say I play Rook C1 instead maybe black plays A6 I still like my chances here because there might be some sort of clash with the pawns sort of a minority attack even though uh my opponent has Castle queenside so yeah this could have gone on had black decided to play something like King B8 I think I mentioned Rook takes C7 Bishop takes C7 some trades and Bishop takes B5 but that should be a matter of technique as they say should be a technical win for white without too many problems so yeah black kind of got caught with a knockout punch here but then again their position was sketchy to begin with you generally don't want to Castle when there's a half open file staring right at your king and what makes this doubly dangerous is the alignment the king and the queen alignment down that file okay so let's click into the game review for a second this might give us a moment to talk about just the theory in the opening a little bit I got a 94.3 accuracy my opponent scored 77.9 okay so D4 so in general with D4 I don't recommend if you're a beginning player that you play D4 I do think you should get experience with E4 first which leads to more open games typically not all the time but typically so E4 puts you into more open tactical situations D4 can tend to lead to situations that are closed or semi-closed that may force you to draw upon strategic plans or knowledge which if you're a beginner you just don't have and moreover it's going to be hard for you to accumulate that knowledge because most of your games are going to be decided by tactics and blunders early on so E4 forces you to play in a tactically sound way if you want to score well with this move and also against it and you need exposure to that right away before you even think about anything related to strategy positional Play Elements of that will come up even playing E4 of course but it will take a back seat so that's in my opinion the right way to go about things in terms of prioritizing which which line you should learn when you're starting out start with E4 if you want to Branch to D4 after that after you have some experience maybe you hit a certain rating I'd say maybe 1200 ish just to kind of throw out a rating on chess.com that might be useful as a reference that's when you can start looking into Queen's Pawn I do have a free D4 repertoire on chessable that I would highly recommend it has something like uh 10 000 reviews or something like that and uh it's been useful for many many players ten thousand reviews or ten I think ten thousand students maybe it has a lot of reviews though as well and it's completely free it's 45 variations and I recommend the line that we see in this game in that course for White against D5 and the Queen's Gambit declines okay so we get D4 D5 C4 E6 so if black declines the Queen's Gambit usually they do Place E6 or C6 these are the two most common moves you can take on C4 of course as well as another major option there's some other options like E5 the album counter Gambit Knight F6 is a move that you commonly see this is a mistake we've encountered this in climbing the rating ladder games before this is a mistake because on C takes D5 black has to recaptured with a piece rather than a pawn and that makes a big difference with E6 or C6 there's more stability because if white takes you can recapture with a pawn you can maintain a base in the center so on E6 I played Knight C3 the the main difference I would say between E6 and C6 is that E6 blocks the light Square Bishop but facilitates development of the king side so you open the dark Square Bishop with C6 you leave open the light Square Bishop moreover if white ever captures on D5 black is saying I want to fight with two Center pawns against two rather than with the Queen's Gambit decline there's this implicit invitation to create a situation where it's one Center Pawn for Black versus two for white so there are a couple differences there the bishop being blocked this way and the center Pawn thing I tend to think C6 makes a little more sense but that is completely my opinion that is not at all backed up by uh how these lines score these lines both score fine for black and they're both major major options so to me this move seems more harmonious I like having open the option of Bishop F5 I like being able to recapture on D5 and fight with the two Center pawns against two seems like a fair fight to me but there are many players who prefer Queen's Gambit Decline and that this is one of the most solid defenses to D4 overall you actually see a lot of players enter Queen's Gambit declined via uh a nimzo Indian move order so Knight F6 first C4 E6 and then if white chooses Knight F3 or G3 black will often duck into a Queen's Gambit declined if white plays Knight C3 black often goes for the nimso Indian which I would say is overall the best defense to D4 if I had to choose a single defense and that is a Nuance like why black would enter the nimso Indian if white plays Knight C3 but against Knight F3 preferred D5 the nuances in the the position of the kingside Knight for white so when Knight C3 is played and D5 is the answer which transposes to the position we had in the game in fact let me click into that there is a prevailing belief that if we go down this Main Road this is one of the main options main setups that white playing a setup involving the Knight coming to E2 has a little more Venom than the setup where the Knight comes to F3 instead okay the Knight coming to E2 has a little more Venom than the Knight coming to F3 and that is because let's play out a typical move order here white has a plan of playing F3 and then later E4 advancing in the center by virtue of having put the Knight on E2 rather than the F3 Square where this plan would be blocked and sometimes this gets prepared sometimes white plays Rook D1 King H1 to just hide the king a little bit but eventually E4 can be arranged by white in this type of position and let's just throw a few moves out here just to kind of illustrate what I'm talking about I'll even play some of those Preparatory moves but E4 and if black takes white intends to take back with the F Pawn this is the whole point and white has this strong duo in the center well just as I say that it says F takes E4 is a mistake due to Knight G4 but ignore what the engine is saying uh I don't see why Knight G4 is so strong but the engine thinks so but that is the the overall plan in white choosing to put the Knight on E2 in many cases they don't have to play F3 after that like I said sometimes the night coming to F4 can be handy but if you're wondering at a high level like why you see GM games master games where there's this little little dance in the opening like black maybe starting with this nimso move order but then ducking into a Queen's Gambit declines that's often the reason why and lots of players do that lots of players have the nimso Indian and their repertoire and they they will enter a qgd but only if white has already committed their Knight here because they don't want to face that Knight E2 plan now that does kind of simplify things because there are Lines within this conventional qgd exchange where whitesnite can come here where black is okay and black does have some Modern theoretical arguments in their favor but historically white has scored well in this system is what I would say overall okay so C6 this does defend now note on Bishop G5 white does have a threat of taking on F6 okay so let's say black plays H6 and even compels white to do something with the bishop I'm gonna turn off this feedback because I find it really annoying corset sends me to a different position uh so let's say H6 was played Bishop takes F6 and if black takes was the queen we pick off the pawn on D5 Pawn's no longer defended so black would have to take with the G Pawn if they want to keep the d-pawn safe and uh I mean swiss cheese King side right not good for black wait white can just continue in normal fashion Bishop D3 I might still direct the Knight to E2 maybe to F4 later white is clearly better here structurally big question as to where the king should go no fun for black so that that is a threat black has to respect that so usually you see Bishop E7 C6 sometimes you see Knight bd7 here this is a trap I actually witnessed white falling into this trap on board one of grade level grade level Nationals one year when I was a kid it was played on the board next to me in the final round on the top board so two players who were battling for first place I think I was a half Point behind and I witnessed white here playing Knight takes D5 and I knew about this trap and I was inwardly obviously I didn't react or say anything that would be highly or form and might get me kicked out of the tournament but I was inwardly cringing White playing this move because Knight takes D5 was the answer black gives up the queen but then they're gonna quickly get the queen back with Bishop B4 check because this forces white to play Queen D2 and when the dust settles here black is up a piece for a single pawn and should be easily winning which black did go on to win in that game so that is a possibility it's it's a well-known trap I think it's called The Elephant trap white should play E3 here and this can actually end up transposing to the line that I was showing you guys something like this Knight E2 white can send the Knight to F3 in these positions by the way too if they want it's not like you have to play Knight E2 here the flexibility is quite nice in fact if white chooses the Knight F3 plan A lot of times in the middle game they will go for the minority attack the so-called minority attack where white is playing B4 B5 and trying to attack the queen side structure that black has this typical B7 C6 D5 structure and I'm just going to show some real simplified version of this even if black plays A6 trying to put a stop to it at some point white may play A4 and get in B5 looking to bust up this Pawn Chain Looking to create some sort of weakness like a backward Pawn that they can attack and maybe obliquely attack other things as well great threats 95 often features with the Knight F3 plan at some point I may do a series on this type of thing because I could spend easily um an hour talking about the various plans and typical ideas Within These setups and ige2 versus knight F3 that's why I like this qgd exchange line because it makes it very easy to predict the middle game plans it's kind of an archetypal as they would say with with opening Theory okay so going back to the game move order Bishop G5 my opponent played C6 that's perfectly fine it deals with this threat I just played E3 and I'm looking to pursue this development likely Knight E2 but keeping open open options black can play Bishop F5 here that's that's a move if they want to try to front run white putting the bishop on D3 it's known that white can answer this with Queen F3 if they want hitting the bishop and then go into this end game and in fact I think there was a game Carlson versus kramnik from several years ago where Magnus kind of showed the blueprint way to handle this position from the white side and won a really nice game if you want to look that game up so that that move is playable some people do play it but it's kind of under a cloud because of that Carlson game so black plays H6 again Bishop E7 would be a little more normal but H6 immediately is fine H6 is not always helpful for black here because it does slightly weaken G6 which could be a problem if the bishop comes here but that's a bit far-reaching yeah so I'm just gonna fast forward a little bit Bishop E6 and ibd7 played went 1992 let's take a look in the opening book yeah there are games played here so it looks like G5 Bishop G3 and then Knight H5 going after the bishop has been played click the analysis on for a second engine showing dead equal the position is very interesting already I would say yeah let's say queen C2 so in this variation maybe black got their lines confused black is looking to grab the bishop pair but I would say the question remains where black is going to be truly safe with their King because they have taken some Liberties and pushing pawns with their King on the king side potentially so this looks kind of familiar uh the the H6 G5 Knight H5 plan but I don't I can't say I have personal experience in this line for either color here's a case where White Castle's Queen side which does happen sometimes too yeah here I would say castle and queen side makes sense because if White Castle's short they are running into this Pawn storm right away with the Knight having to move again so interesting maybe that's what my opponent was thinking of when they embarked on this plan G5 does appear to be the main line they played Bishop D6 that has been played before and I played Queen C2 oh no I'm sorry they played Queen C7 first yeah that was important Queen C7 first so Bishop E6 on the other hand has been played yeah in on Bishop D6 I think I would have played H3 because if I Castle here I think Bishop takes H2 that minimum looks scary and I think it just works right let's turn on the analysis yeah Bishop takes H2 there's a game where they reach this position and black actually played Queen B6 so a little surprising black did not go for Bishop takes H2 but I do know that is one option with the scheme that black has embarked upon and one downside of Knight E2 is that you don't have the Knight on F3 guarding the bishop okay so this would work because after King takes H2 Knight G4 check discovery on the bishop you just gotta check moves like King G3 or King H3 here both of which look extremely dangerous like King G3 I think at minimum just G5 which solves the attack on the queen and the bishop is trapped uh King H3 I think you have to be kind of crazy to play because there's various discoveries along with G5 still so I don't think that can be recommended yeah so I think I would have played H3 here kind of like the game where I control the G4 Square retain the option of Bishop G3 but I just play a move that's generally useful that being said though I don't know it would have been interesting to see how the game went had something like this occurred because I don't know if I would have gone for F3 E4 having played H3 sometimes the diagonal being a little bit weak already dissuades you from the F3 E4 plan maybe I would have gone for a minority attack a type plan which is possible even with the Knight here not sure but anyways black played this queen C7 move which I just think is not quite right I think committing the queen that early gives me a pretty clear indication that I can try to play Down the C file so I castled the engine's calling for Knight F4 right away so it wants to Target this bishop yeah maybe I should have considered that move it's giving a line like this disturb the king a little bit yeah I just think on site pretty obviously White's a bit better here having Force black to move the king yeah something I might have considered at a longer time control I think the uh previous climbing the raiding Ladder game where I punted 177 rating points was in my head and especially encouraging me to play fast in this one in the opening so all right so I didn't play net F4 I castled Bishop D6 with tempo an H3 seem flexible yeah engine's also giving F4 which I mentioned blocking this also looking for F5 just wasn't quite sure because it is a bit committal strategically creating this backward Pawn so yeah Bishop G4 could be an answer it's giving some line like this all right I definitely buy that White's a little bit better here with the Bishops but I'm still pretty happy with this H3 okay now Knight H5 did cross my mind that would have been an intriguing play for black so trying to anticipate my Bishop coming to G3 and threatening G5 yeah I wonder what I would have done against that I might have moved this Knight somewhere as a discovery like I think this crossed my mind the engine says okay they can back up the Knight and still try to threaten G5 yeah F4 I can see how that's helpful maybe I would have gone for that now that does help Shore up the square and blocks the bishop but black went for G5 and I bet G5 right away is going to increase this Edge for white okay not by that much I mean it wasn't in the top three so I wasn't making uh a very risky bet there but yeah it doesn't increase it that much but it feels kind of loosening despite this move coming with Tempo I just feel some things are brewing for black specifically down the C file and towards their Queen that they may not like wants black to go G4 here and then if I just close it still this Knight H5 move try to force me to do something with this bishop yeah okay I don't know even if I play something like G3 this looks pretty Pleasant to me this is stable position around my king black feels a little overextended and still there's this question mark with their King but certainly this would have been way better than the game okay but they castled yeah in Knight B5 clearly the best move here only plus 1.5 only so that's a little bit of a light evaluation I would have thought it would be higher than that good reminder though if there's alignment issues Brewing like a major piece or your enemy King enemy King major piece on a half open file or fully open file look for tactics consider all different move orders don't just think about lining up the big gun right away right that would have let black off the hook that that would have signaled to them what I was intending they probably would have played something like A6 maybe this first apparently this is still pretty good but Knight B5 is is almost a kill shot from the jump so I'm curious how the engine's going to defend this and this is how we lever open uh the file and this Motif the reason it was you know so so easily findable for me is I've seen it in many positions out of the qgd exchange but let's say black had castled short instead and I went Rook C1 here Knight B5 would be in play due to the pin so if black got careless or something similar type of idea but at least in this case I wouldn't be able to start with Knight B5 right because they would take and now Rook C1 there's no there's no pin or anything I'm working with I can just move their Queen so big big difference in the efficacy of Knight B5 or Rook C1 depending upon how much of an alignment has been created if it's just the queen it's still nice for white down this half open file but king and queen this is too much yeah so here Rook C1 so what's the best defense Bishop takes G3 or Knight B6 okay so Bishop takes G3 I mentioned we're not going to take the queen because that allows black to take and now black has gotten away with a rook and two minor pieces for the queen definitely not what we want but we would have just taken back here I take C1 and I'm gonna pick up the queen next it's also giving Knight B6 yeah I think I mentioned that or King V8 I might have mentioned yeah I don't know okay it's starting to creep up now in terms of the evaluation I would consider this more like a plus two position two and a half maybe I do think white should win here for sure but huh stockfish 15.1 still gives black some chances so honestly I still don't see it I'd be curious what you guys think analysis gang thanks for following this analysis despite the short game yeah I think I would have converted this without an issue even against someone you know much higher than this player which is still quite a good rating as far as how I would play I probably would play maybe bishop back to D3 to cover some of these squares um get my queen in the game Rook C1 probably played on the C file maybe look to play in the center because I do have an extra e-pawn in the position possibly creep forward on the queen side so definitely not opposed to playing with the pawns here and not opposed to trades too if I continue swapping some queen versus rook and minor piece ending with black having weak Pawns um I I don't see really much that black can attack here so I I think this should be a pretty straightforward technical win actually so sorry stockfish I'm over ruling your evaluation yeah and queen takes C1 just further complicated blacks problems because now they're going to lose the bishop as well or another minor piece so they had to let me be the one to do the capturing here but even still it was looking pretty grim all right so thanks to my opponent for the game yeah not a whole lot to analyze after Queen takes C1 and even though the game was short hopefully if you're a D4 player in particular and you're wondering about some of these major systems this was a a decent overview for you of some options after just one D4 Queen's Gambit declined how the nimzo relates to it as well the nimzo move order the so-called nimso Indian threat as some people say and why black is more likely at Master Level to duck into a qgd when white is already committed to Knight F3 and white doesn't have that Knight ge2 and uh F3 E4 plan and just an overview of some of the the types of ideas out of this Queen's gamut declined exchange variation I think this is nice white gets the dark Square Bishop out then plays E3 there's a little bit of pressure we got the two Center pawns against one with lots of plans in the middle game the pawn push plan in the center F3 E4 and that Minority attack plan two which maybe we'll see in a future game all right thanks for watching this especially if you stuck around for the analysis the analysis really I know it can be a grind to get through but this is where you guys are going to learn a lot I'm trying to relay everything that I've learned in my 25 plus years playing chess competitively so I'm happy to share it with you so thanks for watching let me know if you have any questions and I'll see you guys again soon with another video bye guys

Channel: John Bartholomew

Views: 16,380

Keywords: Chess

Id: XVD0KhF-e74

Length: 33min 6sec (1986 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 12 2023