Into the Lion's Jaws | Climbing the Rating Ladder vs. Maxpayne777 (1775)

hey guys this is john and i'm playing max payne triple seven in a 15 plus 10 game on chess.com 1775 he opens with d4 okay let's play d6 against this move i'm in the mood to mix it up tonight playing chess close to midnight once again thanks to all of those who uh watched the couple of april fools videos that i put out the other day it was a lot of fun uh no i'm not advocating playing the bond cloud at least if you care about your results uh fun to play every once in a while right and also hope you guys got a kick out of that danny wrench video um should i play e5 or g6 i often play both of these lines let's play for e5 i'm gonna play directly in the center f3 is a way to defend the e4 pawn is not nearly as common as knight c3 so i think e5 is appropriate and white can play d5 and take some center space but potentially leave this diagonal open it'd be nice if i could put my bishop out on c5 then but obviously not possible to do that okay so white maintains the tension here knight e2 considering knight c6 here g6 i'm already out of my opening book sometimes in these situations you can even consider playing some sort of quick strike in the center so some sort of d5 push i'm gonna take a moment just to weigh my options i don't think i want to take on d4 yet that seems a little accommodating but definitely knight c6 and g6 or even bishop e7 moves that all come to mind i think white's going to develop like this more or less like a like a samish king's indian but without the pawn on c4 yet so if that's the case how might i want to play uh knight bd7 also possible this is a very flexible position i mean i think there's probably four different or more acceptable moves for black here c5 trying to force some sort of resolution in the center looks a bit premature even moves like knight h5 come to mind here as strange as that looks i think i'm gonna play knight c6 let's just see what white does against this i'm expecting bishop e3 but i'm sort of drawn to this idea of trying to force through d5 in the middle of the board okay so white plays d5 now i could play back to b8 or to e7 and try to recycle the knight over here to the king side going back to b8 seems ridiculous moving the knight twice just put it back on its original square but i might be able to take up resonance here that said though i think i'm going to go to e7 and then over to g6 this seems a bit more coherent to me i also sometimes play these systems as white with knight e2 and it's nice because you get to use the f-pawn even though i have said many times that the f-pawn stands for forget about it and generally you should not move your f pawn early in the game with this setup white does reinforce e4 the position in the center has not opened up so it is acceptable to do that okay bishop here now i think knight g6 and i can look to play h6 i don't think i want to allow this although it's actually debatable if white would even take on f6 if i were to push h6 would white even do that because that gives up white's control of the dark squares in the future so h6 trade and then h5 put the bishop on h6 and try to exert some pressure down this uh diagonal that would actually be pretty interesting but knight g6 just looks like a standard decision here so i'm gonna play that i've already burned a little time especially on move four spent over a minute so i'm just gonna play a simple looking move and look to follow with h6 when i'm gonna have the option of queen takes so yeah once again thanks for playing along with those april fools videos i think i got more of you guys last year actually when i was at that tournament in charlotte and i was talking about uh gradually shifting my content towards grooming and fashion and dating advice style videos i even got my own mother last year actually with that video so that was a highly successful april fool's this one was too though glad to get a video in on the bond cloud yeah i think white's bishop is going to be a bit misplaced on g5 i mean assuming i play h6 in the near future i think white should retreat back to e3 i mean it's just too valuable of a piece to trade white can play c4 and really make this like a samish if they want h6 bishop e3 and then as usual i'm going to try and start playing on uh the king side maybe bishop e7 castles move this knight and try to play for f5 okay so queen d2 considering a couple things here again h6 definitely playable uh bishop e7 maybe to threaten this is an option although white plays knight c3 i don't really see what i've gained uh so it's between h6 and bishop e7 yeah i'm not going to be fianchettoing the bishop anymore so bishop e7 seems to make sense let's play bishop e7 the dual threats of the uh discoveries on the bishop on g5 are kind of interesting here so knight takes d5 is probably the cleaner way to win a pawn if i get the chance which i just noticed now that i can play even against knight c3 so white may be advised to play bishop e3 right now and then i will have induced bishop e3 without having to play h6 which i don't think h6 hurt me or anything in fact it might even be proved useful if i could drop the knight back here okay h4 but h4 also is kind of weakening so that does take the sting out of this or this white could just take my knight in those cases but now when i play h6 white must part with that dark square bishop let's say h6 bishop takes f6 bishop takes f6 h5 i can dive into f4 yeah and i'm gonna i'm gonna go for that because i i see no downside to playing this way white might go back to e3 but i'm pretty happy to have induced some weaknesses potential weaknesses on the king side maybe another move i could have considered was knight h5 but we'll see what white does here on bishop e3 i may play knight h5 anyways to attack this pawn multiple times yeah white does retain this bishop which i was kind of saying all along is probably what white should do so it would be interesting to do this now here and if g3 probably a bit too much to play knight takes g3 i don't think that's going to be working knight h5 g3 and then f5 take bishop takes g4 that's getting complicated knight takes on h4 um something about that feels uh well i don't know how to feel about that to be honest and knight h5 is interesting here definitely achieved an original position i can safely say that yeah maybe it would have been better to play knight h5 on the previous move even though h6 seemed automatic to me um if i don't move this knight and allow white to play h5 uh is that really so bad i mean i can always just go back to f8 it's probably actually fine so therefore i'm considering a move like c6 if i want to open up a second front on the queen side c5 even because i i think white's going to be castling queenside now so maybe if i can start getting some pawns up there that will be an interesting way to begin playing on that wing and i can play knight h5 and if bishop here maybe then c5 perhaps that is a line worth exploring then i am inviting white to play g4 i could also just play h5 here but i have mixed feelings about h5 it does allow this back into the g5 square yeah a lot to calculate here a lot to take in really just trying to weigh right now how much this h5 move is going to affect the game if white's allowed to play that and i kind of think i shouldn't allow that but i'm not thrilled about knight h5 for some reason okay you know what i'm gonna play pawn h5 it wasn't my first instinct move but given that i have a little bit more time in this game i can afford to think on this on this move although three minutes is a lot but at least now i know what's going to be happening on the king side more or less like i'm going to be preventing white from expanding any further this pawn could remain a weakness but look for me to perhaps switch the play over to the queen side if i can i still won't give up on ideas of attacking h4 or maybe even jumping a knight into f4 but i think getting in c5 could be interesting too not clear yet where to put my light square bishop it might go to d7 and support a b5 push especially if white castle's queen side but up in the air at the moment so this is the pierce defense lions jaw variation all right learning something new yeah if we back up and move here i kind of think i should have given knight h5 more thought in this position unclear if it actually even threatens much but i wish i would have thought about that move a bit more as played i have forced white's bishop back and fix this as a potential weakness here so i'm still relatively happy with my position so knight c3 i think i'm going to play c5 i'm not fearing an amplison capture d6 is well guarded unlike a king's indian you know i was mentioning the king's indian because it has some similarities but unlike a king's indian my d6 pawn should be better defended okay i'm going to play this right away because again i burned a lot of time on the previous move so let's just play this immediately so if white takes on poisson i'm not as upset as i might be in a king's indian because d6 let's say white castles this way d6 is reinforced and i think this move is going to make white think twice about castling this way because if i can just play bishop d7 b5 b4 i have the makings of a pawn storm and for white comparatively getting in g4 is going to be a lot tougher also presumably white's going to be moving this knight so they can develop this bishop or playing g3 and potentially getting the bishop to g2 or h3 but that is one issue with developing the knight through e2 in this line you get this log jam of minor pieces get the f pawn up there for further protection in the center but there's some log jam going on and it takes a little bit longer to coordinate as opposed to just putting the knight on the natural square f3 by the way c6 was also i think quite a valid move i was not quite sure if i want to take here although yeah again another idea in hindsight maybe i should have spent more time on taking in knight takes knight takes queen takes eventually getting the bishop out to e6 looks a lot like a sicilian in that case okay so g3 solid move uh thinking about bishop d7 bishop d7 looking for b5 probably don't want to play b5 directly doesn't seem like i get compensation if this happens could play a6 but i think white's going to play a4 white might play a4 anyways uh let's just play bishop d7 though i don't see anything wrong with this move as of now white has more space than i do i have control of some nice squares like d4 but white's pawn chain is extending a bit further into my position that said though i'm i'm relatively free of weaknesses and i have some nice potential play like i said with b5 and a4 would be a very normal reaction here and i'd like to get a6b5 in but it may take some preparation because a4 a6 white does have a5 so white can take on basalt if i push b6 or b5 b5 that is usually you want to wait and try to prepare that break a little bit more so if white plays uh a4 here i may actually play b6 a6 and then b5 to try to bypass the opposite option so that's one thing i could try i'm also just looking at my minor pieces seeing if i can make sense of them a little bit more i mean i could just castle and try to move this knight and play for f5 yep and white does play a4 castling is probably not half bad because i i have a feeling white's going to go for bishop g2 bishop g2 and castles this way i don't think white's going to be castling queen side especially now that they played that move so i don't need to directly try to play for this break and the only other real pawn break i have at my disposal is f5 so maybe i should castle here and then move this knight let's say knight h7 and try to play for f5 i am somewhat giving up squares if i do that and this knight on g6 isn't too happy anymore that is a piece i've mentioned already a couple times and i may need to improve it i mean i'm almost considering uh knight f8 g6 knight h7 and then f5 later with the help of the pawn that looks kind of convoluted though now i think i'm just going to castle i'm gonna castle and probably move this knight maybe 98 swinging around a c7 which can assist with the b5 break and also free up f5 that's probably a better a better route for the knight than bringing it to h7 where it's not even clear if it's doing anything we might even have a knight h8 sighting in this game if i decide that that's the best square for my knight we'll see i'm certainly looking for pawn breaks because my position is a little bit more cramped and i want to make use of my my piece activity potential piece activity these pieces are waiting to be released so i think if white plays here 98 is what i'm leaning towards yeah just double checking to see if white can do anything with these pawns i don't think they're going to want to though because uh g4 would drop the h4 pawn after i play knight e8 f4 i can play f5 and i have a feeling those complications are probably pretty decent for me i mean it weakens the g4 square too so yeah not a whole lot else to consider let's do it 98 again borrowing a page from the king's indian this is a very common maneuver for black and the king's indian dropping the knight back to free up the f-pawn so on castles do i continue 98 or do i go for f5 key question gotta say i'm leaning towards f5 you know i know i mentioned knight c7 which is gonna help out b5 but let's say i mean one way to judge a plan is give yourself two or three moves to implement the plan without the opponent moving and see if that plan is still any good so if i play knight c7 and then b5 and white just takes so i've given myself two free moves um and white just one knight c7 b5 and white takes does that even lead to an advantage for me because i could take with the knight but we might have a trade i mean i guess i get my bishop out to b5 probably white doesn't want to allow my knight to jump into d4 but i have an isolated a pawn i mean the pressure down on that knight on e2 is probably negligible i think i might be better off going for f5 and try to replant the knight on f6 or go for f4 and really try to break open white's king side here white may be hesitating to castle because of possible sacrifices on h4 i'm not really seriously entertaining those yet although they could be something to consider in the future oh and white surprises me okay white's going queen side interesting yeah i gotta say i was not expecting that course of events now that white's played this okay so this changes everything very important to say that straight away so now i will definitely be going for b5 i'm even considering playing it right now as a sacrifice although it's probably best to prepare it and i could play b5 a takes b5 a6 i don't think i mind sacrificing a single pawn to open lines there knight c7 if i play a move like knight c7 though now it becomes more likely that white's going to push on the other side of the board and try to create some trouble so yeah i mean when you have opposite side castling it's not always the case that it becomes immediately sharp and you're not always going to have just two sides trying to bludgeon each other especially with their pawns and storming each other with their pawns but i think in this position that's probably the way it's going to go okay so my candidate moves here a6 knight c7 b5 maybe queen a5 to threaten bishop takes a4 looks interesting as well don't like queen a5 as much though because b3 seems to be a decent defense uh a6 i think i can deal with any attempts by white to do something over here i mean i'm pretty solid around my king g4 still looks suspect because of this although maybe white will just throw the kitchen sink at me you never know b5 is the most direct move but i'm not sure about knight takes b5 knight takes b5 a6 let's say yeah i kind of think i need a bit more punch than that knight c7 i mean yeah a6 is the move i really want to play i think i'm going to do it and let's see because white has to make a tough decision here if they want to go g4 they got to give me the h-bond and they might do that they might just decide all right sacrifice it see what happens i mean maybe something like g4 takes rook over here but it's gonna take quite several moves to i think set up any sort of threat i might just take on g4 at that point okay white plays for f4 and on this one i think i have a few things i can do i mean i might i might just ignore this i might continue with b5 we're going to get that knight h8 sighting if that happens f5 knight h8 and i'm actually looking snug as a bug in a rug there because there's no open lines yet g4 i can take i could also put the knight back to f6 here so that on f5 knight here i'm ready to jump into g4 at a moment's notice that is also kind of attractive if i really want to keep lines closed i don't really care about white taking on e5 because i can take with a knight and that's just gorgeous if i get to take with the knight so yeah actually you know this move is pretty interesting although i wonder if i have to be aware of bishop take c5 i should be aware of that knight f6 let's just say hypothetically f5 knight h8 bishop takes c5 d takes c5 and then there's this move d6 which could be annoying so maybe i should go b5 directly yeah i think i'm gonna play b5 directly we're on move 15 and nothing has been traded yet gotta love those type of games unless they're immediately locked up and you're already in a drawing position but that's clearly not the case here there's a lot of tension lots of points of contact yeah and white's main problem after f5 net h8 is that it's very hard to force through lines in a in a good way i think i mean maybe g4 will be played but i'm very skeptical it's going to work for white that's kind of why i wanted my knight here so that i could take with the knight and instead of taking with the pawn which will allow white's h pawn to run take with the knight but i have faith in my defensive position i think i'm going to be doing all right there so let's play the knight back if bishop here i'll probably just continue with my queen side attack i don't know that i really even need to defend this again knight f6 bishop takes c5 i would prefer that the d file stay closed i don't want white um getting any sort of counter play that way so i think bishop f3 i'll just say go ahead take the h5 pawn you're still many many moves away from landing something against my king bishop h6 something like that is not going to work here bishop g5 probably just knight f6 don't take and allow white to take with the h pawn and get the rook involved and speaking of how i'm going to play okay so g4 so white i think recognizes the urgency of the situation okay options so i could push and then maybe go after this pawn i could play queen a5 if i want i could just take once which may be like my default decision here take once although then uh white is presumably going to play h5 and start pushing hmm yeah interesting knight f6 knight f6 again there's uh bishop takes c5 issues potentially you could also just take here i mean that may be the best way to play this actually take their rook b8 and try to hammer the b2 pawn if you want to open lines maybe that's just the way i should i should go here do i care if white plays g5 i think even there i can keep stuff closed i'm going to take so target is now this pawn rook b8 queen b6 and if white plays g5 i may play queen b6 first so that if f6 i can move the bishop back to d8 keep lines closed very interesting it does feel a little ridiculous to be confident when you have a knight on h8 but um instinctually this uh i still have a lot of faith in my position okay h6 could be coming but i feel like my attack at this point is perhaps a bit more imminent so rook beater queen b6 i don't know that it really matters at this stage both moves are kind of part of my plan so let's play rook b8 just just to keep the queen and the bishop trained against this h-pawn for now also maybe a little more subtle if i bring the queen here i think it's pretty obvious i'm going for this i mean rook b8 is also fairly obvious but wait maybe he's more inclined to play something like h6 this pawn is defended remember so knight takes a4 never really possible for white as a defense of the b2 pawn okay rook over hmm so what is white planting there knight d1 or is white just gonna run with their king is that how it's shaping up well i'm gonna let white answer that question because it seems like it's a tougher call for them than me okay knight d1 now i was thinking a3 a3 looks pretty nice white can't take it i get mated so a3 i threatened to take i also threatened to push no immediate threat against my king let's do it i'm expecting b3 i guess the idiot a2 king b2 and white's barely defending over there although it looks kind of grim uh b3 would be nice to play c4 but i can't do that my queen's hanging i could play a5 a4 it's a little bit slow i could play queen b4 maybe don't know queen trade's probably good for me actually so that'd probably be all right yeah white does play b3 yeah queen b4 seems decent here uh i'd like to make a2 king b2 work bishop a4 also comes to mind trying to just knock down the doors basically but bishop a4 maybe queen c3 trying to use this knight seems a little slow so if i play queen b4 we get a queen trade is there anything white can do to hurt me over here i really still believe my positions just inherently solid if that happens so let's let's play this move and one reason i like this not only does it help defend the a pawn and threaten a queen trade if white blocks on c3 with a knight i can play c4 i can get that move in immediately and try to further attack white's king and i kind of get the sense that that's what white's going to do like knight here yep okay the only other thing i'm going to check is if a2 merits consideration but this is the move i'm really liking here a2 knight takes queen a3 check king b1 c4 looks pretty good there too although there's b4 perhaps there's also a2 king here still i think i'm gonna push this guy yeah i'll let white blockade with the knight if they want i still get my queen trade i can take on b3 i should be up two pawns with a winning position there so two and a half minutes left better to just play the straightforward move if h6 i can just ignore it i can just take h7 check take with the king should be fine if h6 takes take g7 looking to see if i can somehow mate white i don't think i'm mating right away so that maybe is something i have to be aware of like knight takes bishop h6 okay white goes back and now i think i'm pretty happy to trade and take b3 white's queen side is collapsing the pawns that i'll be up will be doubled but that a3 pawn and the fact that white's king is totally stripped of defenders is pretty significant um do i have to worry about this again no i think i can always just play king h7 especially at this stage so let's take idea h6 king here pawn takes knight takes white's h pawn kind of gets in white's way might not an h8 still a spectator for now but it can work its way back into the game later the game is definitely not over but it feels like at this point i have a significant most likely decisive advantage if i play it correctly i know these pieces don't look too impressive but they're going to get in the game pretty fast and white it's just also has some scattered pieces right now that aren't operating to their to their maximum but whites down two pawns without a whole lot to target so yeah h6 comes it's pawn break king h7 was the move i said i liked here don't see any way i can really hurt white's king at the moment king h7 just makes sense on a lot of levels just ensure that after takes takes and this bishop moves that i don't run into any problems with the pin on the g file no f6 to worry about i've got that covered gotta look at a move like f6 though because you got two minor pieces in forking distance of the pawn yep h5 so white pushing with this pawn now i'm thinking about getting this guy involved and actually i can check here if i want could also just play rook b8 although the check is pretty darn tempting force white to pin one of their pieces probably white will put this knight here if i do that could also play rook b2 maybe just lock in the king a little bit further i wish my knights were ready to jump into the fray oh i see some cool ideas um i think i'm going to give check now if this knight blocks is knight takes f5 good probably unnecessary i don't think i have to play that but let's just see which way white blocks i could just try to put pressure on this knight in some way like bishop d8 to a5 feels like there should be some more decisive way to play though yeah knight c3 hmm i was liking the idea of this initially take take bishop takes with the threat of rook b1 but white can slip away with king d1 don't think i should allow that it's also thinking of bishop g5 deflection type moves maybe bishop b5 now maybe it can snake in like this or uh maybe here too this threatens rook takes a2 that looks pretty good yeah let's play that king's gonna run okay hmm okay thinking about bishop b5 bishop b5 to here perhaps there's a bishop c1 move white could perhaps play doesn't really seem to lead anywhere though yeah i like bishop b5 getting a little low on time so let's play it h6 i'll just move here still got to be kind of aware that there's nothing that can happen on the h and g files because the rooks are lined up but with the h pawn in the way i mean the one thing i do have to worry about is like a rook landing on g7 take and somehow white coming in and punishing me but i logistically am very doubtful that that would work for white okay so white's gonna bail with the king so let's just play bishop c4 attack this guy if knight c1 i can play a2 and white's gonna have to sack a piece could also keep a2 in reserve it's kind of nice to keep it in reserve because that knight is totally corralled on c1 corrupt on my bishop so i can maybe just increase the tension something like bishop here to here but a2 is simple a2 wins a piece hmm maybe f6 and followed by bishop h3 is one thing i should have uh been looking at a bit i'm just noticing that that maybe was an option for white some sort of h5 move thrown in somewhere i mean i have the time to prevent that if i want seems exceedingly cautious to even want to prevent that but i have like i said i have i have the time to do it if i want hmm ooh i can also take here taking bishop g5 check is interesting i'm gonna do this though i i it's just seeing this now i'm a little bit worried that that would give white some counter play so okay he plays the bishop back to f1 and now probably just push this force white to sack this probably what i'll take here let's play brook a8 hmm i'm gonna go here next i think try for this if bishop c1 i have this so rook rook there is definitely a threat now yeah let's play here still a bit up in the air because again my knight on h8 is remaining out of the game for now so it's not like i can easily make use of my extra piece for the moment white does have one pawn for it too it must be said bishop c4 okay i can't take could play it here let's do that okay i'm going to take that and now now let's check start trying to figure out how i'm going to make use of this extra piece eh think about first getting the rook involved somehow like let's go here first as if rook b1 i can trade and if white takes with a rook i can i can't even take on h5 though because he has rook h1 at the end of that line that's annoying there's still like some small logistical problems work a1 okay but now i can double up and now if rook here this rook here i should be able to take here or a bishop g5 oh yeah let's play bishop g5 white is pinned multiple ways here okay can take e4 check but then king f3 can take here let's do that rook h1 king king do h6 okay can take e4 check yeah i think that's simple okay he resigned yeah you know it got a little weird at the end i don't think my conversion was the best bishop f6 this feels like a bad move but like i said i started seeing some potential problems if this happens and then bishop h3 hitting the rook maybe in conjunction with h6 and bishop f5 although now that i think about it more rationally if that were to happen i think i could always put a knight on g6 but interesting stuff okay um so just the raw stats in this game first of all thanks for the game max payne triple seven uh i will definitely send max payne link to this game is an interesting one for sure the link to this analysis that is let's click over to the analysis board and i'm going to do my usual where i try to draw some conclusions before adding in the engine first so d4 white plays d6 very flexible system you know a lot of kings indian players play d6 on move one if they want to try to offer to go into a pierce directly if white plays e4 as my opponent did in this game but also sometimes d4 players will make a concession because uh a lot of times white plays knight f3 here to stop e5 and then black may play knight f6 g6 bishop g7 and it rules out certain systems like the sameish variation so if white plays a system against the king's indian where they don't put the knight on f3 then they may be unhappy getting move ordered like this so something to consider if you play the king's indian defense or just want a way to add some spice into your anti-d4 repertoire the white played e4 i played knight f6 and then f3 yeah and i haven't really faced this too much so i was more or less out of my book knowledge i mean g6 is perfectly fine too but i wasn't super keen to play a samish variation which this could transpose into so i thought okay let's play e5 and then white play knight e2 and yeah more options for black like knight bd7 is probably one of the more flexible moves g6 uh probably if i'm going to go for the fiance i should play knight bd7 first just so if takes takes white can't easily trade because that was possible on the previous move but i generally think black's fine in these positions you know a lot of times like let's say segway goes like this a lot of times black will end up putting their king on c7 and or bishop on e6 and then king on c7 black's doing just fine here so i wasn't afraid of white taking and trading queens with me you guys know how much i love those queen trades right so no worries there yeah now d5 now i think this phase of the game is where i could use the help of some king's indian defense players if you guys are in the comments or those who like these kings indian pierce setups because knight b8 may be a better move than 97 like 97 to g6 looks kind of attractive but as you saw in the game like it's actually pretty tough for that night to do much that knight was not relevant from an offensive perspective for the rest of the game it was just sitting on h8 and kind of drawing the fire of whites white's king side pawns for a time especially that f pawn so knight b8 may be the better move even though it seems to waste time like i could i could try to put this knight on c5 later yeah play something like this let's say white plays c4 um like knight bd7 bishop e3 a5 try to play knight c5 and either fianchetto this bishop or play bishop e7 let's just say hypothetically something like this um let's just say g3 castles bishop g2 you see this sort of thing a lot of times g6 knight g7 and then play for f5 maybe put the other knight on f6 or again coming to c5 a5 useful to discourage white from playing b4 so i think if i could do this over again i'd probably put the knight there uh as played i don't like bishop g5 i feel like this doesn't really gain white much since as i said white doesn't really want to trade the bishop certainly not for the knight they might trade it for black star square bishop but even then this is white's most important minor piece by virtue of how white has arranged their pawns here committing them to light squares so the dark squares are pretty tender for white so that dark square bishop is pretty high in value relatively speaking compared to white's other minor pieces yeah that said though i i feel like i missed something around here um and this is maybe where i'll put the engine on in a second but after h4 i think i should have looked at knight h5 a little bit longer or at all really i think i glossed overnight h5 it's not clear what i'm threatening actually i mean i guess am i threatening knight takes h4 here knight takes h4 i i might be it also begs the question what happens if this move i mean here too i might be able to play this because i'd be threatening knight takes f3 some weird stuff if rook takes h4 bishop takes g5 that wins for black bishop takes h4 of course i take with check so i will check this part with the engine because i wasn't sure about h6 and then h5 i mean on the one hand i stopped white from playing g4 and also from playing h5 and progressing further on the king side but makes this knight kind of poor and you could see that white was able to defend this i tried to bring the play over to the queen side for a time so that's definitely one area to check and this is interesting playing c5 i feel like this is the correct decision now that i've committed to playing this this h5 move could also play c6 like i was saying like that's interesting i'm gonna see what the engine has to say about that to try to capture on d5 yeah not give white the option of keeping the position closed so g3 bishop d7 all this looks pretty normal now i was very surprised by castle's queen side i think this is too risky for white however the game was sharp and i i wasn't uh 100 percent gonna crash through with my attack for a time being i it's possible i even overestimated overestimated my attack and my position slightly i just felt very safe here i would have especially felt safe if my knight run f6 because then as i said if i could take with the knight not have to take the h pawn and allow this h pawn to run but i did not like so right here when white played f4 i did not like allowing this although in hindsight take here even this looks pretty good for me although with this knight here i'm not sure let's say b5 take take it's close call if this knight was basically anywhere but h8 i'd i'd be feeling very good about this position oh yeah that's even queen d6 i'm noticing now try to force a queen trade so we'll see what the computer says about this i'm guessing it's going to say that i was uh correct to go for this and that my evaluation of castle's queen side for white was correct that it's probably not a good idea for white but i will be curious i thought white was going to castle short and then i was thinking about f5 maybe this didn't appeal to white having already moved these pawns but let's say white takes i take there's still a long battle ahead uh knight e4 for instance i can play knight f6 try to undermine undermine this if ever there's a capture on e4 maybe put a piece on g4 but there is a very very long battle ahead this made it just a street fight who's gonna get there first and notice i'm not taking i'm not taking and helping white open lines i mean i didn't really even consider this move possibly i should have but just instinctively i didn't really want to mess with something like this say white brings this over because yes i've won an h pawn and yes the knight is supported but i've wasted valuable time playing on the king side when i really want to be playing on the queen side and i've allowed white to open lines generally you won't hesitate to sacrifice a pawn especially at rook pawn if you're looking for an attack against the enemy's king so yeah g4 and i think g4 was probably a correct decision by white i think almost anything else is going to be too slow as i said if white played bishop f3 i was planning on just letting way take maybe just take here take rook b8 like i did in the game who cares about that h-bond it's more important to keep lines open so white can easily put a rook against my king without a pawn in the way i could take here but wasn't completely sure h5 because i don't want to allow something like this where if i try to keep the position closed further i'm going to get squished h7 check king here bishop check this is a good way to get mated definitely don't want something like that happening so that's where the knight on h8 could hurt me because if the knight was not on h8 i might be able to just slide over here king h8 used by its own h-pawn as a blocker so g4 i think good move by max payne uh whoops i always do that the arrow right and the arrow down are right next to each other so very easy to hit one over the other yeah so take rook b8 i'm definitely curious about this this moment here capturing looks like the most direct move b4 wins upon cleanly but it's kind of the same issue white's running into over here like yes you can win this pawn but you don't get the maximum number of open lines you're looking for white largely gets to keep the position closed it's very hard for me to target b2 or really any square around white's king i guess i might have to go for this but there's problems with that like my b4 pawn hanging so i think capturing here is best also thought briefly about queen a5 but it's kind of the same thing if i play queen a5 what is my next move if i'm just gonna take on a4 then i should take on a4 right away because i don't think i want to play queen a5 and then b4 might we'll play knight b1 i mean i guess i could take with my queen on a4 but don't think it's quite what i'm looking for yeah this phase of the game was pretty critical right here again it really feels like i'm getting there faster and queen takes b2 a threat i thought maybe white would just keep their head down and start pushing here allow check here and just try to block with something on c1 but it feels feels like it should be losing um i mean even if i have to play this move again and we get something like this i think i think black should be winning and i haven't even moved my a pawn yet but here i was able to play a3 and i think white played probably the only move pawn to b3 and queen b4 seemed fine again i wanted to play c4 further try to take down white's pawn structure but not possible because of this so and a2 is going to be met by king here didn't see a great follow-up to this i thought maybe this move what didn't i like about this maybe queen here reinforcing this before trying to gather this pawn or maybe put the king on a1 to defend didn't seem like it was quite working so i like queen b4 and then c4 trying to accelerate the pace of play and yeah after this i felt very confident but even this this turned out to be harder than i thought i mean i'm sure i missed some wins at this stage um you know maybe i should maneuver my knight right away checking certainly can't be bad though checking is a very normal move here i guess in hindsight in this position it's pretty uncomfortable for white maybe this rook b2 bishop b5 bishop c4 thing although it did eventually win a piece it's just not the best way to convert maybe i should just play knight here try to stick this knight on f6 that looks pretty nice as well yeah in hindsight i don't really have to touch the queen side queen side's fine if i never plays king c2 i can just check there's some fear when you when you play too directly here like rook b2 i'm kind of forcing white's king in the direction it wants to go anyways i've talked about that before in my videos like especially when you're checking your opponent's king and you're checking them out of the danger zone in a way because yeah as soon as my bishop left here and after this happened like now it started dawning on me hey maybe my bishop actually was useful here let's just say at this point hypothetically white played f6 and i take i know what's a good move order let's say bishop h3 hitting this rook and let's just say i move it here yeah i think i'm just seeing ghosts like h h6 knight moves away check now finally ironically this knight can finally get and get back in the action in a nice way forced way it's the only move knight g6 but a good one okay yeah that move might have been a little nervy on my part there's probably other issues too like bishop here maybe i can even throw in a check there at some moment that's good white doesn't have a lot of squares for their king yeah that was kind of a time pressure nervy almost too safe of a move i might play bishop f1 it's very tough for white i mean should just be losing but you know surprisingly even after losing that piece it's not completely simple again because my knights and in particular that night are so poorly placed for a while i didn't see a whole lot white could do differently right around here [Music] yeah i guess maybe play the king to a different square like king c2 or king e3 although honestly even here there's some logistical problems like rook b1 i was mentioning rook b1 to stop rook b2 maybe white saw that after takes rook takes i can play knight takes h5 but white can just swing the rook back here and i'm actually just losing this knight i can't play to h6 because of this and i can't go to g6 because of the pawn i suppose i could take and then play king h6 but this too not going to be easy to convert knight b5 attack this pawn i've got a long ways to go to convert this if it's even better for me with this knight here so i am kind of curious how i could have made this easier on myself at this point at this point i'm definitely winning i think as soon as white plays rook a1 uh it's looking pretty bleak because rook b2 pin opens up bishop g5 then then i think it's way too hard to hold this it's kind of a cleanup job from here let me take one more look at let's say like this position so i really feel like i should i should be able to convert this position far easier than i did in the game you know also from a practical standpoint i don't think knight takes f5 is that bad of an idea either i was mentioning this a couple times so i was mentioning it right here if i were to do this it's pretty attractive because i'm threatening rook be one mate with a pin on this knight but in time pressure i didn't want to mess with king here and what's the material situation i do have three pawns for the piece and a pretty dangerous a pawn but i didn't see a death blow here and again with the night out out of bounds probably good i didn't go for this but i gotta believe that there's just some much easier way to play this i played rook b2 in the game hmm yeah i don't know really don't um f6 knight f7 doesn't seem as fast as i would like here so i will look at the computer at this moment okay so that's a fairly lengthy self-analysis let's go back and kind of see what the engine can reveal now so adding in stockfish 10. hopefully you guys can see that yeah so these are the top three lines that it's giving okay i generally don't pay too much attention to the engine for the first few moves because there are some openings that the engine just doesn't like even though they're normal theory so yeah here i was debating between knight b8 and 97 i don't know that the engine is going to be super revealing on that front i think this is more of a feel experience thing as i said in hindsight i think knight b8 was probably better yeah bishop e3 i thought was better for white here i don't think bishop g5 is all that good okay engine wants me to play c6 here right away but i don't think the way i played this was all that bad bishop e7 okay fine h4 yeah interestingly i was kind of criticizing that move but the engine thinks it's all right i played h6 okay yeah seems fine hmm yeah and here's where i spent this significant amount of time and knight h5 was my first instinct move as of now that's the top move from the engine but i wasn't seeing a whole lot of ways to follow up yeah just g3 didn't seem like any sacrifices were going to work here like take and take here just seemed too easy for white to defend against these threats and that seems to be the case that said though h5 is not in the top three suggestions of the engine here still likes knight h5 knight h5 g3 just castle hmm okay maybe this h4 idea with bishop g5 is better than i gave it credit for oh and by the way the tactic i was mentioning in game if white plays knight c3 very important to know knight takes d5 this is similar to the french defense white playing bishop b5 in the advanced variation with black having a bishop on d7 and black playing knight takes e5 and then bishop takes d7 shack knight takes d7 so you get a battery here and if white takes you move the knight back and you save the night you win a very valuable pawn so watch out for that tactic okay interesting though yeah the computer's still giving white an edge doesn't seem to really like this plan then again though in a lot of these structures i've noticed i mean if you analyze the main line of the king's indian defense with the engine it's well known that the engines don't like that setup for black so i don't think it trusts the space disadvantage that black is under and here i played c5 i was also mentioning maybe c6 c6 might be a bit more dynamic because like i said i didn't fear this with this pawn being reinforced so maybe having the option of taking on d5 is just better you have white castles and we get a position like this this looks a lot like a sicilian although again i feel like this knight on g6 is going to be misplaced i guess i can maybe try to take this pawn at some point but solid advantage for white in this line okay still though i don't think anything super duper uh interesting or game-changing has happened yet so white played g3 i went bishop to d7 here i just castled bishop g2 okay knight back to e8 yeah okay so this is one moment i pegged in my little self analysis a moment ago where i was going to see if the computer also agreed that castle's queen side was too risky so computer stop moves here b3 knight d1 and castles short so what does it think about castles long okay castle's long and yeah the evals start going in black's direction at least these top two moves so that seems to at least confirm for now my suspicion that castling queenside just wasn't the best thing to do for white so if castle's here i was thinking about just playing f5 yeah take take knight e4 this is the line i was mentioning again the computer prefers white pretty big advantage pretty big advantage but um i would certainly play this position i wouldn't wouldn't feel that bad about it yet for black maybe the computer's skeptical of like the e6 weakness looks playable though certainly but okay castle's queen side and now i played a6 which i think the engine said was fine a6 and white went ahead and did this okay and now i went for just b5 right away here computer actually does say this move oh yeah and maybe one move i should have considered was bishop g4 i don't know why i didn't really look at that move seriously because i knew g4 was weak but i think i was fixated on my bishop assisting the b5 push but yeah if i really wanted to stop white's pawn storm i could play this move f5 knight h8 again and then there's no chance that white's gonna do this also this is clearly still not working because i've got d6 guarded a couple times among other things so yeah bishop g4 is interesting i still don't really like the look of this line just instinctively capturing this way doesn't feel right to me although the computer places that up there too and i think i'm okay with that that feels like a comp a computer sort of uh non-judgmental capture whereas a human to me this just appears to help white's attack against my king so uh i'm gonna acknowledge that the computer might be right about that but i like what i did just kept my head down played b5 f5 and then it goes to h8 and now g4 i'm just looking at this other line computer thinks bishop f3 is a good option for white and i probably would have taken here and just allowed this and then rook b8 okay computer's skeptical of this bishop f3 just very nonchalant so if i do this queen e1 wow evidently the engine doesn't think too highly of black's position if this occurs that's very computerific just uh take the b2 pawn with check i'm just gonna move my queen out of the way my king's gonna be nice and nice and snug on d2 maybe i'll play rook b1 if i get bored engine says plus two for white that's that that would be an impressive line not too many people are going to give up that pawn with check and like play a move like queenie one to preface it even though white did give up the b2 pawn in the game they were going for something more direct against my king it's okay white play g4 yeah and i i took on a4 okay interesting computer really does not like that decision yeah i was hesitant to take because i didn't want this h5 h6 h7 idea to crop up but uh-huh okay so the engine says i can play king h7 here and i'm guessing if h6 just now play g6 and use my king to block the pawn from reaching h7 okay yeah that was a possible defense wasn't it hmm okay so when i when i take here and we get this going man the engine's so unforgiving i was pretty confident but you can see the the numbers here probably kind of small on your screen especially if you're watching on a smartphone or something but yeah we're getting into plus two territory now for white so white played rook here i really felt like i was getting there first in this position but maybe not the case okay rook here one of the top moves queen b6 yeah that's impressive computer says just play h6 let black take here and it's all good king d1 wow very complicated but wait better white is better here apparently yeah if i check we can always block on c1 like knight c1 and it is true that white's king is safe i guess i don't have time to run my apon i probably would play something like this knowing myself take knight takes bishop f3 and white's gonna run this pawn yeah and again to a human human eye here this still looks very complicated but i guess i could see how the engine thinks this is winning i don't know i guess i'll pose that as a question to you guys what do you think about some of these lines i'm showing where outwardly it seems to me that black is is crashing through first but the computer is just undisturbed do you think that sort of feedback um is extremely helpful for a human player or is it something you look at you acknowledge it but say okay i'm not a computer and neither was my opponent so i'd be curious what your stake is on that because white defended in a pretty human way i'd say knight t1 not allowing that pawn to hang with check but now i get an a3 even here the computer thinks this is okay actually it says queen c3 is playable queen c3 just let black take let black play a2 if they want you got everything under control a2 queen a3 i mean one thing i guess i'm taking away from this is that when my activity dies out the the weakness and the passivity of my pieces really the passivity of my pieces and again i'm going to mention it for like the 50th time this knight on h8 that could come to tell even though white's pieces aren't yet all that impressively placed as well like white has some issues like the knight on d1 but i guess technically at best i'm attacking with these three highlighted pieces in the a pawn but when that fizzles out i'm starting to see how this attack may not come to fruition even if i win a pawn or something and maybe that's why the game continuation uh still felt tough to win yeah like even here queen b4 white says or the computer says if white plays king b1 white's in very good shape c4 probably something i would do just take king a2 take take yeah and these pieces again still up a pawn but that pawn may be lost in the future and these pieces are so poorly placed i should even include the rook here i don't know why i'm not including the rook because if the knight is standing on e8 the rook certainly can't get in the game okay you know i've sometimes noticed that about my play like i sometimes play too optimistically when i'm attacking and i'll make judgments about a position thinking i have the initiative but maybe not considering the ramifications of the position when it fizzles out i have noticed that about my position uh about my play sometimes yeah so on queen b4 it does look like a very good idea for white to play king b1 here hmm interesting because during the game i bet neither of us were really seriously considering that i don't recall considering king b1 here it just looks counterintuitive to go right back towards the direction where you were just getting attacked but yeah if that king gets up to a2 i could easily see there not being an attack here okay but on knight c3 now c4 okay now we're firmly in the black here now it does start to get tough and here white should play h6 and make it messy again but seems to be working out in my favor again yeah king h7 or g6 instead white played knight a2 stopping my pawn but okay so this gets into the next phase where i was curious how i was best off converting okay h6 i think i'm alright with king h7 here g6 is another option but king h7 looks fine to me yeah take h5 i gave this check okay i think the check is totally normal i was also debating rook b8 although it was not clear that rook b8 really threatened much so check is fine okay what to do here i'm up two pawns but they are doubled i played rook b2 in the game but that led to him running um i was speculating maybe 98 try to put the knight on f6 was better uh bishop d8 i think is a move i mentioned in the game bishop a4 ah bishop a4 is interesting yeah i didn't consider that that's kind of clever so bishop a4 so that if the king ever runs here i can take with the discovery on the king okay and what's the threat just come down to d to b2 yeah if white plays some passing move come here threaten rook c2 check also rook takes a2 as well oh yeah that's nasty it's kind of a tough move to find though especially in time pressure and i bet this confirms my suspicion when i was analyzing some of the other lines that f6 like really doesn't amount to anything let's just explore this for a second take bishop h3 yeah let's just say black plays here h6 just move the knight yeah bishop h5 can always be met by knight g6 yeah okay so the f6 stuff probably seen ghosts maybe white can change the move order maybe play bishop h3 first that may be a better way to implement it yeah because then white would be threatening f6 and bishop uh f5 check wait how would this be different rook c7 i guess it wouldn't be that different because if ever h6 is pushed i just move the knight and if this happens my knight is still controlling f5 so i don't see how that is hugely different yeah on the whole i think that f6 bishop h3 operation is something that just is not going to work for white okay so i played rook b2 in the game white played king d1 just curious if at any moment here white had a chance so we were in mutual time pressure at this point here i got fancy and decided not to play a2 again i was trying to shut down f6 but i think it is pretty dominating still so that seems to be all right so i'm up a piece here piece for a pawn and i elect to try and trade these light square bishops taking in king d3 still looks winning though for black and let me see this final um decision yeah king c2 i would say is probably the better option here for white just to try to control the b2 square and prevent me from from pinning this knight yeah here i was just i was speculating that maybe rook b1 has to be played rook b1 and if we get a trade this pawn uh should not be captured because of rook h1 yeah i think this still would have given me some work to do because i have to be careful that this doesn't drop and need to get my pieces coordinated looks like i can play bishop d8 here so what's the idea of this bishop a5 go on the attack okay not an easy maneuver to see though i guess i'm threatening to take and maybe take here okay so it does seem like i had this pretty well under control after i won the knight on a2 force white to sacrifice yeah and i think this was pretty much just winning very interesting though i know this turned out to be a long video uh looks like an hour 20 minutes so thanks to those of you who stuck around and watched this whole thing but this is the sort of self-analysis guys that i really believe if you want to take your game to the next level like you got to do this stuff and nobody can do it for you like you have to ask yourself these questions like what were the major turning points in the game especially tactically you know where tactically did the game turn try to draw those initial conclusions like i did then add the engine in later and you can see i'm playing down quite a bit in rating in this game but i feel like i learned a lot in this one and this maybe revealed uh some weaknesses that i have in my game like overestimating the attack and my evaluations of certain positions some of them were accurate like definitely it seems like i was correct that castle's queenside should not be good for white but seems like my play hereafter was if anything too straightforward and maybe i should have actually played a bit on the king side usually in these opposite side castling situations you should more or less continue attacking but i think here i did that too directly also i'd love to hear any feedback you guys have in the beginning part of the game if anyone plays this system so very interesting stuff guys again i appreciate it if you watch this whole thing if not no worries hopefully it was still entertaining and i'm gonna be taking a trip out of town starting thursday i'll be gone thursday through sunday but i'll see if i can get another video out or two in the meantime so thanks guys and i'll be back again soon with another video bye

Channel: John Bartholomew

Views: 58,791

Keywords: Chess, Standard chess, Rapid chess, Instructional chess, Chess instruction, Pirc Defense, Lion's Jaw

Id: XR7xelIYyVU

Length: 81min 43sec (4903 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2019