Meet The World's Newest Grandmaster

ladies and gentlemen over the past few weeks a new star has emerged in the chess world please meet jean saya abdu malik from kazakhstan chantaya is 21 years old and she just convincingly won the fide women's grand prix in gibraltar jansaya grew up in almaty in kazakhstan and she learned the game of chess at five years old she went on to win like every single gold medal possible in the scholastic category she got her grandmaster norm her first one in the world open actually in philadelphia in 2017 and she had all of her norms done to get the title you need three norms and the rating so she entered this gibraltar tournament not yet having that rating but she needed just that final component to become a grandmaster and chancia was actually a replacement because of some of the chinese players having travel restrictions so sometimes you need talent but you also need the opportunity and in this video i'm going to take you through some of her most impressive victories in this tournament as we congratulate her on not just becoming a grandmaster but just the 38th woman of all time to get the grand master title time stamps on the video player here we go so we kick things off in the second round of the grand prix jon saya has the black pieces versus elizabeth i would say piets that says an american would pronounce it but i think it's pronounced pete's in german but anyway e4 e5 knight f3 knight c6 and chancia plays this e45 stuff with black that's basically the repertoire of a chess professional uh bishop b5 rue lopez uh trying to go for a berlin end game potentially anti-berlin uh bishop c5 c3 d6 and of course these are all long games these are just you know so we all know these are games being played over the board uh classical chess and here elizabeth plays a move which is not the most popular move in the position she plays bishop to a4 uh which looks relatively harmless but uh you know the idea is to go back to c2 white basically just wants to voluntarily retreat maybe play d4 and in the long run this bishop will have access to this diagonal it's not a very popular move it's much more common for white to do other things uh so now we get to see how jean handles a slight opening surprise potentially and her understanding of her the positions that she gets h6 because you guys also always have these questions like what do i do in an opening when my opponent plays something i don't recognize so h6 number one prevent anything from coming to g5 the bishop is traded okay great uh we have a transformation of structure white has the open f file potentially this is a little bit of a weakness and now uh a5 the idea of a5 is to prevent white from ever expanding on this side of the board and um there's actually a hidden idea behind a5 which is actually completely fascinating um it actually shows you zhancia's foresight okay so knight d2 now knight e7 why 97 well you're rendering again this bishop useless first of all black has an idea to potentially just expand on this side of the board with the pawns but actually as you will see in a moment that's not the idea at all so white plays knight to h4 the point of knight to h4 is to activate the rook activate the queen uh maybe you'll sacrifice and social side plays knight g6 now again traditionally speaking this is kind of a damaging of a structure however you meet white on this file your king is completely safe and you're more than fine and this actually is a big weakness for white because you'll play c6 queen b6 and it's very it can be very difficult as you begin expanding to defend that e3 pawn whereas this pawn is not really weak whatsoever um so elizabeth plays knight f5 and now we see d5 so again striking in the center opportunity to do that this trade will always benefit black because e3 weakness bishop can always take on on f5 as well to stop protecting that pawn um and so white plays queen f3 and now we see the point of a5 are you ready like four moves ago when the move a5 was played everything is kind of close but now that the position's transformed jon saya plays rook a6 you're like what what what is this well the point is simple uh in a few moves first of all she plays rook b6 so she she actually makes white make a decision one of these pieces is going to have to come to defend this pawn like either the pawn is going to move up white chooses to push but now this is destabilized and now knight h7 and your rook will actually make it across and her rook did make it to f6 all of a sudden this rook from god knows where has joined the party and now you've got an extra attacker that's not traditional that's not supposed to happen when she played the move a5 she had foreseen all of this um literally i mean i i didn't ask her but you know the knight jumped back this knight jumped back d5 all expanding in the center all part of her plan and she kind of did that and now the rook is on f6 okay now white needs to react right white goes back with the queen and taya plays c6 and now that the rook has crossed the bridge you can shut the bridge down the rook doesn't need to and and right that rook doesn't need to go anywhere now this bishop is on the verge of getting trapped so white plays b4 uh but b4 after takes takes remember i told you guys about queen b6 earlier now you just got targets so king h1 white decides to sag the point you say why why did white do that why didn't white just defend the pawn it's not that simple um i take the knight now you lose a guard on this and i'm still pinning you so for example this i have knight f4 so again it's not just the weakness of the pawn it's it's more like the weakness of the position you utilize the pawn as a tool to break down your opponent's position it's not necessarily about winning the pawn so queen takes before and okay we've now played 21 moves uh and white is white is just down a pawn right and so now it's like okay well how well how do i win this position okay let's trade a pair of rooks let me activate my bishop which i haven't activated yet my knight on h7 is a little passive i'll get it back into the game in a few moves um bishop takes d5 i'm trying to trade some pieces i'm not making this trade this is just an awful trade actually right not all trades are created equal in chess i mean you need you need to make certain trades and not others so knight f5 b5 see the queen went up a square to kick the knight out okay great knight's got to move knight decides to move in now jon saya takes uh and of course if i were to just take back white would be two pawns down so white plays this move trying to pin and that is a legitimate pin you will probably win back to the piece and now jon says bringing her knights now she's still the pawn up these nights are they look scary those are the kind of nights like since they're tied together and they're standing near your pieces you're you're really scared you're gonna blunder something but in chess you shouldn't be afraid of ghosts just play rook d8 and i mean you're just straight up threatening to take like for example like this of course you take i just hope we're clear two nights are definitely worth a rook like this is a very easily winning position now so long as you don't hang a piece in one move which nobody's gonna do at this level and now you take d3 and i mean it's all over you take this and white does something here called going for aggressive counter play like you're down three pawns um you need to go for aggressive counterplay try to attack the king don't be afraid of ghosts everything is covered every one of these squares is completely covered um rook d2 and actually it's it's black who's calling the shots like black is going for mate and she does that she threatens mate um and uh you know you've only got two attacking pieces right now now this knight which triumphantly used to be on h7 comes into e4 uh you're threatening to jump in potentially to these two squares knight f2 check king h2 and now a very a very nice move to end the game uh a move that seemingly does nothing and uh it it it very much does something indeed king is on h2 i want you to be able to attack it with the queen so what do you play here folks you play e4 you activate a piece by moving another piece now at that level easy move but i just want you to understand these little subtle moves right like that's how we get better at the game because we just we don't just think oh i need to activate my queen to get to the king no i i can activate my other pieces all my pieces work together and in this position um after queen b8 covering queen e5 queen takes f5 uh white resigned uh very very nice game i mean what to say white plays a slight opening surprise black reacts well and then just from this point forward to come up with this idea a5 maybe jensey has seen it in previous games that's generally how title players work they have these games kind of embedded in their memory but just a very nice move very nice plan call white completely off guard very unique idea uh and uh and so with that we'll move to the next game now this game is from round number five uh and this one is is also kind of an opening thing but but less about being surprised and more about having your own solid preparation so shansaya plays e4 uh antoinette stefanova plays e5 grandmaster from i believe bulgaria i hope i have that correct and we have the scotch opening takes takes and here the main line is knight f6 and bishop c5 uh but uh black plays queen f6 which actually is a very trendy move queen f6 is super popular right now at the high levels and it's scoring quite well for black i mean it's scoring totally you know acceptably for black and this is black's idea queen f6 to target the knight the knight moves and now that the queen comes here and attacks this now here you gotta know what you're doing with white white plays f3 to the untrained eye that move looks idiotic first of all ben fine gold twitch somewhere because you're not supposed to play that move uh but why wouldn't you just develop a piece well you can't develop your bishop because you lose g2 right you can't go here probably because this is actually what black wants like black wants an active developing move to hit your knight to your king so you play you play f3 and black has to just develop so bishop d6 and right up until here this position has been reached before uh and uh here there's kind of something funny if white just develops bishop e3 black can play this shocking bishop takes h2 and it's still completely fine for white as long as you don't take because then you would blunder a rook and that's bad hanging a rook on move nine is probably not going to win you any tournaments so white plays f4 now the move f4 according to my database is a novelty so shansaya clearly had had prepared this but so had her opponent she reacted correctly or maybe her opponent just reacted correctly over the board but it's funny you just negate your development and uh because the bishop hasn't moved here you can go f4 and basically you're trying to say look you have all these pieces out but i have pawns pawns will defeat pieces in the middle of the board because where your piece is going to go you can't sacrifice them for my pawns right i would win material so f4 this shows josiah's preparation unless she invented this over the board which i doubt now butcher b4 now f5 and now queen f6 so the queen's kind of trapped in the middle of the board why just plays bishop d3 whoa whoa bishop d3 you're just gonna sacrifice this and basically that's what you're doing yes uh you have something worked out in this position takes takes takes that after sacrificing a pawn you are just better like you have something here and quite frankly that could have been it like this could have been chancias prep and she she had this position in her notes uh and even though black is up a pawn black's position looks pretty miserable i mean these pawns are very strong if you can ever land your bishop on this diagonal black is dead if you can reroute your knight to d5 or to g4 where it will hit the queen and push through black is dead very tough position it looks like and so for that reason antoinette played this move she just went back uh i guess looking for queen h4 check but the problem is now queen h5 black wastes one move too long in the opening and all of a sudden bishop g5 is on the cards uh and bishop g5 arrived a move later two moves later the knight is hit but you counter attack the queen the queen comes here but just bishop f4 and okay you think they're going to repeat moves right uh repetition no no no golden rule if you have a lead in development and you are castled and your opponent's king is still stuck in the center folks what do you do down the middle of the board it's principal chess e5 sometimes moves that look impossible become possible why is this move so strong because you clear the square for another one of your pieces just like we saw in the last game you see when i prepare for these videos i try to make concepts overlap i would love that so e5 is a clearance move for the knight to the middle black has to go here and now knight e4 and this queen's trapped queen's trapped it's got nowhere to go so stefanova has to sacrifice well it's a little bit hard to see but knight d6 check is the point and now bishop f5 so she has to sacrifice some material she does get a couple of pieces but once the dust settles we have this position where jean is only technically up one point of material in fact after this she's up zero material is completely equal black has three extra pawns and black also has two knights so two knights and three extra pawns for a queen however white is completely winning why and well gentile says i don't even want to play the game let me just bring the queen back you should just you know resign i'm setting up for the next game no she's going for d6 so black has to play this move uh and now bishop d5 so another golden rule of thumb when you have a queen versus stuff okay queen versus rook knight queen versus whatever there's a couple of things you need to follow trades are generally not preferred your queen needs help okay your queen's like lebron on the lakers uh and uh you know anthony davis is injured it's just it's not gonna work or you know what better analogy damien lillard portland trailblazers okay um queen needs help that's what the queen needs and you want to take off the pawn so so so she wins the pawn now black plays this and you need to suppress your opponent's development as much as possible and the best way to do that is to attack okay don't let your opponent get fully consolidated if black gets all the pieces out you're gonna feel the presence of those pieces so queenie one forces this move now black is playing defensively now what did i say you need to force the issue here b4 now black has to move the rook c3 and you would think oh well i mean she's letting no no she's not letting anything happen um this rook is trapped and like for example if the rook had gone all the way back here you would have just kept going with b5 or you would have taken on d5 and this is pinned and the rooks see each other so the initiative continues if takes takes you cannot take the bishop because of queen g7 i mean you're probably getting blown off the board and you don't even need to do this yet because you can play bishop takes f7 check so if you forget about your hanging bishop you might still win the game but don't forget about your hanging bishop and play queen a1 bishop f7 and then queen a1 and so uh it was in this position b5 that black resigned because black's knights are just you're gonna lose one now black could have played something like king to d8 let's say to keep this protected but king to d8 i mean i have rook f7 black just basically like think about this black played the whole game without moving a bishop black also kind of played the whole game without moving the king in the rook i understand you castle but so she completely demolishes this game uh with a nice opening surprise and idea and now we move to the next game that i'm going to show you i believe this is from round number seven this game was completely insane like i mean head to toe i don't i don't even know what that means in the context of chess um let's look at this game from her perspective again she's playing one of the strongest georgian women uh nana so we have d4 d5 and all right let's slow it down we have a london white plays a london everybody chill in fact it's a london where black takes on d4 very early so we're not even going to have a lot of like tension black kind of in fact mirrors the setup plays this queen c8 to protect the b7 pawn um here a cr a move that i play a lot is knight h4 when i have white here i always try to get this bishop uh in this game uh zanissa doesn't do that she just focuses on development and plays this move c4 okay so she plays the move c4 uh shansaya takes it and plays queen d7 to maintain the defense of her pawn but to get the queen off the file of the rook now often times in london's you are kind of at the mercy of white like if white wants to play aggressive like with knight e5 all right we could have some fun um but if white doesn't want to do that it could be very difficult to create a play so here's josiah thinks for a while plays queen d8 and queen d8 is a is a massive experiment massive experiment essentially you're saying oh no my pawn you're going full eric rosen here um the news just takes it to free pawn and now folks all hell breaks loose uh black here can play the very chill bishop to e4 lining up this uh and you know this is under attack the bishop can drop back to d5 or even knight can come to d5 but josiah lives a dangerous life and this is round seven right so you're already in first place you're having a good tournament you're feeling yourself that's how it works you feel you know you feel good you're like i'm gonna i'm gonna go for it so you play knight takes d4 now okay okay um you win your pawn back you're threatening knight takes bishop which is a fork okay uh complete insanity begins to ensue um white should play bishop f1 white should play bishop f1 but it's nowhere near clear um if white were to play bishop f1 uh black would go knight to e4 and if you go for my knight which is pinned to my queen i'm just checking my notes here that's why i'm looking over here you would go knight c5 the queen is almost trapped so the queen has to go here and now knight to d3 covered by three pieces but because the bishop hits the queen the queen's gotta go somewhere so it would go maybe to a4 and now it looks like a repetition of moves might be possible with knight c5 but there is queen a5 and furthermore if you take the rook there is bishop takes d4 and the knight is trapped but even that's not the end of the story because there might be f6 to hit the knight and then if the knight goes here to attack the queen you would sack for it take take and now this knight would be able to get out and go back to b4 but computer still thinks white is better here despite black being a pawn up and it thinks that because black's position is pretty scatter brained all over the place um but knight takes d4 white thought for a while and played king f1 to so that knight takes bishop is not possible because of course you just lose the queen uh knight takes bishop is not a check but now we have bishop to e4 okay like i told you this game's completely nuts so bishop before queen moves now bishop to c5 all of a sudden all of a sudden the center is glued completely shut uh and well i mean what are you gonna do so white plays bishop back to e3 targeting and now shansaya plays this move and she just has an armada of pieces standing directly in the center of the board doing their best tetris piece formation it's not even clear what the threat is i mean don't you just lose yourself in in the music the moment you want it you better let it sorry um knight knights here target both bishops i mean the queen can come out this way i mean f6 f5 f4 i don't know but white plays bishop h5 to target the f7 pawn and it's actually funny because after takes takes jon says straight up just let her take it she was like yeah go ahead it's even if it's czech and white was like uh are you sure are you sure and now rook takes d4 apparently the best move here for white was this move where everything barely hangs on to each other but black would have played rook c7 to try to get rid of this and then take that because the knight is something we call overloaded it can't guard both things but here there is the shocking computer move what computer move folks you watch enough of my videos h and you can't take it if you take it then i go here and then if you give me a check and well of course it takes them takes right if king e2 and you take this rook all right that's nice now i take your bishop now i'm winning yeah my king's out in the open doesn't matter i'm safe yeah i mean the computer is just terrible right it'll just suggest these moves so instead of knight to g4 the needs it took immediately but now we have this this this this and what's going on black is just an exchange up black is an exchange up like here somehow after all the dust settled in the tactical complications black hair has to play one move and one move only and um the rook is hanging so where do you move the rook well the king's right there right so here and uh rook c5 queen e3 and rook goes back to c2 rook 88 very nice move the queen's not hanging because of the pin i don't know if you guys realize that the queen's not hanging queen hasn't been hanging it's not hanging and rookie six look at that move danger levels john cy has seen the video rookie three rook a6 and i mean 20 less than 30 moves again with black and she she invites positions like this you know she she invites positions like this where she will play knight takes d4 uh and all hell breaks loose and it's a tactical fight i think in the modern day of chess we look at games like this when we go well the computer said no it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what the computer said because at the end of the day chess is a battle of two people who are calculating positions and evaluating them constantly and then coming back and making decisions and if you make less inaccurate decisions then you're going to win the game now um final game that i'm going to show you uh is her with the white pieces this is later in the tournament uh and this game really the the key here is perseverance perseverance and uh mental fortitude so we have another e45 and like i said this whole video is kind of just demonstrating all parts of her playing style right so a3 pretty non-standard opening because black has put a bishop on kind of a passive square and this whole thing is just a little bit it's like very solid right and uh normally white has pawn on c3 to try to play pawn to d4 but in this case you're just fighting for this d5 square so that's why you put bishop and knight like this you played a3 so you could prevent your bishop from getting trapped on that side of the board and also maybe to play b4 which is what she does in this game and rookie one and now knight d5 so we have a knight b8 to try to play c6 and she goes back to c3 to try to transform the structure so she can double her pawns but just get a death grip on on on d5 right so knight c6 bishop e6 rookie six knight d5 let's try this again but without the bishops the knight goes back to e7 you might recognize this kind of night maneuver with pawn to c6 maybe from jon says game herself where she transferred the rook a couple of games ago but there there's a big difference here and and the big difference is the fact that um after this trade this rook is never making it to the party and this rook could make it to the party if black were to play knight f4 and rook g6 that that is very much a thing um black decides to go to h4 in the game and now she plays knight to h2 something similar that she did with the black pieces maybe not the most accurate move but the truth is that if you make this trade and then maybe do something like this this according to the computer is better for white but it's not so i mean optically it's kind of difficult to envision that because this bishop is very passionate i mean this bishop's also not not the best but i mean this just looks kind of annoying um but computers are gonna computer what are you gonna do knight h2 takes and now this move g3 to kick out the knight so the knight goes back and now bishop d4 and i would say that uh right here is kind of the most important moment when black plays this move f5 the doubling on the e file and it's an invitation to go take take take take take take and we have a transp transformation of the position into queen knight bishop versus queen knight bishop the biggest imbalance of the position is the pawn structure we are now in an end game and this is why this game is called perseverance because you're not going to win all your games in 28 moves and your opponents aren't gonna hang queens out of opening preparations sometimes you're gonna have to dig deep and create stuff when the computer is out there screaming at you there is no stuff um you don't know that there is no stuff you're just playing chess um so king g2 knight e5 bishop f2 white consolidates near the king and now we have queen e6 hitting the pawn so white takes on a7 queen c4 queen b7 and queenie two black has sacrificed one of the queen side pawns now black is a pawn down but look at this you're really gonna tell me that this little lunch box of pieces over here is leaving a strong impression on anybody what is white's biggest asset in this position folks if you said anything besides the apon hey pay attention all right i know some of you don't even like look at the screen y'all got me in the background pay attention the a pawn is white's biggest asset all right it's a pass pawn it's just got a direct line to the end what black is gonna try to do is play moves like knight d3 and go after this bishop so c5 by black very nice idea to disconnect the queen from the bishop we have takes and knight c4 now you can argue that black should have taken first black decides to go knight c4 but now queen b3 this this is an annoying move you see you stop knight e3 by paralyzing it now black plays d5 black is all in black has sacrificed the second pawn and is trying to take utilizing this pin so what does white do to prevent that chest is simple sometimes king g1 king h7 a4 d4 c6 i mean you got past pawns right you just gotta evaluate that your king is not dead yet okay great let's just push the pawns but now bishop d6 okay f4 three pawn moves acf all right like j street metro tech for my new york city people knight e3 are you threatening anything no there's no threat that's actually the crazy part none of these moves are a threat if you're confused yf one's not at threats because of this hero knight right so queen b1 check but you would think wait isn't queen b1 check kind of scary like isn't there like pawn to d3 yeah but now queen e1 is the dagger you trade pieces and you stop the pawn and you're just up too many puns in the end game right so king h8 now this now this but now now as time is dwindling jon saya transforms the position but in the process it slightly inaccurately and we get a three on two end game this didn't necessarily have to happen but this is what happens and this is why i call this perseverance this is move 45 now you got to start all over how the heck are you gonna win three on two first of all you never agreed to a draw here ever i mean the only way you lose this game is on time by having a heart attack or by losing your queen so all three of those are relatively unlikely right so queen f2 someone watching's like never trust me with a queen i don't only got queen in three pawns i'll still find a way to lose it also folks making a queen trade in an end game like this um is sometimes going to be winning and sometimes not going to be winning so in this this three on two end game is a win this three on two pawn end game is a win but sometimes depending on how your pawns are positioned or if this king is super active it won't be a win so black is trying to avoid the queen trade white would like a queen trade um and wants to advance the pawns here the computer gives an absolutely cold-blooded move which is h5 on low depth it thinks that sacrificing this pawn and getting this three-on-one end game is a draw because by destroying white's pawn structure you kill white's forward mobility does that make sense okay cool but black plays kh8 basically black took the approach of i'm going to give you checks and i'm going to sit and wait and search inside okay great i'm not i'm not scared queen she won maybe he's coming you can't check me anymore you can't check me anymore and now this move queen b1 um and in this position queen b1 is a fatal mistake it's very difficult to see why uh black should have played king j8 according to the machine but even even on on king j8 i have some suspicion uh computer will find like little tricks and things to draw it for black but uh very tough for a human so queen b1 which also seems relatively i mean the same you want to play queen five check or something you want to stay over here there is a really savage winning idea here by white which jean saya spots immediately it has nothing to do with checking the king but it has to do with making the right move at the right second to take away black space and breathing f5 and g6 these two pawn pushes kill black circulation doesn't matter you cannot check my king anymore and i'm just going queen h5 queen h7 queen h8 queen g7 like right now for example queen a you would play queen takes queen but i would go check check check and take this and the game is over and if you had put your queen here i would still do it because it's still winning um so f5 and g6 very surgical and uh we get one more spike check on c8 king h4 having the cerebral right ability to realize there are no checks here queen h5 is still on the cards by the way queen h5 was made possible by advancing the pawn and that is actually why black had to put the king on g8 because you needed to anticipate this whole idea and black missed that and so chancia shows uh with four games that i've shown you in this video an ability to uh overcome some opening surprise and understand the position better than her opponent coming up with a nice original idea very strong opening preparation in that second game uh in that third game with the black pieces the ability to create chaos out of nowhere right uh and make the la not make the last mistake of the game make the penultimate potentially inaccuracy of the game inviting those wild complications against one of the strongest performers of the event uh and in this game i mean 60 move endgame grind starting from scratch several times over the game over the course of the game and kind of keeping level headed so um with this john cya gained like 35 rating points and to summarize she's now about 2505 i believe is her live rating she got eight and a half points out of 11. she played 11 rounds uh six wins and five draws six wins and five draws undefeated she's now the fifth highest rated player in kazakhstan she's always represented the kazakhstan women's national team but she might be strong enough to play on the open team i mean i i don't know it's complete it's completely her call uh but she's obviously the first woman to become a grandmaster in the history of kazakhstan uh there's another uh woman in kazakhstan dinara sadua she's also very close and i believe the two of them are close friends but i i don't know that i just see them at tournaments um so congratulations to her massive accomplishment only the 38th woman to do it and hopefully many more in the future um and you know hopefully there is already a school in kazakhstan named after her uh which i believe she opened some some several years ago so hopefully she continues to inspire the next generation and um listen if i got to be this kind of news destination for you not just for the top players but also players that are just breaking into the gm ranks uh and and setting history in in their countries all over the world i'm more than happy to do that uh so hopefully you enjoyed the video congratulations once again to her and uh yeah as always go get involved in the comments love to read what you all have to say and i will see you in the next video peace out get out of here

Channel: GothamChess

Views: 404,809

Keywords: gothamchess, gothamchess london, gothamchess caro kann, gothamchess openings, gothamchess vienna, chess interview, zhansaya, zhansaya chess, zhansaya abdumalik, fide chess, fide chess grand prix, chess grand prix, chess best games, elisabeth paehtz, paehtz chess, ruy lopez, berlin chess, berlin endgame, chess history

Id: 3q_9dSoFbkQ

Length: 30min 51sec (1851 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 04 2021