How I accidentally became the biggest chess streamer of all time

let's talk cuz I know what you're thinking the title right now seems absurd how I accidentally became the biggest chess streamer of all time me how is that possible sounds fake doesn't it it's not for a brief moment I had more viewers than any chess streamer ever has any individual chess streamer sure chess Tom's website had me beat but as far as individuals a human goes I'm literally at the top this is anyone who stream chess in the past year and this has been the biggest year for chess as you guys know and you don't see xqc you don't see karo there's one man all the way up Ludwig who had the most viewers by far than any other individual chess streamer at peak this all started a few weeks ago when he karu who you probably all know by now who's blown up on twitch has 20 K average viewers announced the chess POG champs tournament it was meant to be a battle of streamers in chess coached by top chess players were the winning players would win a prize and they announced it along with some names I think xqc moist critical hutch and I'm watching on the sidelines just you know being a streamer with with no invite and you know I've lived a lot of my life on Twitch on the outside circle I've never really collaborated with anyone that has any sort of views pretty much just one old man and that's that's my life that's been my life but chess is something I like I've streamed chess on this channel before and so I thought I'm gonna go ahead and reach out to see if this is possible that's exactly what I did I reached out to chess comm through email hey hope this email finds you well I saw the recent announcement for the twitch chess tournament featuring many great streamers and was wondering if there are still openings I have been playing chess on stream through my twitch streaming career featuring prominently during my 1v1 streams I've attached relevant information as far as viewer count ball workout to hopefully show some credibility that I would be good for the event let me know if there are any openings thank you and I attached a screenshot of my viewers and let me say it was a flex I was trying to flex I wanted in I assume they probably got several emails I felt like such a who megalo everybody else just copped an invite I had to send an email to some entity I saw the email on their on their on their website this is litter I was job hunting and this is where the journey began they said hey man thanks for reaching out we already sent out all 16 invites but those expire in a couple days and will likely get a rejection so I'll put you at the top of the alternate list it's just like soccer in high school boys I'm on the [ __ ] bench there's a chance there's a chance we will see some field time and so two days later let me show you cuz I do see chess I'll call my chat saying they sent me an invite but I'll saw a leak oh I'll leak all day baby they said I was an alternate and then two days later May 28th they hit me back and they say this regarding the tournament it looks like everyone is inferred now I got rejected they literally who megaload me out the building even all the work I did I wasn't in and I was sad because I look I know I'm on the outside of Twitter's inner circle I know I do my own thing but this is the one time the one game war I felt like I could be somebody and it wasn't in the cards until a couple days later where I get an email with the subject line you're in we're in the event group deep and so I was in a group of four it was me it was box box Swift or whose brand new to the game the noob and Papa Lotte who will turn out to be just a better more German Ludwig I didn't know as possible to be a more German Ludwig well my name is [ __ ] Ludwig but apparently it is I had three matches if I went too I will move on to the winners bracket which is my goal and my first match is against no one else but box box the clear favorite to make it out of my group a clear favorite for top for the whole tournament even I prepared for my match by training with Hikaru you guys don't know who Cara obviously big chest streamer but also former number two chess player in the world I mean he's a god at the game and so with that preparation in mind we started the game we start with the Ponzi annie opening which is basically if you don't know anything about chess it's putting this pawn here so that you could eventually move this pawn and have it be more supported it's a strong opening to control the center early and I'm doing everything [ __ ] right every moves going well everything's working I might beat box box until turn six where I actually [ __ ] up and I did the wrong move in so and so it didn't it didn't super work out because here's the problem let me explain to you the real problem and if you don't know anything about chess this should still make sense I am getting taught by the best there is and he's teaching me dozens of different situations that can happen and I'm supposed to remember this all the day before there's variations where I'm supposed to bring this Bishop out there's variations Russell's bring this night out variations where I'm supposed to bring this Queen out even and I can only remember so far so once we got to move five I [ __ ] up but that's still fine it's not like my move was that dumped it wasn't a game ender honestly everything was going fine we were making moves up until we you see this white bar means white is winning I'm white I'm Lud Skywalker I made this account when I was 17 I thought it was cool I still think it's cool black having more means blacks winning white automatically start sweating because white moves first and so everything's fine and then when I do this I go from winning by two pawns because every one point means one pawn to winning by zero pawns but it's still fine but then I do that and this means a blunder which is chess talk for a holy [ __ ] you are so [ __ ] stupid but the good thing is he makes bunner's too so you know it's not all bad until I make some more blunders and he stops making blunders and in only 14 turns beats me in a game of chess and it sucks to lose but I was looking at it from a different angle because you guys know I like to do one thing in specific sometimes losing isn't a mistake for me all right new plan I throw every single match I have I get into the consolation I beat the out of everyone there it's a pogchamp story the whole way through that's an interesting plan that's an interesting plan now I'm this was obviously just banter that I was just bantering with my viewers but it is true that if you win the losers bracket you get $4,000 if you win the championship bracket you get 10,000 but if you get last place in the champion you only get 1500 and everyone in the championships brackets really good so somebody could do some calculations and decide to make some moves now I believe in integrity I'm a competitor obviously one of the best melee players of all time in my day but I did bring this idea up on stream and so then enter Game two of my group racket and the mattres against Papa Platt and if you don't know Papa Platt is a german streamer who literally has way more viewers than me way more German than me and does all the things I do he plays Mario on stream he does just chatting content he plays chess for like double the amount of viewers but I was a favorite to win my rating at the time about a thousand his 700 the problem is I didn't get any coaching before the day of the tournament I tried reaching out to Hikaru he said he was busy but he messaged me and he said Ludwig I have a brilliant idea I think for this game you're gonna go for a sneaky opening he won't expect now Baron minds the best of one so I only get one chance at winning so I take his advice and I go for it starting out as black the second to move I go he five this is normal very classical then after he plays his knight also very classical I mix it up with f5 you'll see this bar immediately shot down because it's not a great opening it's a gambit I'm literally giving up a pawn that no one can protect in hopes that it'll bring me a W throughout the entire game we continue he makes a blunder here blacks all the sudden winning a little blunder there for me he blunders back blunder for me and then he makes a genius move puts me in check I have to protect my king block with the pawn puts me in check again I'm freaking out so I block with my my bishop but I didn't realize in the bottom left corner my screen was standing a rook worth five points with no one protecting him and he takes him and now I'm panicking I moved my king I don't know what to do I didn't want it to take up my knight so I thought him protect my knight he moves this guy in I'm freaking the [ __ ] out I move this guy I know where I'm going he moves there I'm scared I'm scared I don't know I can't take it what do i do what do i do I move my king it's okay then he moves over here what does that mean I'm in check again my block this I boomed my king again I'm in the [ __ ] front of the board I'm panicking I'm panicking and so I decide in this moment down big what's the one move I can make to come back I'm black he's white there's one single move that can win me this game and so I decide to move my bishop here but what I didn't notice at the time was that apparently I could have just taken his Queen I I missed it I mean I mean it would have it would look at look at the look at look I mean like it would have literally almost won me the game you know I didn't see it at the time I didn't see it so that's not what happened and instead I continued to play on and the game went on for a bit but unfortunately he was up so much material he had so many more pieces than I did that he eventually found a checkmate and I lost the game against Papa Platt which meant two things one I'm a lot worse at chess than I thought I was and two I am now literally guaranteed to be in the consolation bracket it turned out later that maybe he Cara's advice that he gave me I read incorrectly he said he doesn't have time to teach me he said a lot awake okay decluttering Wow I could teach a lot of week well what's xqc up to apparently my viewer cow who have a lot of um damn good advice so he's one piece of advice hurry who is the Safi in gambit but now what do I do now what am I supposed to do he karu this is not right at all okay okay so he Carl goes on to leek in front of 50,000 people that I might have lied about the opening he told me apparently he told me to do something completely different and I just didn't listen his exact DM after I asked him for help was don't have time in response to me asking for coaching but here's my recommendation Papa platta is new to the game he'll go efore so I'd recommend something an Orthodox confused like E for and then D 5 D 5 I did f5 but the letters are so close and he D Mia and I'm not kidding at 6:47 a.m. 647 am are you really gonna say it's my fault that I read it incorrectly I think it's his fault he could have clarified more 647 I'm a streamer I've never gotten up before noon ever what do you mean right I thought was the only disappointment that I gave he Cara wouldn't be too bad but this was his reaction Jenny's thinking for a long time is down to 4 minutes already put on your serious face put on your serious face and take the Queen put on your serious face man put it on so if I bring Bishop to e6 and then and then he takes this and then I take this then I can yeah I think he push up t6 is fine and it's AIT's it's great but it's reasonable it was reasonable uh Chad I think we just lost he I've never seen a man more disappointed in me ever mostly because my father died 15 years ago thanks a car for giving me the feeling during father's day I appreciate that also he car was in my chat right now it called me a lazy bum so we lose our second game which means we are now a hundred percent in the consolation bracket this is when things changed this is when I started to take things seriously I was more proactive to find coaching I went out and I bought chess books I was playing off stream and on stream ignoring viewer account literally just trying to get better at the game in our match this one versus Swift Thor is not for a bracket placement but it's for seeding but I don't care about the seating I don't care where I am I just want to start winning I haven't won a game yet I want to know if I have the capability at this point it feels like when you're a kid and all the parents say you could be so good if you just applied yourself but I never [ __ ] did am I actually good or am i falling for the things my parents say is it all alive I don't know so how about I actually [ __ ] apply myself actually put my soul into this thing make myself vulnerable to real loss real pain and go for a real win and it starts like all my games did efore I'm confident in this opening and I'm just trying to play smart chess smart chess that's what I'm thinking smart chess everything's looking good this bar right now not too crazy I haven't made any big mistakes neither as he until right here i blunder my bishop you can see the bar plummet because this bishop right now is being attacked by the night and no one is protecting it and he [ __ ] missed it he [ __ ] missed it he didn't see the move in fact he didn't see it for to turn straight I got away with the murder and I take that and I use it and I don't let it go to waste I continue down with the underestimated never seen on this planet triple stack I bring out that in and out one two three pieces all stacked attacking up here and I have one thing in mind check [ __ ] mate he's used almost all of his time I have five minutes left I see it right here can you see where it is I have a guaranteed mate find a check here he can't take me because it's protected by the bishop he moves the only place he can and so the only move I have to do now is move my work backwards the bishop finds a discovered check the King can't escape here or here cuz the rooks blocking it and I find a checkmate in twenty six move and I'm feeling good it's my first win and all of a sudden I feel like maybe maybe he Carver's not all talk maybe I can't be good at the game maybe I can find a way to win and in my postgame interview they talk about how I found the way to win and to this day I I credit my went to one thing and one thing only let's watch why did you give your Bishop for free though come on literally you had 500 gifted subs on the line you cannot be living life with that kind of risk Alex Alex Alex here's a little thing that I'm gonna pass on to you from one streamer to another it's called throwing for content you gotta make it a little more exciting all right throwing a hanging bishop have everybody in suspense for a moment my endgame is phenomenal do you know why I picked up the vorc shiki's endgame book okay now I can't read a word of this because it's all in chess notation it makes no sense but I own it and this alone has been a 300 point up for me have you been like sleeping next to it trying to get some you know a sauna every night I no longer own a pillow I just sleep on - vork shiki's book at fourth edition the ownership of the book was enough to bring me through and secure a dub vs. Swift door and now it was time for the consolation bracket it feels weird to say but I think the consolation bracket was a bigger deal than even the championship bracket because look at the names the biggest names in the tournament were in this bracket xqc is the one who started the chess Christ this was the bracket that he ended up in this is the bracket that a lot of the viewers had their eyes on even though it was remarkably worse chess and so I enter my first match vs. choco bars in the consolation bracket the prize up top is $4,000 but more importantly it's the eyes of the viewers throughout all this my channel was blowing up I was streaming with people I'd never stream before I've streamed with hutch i streamed with moist critical the big prize wasn't the money the people who follow you along the journey that's worth more than 4k so I wanted this dub and I entered my match versus coachup choco bars by getting a coaching session now you might be wondering who was it from was it from Hikaru or perhaps Hans who's another player who coached me a lot it's actually the person that was supposed to be my coach the whole tournament and I haven't brought her up because she blew me off the whole [ __ ] event that's right when I got the news on June 1st that I would be a part of this event I was told two things what pool odd being and two that I would be having a coach because the idea was have shitty streamers get coached by great players so they can play better and my coach was Alex Andra both PEZ a woman's fide master in chess a phenomenal player who was meant to coach me and so we emailed back and forth we actually came up on a coaching day weeks before the consolation bracket started but it was 6 p.m. on Saturday and had a coaching session with Hikaru at 5 but it ran a little late because I'm a little dumb and so I still lit up Alexandra because her coaching session was supposed to be an hour like 20 minutes after it happened and I was like you ready and she was like yeah but um how about you do some coaching with my friend instead and I normally wouldn't care about this why am I even bringing this up who cares I still got coaching from other people she said she couldn't do it she couldn't do it well the next day Hasaan another streamer got a private one-on-one coaching session that was three hours long and really was mostly talking about the Argentineans government's exploitation of workers in further dangerous and socialism with a little bit of chess wrinkled in while me the assigned player to the coach hasn't gotten a minute I'm coaching I mean the balls the balls and so I brought it up to her on stream that I hadn't got coaching and she said you've coached me and we did coaching but apparently she was a little bitter because she started off the coaching session with this so in this position on the chess board there is a way for white to checkmate in a single move right now you can take the time to see what the move would be for white to find this checkmate but that was my task for the coaching session and she said while I was doing it she would be looking up Choka bars openings to help me tree elementary checkmate in one yeah of course okay well we have a we have a knight here that can put him in check and our Queen's pinning pawns upon can't take and doesn't feel like she's doing a lot of work there huh we're right at I know it's hard that's the point this is revenge for the rent blast punk champs ladies and gentlemen he's not supposed to get it the truth comes out because I went on a rant in front of like 50k people about how she's a shitty coach she tried to make me look a fool in a waste time on a puzzle that is nearly impossible for someone around my level bringing people together that's what life's about end of the day everything we do is to feel a little less lonely watching Hulu Netflix hanging out with friends it's all about being a little less lonely and today I say [ __ ] a Mayton one I want to be a little less lonely maton - okay you heard all that okay sorry okay so apparently it was possible to find the mate in one and I'll have you know I did find it have you found it yet 20 minutes later did I see it I see it I say I see it all past song yes Evan to e5 that was so cheap of you to not show me the black moving Fett square oh I see it on past song anyway the rest of the coaching session was not nearly as much of a struggle and we decided on a opening and we actually practice very specifically for choco bars opening and then my game versus Choka bars started my game versus Choka bars was again a best of two I go for the D for opening remembering what I learned during the coaching session a pretty clean game all the way until move 17 we're in this position choco bars makes a fatal error moving her knight over to g4 unprotected by any single piece but under threat by my knight I capitalize immediately one entire piece down is too much for choke a bars to bear I continued my warpath trading down cuz it's always okay to trade when you're up in pieces boys that's the [ __ ] secret it doesn't even matter if I'm losing small traits I'm up so much that even if I'm plus two pawns I'm able to continue this and extrapolate it into a secured victory and that's exactly what I do but it's not the most deafening defeat in game two I'm not trying to [ __ ] around game 2 I'm trying to prove that I can win and so it starts me playing the black this side everything going well making a gambit here in this position with my knight to take her pawn on c2 threatening her rook she puts it in safety moves her night out and then blunders throws her rook into peril right under threat of my knight protected by nothing not that it matters because a rook is more valuable I take the rook and from there well I'll roll the clip of what happened every single red eye means a pre-move aka I am making dozens of moves before she even makes one and then I make a call out for the goddamn throat you better not spread your cheeks to voice criticals or else I'm coming that was a reference to uh to slicker and moist critical who were two people on the other side of the bracket who I had beef with talking about how one of them's Johnny since I don't know they had a weird analogy going on I was just harkening back to it it looked chess gets a little weird it gets a little weird in chess world anyway I win cleanly and now all the sudden I'm in the semi-finals of the tournament and I'm gonna have to play the winner of xqc in foosley and I haven't talked too much about xqc today but I should have without him this tournament probably wouldn't have been a thing xq C's the one who started playing chess in originally getting coaching from Hikaru blew up the entire category chess is now one of the biggest games chess and it's because of an admittedly shitty ass player compared to the rest of the chess players in the world getting a little bit of coaching from one of the best in the world he was always considered I think the correct term is the fart of twitch in fact suffered a very very deafening defeat which I'll show you right here alright so we're gonna be watching this chess match here guys it's between moist critical and xqc [Music] well I guess that's the end of the chess match between moist critical and xqc another riveting bout between those two that match it lasted six moves it has two million views on YouTube it's one of the most viewed chess games of all time but xqc for all the [ __ ] that he gets kept playing and against foosley who was the favorite to win that match ended up winning and it was going to be me versus xqc and the semi-finals we even talked before our match I don't want to make too much spice okay all right listen look wig is kind of a friend from high school who play like 2000 games of League and he's still silver that that's kind of how it is so I guess I'll see you next round did but if I put a bit more time dude listen you're not making it through with the time it but I would I would put in a little side wager I'll get the 100 subs if you beat me you don't anything up yeah Oh easy money Sherman 100 gifted selves 500 dollars are on the line now and so I prepare I prepped by continuing to read my book not the divorce key one but the Bobby Fischer one and xqc prepared by playing I'm sorry by playing The Last of Us 2 for 17 hours straight oh well still no one to underestimate and I did a bit of preparation so I was kind of prepared for the opening because I you can actually look up other people's chess games and I make a few mistakes here and there he makes a few mistakes as well but it's pretty even right up until here in fact there was a way for me to get a checkmate and eight moves guaranteed and I didn't see it I'm ashamed to say I was going for cheese what I was thinking this whole time was if I bring my queen to this spot and his queen isn't here then it's a checkmate it's all thinking in this moment I'm gonna do something stupid and put my king here in hopes of baiting him to take this pawn he ends up doing this I ignored it I was like I'll do another throwaway move I do this and that's when he finally does it he takes the pawn here I have the Free File I can get to checkmate it's so easy so I moved my queen hover it over the position smiling to myself thinking man this is gonna be so damn easy GG Felix turns out that I accidentally forgot that because he moved this pawn up he has an escape square and so he can just he can just do that and so it actually wasn't it actually wasn't even close to a mate but I put him in check here he blocks me wrong move check again and now all the sudden I'm making a comeback in fact the game is dead even but here's where I make a brutal mistake winning is an option but there's one more very important option drawing if you make the same moves three times straight on both sides it's a draw it's very easy to achieve that in certain situations but I said [ __ ] that we're gonna go for the win baby grab the pawn grab the pawn going for the 3rd pawn and then uh apparently that's checkmate for Felix yeah he mated me I didn't see it I was actually at a +5 this means plus five-and-a-half ponds and I went from that to getting mated in one and three turns and I was actually kind of crushed because I was really confident this guy played the last of us too that's all he did and he walked away with a ninety percent accuracy he played a very good game and now it's game point not only if I lose this next game do I lose the whole tournament if I draw the next game I lose the whole tournament game - I prepare my opening knowing that I want to go for something he wouldn't expect the Berlin defense I know I know he likes throwing Lopez where you bring out the bishop to threaten the king and often end up creating stacked ponds on this file but in the year 2001 man up set the world's greatest player at the time garry kasparov with this exact move ignore the [ __ ] bishop ignore the stack pawns bring out this piece we're going for the Berlin defense baby and that's exactly what we do we continue on making all the best moves reacting in every situation to whatever he does with the right [ __ ] move and right here I see something only 13 to turn Z and I see something big I see my queen is threatening here and if I bring my bishop I'll have two people attacking together they call that a battery in chess he brings his knight here what he saw as a fork in fact let me show you a clip so checkmate my accuracy for this game [Music] 99.1% I didn't make a single wrong move I played a perfect game in Game three it's a sudden-death three minutes are gonna separate me from winning if I run out of time even if I'm up a whole queen I lose and so he start before this happened I looked up a little bit of theory on what I should do if he does the same Bishop opening so I start the same and I noticed he does the same move so I mix it up I take him which you might be thinking herself well a lot of week why doesn't he take you well he did just that the problem is now I move my queen here so in return he threads to take me but I'm okay with that he takes me and I say [ __ ] it I'm taking the pun nothing's protecting it and he's in check I'm up upon already only six seconds in to the game and then he blocks with his bishop and I say oh you know they do say in chess you're supposed to control the center and bring out all these pieces so you can have a more safe opening for your King but [ __ ] that [ __ ] what's up the Queen go to town I take all the ponds check and I'm one move away from checkmate do you see it I have checked mate with one more move his King can't escape it can't take me cuz I'm protected his bishops useless that's worse than Queen are useless I win the game in 12 moves literally 12 moves and I beat xqc in a sudden death to make it to the finals of the entire [ __ ] tournament except that didn't actually happen because I accidentally played this move cuz I didn't see it because I only had three minutes and I made the move in a second I thought this was checkmate but apparently you can do this which I didn't see and so then I was like oh [ __ ] so then I just continued on for a bit and I was still up ahead a lot but I if I am around at a time I still lose the game so I have to move very quickly I end up going +8 I bring out my night I fork him he moves here grab the rook continue ravaging him taking every single piece that he has checks Forks discovered checks non-stop threats leaving him with nothing but a king and then I find my mate checkmate in 44 moves it only had to be 12 but I brought it down 44 moves and in two minutes of my play time I check mated xqc and moved on to the finals me verse is critical in the finals of the consolation bracket the problem was I only had two hours to prepare the finals was the same day as the semi-finals I took an hour to chill and then I spent the last hour with my coach Hans a 16 year old prodigy at chess soon to be GM while he prepped with Danya a GM who found him his six move mate versus xqc it was truly a match of titans and so in front of over 100,000 combined viewers I prepared for the exact opening with a new gambit the caro-kann ensuring better defense something I had never done but only studied briefly I'm running through the moves but you can see we are all making great moves there are no severe blunders it continues on for a bit until I finally I finally have a breakthrough I get my pawn on the 6th rank 2 away from changing into a queen a scary spot for apana B he moves his knight a mistake I take advantage he moves in here he takes me to avoid the threat and now I'm now up three pawns it continues on for a bit he starts making some scary moves eventually I'm able to trade off my rooks simplifying the game and here I'm in a tough spot I only have a minute left on the clock I've played nine minutes of chess so I put him in check panicking after thinking about the move for twenty seconds we end up entering some sort of stalemate I repeat the move we're on the verge of a draw but I'm greedy I don't want to draw I'm gonna bring my rook or over and jam this [ __ ] in but I run out of time I think to myself hey if I bring my queen down here it'll put them in check again he'll move over and then I can bring my rook up and then I can get checkmate except I miss one thing why are there two question marks here I give away my queen I go from almost guaranteed winning to losing in one turn I try playing on but I could not have been more frustrated I mean I was genuinely sad here I know it might not seem like it but I did put a lot of myself into this tournament and to lose it off of something so dumb after playing such a great game it's really crushing I tried playing on for a bit but I made one blunder that cost me the whole game the whole hour Hans spent coaching out through the window I didn't have the mental fortitude to play another game but then I got a message Hans reached out he told me I played a great game said don't let it get to my head all I have to do is just play more confidently I'm making the right moves I'm just doubting myself trust yourself you can win and I entered Game two with honza's words in my mind knowing that I could [ __ ] make this comeback and so eight starts game [ __ ] two I decide to open up with the pretty simple opening and I was prepared i played smart i made the good moves kept at advancing pieces and at this moment I saw it I saw the path to victory do see it this bishop is currently defended by one piece but attacks by two not only that but if I take with my bishop first and then he takes with his pawn and then I take with my knight I fork his queen in his rook he has to pick one to save obviously he picks the Queen I take the rook and now I'm up three points we continue on playing I try to make the best moves I can pushing my pawn all the way up allowing myself to get a pawn for a rook that's how scary my pawn was on this rank and now I'm up seven points bouncing back from the loss Game one in an unprecedented way and just for fun I end up going +10 I'm feeling good and while all this is happening unbeknownst to me because I'm not allowed to open chat in a distant land chess calm the people streaming this event to almost a hundred thousand viewers goes down due to a fire in Arizona I'm not kidding and in this exact moment where I am crushing I get hosted by chests dot-coms twitch stream and I don't even know but I have 72,000 viewers at peak on the most watched chess streamer of all time I'm playing the biggest live chess match any individuals ever streams literally 72k peak my previous is 16 K at this point my opponent moist critical resigns and so I brought it to a sudden-death 1/1 overtime game vs. moist critical in the finals I'm not kidding the most viewed twitch streamer at peak ever in the history of twitch and I gotta say when I found out I was [ __ ] nervous not only are 60,000 people watching outside of that I poured my heart into this game on ironically I'm not a [ __ ] GM I'm not an amazing player I'm not even good but I put in a lot of time to get and a lot of time to get here it's one thing to enter as a streamer and just play for funsies and get guaranteed money but I actually tried I got coaching I went out I bought books I read them every single night I actually was like I was like peckish I couldn't [ __ ] eat the day up I don't get nervous a lot not for streaming not with 15,000 you laugh you losing but when I'm genuinely putting my self-worth in front of people and saying hey I tried my best and either I fail or succeed that's the most real thing you can do and so we start Game three and I'm feeling good I think I might actually be able to get it done I start off with the game plan that I know and I feel comfortable with rather than the one I worked on with Hans literally Lopez he ends up making some pretty good plays here and in fact has an advantage at this point he's up one pawn over me and again I'm a little nervous but I know I'm faster and I know I can bring it back so the game continues and I make a genius play rook to check he blocks with his Bishop I take the bishop meaning the only piece he can block with is now this pawn free pawn for me and he's in check so I get a free extra move I'm in a really good spot here you can probably see a couple good moves this is a free pawn but I decide after he ends up moving his King and I'm not gonna take this I'm not gonna protect him I'm gonna try to go for protection here which ended up not being the wisest decision I realized because I pinned my own Queen meaning that if I move this guy now they get a queen which is bad for me so I'm like okay that's fine so I end up taking his rook he takes with the Queen I decide to keep my Queen because I think I'm in a better position I put him in check he moves his Bishop I put him in check I'm thinking ooh free pawn or free Bishop again trying to make good moves in literal seconds he makes a brilliant move by blocking the bishop or excuse me the checked with his queen forcing me to train we're literally even I moved my night out he moves his pawn up and that's where I'm like huh this doesn't seem too bad so I take it and then he takes his bishop and then I realize his plan all along I'm now forked his bishops attacking my king and my knight I have to protect the king and so I lose a knight and I'm down big now I try fighting back tanking upon where I can but the damage is done he's in a way better position and he forces my king to go up here and with one final move of his rook puts my King into check can't escape into these squares cuz this pawn can't escape into these squares because it's bishop and I lose the first time I've ever lost a critical in a3 oh it's in front of 60,000 people and the finals of one of the biggest chess tournaments of all time and I'm crushed cuz it's not like I just made a dumb play I just got outplayed I think if we ran the game 10 times I have a good chance of winning four five maybe even six but this game when it mattered he played way better than me and I lost but I'm graceful in defeat I hosted critical I still liked critical I think critical is a [ __ ] fantastic content creator we've won a lot on this channel and it feels [ __ ] good Pokemon our mario tournament this else done one thing and one thing only lit of fire under my ass I don't care what the competition is I'm putting in my all cuz even though it felt terrible to lose even though I immediately ended and sat on a [ __ ] swing like a depressed Naruto character for three hours by myself all it made me want to do was run it back and we'll have the [ __ ] chance it might not be chess it might not be critical but it will happen we're gonna run it back we're gonna see this stage again and when we see it we're putting our heart in we're gonna try our best to take that [ __ ] down we ended up second place winning $3,000 and 100 gifted cells from xqc and making a few friends along the way and finally feels like I might be on the inner circle of twitch for the first time ever I feel like I'm a streamer that people know about so it's not all sad shout outs where shout outs are do shoutouts to critical winning the tournament probably no other streamer I would have wanted to win and that is how I accidentally briefly became the biggest chess streamer of all time [Music]

Channel: Ludwig

Views: 2,163,219

Keywords: ludwig, ludwigahgren, ahgren, gaming, chat, stream, decides, lud, hikaru, nakamura, alex botez, chess, accidentally

Id: G5BI6YKyF1s

Length: 47min 27sec (2847 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Fluct]

Found it searching through the creators subreddit. This song: here.