How Ben Finegold Made Levy CRY

ladies and gentlemen if you have ever watched any sort of chess content here on youtube you've probably gotten recommended the video chad gm ben feingold destroys version gotham chess with a very funny and classy thumbnail now not everything about that video title is accurate uh certain words uh i would tend to disagree with but overall that video is me getting absolutely demolished in a blitz game against ben absolutely nothing incorrect about it it was a budapest gambit it did not go my way and ever since that day i've always dreaded the day that i would be streaming blitz and i would get paired against ben again i mean i can play him entitled tuesday i suppose but that has never happened until a couple of days ago it was a dark and stormy night actually i think it was just cold like all winter nights in new york and i was playing some blitz and i saw i got paired against ben he was rated 27 80. don't worry about 2802 that chess.com updates the live ratings and i was like god damn it we were both streaming and i knew that the task in front of me was monumental because i had to win there was no other way and i failed and i failed in spectacular fashion and the first step of failure is to not try at all or something like that something like that but i figured that if i were to lose these games i would turn them into content that is why i am here this is like the confessional booth i'm a jew we don't we don't have those in synagogues but you know let's just jump into the game this is going to be my confession so we played two games the first game i played d4 ben played knight to f6 and i went for a trempowski um also it turns out that this was during ben's run to 2800 so he's been like crushing it in blitz recently so i'm playing like a red hot ben and uh i played the trompowsky because it's a very easy system to play in blitz you don't i didn't i could have played c4 one for a main line but the next like 10 moves are super simple you play pawn to e3 at some point you're going to trade this bishop for this night and you're going to rebuild on the dark squares and that's exactly what i did i mean literally unless black hangs all of their pieces that is what i'm going to do and you've you'll notice i've actually delayed the development of my knight for a little bit ben does something very principled here he doesn't play for c5 right away this bishop is kind of the king of my position because i'll use it to attack in the future and since i've surrounded it with dark squared pawns my light squares will be a little bit weak if you trade that bishop off see if black plays knight d7 black is not as easily going to be able to play bishop to a6 it's a very principled thing to do i actually really don't like when people do it and i delayed my development of my knight because i wanted to do a stonewall setup and i waited like this because i'm going to chop off my bishop then my knight will go to the middle and in the future when i castle my rook is going to go f3 h3 so we both got exactly what we wanted you know he traded off my light squad bishop i got my stonewall structure and let the fun begin with the move a6 now here i mean in a perfect world you know you play knight g5 you deliver mate sadly the world is not perfect and also uh this is not guess the elo i mean you'll see in the future maybe some of my moves qualify but you know um i uh so far so good so knight to e5 is definitely the more principled option of the two uh knight to g5 just hangs upon ben took and we have a knight versus bishop situation but also we just have an opportunity for me to kind of like transfer my pieces over here and maybe do some damage i was like all right we're gonna you know do some do some attack king all the while in my mind i'm thinking i can't end up as another youtube clip oh my god i'm absolutely petrified of losing this game he plays f5 i actually really thought this move was strong when he played it because it blocks what i want but then i remembered that my training in the anarchy chess dojo was definitely going to pay off because i knew my calling i had to play on passant and it looks like you really don't want to play that move because black gets the active bishop but even though the bishop is active my play is not dead if i allow my opponent to block up the position i have no play and my knight is just not very strong but this actually gave me a little bit of hope and i thought i was making some good progress here by breaking the center of the board with e4 i figured he would take and then maybe take again and he did and to my surprise what did he play here he played b5 yeah and i thought right now was was it was a good moment for me to take over the initiative i was correct in my assumption i was incorrect with my execution what a beautiful saying wow i should be a philosopher no god forbid uh do not put me in a category with such other greats um so d5 is the way i should seize the initiative here with a center pawn break this is the last move that would occur to my brain because i would just imagine something like rook d8 pinning me um but then i just shoved the pawn forward which you know in blitz you have to make split second decisions and my split second decision was why don't we trade on f6 and open up his king that actually looks pretty good his king's a little open his pawns might be a little bit soft here with my rook and my queen coming in and i was like i'm actually very happy here turns out his position's actually really durable like i can't even though i can attack a few things he's fast enough with his defenses right so i played queen e4 king g7 and right here i was certain i was finding a winning path rook g3 rook h3 rook c3 to get over here i mean i'm like my but no the computer completely doesn't agree with me says black is completely fine f5 was a little bit of a weakening move but i didn't even i didn't even play the execution i mean i was like dude i'm i'm right rook g7 is coming rook c3 rook c7 i'm like i'm so fast fast as farc boy still fast as boy i'm not cursing fark i don't want to swear too much got kids watching rook c3 i'm like oh i'm like making progress and ben just defending everything his king defends the queen the whole time i like i i was like how do i what the hell am i doing wrong what where's my breakthrough so i took tanked all my time on the clock here and i'm like all right let's go for a pawn up end game now uh this is just not good at all so the thing about rook end games is that activity matters more than i mean like material is good but a pawn is not worth you know a rook flying down the board and just cutting you up he went this way and it didn't even occur to me to defend my pawn i mean that's the best move but i was like i'm gonna go here and by the time you know again because this rook is so active he won might be pawn this is just a draw uh a trades for b e and f g and h but it's not a draw in three minute blitz it's particularly not a draw in three minute blitz when one side is up 40 seconds on the clock which ben was it's particularly not a draw where even if you have a 40 second time advantage you're also trying to hit 2 800 so i would 100 play on here with black and i was like pretty frustrated because it's a really hard position to draw this practically speaking is undrawable with white in a blitz game because uh especially when you're down 40 seconds because you don't know what your opponent is going to do is he's going to check you is he going to you can't pre-move if you can pre-move okay at least that's one thing but i actually made some good progress ben gave me some hope here because um while he was making these moves he he moved his pieces forward like he let me push my age but so i was getting really excited i was like oh we're not gonna lose nice this is easy i have this in the bag i'm just gonna push my pawn bring my king sack my rook for his pawn i'm gonna make a queen it's gonna be king versus king no problem no problem no problem i got you and then i just because i had like five seconds completely hallucinated that after rook takes rook i'm too slow so here when i when i made all the progress i should go rook f7 route g7 he can push but i have this and probably i don't know maybe i would lose on time anyway i was like damn it no no no no all right rematch let's go rematch i played rook for he took my rook that was the end of the game okay at this point he's like 27.95 six and i'm sitting there and i'm like wait a minute it occurred to me what was going on so i went to his profile and i was like oh god this is the game like if he beats me he gets 2800 i'm like this is a lot of pressure this is more pressure than the world chess championship okay that it's like close the world championship is like very close but this is this feels like more pressure so he goes d4 um i know not to play the budapest gambit i play like 10 different things against d4 because i'm trash i mean the nimso is pretty good i was like let's go for a modern he plays this this is actually a really fun uh way to play against e4 d4 and c4 with g6 bishop g7 you can go for an accelerated kings indian one where you don't play knight f6 you can also just play the king's indian which i don't you can also play knight c6 so immediately attacking the center like this d5 knight d4 just like complex i mean white tries to kind of chip away at your knight with the pieces because the pawns went too far they can't go back and you defend your knight with the pawn so really complex stuff that can happen he plays knight e2 i decide to play c5 and my pawn is sort of stranded there on d4 but it's really hard for white to win it like b3 i just go d3 and now kabam that's really bad um knight d2 knight f i mean it yeah it's it's too slow i'm gonna play e5 that's what i did i played bishop d3 i played e5 which apparently is a bad move i thought i was supposed to play e5 i think i'm supposed to go d6 first and ben uh immediately punished me in a move i played 97 and i was like wait a minute i think white can play a very strong move here you would think that white should develop the bishop the knight maybe crack my my center open here with f4 because he has a lead in development by the way just so you guys understand d6 is not a bad move but my knight just goes to where it wants to go it's a move it's a one mover and it kind of improves my position more than um it improves white's position so there's a very classy move here and it's the fact uh that in normal king's indian positions black wants to lock the center and play on the king side and white wants to smash black on the queen side with moves like b4 a4 but more importantly c5 that move looks like it doesn't do much it also looks like that pawn could just be a liability but it's not because this is actually exactly the way white normally beats black in mainline king's indian positions and as i as i played knight e7 i was like maybe i should have gone d6 because i think he can go c5 that's the way blitz works you play a move and then ben just plays c5 in a second because he's good i mean the truth hurts uh-huh so he played c5 i was like damn it now my position's just much worse so i'm gonna have to castle you know i'm gonna have to channel my inner blitz demon my inner hikaru nereditsky uh magnus well i i don't dare compare myself uh to such players but you know like even if you get a worse position what do you do complicate manners try to play quickly i'm playing very slowly at this point and my position is very bad so what do i do i try to break twice i play d6 and a5 so i'm trying to like smash the structure open um at this point white needs to figure things out correctly he takes on d6 and um i play queen d6 and he takes on a5 so i can't even take back on a5 because knight to c4 is killer and i can't stop knight c4 because if b5 on poisson or he takes actually can he just take on b5 i figured bishop b5 i can like attack his bishop win the pawn back well apparently not queen before oh just he just holds everything together and then oh my god oh this position's a disaster oh my god oh ew gross gross grows gross so i realize knight c4 is coming i'm like okay what do you do when your whole side of the board is getting erect you try to fight back counter play on the other side and actually right around here i thought i was making some sort of progress i mean i'm down upon my position's not good do not turn on stockfish to analyze this position it's gonna hate it takes takes bishop f5 i thought okay you know maybe we figure things out over there and okay is pawn advantages double day pawns this is called coping like when your position's really bad you're just trying to motivate yourself to like not surrender all hope i'm like all right i mean i got i got some stuff going on over here queen to e2 rook d8 d6 and again remember a long time ago i told you guys that d6 is actually not a move that white wants to play because i go knight c6 it's actually true even in this position like d6 might be forced but this kind of got me a little excited because i thought these pawns are sort of frozen now and then maybe i'll slowly chip away at them maybe i'll trade the bishop maybe i'll go for the knight hide my king bishop f8 you know but what is the big problem in my position after the move knight c6 i have one major problem in this position can you find it it's like dora the explorer gotham the explorer the one major flaw of this entire position is this everything else in my position is actually kind of okay i mean like i have good center space i have some decent pressure on the d6 pawn it's the b pawn and rook b1 rugby one and um knight a5 i thought okay if he takes i have this and um i i'm out of the woods and from like back a few moves like up and like from this point forward ben basically found every best move to continuously apply pressure it was really frustrating whether you're playing ben or anybody else it's like hot like every every move you think you're back in the game brook b1 i was like damn knight takes a five i'm still good he thought for a while here and he played the only move to guarantee white any advantage which is knight b6 so he blocks his own rook but he hits my rook i have to move i decided to go to a6 to pressure this but now the knight rotates back toward the middle and hits my queen and i was like okay i understand this is this is bad but if 97 i just go king h8 i don't actually see how bad the position really is and then he took on f5 he did this and again i thought all right we're done like the pressure's over with and also i'm going to go march my paw i'm actually in good shape and then he played this move and i was like oh my god i i i thought i had completely guarded this with my knight i didn't because i'm gonna lose my rook and if i take and he takes his pawn is completely secure and my knight is trapped mine is completely trapped i mean i can defend it but then his his rook gets rugby one in the back up so like oh my god rook takes b7 by the way here machine gives one defensive hold for black which i didn't see at all queen c4 driving the queen over to c4 blocking the rook i mean this is not a it's not like the world's hardest move to see but in a blitz game all this it's very easy to miss uh and that kind of gets in the way of a lot of white's initiative but when he played rugby seven i thought oh i have this really nice idea rook takes pawn this solves all my problems because if he takes i have this and he can't move his knight anywhere where the rook gets my queen because if he checks me i take it and if he moves his knight somewhere i take his rook i'm like okay i'm in the clear and then again ben thought for like 10 15 seconds and he played rook a7 and at this point i started like really imagining what my thumbnail for this video was going to be because rook a7 is the best move and once again it's the only move it's the only move he now gets the knight and rook distant enough that knight c6 is a threat excuse me so he can attack my queen defend his rook with the knight which he couldn't do a move ago hit my rook he's threatening this and he's threatening this and i have no moves absolutely no move so what do i do i'm like oh geez so let me start marching down the middle let me just try to do something here if he takes my knight i'm gonna take this i'm gonna sacrifice the exchange in a perfect world we get a position like this which is still lost for black but at least i have some hope but he took first and after rook takes d6 if he takes on a5 again we have some hope but he brought his queen and i was like oh no there's still not any danger but my knight is trapped i can't attack this let me just push my pawn and here is this is this is nice that if you if you thought that first game wasn't too impressive of a victory queen a5 i was like what he's letting me queen and now i'm protecting my back rank i was so wrong rook a check bishop blocks now that queen which traversed the entire board arrives behind my pawns queen g7 rook takes f8 mate i can't go to g8 because of the knight which arrived there a while ago i can't block but i mean i could i'd lose my queen and then the game in a few moves and um yeah very nice very nice end and when i lost like this i just i kind of yelled and then just started clapping because i mean this is just a very nice way to lose um yeah and uh well that is now three losses in a row to ben and i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna have to win some games at some point i can't keep getting posterized for youtube content but um after this i mean you know there was a little bit of a celebration and then ben raided me afterwards so uh tough games i mean maybe not for one of us maybe for one of us they were definitely not tough games but congratulations again to ben on 2800 i remember crossing it and then i tumbled back down like a hundred something points so hopefully that doesn't happen it can be very it can be very tricky to get back up to 2800 once you fall back down um but he's been on a killer streak and uh i figured that if i lose i would rather not be made into a youtube video when i could make the youtube video myself and the last thing that i will end you off on is a link to ben's channel in the description uh ben i've always recommended his videos to beginners and like intermediate players because the classroom lectures that he does like the 1pm or whatever the classes are they're really funny because he's constantly cracking jokes to like seven-year-olds who don't understand them at all and uh his lectures honestly are are serious quality so um that's all i have for you for today it's sunday it's sunny outside so i'm gonna go lick my wounds and cry a little bit no i i i already did that but i will see you all for the work week beginning tomorrow and hopefully not more content of me losing blitz games peace out get out of here

Channel: GothamChess

Views: 122,484

Keywords: gothamchess, gothamchess london, gothamchess caro kann, gothamchess openings, gothamchess vienna, ben finegold, ben finegold gothamchess, gothamchess ben finegold, chad ben finegold destroys virgin gothamchess, chad ben finegold, virgin gothamchess, ben finegold funny moments, ben finegold lecture, ben finegold lectures, ben finegold hikaru, hikaru ben finegold

Id: TTKkyTkkGAA

Length: 18min 25sec (1105 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 19 2021