How Dubov Beat Hou Yifan with the Stafford Gambit

so this game was played almost exactly a month ago i think it was played june 24th i'm recording this on july 25th it was played as part of the meltwater champions tour it's called the gold money asian rapid tournament and it features the one and only daniel dubov the super grand master against haui fan the top active female player in the world and dubov unleashed the stafford gambit and one with it which just brings me so much joy and duboff is probably the highest rated player ever to have played the staffer gambit in a serious competition of course the stafford has been played by grand masters in like online bullet chests but to play the stafford in a serious competitive event where there's money on the line really goes to show that perhaps even top level players have to be prepared for such an opening so before we jump into the game i do want to thank the sponsor of today's video is skillshare thanks so much for sponsoring this video if you're not familiar with them they are an online learning community that has thousands of classes for creative and curious people which is hopefully you watching right now and their class topics range from photography design illustration freelancing coding productivity the list goes on and on and one class i'm currently watching right now which i'm really enjoying is called youtube success by marcus brownlee he's one of the top youtube creators on the platform and he has a class breaking down his process for making youtube videos how he prepares films edits and it's really fascinating and i think it could definitely appeal to those who want to grow a brand on youtube so i do have a special offer to my subscribers the first 1 000 people to click the link in the video description we'll get a one month free trial to skillshare so you can join the platform and start learning exploring and discovering and with that let's get back to the chess so how you found playing white daniel dubois playing black i know the result is already spoiled but i hope that won't ruin the fun of uh of this game and uh let's start with the first few moves get ready for it get ready for it it's staffer gambit time i'm so elated to have seen this played by especially by duboff who's like one of the most cool now even cooler super grand masters on the planet and i'm really curious i'm actually curious about two things here's whether howie fawn is even like aware that this opening has a name um i highly doubt that she watches my content especially given the move that she plays next uh i'm also curious if duboff has like seen my videos and maybe got inspired maybe saw the the jonathan schrantz video on how he takes down stockfish or at least draw stockfish from a stafford but what happened this game is how you find to climb the gambit instead of taking on c6 and putting black to the test she treated this like um more standard petrov and moved back to f3 now i should note the main line is d6 minus three which is just standard theory but against the stafford the only way to punish the gambit especially at the highest level is to accept it and win a pawn which unfortunately didn't happen this game um i would have been really curious to see how play would unfold between two strong grand masters and i imagine djubov was somewhat prepared especially in the more critical tricky variations because one one line that a lot of like strong players play these days is d3 bishop c5 bishop e2 after h5 c3 for a while this is considered to be like the refutation and like if white is really well prepared this is probably a good enough refutation but for players that maybe are just kind of stumbling into this is white even if you're a strong gm when knight g4 happens things can get very very messy and the key line is after d4 queen h4 g3 queen f6 i have a few videos on this there's the jonathan tron's video which i'll link below and um it would have been really cool if they went into this however the game was actually a bit more peaceful because howie fawn declined the gamut played knight f3 djubov wins back the pawn d3 knight f6 d4 now black plays d5 and if we observe the position you'll notice that it's almost completely symmetrical but black is a one having an extra tempo white wasted time moving the knight twice moving the d-pawn twice and it's black with uh the early opening advantage because there's one extra piece developed and even though the position's kind of symmetrical it's black who is already slightly for choice now play unfolds pretty naturally bishop d3 bishop d6 gasling castling and pawn c3 very standard move there's cases where if black had like one more tempo knight b4 could be played so after c3 it's now up to black to figure out how to um how to proceed kind of leaving the opening entering the middle game and the most natural move here that i think most people would play is bishop to g4 just pinning the knight but i really like the move that dubois plays the move is very active but it's also prophylactic it's to play knight e4 and the point obviously we're improving the knight we're potentially preparing f5 to get a very nice bind in the center kind of like a stonewall setup but on top of this we're leaving white's dark square bishop without an active place to develop to because now bishop g5 is just out of the question so is bishop f4 and these two squares on e3 and d2 don't seem too attractive so an 84 is a really nice idea especially if black can get away with it right away and of course if white tries to attack it with rookie 1 or knight d2 black can reinforce it in a variety of ways so after 94 howie fawn tried to undermine black center as quickly as possible by playing pawn c4 which in some sense is wasting even more time like if we look at how he finds opening in the first 10 moves she's moved the the kingside knight one two three times and she's moved both the d and c pawn twice of course this move is uh is somewhat justified because the deepon's undefended and the d-pawn the only thing defending the knight so white is using initiative here but this does give dubov an opportunity to be aggressive next move being knight b4 which is really nice and this is one of the reasons why c3 was played earlier to prevent knight b4 but now black can get away with this and is really just going after the bishop pair so if white takes black can take take and even though blocks temporarily down the pawn after you move like bishop f5 black has full initiative d pawns are going to be weak and uh knight g3 is also a threat here so for that reason howie fawn retreated the bishop yeah began moving the same piece twice in the opening so defying a lot of opening principles and now dubai plays bishop f5 so it's move 11. black has all the minor pieces developed and light just has the kingside develop hasn't touched anything on the queen side so opening battle has clearly gone to black and i guess this is what can happen if you decline the staff or gambit and you play very timidly from the black perspective if you can play actively develop rapidly then you can get a nice opening position without even needing to gambit so how efaun continues plays a3 do bob retreats knight c3 there is some trade and now h6 another prophylactic move um h6 has perhaps a few reasons of course prevents anything from coming to g5 white had some plan of after the trade of knights to play this this this and have some purpose in life for the dark spray bishop game continues bishop d3 straight on c3 and now queen f6 so black is still playing actively um just improving further connecting the rooks getting ready to bring the rooks into the center rook b1 was played on b6 and for people who are maybe more experienced in different types of openings this structure is actually very reminiscent of a four night scotch but reverse and this pawn b6 move is really nice because it undermines the rook in some cases prepares knight a5 and then the eventual positional break with pawn c5 so things are going to get positional uh though hau yifan played a kind of very active move rook b5 hitting the bishop on the fifth rank djubov was provoked to trade and after the trade on d3 dubai very simply aligns the rook with the queen and this is very common in chess especially going into the middle game if you're not sure where to put your rooks sometimes it's nice to put your rook on the same file as your opponent's queen in this case the d file is half open for black so um there there's some potential for tactics further down the road and of course jubob is preparing to put other rook on the fully open e file so here the game continues pawn a4 rook fe-8 black is fully optimizing and now here comes a nice positional maneuver starting with knight e7 and here dubov is making way for the c pawn to advance but also preparing the knight to come to perhaps a more active square like f5 or eventually d5 or maybe even knight g6 to f4 so very flexible move how efon plays a bit slowly here starts with h3 and now c5 of course dreaming of getting rid of the d-pawn now of course a strong grandmaster like hauifan would not not blunder like this but if white takes on c5 black would be very happy to respond with bishop h2 oh no my bishop but oh no your queen so these sort of tactics are very abundant whenever the rook is aligned with the white queen like this so in some sense the d-pawn is pinned because of the x-ray here how iphone goes for a pawn break of her own a5 of course dubov has a nice sort of mini pawn chain on the queen side and a5 is one way to try and destroy the pawn chain so dubov just kind of ignores the break and goes for knight d5 which is a very multi-purpose square for the knight crushing the bishop pressuring the c pawn ideas of this hit the queen ideas of this hit the rook really nice move there fabifan takes takes and now plays bishop d2 so preserving your bishop perhaps considering ideas of c4 at some point uh but dubois strikes with knight to c7 and at first this move looks like a blunder because what's defending the pawn the knight was just defending the pawn but now the knight's on c7 and i can imagine dubov playing this move and saying oh no my pawn but this pawn would be poisonous for the same reason that there were tactics on the d-file there's also tactics on the sixth rank and bishop h2 in this case is winning the exchange after it takes we can take the rook so it's very important in chess to realize what's aligned with what especially when there's a possible check or discovery in the position that you're not falling victim to the geometry of the position now of course how you fondan take the poison pawn retreats to rook all the way to b1 and the game continues dubov expanding on the queen side and b5 is a really nice move especially from a positional standpoint and i do want to give kind of a general rule which applies to just so many types of positions whenever both sides have a single bishop of the same color in this case both sides have a dark spot bishop the general plan should be to place your pawns on the opposite collar of that bishop so both sides in this position should be trying to fix their pawns on light squares and also fix her opponent's pawns on dark squares b5 is a step forward in this direction for dubov he wants to soon play c4 and get the pawns complementing the bishop instead of just getting in the way of of his own bishop and if c4 is played these pawns would be fixed on dark squares and this bishop would be even more sad and that's basically what happened after rook fe1 c4 queen c2 the structure is now fixed even though black's not so much better black has a pleasant advantage just because of the superior minor piece and the potential to exploit these uh especially the c3 pawn later on now the next move from dubov i think illustrates some deeper end game understanding and it's a very committal move between g6 which i don't think too many players would even consider playing just because it offers fight to take and destroy black's structure just have double the ugly double g pawns but the reason for playing this move is that after takes takes okay another train on e8 black is still the one pressing for an advantage and duval understood that the resulting end game is actually really easy to play for black eventually the knight is going to have a square the rook's already controlling the e file but also has potential to use a file and there's always looming possibilities of b4 maybe not right now but later white has to be on constant watch and on top of all of this the knights on f3 and the bishop on d2 are just not effective and there's so much more potential for blacks bishop and knight in this position so how you fun continues plays king f1 king of seven and now how you fun plays a really kind of mysterious move which is interesting pawn d5 attempting to trade the d-pawn for the b-pawn so if knight takes d5 rook b5 white would be fine here with initiative against the knight and a square for the nylon d4 but this didn't happen dubov calmly plays rook b8 and now white's in the predicament this pawn is now over defended and the knight can mobilize take the pawn and just win it for free and that's basically what ended up happening after knight d4 rook b7 bishop e3 king e8 knight c6 duboff took on d5 black is up a pawn now in hindsight how you find probably just should have left her knight on d4 pressuring b5 and it probably would have been more of a challenge for black to win the pawn maybe would have had to eventually trade off bishop for knights and then lock the king in but knight c6 definitely made doubt's life a bit easier and after it takes bishop d4 in d7 it's black whose advantage is beginning to grow knight a5 was played hitting the rook rook b8 and here it looks like white can win the pawn back with bishop takes g7 however this would be yet another poison pawn and do bob is very sly in like creating these situations where it looks like he has something hanging but doesn't actually and hear the tactics uh just go in blocks favor black would have the very nice move bishop c7 and white's knight is just trapped if rookie won and rook 8 and white's losing material and black would be on the road to winning this game so how eufaun probably realized that went for bishop to a7 hitting the rook trying to deflect the rook from defending the pawn however knight takes c3 very timely counter-attack winning another pawn hitting the rook and white is now just really suffering here roxy one was played hitting the knight and for a moment it looks like okay black has some some issues to to deal with but all the issues are resolved very simply with rook 288 counter-attacking the bishop also skewing the bishop in the night and here's where things really go in box favor after bishop d4 knight a2 hitting the rook the knight is still hanging white is losing a piece after okay getting two pawns for it but it's not gonna be enough bishop f8 defending the g7 pawn and black is up a clean piece here a few more moves were played and i should show the ending ending is nice after bishop g7 trying to exploit the fact that the bishop was defending two things at once duval responds with knight to d5 creating now two threats of course threatening to take the bishop but also threaten the fork we can see by the time stamps here how you find had 20 seconds i think took the bishop in panic and just got forked and then resigned and that's a game it was actually a very positional game from what one might expect a stafford to offer but it was a very satisfying game for duboff and for me nonetheless given that uh staffer gambit was effective against a strong grandmaster even though it wasn't accepted we saw that when white declined the gambit and wasted some time in the opening black was really the one in control for most of the game so i hope people enjoy that i hope people are inspired even though i know stafford is objectively dubious it could still be played against opponents who maybe aren't the most prepared and if you have any questions leave them below i do get staffer gabby questions on a pretty regular basis so maybe at some point i'll have to make a video just addressing stafford hand questions from viewers so stay tuned make sure you hit the subscribe button and i'll see you in the next video

Channel: Eric Rosen

Views: 213,378

Keywords: chess, imrosen, Eric Rosen, Chess Openings, Chess Tactics, Blunder, Chess Strategy, Twitch Chess, Chess Stream, lichess, IM Rosen, IM Eric Rosen, Eric Rosen Chess, Best YouTube Chess Channel, Best Chess Channel, YouTube Chess, Chess Commentary, International Master, Chess Tutorial, Chess.com, chess game, chess video, lichess.org, chess explained, Checkmate, slow chess, rapid chess, chess 2021, skillshare, danil dubov, hou yifan, stafford gambit, stafford gambit declined

Id: yiq8J2yVupE

Length: 21min 13sec (1273 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 31 2021