I WILL BE GM!!!!!!!! (Road to GM Episode 7)

ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the road to GM I'm currently in Madrid Spain and in this episode I will be covering my second round game of the Madrid chess Festival my opponent is named Pepe quena his full name is Jose quena or I believe Jose Fernando quena gimenez if I'm not mistaken but he's a very popular commentator very popular Grandmaster uh and his nickname is Pepe quena his rating is 2,498 in the first round of this tournament I defeated Grandmaster Tomas Sosa with a rating of 2535 and that game was really really special and I talked about it uh in that recap this round I'm again playing with the black pieces uh and um I'm going to take you through the game now a very quick thing in the past I would upload a recap immediately after my game was done I'm not doing that anymore to preserve energy and play my best chess what I will do is I will be uploading and I have been uploading a bunch of behind the scenes training footage but also previews of future Recaps onto the patreon before I put them out on YouTube so uh over 600 of you at this point have subscribed to the patreon thank you very much and remember during the day days of this tournament if you have a Chesley account on my educational platform Chesley you can participate in our community Challenge and uh all you got to do is just log in and do a couple of daily study tasks and you'll contribute to the leaderboard uh and then you will unlock some pretty awesome rewards so that's all on you it's only for the days of the event log in do a couple of exercises you want to check out the patreon and um here we go with round number two so in this round I didn't do a crazy amount of prep uh because uh Pepe can play a lot of different stuff like D4 like Knight F3 he's a more positional player so before this game I was a bit worried I reviewed like some London lines and then I showed up and he went C4 the good news about C4 is that if you're going to play the Queen's Gambit declined it doesn't really stop you you just play E6 D5 so that's actually why after the first couple of moves he just went back to playing D4 the only alternative he could have played as Knight C3 and then maybe E3 without committing to D4 but he only plays Knight F3 like I looked at uh Pepe's games and he never plays Knight C3 he always tries to play something that could potentially become a Catalan and so before the game I had prepared the A6 Queen Gambit declined the idea is I want to take on C4 and I want to defend with B5 uh and I didn't know what he was going to play here but my idea was we're going to play this opening I haven't played this much over the board so there's no way he could have prepared it I'm not even sure he did prepare but I did see he played a couple games of Bishop G5 this kind of takes the sting out of A6 it's the best move uh and basically black Hast Bishop B7 you trade white defends the pawn like this instead of putting the Knight on C3 and all engines say that regardless of how white develops white will just get a very easy simple game and I did not want an easy simple game because that's his style so before the game I decided if he plays Bishop G5 I'm going to play Knight F6 he's going to go here and now this is a very unique Queen's Pawn position um and uh we're going to see what happens so I took on C4 he he brought out his bishop and I played C5 attacking his Center and then I took and my notes Here were after Pawn takes we actually transposed to A variation I've been playing a lot online recently in uh title Tuesday this is the Queen's Gambit accepted where black takes on D4 so you get to this exact same position but with a different move order okay so again keep in mind I'm taking on D4 like way after the bishop has gone out uh the only difference being that uh we played it slightly differently and here he took with the Knight and this was a very interesting move um and this takes me out of my prep because if you go back to the beginning what I was talking about is there's the Queen's Gambit accepted with C4 DC Knight F3 Knight F6 E3 E6 Bishop C4 A6 castles C5 you see how his Bishop never made it out and if he takes with the pawn it becomes the same thing because the bishop gets to G5 but he took if he takes with the Knight totally different game and so this was a very uni interesting move to me I was like okay well I'm still going to go Bishop B7 he developed his Knight and I castled because that's what you should do and now he played Queen E2 and so here I'm thinking he's going to go Rook D1 and Rook C1 and I need to find a way to develop my queen side like as you can see he has so many pieces out he's developed five pieces I've barely developed anything so he's slly better he's slightly better I mean I played a sideline of the Queen's Gambit declined um now I need to figure out what to do I can try to play for Knight C6 like for example I can play Bishop D7 but after something like Rook D1 I just thought it was worse uh so I didn't do that I thought about playing B5 as well but it felt a little early for this move it felt like he could just attack my rook and after like Rook A7 I just thought this looks a little bit goofy so I said okay okay I'm just going to go Queen A5 I'm going to move my Queen off the center and I'm going to attack his bishop and I'm actually taking advantage of the bishop usually the bishop is back on C1 like I just showed you and so here I thought Bishop H4 was very natural and my idea after Bishop H4 was B5 he would move his bishop and then I would play Bishop B7 and I think I've equalized I mean I like I think I'm just playing here and all my pieces got out I am looking at E6 a bit but I I mean I thought this was completely fine and then you went Bishop F4 so Bishop F4 looks like a blunder um it looks like a blunder because it looks like I can Fork him not exactly the case because the Knight moves away to attack my queen I have to maintain defense of my Pawn by going here and he just very simply he can go Bishop G5 or Bishop G3 and this pawn move just made his Bishop way better and I've actually played like this in title Tuesday so I I learned in my classical game from my title Tuesday games uh and uh yeah I've played in blits before a move like E5 and it just lands me in awful position so this game I was not touching it Knight H5 is a very cool idea defending my knight with my queen but it loses otherwise it would be a great move because I get the bishop uh it loses to a really nice interference move and my queen no longer guards my knight so if I take my my Pawn gets pinned to my Queen which is terrible but if I uh if I take the bishop uh he takes with a check and then he can take on F4 uh so I didn't play that and I I uh I went here and I thought this was very straightforward I thought I was just going to play Knight C6 and not double my pawns the computer likes B5 right away but I thought this was a very bad move after Queen F3 so I thought Queen F3 oh okay so the computer yeah so Queen yeah I okay Queen B6 and the queen is trapped if he takes my Rook yeah uh had I seen that then yeah this might have been a very short game because I would have just played Bishop B7 did not see that did not want him to attack my Rook so I played Bishop D7 he went here and I went Knight C6 and I thought okay I'm like finishing my development and I don't have any problems uh but I missed the move uh I you know I I saw that he would play Knight B3 and in my mind I thought Queen B6 and like he has nothing I mean his Knight is misplaced but had completely overlooked an idea of his um which sent me into a bit of a panic which is this move E4 with a very straightforward idea of playing E4 E5 and again I will remind you E5 is a horrible move terrible move so once I saw that E4 was coming I came up with a defensive solution which during the game I was very happy with um I I saw a very logical followup of moves old Gotham might have panicked if he had blundered E4 um new Gotham also panicked but then he put on his big boy pants the computer thinks rook d8 and Knight E8 is good but this looked awful to me I didn't like that I can't move any pieces I didn't see what my next moves were so instead of this uh I went Bishop E8 and I actually think this is a great move I mean I I know the computer say is 08 but my opponent's not 3600 uh and I had a very you know the point is that I'm I'm out of the way but also I want to go Knight D7 like I I want to reroute my knight to the other side of the board and maybe trade his Knight and again the more pieces I trade the more I alleviate the pressure and and structurally I'm I'm I'm fine and we're battling for empty squares we're battling for for pawns and pieces and he played this move A3 which felt a bit slow but basically his major idea here is to Chase my queen so I would go Queen B4 attacking his Knight and then we would repeat moves um and you know if he goes here then I was going to go Queen C7 so he can't really ever do anything um which is why he played A3 to stop Queen B4 which is a logical move I played Knight D7 and again I thought he can chase my my queen like Knight A4 so I was going to go Queen A7 Bishop E3 and queen B8 and I actually don't know how he prevents B5 now now he's in a lot of trouble uh at least from the perspective that I'm going to equalize he played C1 and I I uh I realized um he didn't see my auxiliary idea he didn't see my second idea so at this point I thought I had already equalized and I thought I was going to start maybe taking over uh because my original point was to trade but again he has all his pieces out literally and I'm kind of playing on the back rank although my position is very solid and I cover a bunch of important squares there is this move Knight E5 and it's in my opinion better than the other Knight but the engine disagrees of course uh I didn't like that he could go Knight A4 followed by Knight C5 I didn't want to let his Knight get to the C5 Square so I thought well I'm going to do it my way which is this way uh so that this Knight could then go to C5 so I just basically trapped his bishop and yes I mean that in like a positional way I um my my camera's like loading the light back and forth I apologize um basically I I'm getting his bishop and so once I start trading off his active pieces I'm going to be able to equalize um and he was shaking his head a lot after this move which obviously reinforced my confidence in my position like I thought I was playing very smart I was passive but I thought I was making good decisions so I played 95 he started shaking his head a lot and I thought okay you know don't get excited I mean you know you're not better yet uh but uh you know life is good um around here I thought I had actually made a mistake uh uh I thought in this position he could play Knight D5 so for a second I completely malfunctioned the idea of this move is that after Pawn takes otherwise he takes my Bishop I'm attacked here and here but I have a very nice defensive idea otherwise I'm just straight up losing the idea is of course if I move my knight he takes my Bishop so I give up my knight in fact I give up both my Knights and I'm a pawn down but this move equalizes so my bishops come alive he should go back to defend here then I play Bishop A4 and suddenly out of nowhere all my pieces are off the back Rank and I'm taking over and he's got very bad coordination so I saw KN D5 and I was like okay it doesn't work Knight E5 he goes here and so originally my plan here was Queen C7 and I'm going to take the bishop like Bishop D3 I'm going to take the bishop and I thought I'm chilling suddenly I was like wait a minute I have no pieces out okay I got his Bishop but he's threatening like Knight D5 well the engine's not afraid it says just go Queen B8 I mean queen B8 is a really difficult move to end your calculation on um because you just feel like what am I doing I mean why am I putting all my pieces like this but I have the Bishops I have the bishop pair and traditional wisdom tells you you know you you have something but uh I don't know this felt absurd to me to play like this and you know he's just going to keep improving his position he's going to play A4 E5 so finally when he attacked attacked me I decided you know what how about Knight C5 and I what I had calculated here is I'm threatening Knight takes Bishop followed by Queen takes Knight that's my threat so I looked at of course him taking uh I looked at Knight to D5 which was a very interesting move so Pawn takes Bishop takes and now he's targeting this I go here and um we play We battle and the engine even likes Queen H5 here which is a crazy move but the point is you HD the Knight and then you actually hit the other Knight through the X-ray so very complicated and I also looked at this absurd move Knight A1 which was a wild move like when I saw Knight I was calculating Knight A1 like wow he's undevelop his Knight and he's threatening to win my knight so then I was looking at all sorts of stuff here like I looked at Knight C4 Queen C4 Queen C6 Knight D5 which is actually a good move because after Pawn takes Pawn takes Queen G6 Bishop C5 Rook C8 he has D6 so we you know I was like looking at all sorts of very interesting lines Knight A1 is a is a but but I can also just play A5 so I could just stop him from playing his plan um it's we both missed a move here he actually we were analyzing afterward uh and he told me he had seen this move which is pretty gangster of him because I did not see this move at all um Bishop D5 not Knight D5 but Bishop D5 and the point is that like he he just brings The Rook through the Knight but I cannot take I just can't take Bishop D5 is a is an absurd move I didn't see it at all I mean which is bad I mean it's uh but but I think just from a you know it's the game's not over I mean I you know we keep playing the engine uh loves the position because basically he's going to take take take take and take on B7 uh which is bad uh that's real bad and yeah Bishop D5 is an incredible move I mean I looked at Knight A1 I looked at all sorts of stuff heith thought for a little while and took on C5 uh and by a little while I mean 23 minutes and I mean I think Bishop D5 was a bit above both of our pay grades but I think afterward he told me maybe not Bishop D5 but he told me he looked at Bishop E6 which is more forcing you know you you take and then um then he told me he was calculating was this the position yeah 19 D5 something like this if I take then he has a fork uh Bishop E3 maybe there's like Knight E3 this type of stuff another International master has just walked in uh roommate and participant in the tournament International master and manager of the Gotham Knights get the merch get the merch yeah the merch is sold out but you know support Gotham yeah yeah support support Gotham with um limited edition merch of the single time champions of the proess league um yeah but he didn't play Bishop D5 he uh which yeah Bishop D5 I mean if he played it I would have called karnick um he went here which is kind of what I thought he was going to play uh and then we got to this position and I had seen this from a distance and thought well I won't lose so and you know we're completely solid the worst is over I felt like I was under pressure now he has some discovered attacks maybe on my queen like Knight D5 and stuff so I just want Queen B6 I actually thought I was playing for an advantage like I thought going to play Bishop C6 and Rook C8 and rook d8 and I'm going to be really happy uh but then I realized after playing Queen B6 he's just going to go Queen D2 and trade Queens not like that like this and uh that's what he did and I was like ow okay fine I guess we'll just make a draw uh and um I went uh Bishop C6 which is the best Square for the bishop plus it connects my Rooks that's the most important now what's funny is that I I think if you gave this position to like a 26 2700 rated Grandmaster um it it it also depends I guess on the situation like if if this is uh you know some round of a tournament or if this is like a head-to-head or you're tired or whatever you know you play what I played in the game which is you trade the Rooks and then you know you bring your king to the center and you trade all the Rooks if I was playing a lower rated player maybe I I mean I obviously wouldn't do this but I also wouldn't find myself in a position that looks like this and I felt a little bit like annoyed you know like I have to go for this but as it turns out uh I could have actually maybe played it for a win uh I can play for example G5 which I saw it's a very standard idea when you have kind of a knight blockade like this he would play F3 and then bring his King uh and and in a nutshell the way black plays this for a win if black wants to win is plays it like this king f8 king F2 and like King E7 and you you just control the dark squares and you're minus point1 um would I win this I I don't think so uh we traded and I offered him a draw he traded my Rook King E3 King E7 he went to the center you'll notice I haven't touched my pawns it's very important in the end game you unless you like really have to you kind of don't want to touch the pawns you want to improve your position to the maximum he's definitely a bit more active here but his Bishop is much worse than mine and he has a bunch of Pawns ready to be consumed by my Bishop so I I got to this far in my head I played my thir 30th move there's a rule in this tournament you have to play 30 moves before offering or agreeing to a draw unless you repeat the position so I offered him a draw um he didn't take it he uh and I was I was like mildly annoyed at him but I was like okay obviously I would also try to play this for a win he went F4 uh which makes sense like F4 you know I go back E5 you know King E7 and G3 and suddenly all his pawns are on the right color and he's more active I I would probably draw this as well uh but I realized he had completely missed the defensive resource here I was very happy I saw this from a distance I moved my knight to G4 attacking the pawn now E5 is very bad because two of his pawns hang so H3 like Knight anywhere but let's just say Knight H6 and if he plays G4 I'm just going to go chase his pawns down so with my Bishop so I played Knight G4 he did not go E5 he went here and now he had completely missed this move E5 and this is by far the easiest if he takes he's just now he's worse now I absolutely will try to play for a win because I leave him with a bad Pawn uh but he went here which defends everything Knight F6 F5 and I found this nice move G6 uh there's still ways that he could lose of course he can take and it's completely symmetrical uh he could go G4 which is what he did in the game offered me a draw and I accepted it um but he could like go here and all of a sudden you know I'm going to try to win his pawns but yeah obviously you know he did not want to do do this uh and we uh we drew we drew after 35 moves so I mean you can't really ask for much more uh and I didn't ask for much more I he he's a very very solid and annoying player to play uh I was expecting this opening I didn't really know I decided maybe you know 30 minutes before the game to play this and I uh I played A6 I expected everything up until here I didn't know this and then I was on my own and I thought the way I played was very logical I thought every move flowed from the other I completely misjudged this but then I recovered very nicely I put my Bishop back put my knight rerouted and you know look like yeah there's this absurd Bishop D5 I should have just you know moved my queen to C7 but uh overall I'm I'm I'm pretty happy not with the lighting on this camera but with this game so one and a half out of two uh seasoned Watchers of Chess will know that this recap is being recorded when round three is already done uh spoiled by uh some uh very uh strong super Grandmasters who also happen to be streamers uh that's a joke um and uh I'll post a sneak peek to that recap ahead of time on the patreon it will be much more in depth and I will also talk about how I was using literally using uh lessons that I've had over the last like two months to play these games which I do think is instructive so one and a half out of two uh against the top two players in the section um I can't really ask for a better start I mean I could have beaten Pepe but then kramnick would have absolutely been called uh I was under pressure this game but I I literally never felt like it was Out Of Reach until I saw Bishop D5 in the post game and even then that move is very difficult to find so good I'm so far so good I'm I'm quite happy um I would be much happier if you guys if you don't have to subscribe to the patreon that would not I'm not asking money equals happiness but I'm participa in the Chesley Community challenge so we can hit the rewards uh and those are uh if you have courses you can participate and if you don't you can try the free samples you might not be able to play Levi but uh you will definitely be able to do some drills so Community challenge ends on June 15th so does the tournament round number two is in the books round three will be posted early on patreon and all the other rounds will be posted a bit early on patreon when available life is good playing well up 10 points get out of here

Channel: GothamChess

Views: 588,177

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

Id: QhemVXU0xLE

Length: 23min 4sec (1384 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2024