GM TOURNAMENT, ROUND 2

ladies and gentlemen welcome back to my uh campaign here in my grand master round robin uh event the first game ended uh in a draw and this is the second round i'm gonna take you through the entire game i'm just gonna tell you guys right now that uh this game ended and my friends and i went to get some food i just got back to my hotel room literally a minute ago just so you understand the grind uh my next round begins in 70 minutes at the time of like hitting the record button uh and um well the truth is that by the time i finish recording this i'll probably have less than an hour to prepare for my last uh next opponent but i'm not being irresponsible uh and uh i promise you i already have some preparation ready uh and uh yeah the grind never stops so hopefully you appreciate my efforts let's get into the game i want some altoids because i need fresh breath for the recording so my opponent is very strong player joshua shang all i know about him is that he likes to play e4 and according to his database against the karo khan recently online he's been playing hundreds of games of the fantasy variation so i prepared one brief line in the fantasy in case he played it but the majority of his o of his over the games and a lo and like two like 40 percent of his online games are the advanced variation here's where it gets tough for me because i want to play bishop f5 which is what i chose in the game and like 90 of his games go h4 in this position so he plays this h4 lane which by the way is my recommendation in my own e4 course maybe he saw that maybe he decided not to enter what i already comfortably know with white i was ready with something here but i was also heavily debating playing c5 and in my head i was like well recently i played a training game with c5 he doesn't have a lot of c5 games but i actually ended up listening to my coach i was heavily debating which one to go for coach said this he said you know we don't know what this guy's gonna do after pawn takes pawn so in surprising him you might accidentally surprise yourself so go with what you know bishop f5 and before the round i was like what if he goes for this variation which is knight f3 bishop e2 the short variation the critical line of the advanced karo khan with bishop f5 e6 like the modern main line i mean everybody is playing this so i needed to just make sure i got this right and i made a conscious decision before the game to look at the games of vladislav artemy of russian grand master who likes to play this move order and this so i've never played this in classical i don't think i've ever played this in blitz either so this is impossible to prepare and this is the entire point with this move order you voluntarily slide back to g6 and play knight to h6 with the intention of playing knight f5 and replacing your bishop you also do not develop to e7 because this can trap your bishop whether it's on g6 or on f5 this is the whole point it's a very meta strat here and i was completely on my own but i figured that he also doesn't play this a lot so let's just play some chess he plays the move a4 this is a very common move and the idea is to take some queen queen side space if i play a5 myself that pawn can become a target with knight b3 and bishop d2 to kind of a standard idea in the advanced variation of the karo khan so i said you know what i've seen artemyev allow them to push and then go like this and maybe in the future i will play c5 um but he played the move c4 and already i began thinking i thought for some time here maybe like 10 minutes and i was debating whether or not of course i'm not thinking to take because it just helps him develop with his knight or his bishop um i wanna i want my pawn there i was debating between playing the move i played in the game which is short castle or immediately attacking him with f6 and i liked f6 because i was like well you know i can drop my knight back to f7 and pressure this if he takes i think i'm pretty happy i take with my bishop maybe he plays rookie one um and i spent a lot of time uh and he told me something funny after the game after i castled and then played f6 versus playing f6 right away he was like i don't think it was a very good thing for you to think in this position because i was just like if i do this i don't think you have anything better than castling and it's actually a fair point it kind of becomes the same thing i really didn't have to spend that time here i maybe don't have to castle i can play knight f5 but the point stands so fair point to him and i was like yeah you know but i was like looking deep into these variations a lot of that is superfluous calculation that you don't need to do and i played the move f6 and so here is the critical moment of the game um if he takes on f6 of course i'm gonna take back with the bishop geez geez that is not a bishop wow bishop why because it's all about the e5 square the entire middle game is going to be decided on whether or not i can liberate my pawn structure if i can successfully play e5 and open up the board my rook is going to be on an open file my bishops are going to come alive my knight that i put in an awkward square is actually going to jump back into the middle i'm going to be completely fine and in all end games he will have a liability that he played to a5 now he played knight f1 in this position and i couldn't figure out whether to go here or here and i was also very briefly calculating just trying to liberate my position right now but the reason why i didn't go for this is the very simple pawn capture like you would think that that well obviously he just takes this he just leaves the tension between the knights because if i take he takes with the bishop and reinforces his center and the truth is that this middle game where i just have a really random pawn in the center of the board is probably very unpleasant for me i'm not going to develop much of an initiative and that pawn is going to stay weak basically for the rest of the game and if i push it i will lose the one behind it also i will lose my bishop so but if i defend it and somehow push then i will lose this so you cannot liberate right away so what did i do i played knight f5 um he spent some time here figuring out which way he wants to trade my knight it's my most active piece and that's his most passive piece at least between the knights so he probably should trade nights with me um he chose this move and here i spent a considerable amount of time again and after i played my move um i was down probably about 35 minutes on the clock he had maybe one hour and 10 minutes and i had maybe 40 minutes slightly below that i couldn't figure out what to do i knew that i didn't want to trade my most active piece helping him develop stabilize his center and like if you look around when you compare the quality of the three pieces what the hell is this knight doing right this is this is my problem piece and i'm hoping to play e5 in the future and trade it off and then well we'll probably just trade all the pieces and it will be a draw that's my problem piece but i was like well to be honest if i retreat to d6 i'm what am i doing i'm hopping around like all right you know i don't i don't necessarily know what the right idea here is um but i put a little pressure on this of course if anyone's wondering why he's not taking well then i just play e takes d5 i no longer have any weakness on the e-file my position is absolutely wonderful you cannot complain about it um so i played knight d6 and he spent so long here like 30 minutes of his time i'm not joking literally i think he spent about 30 minutes um chess.com doesn't have the uh chest.com doesn't have the timestamps it's on chess24 but uh maybe some of the other websites like follow chess uh but he spent like 30 minutes and i saw the move he played he played this and that's when i realized he doesn't know what to do i mean h3 actually isn't just like a move like you know you don't spend 30 minutes in play h3 and you it's not like you thought about nothing basically it's really hard for him to move something so his whole point about getting over here and controlling my e5 push if he plays knight g4 it looks very logical and then maybe even bishop back to control it with the rook the point is that by going here i pressure this pawn so oh like this is hanging in a lot of positions um it's not very good right now because he would jump out and attack my knight but the other idea of rotating this way is i can put something on e4 and then i disconnect his rook and i threaten to take the knight and that's actually a problem like because then what will happen is i will pressure the d4 pawn and i will take his knight and then this knight on g4 is unclear what it's doing there if it trades well then i'm very happy i hello that pawn on d4 is very weak it's basically a battle between central pawns um and a central outpost square that i can't really let him control but more on that later so when he played h3 i was like all right well he doesn't really know what to do i'm gonna blitz out a move now because the time interval between a gap between us was like five minutes now it's like all right he doesn't know what to do i'm not gonna think for another 15 minutes trying to solve this position so i played the move king h8 the idea of king h8 was the fact that let's say we have a position i'm just very arbitrarily showing you if we ever get to this you see what would happen if my king was on g8 it'd be in the way of all things on this diagonal if the queen of the bishop ever made it so by moving at some moments i will be able to play this move right now i cannot because three things control it but the idea was in the long run i would take on c4 and i would play pawn to e5 and and basically like maybe instead of king h8 the computer is just still suggesting i like with the bishop here my computer's suggesting bishop e7 like okay well the computer can very kindly like piss off okay like i would say some more vulgar things but i already cursed in the recap of round number one it doesn't know what it's talking about and even the engine needs to think it's not at a high enough depth to come up with like a meaningful move so he played this and then he played bishop d2 and at this point i'm like okay i'm up a few minutes on the clock the momentum is swinging back to me i was starting to think my position was actually quite promising and i confidently slid my knight into the middle of the board and then i was like wait a minute when he goes here what exactly is my move because again he has stabilized his position and e5 is still not a move i can really do much on my original intention after this was to play this move this is what i wanted to do and i wanted to take one of the knights okay and my bishop maintains pressure here and then i realized he has just a very simple move here he doesn't need to i was calculating knight here and i was calculating knight here and i was calculating knight takes bishop i was like wait a minute i'm not threatening to take this like in my mind i thought he didn't want to double his g pawns right who wants to double pawns like that in front of their king and then i went wait he just plays one waiting move what is my next move i'll give you an example let's say i play queen e7 i also play a waiting move by playing bishop e3 his whole center is super strong and then he can just start going and doing stuff and if i try to justify the plan by taking what exactly have i accomplished because in the future he can go boop boop boop hello stupid thank you for opening the h file for me yes of course i will punch you in the face when you tie your hands behind your back i was like uh oh that doesn't look very good so my original plan had to be discarded because i was like i'm not actually accomplishing anything so i thought for a little bit i was like okay i have a couple of options i can completely blow the center up just molotov cocktail you know and just blow it all up but i just didn't believe in the position he's got more activity you can't fight can't bring four people to fight against seven people unless you got some four big freaking people you know it i was like he's got too much too many pieces in the center alright you know what no you cannot have my bishop then he played another good move and i was like i don't know what i'm doing wrong and i'm and i'm slowly getting a worse and worse position now admittedly uh king h8 i guess was just too slow i i guess king h8 was too slow and computer thinks i should just begin fighting in the center with a move like bishop e4 faster fair yeah i mean i i suppose and and taking this and moving my knight to f5 basically like something like this just plopping into the middle and going directly after the d4 pawn maybe not in this particular move order because obviously here there is the pawn hanging but with the same idea um so one move one slide in accuracy and here he is you know he he comes in i play knight f6 looking to trade he goes after me here and at this point i'm like all right i'm worse for sure he won the battle for the e5 square he's winning the battle in the center um now we're both down to maybe like 12 13 minutes each so i made a i made a promise to myself here i'm not gonna freak out i'm not like gonna panic i'm gonna stay very close to him on the clock because it's gonna be a big part of the game and i'm going to stubbornly defend so i plop my bishop out here i knew fair and well he had g4 here that was his best move he's already got a ton of space he controls the center so it's very difficult for me to breathe in this position i said you know when i'm gonna suck it up i'm gonna play this ugly retreating move but he weakened his position by pushing in front even if i know it's the best move let's keep it let's keep it moving and then here he kind of killed my hopes and dreams because i thought here he would play i didn't know what his next move was actually i was like man maybe he'll he'll keep waiting and improving his position slowly to make me self-destruct and i'm gonna go c5 i'm gonna blow this thing open and then he went c5 and i was like i was like oh now i'm completely busted in the center i'm not really worried about b7 this is just too far in my territory i can always protect it um but i'm like wait a minute like this is actually very very bad for me uh i need to start liquidating i need to go for a position where we end up with me having two bishops he will have bishop knight and i will just give him the i will give him this i'm not gonna hang on to my pawn i need to trade his active piece so he takes brings his knight in and i'm like yeah man take it go ahead and take it and if he did take it he would have been up a pawn but my plan would have been to activate my pieces and see this is why i actually like that he played this because now his king's a bit weak so i was gonna go bishop h4 and then maybe you know he cannot play this as rook suffocates here i play queen d5 i might swarm the rook somehow um and he basically has to decide to go for this position like this is what he had to do he had to play into a position where his position is on the verge of over extending like right on the verge he can't move any more anything else forward without overextending and slowly but surely he'll consolidate his extra pawn and probably win in the end game because he has no way to break through now and i'm gonna play moves like bishop g6 okay and my my goal is going to be to get out get his knight out of the center so i can take or maybe attack stuff but he's better i mean he's he's borderline winning he's borderline winning if he takes my pawn and consolidates but he didn't like something he he he kind of he kind of didn't like that after this he has to part with the bishops um and he wanted to keep his stronghold so he played this move and that's when it hit me that i'm coming alive he's got three light squared pawns on this side of the board i have a dark square bishop hello bishop g5 boom we back baby now at this point he's got about five minutes i've got maybe eight nine and i'm like okay time to put some pressure on it's my time now he goes here and i'm like you know he's attacking this and he wants me to either weaken my light squares beyond repair or completely just just entomb this bishop forever and this is when another move struck me i was like i'm gonna create some counter play now bishop g5 is standing very strong i have this beautiful move queen f6 it looks like there's no threat if you play bishop h7 it looks like it's completely free the idea is that the queen is stuck guarding the bishop so i would slide into f4 simultaneously threatening the pawn and to get in here and it's very bad if i get in here it's over because you you normally would play this move but you can't because you're stuck defending the bishop and by the way actually king h8 comes in handy you know it's funny like if my king had been on g8 this would have been czech so actually his move would have been very smart but he didn't take he played bishop back and it hit me at this point i'm like okay he is gonna cocoon that's his game plan now he he has completely abandoned any plan to win this game he's going to cocoon maybe i'll blunder like okay we're both getting down to about two three minutes now 30 second bonus every time you make a move by the way i probably should say that 30 second bonus though so i play bishop f4 with the intention to take this knight and go here and then maybe queen h4 as well he plays bishop g2 very stubbornly defending i slide in and i'm like all right rook f6 here we go here's the game plan i'm going to bring my bishop out i'm going to bring my rook out i'm going to play h5 let's go let's go let's go and he shocked me here it's not that i didn't expect this but he played a move and i was like um he played this and it looks like he's losing an exchange and well he is um but he wants me to do this because once i take the only hope i have of winning this position in the long run is somehow chipping away at these pawns you see my queen side's completely frozen my bishop is the worst bishop of all time right here so how am i gonna win this and i knew there was going to be a big struggle and part of me like wanted to just go back and slowly build up an initiative with my rooks but i was like you know what he's given me an exchange i got to take it and i i thought about h5 but it was a bit weakening and with like a minute on your clock you're just you're just not certain if th what am i even threatening but the engine is like play h5 idiot so i played here he tries to trade queens and this is fine um if if we trade i can't win it's he's too solid i have nowhere to break through he comes back i go here he goes to defend i play bishop g6 and i bring this and he plays queen e3 and you know i played like a rook move i don't really know exactly what to do both have like less than a minute now he plays king f2 and this is the only place of the entire game where i could have won and i didn't i didn't even begin to see this move uh you know so i can't really be too mad but here there's a win for black if you'd like to try to find it while i turn off the uh while i turn off the air conditioner the win is rook to e4 which on its own might not be particularly impressive but the idea is that the king is here and cannot be taken and i slide in my second rook leaving this rook completely stranded but still unable to be captured and threatening the d4 pawn and if he defends it i take the knight and the engine is just like yeah this end game is winning because his queen cannot support all the pawns and his bishop is very passive and yeah this would have been the only way to win the end game by trade sacking the rook back for his really active knight and having a better bishop at a past pawn and he has weaknesses and yeah with 25 minutes on the clock maybe i see this move but i can't i really can't be too mad um and i didn't see it so we just repeated moves and uh if if uh if once the king is on g3 there's no way for me to win this position so big fight um he kind of surprises me in the opening i counter surprise him with a line i've never played before we have a battle that comes down to one small king move being an inaccuracy positionally and giving him just the amount of time that he needed to get a center stronghold um a lot a lot of stuff to learn from this game honestly a lot so i i'm happy i picked this opening uh happy i spent the morning preparing my different variations and uh yeah good experience probably could have managed my time a little better but uh that's typical so hope you all enjoyed we've got one out of two now two draws and uh gm game coming up against mygeshpunchanathan i'll see you all for round three

Channel: GothamChess

Views: 391,752

Keywords: gothamchess, gothamchess london, gothamchess caro kann, gothamchess openings, gothamchess vienna

Id: HYzFPo8jpI8

Length: 19min 56sec (1196 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021