Oops.

ladies and gentlemen welcome back it's the eighth round uh here from the gmron robin uh campaign and uh my opponent for this round uh is nicholas theodorou uh i played him in las vegas just back in uh when was that june june yes and um he is 25 70. he has five points out of seven and uh he needs to beat me to clinch an uh a gm norm actually his third and final gm norm and the title uh why does he need to beat me because he will have six points out of eight if he beats me uh and his last round will just be a draw i mean in grand master round robins uh if you've made the draw i mean if you've made the you know you you just need a draw in the last round it's very unlikely someone is gonna try to spoil that from you um and so i was prepared uh for him to play d4 actually because it's his main opening back in vegas he did play knight f3 i was not expecting that f3 because i can play a whole lot of stuff he's been playing d4 and it's funny he was preparing the dutch because it's my most it's my most popular thing in the database and i was preparing to go into his catalan so knight f3 uh d5 g3 i was expecting him to play the catalan although he he actually likes to employ this move order g3 which avoids going into the queen's indian defense it puts the bishop on the diagonal first and when he played this on the second move i was like what is he doing um this cuts back his repertoire a little bit because he normally doesn't play into the queen's indian i'm not saying he doesn't know how to play the queen's indian i'm just saying normally he doesn't do it so i played e6 and then b6 and the reason i was confident going into the queen's indian defense was because when i was preparing for justin wang i i thought we might have a queen's indian i thought one of the lines that i would be playing against justin would be the qid and he goes g3 now black has bishop a6 or bishop b7 but i'm just employing a very solid and stable setup and my logic was going to be this i'm going to play this game solidly i know enough about the opening that i'll just keep the position balanced and he needs to beat me so he will probably over press at some point um or you know he's just gonna press press press and i'll have to defend and let's go and the other thing is in the game in vegas i got into a deep time trouble and i spent way too much time so i was gonna try to hit those two markers so here we go he plays knight to c3 uh the other main line is um uh instead of knight c3 there is rook to e1 where i have some stuff and there is uh there is d5 which is just neutralized this is a pawn sacrifice line but nobody's really doing this nowadays um so knight e4 that's the whole point and queen c2 here is the main move to pressure the knight and so is bishop d2 and i actually thought he was going to do this because i'm pretty sure he is staying in the same hotel room as gemil who's playing in the other section he's a grandmaster and gemini played this against my friend uh in their section and i was like what if they go for this and my friend played f5 one of the two main moves and i was like i'm gonna go bishop f6 i decided all this at the board because i wasn't even expecting a queen's indian but i know enough about it that it you know it's not the most complex opening to play i play d6 and you know maybe i'll try to play for c5 here he shocked me um i am force i'm completely certain here and the database confirmed that he played a move that just isn't played in this position knight to e1 and this move forces trades it forces exchanges so first i take his knight i attack his queen so he has to take back then i trade the bishops which is normally a victory for black uh and now i play c5 i don't have to play c5 but i just kind of didn't want to allow him to take the full center so i was like all right i'll play c5 now of course he should not take because there are some positions that are simply unwinnable and this is one of them it's completely symmetrical structure we've traded simply too many pieces um so he goes d5 and i was debating here between taking the bishop and then playing e5 or just playing e5 now playing e5 straight up looks kind of idiotic because all my pawns are on dark squares so this just doesn't make any sense um so i traded and played e5 and this is exactly what i meant in terms of my strategy like i'm not trying to play this game for a draw i'm trying to play solid in fact he's the one who initiated the trades if he doesn't play 91 we're gonna have some tension in the center i'm gonna play c5 but he chose to trade off three sets of minor pieces so i'm like all right all right if you're gonna beat me in this position you're either going to checkmate me because you have more space over here or you're going to win in the long run because you have some activity on my pawn so here we go he plays z4 i've got a couple of plans here first of all one of my plans is a6 b5 like just very quickly creating counter play but i didn't fully believe in this because i thought he could just play a4 and the second that i moved this pawn my b6 pawn is weak now i could sacrifice i could just go take take take boom but i was like what am i doing like why am why why am i doing this because he's just gonna he's just gonna attack me over here or just defend this and like why am i losing a pawn so i was like okay i thought for a while and i and i thought i played a move that that was like gigabrain i was like i'm gonna play queen e8 the idea of queen eight is that the if the knight comes in it doesn't hit me on e7 um i'm gonna wait for him to make a move and also this covers this diagonal now in retrospect i probably should have played this because i'm going to play this anyway queen e8 kind of doesn't make a lot of sense but it the point is it doesn't matter and the other idea is it stops f4 so in a perfect world he might get a position that looks like this and then goes like rogue g3 doubles up on the g file not by eating his own king but by sliding it over and like mates me but if he if he's forced to take on f4 oh he played g4 in the game but if he's forced to take on f4 with like the knight like or let's just say the rook to guard this this is really bad because this pawn is now just a backwards pawn it has no neighbors that are behind it or next to it and i'll play knight d7 i control the square in front of it and i'll plant my knight there beautiful square and we're reviving there's a guy queen ate's a really nice movie plays g4 and i'm like wait a minute what is he doing because now f4 is completely off the table because he can't actually take back with the pawn i mean he couldn't do it anyway but if he defended the e pawn i'm like what is g4 is he trying to play rook h3 and mate me or is he trying to play h4 and take some space i was like i don't know now i'm gonna go queen e7 so i was like okay i thought this was pretty pretty clever because now i can fight for the dark squares cause he's basically given up the dark squares by playing g4 so then he played h4 i was like okay knight d7 he goes queen d2 it's funny because i think the point of this move is to throw this rook over here play h5 bring the knight maybe to f5 of course if he plays knight e3 to try to play knight f5 i'm gonna go g6 and then he'll be able to slide in um then i was like yo i got g6 anyway look how smart i am i'm going to start my own attack i was actually thinking that like no joke like rook h3 i was half considering playing f5 and i was like yo who is attacking who in this position like he thought he was attacking me black is better here if we if if all this gets traded cause i just play king h8 what the hell is this you play this move i'm putting my rook right here that knight is not going anywhere black is much better so i was getting excited i was like he's not going to play rook h3 because i'm threatening to go f5 and he can't go here because of course i take the pawn so actually i was i was very happy with the way i was playing this game and i was managing my clock well we were even on the clock he played queen h6 which i saw but i i didn't there was food on my lip this entire time from lunch well hopefully you all didn't see that i think this camera is not as high resolution as the one i have at home so i saw queen h6 but i don't know i just i didn't there wasn't thinking that it was super scary because now i can fork the pawns with this move knight f6 and he actually has to play f3 here he has to play this and f3 means that he cannot move the rook there so the attack is gone which i thought was it was a moral victory um you know if he if he pins me like this this is another option but uh i don't know um i don't know he chose not to do it he played f3 uh which i which i actually thought was the correct move and then the engine agrees and basically white's like all right i can't mate you but i'm going to beat you with strategy number two in the end game here i thought i played a move which was very clever king h8 king h8 is actually threatening to pose some very big problems because for example i'm just gonna kick his queen out and if he just voluntarily goes away i'm gonna freeze the knight by playing knight d7 and then i'm gonna play f5 so if like just a random move i'm gonna go here and i think black is better um i think black is better because you know again the whole point is that he wants to stop me from playing f5 but he would be abandoning this so again i was very confident at this point i was like then he played this move i was like all right that's pretty smart so now now i can't really go to d7 because i want my knight here if we trade queens i want mine on d7 so there's no f4 and my knight can always jump to that right i'm trying to follow the strategy here but he goes here and now i have no way to get my knight to d7 um i mean i guess i can play queen d8 knight d7 but that that looks borderline just completely idiotic so i played this and i was expecting him to immediately go after my a pawn which he did so i went like this and traded and i again to this point i feel like i'm playing i'm playing logically like i felt like i was playing quite a decent game um and then he plays knight e3 and yeah i'm like all right he at some point i'm gonna have to figure out what to do over here i play kind of an ugly move not this one but you know i see that he's coming he he wants rook a6 he wants knight b5 and if he gets knight rook and then a second rook on the a file i'm screwed i don't have enough space to defend myself so i play this move after some thought it's about 18 minutes to 28 here pretty close maybe 10 minute gap would like it to be closer but last time we played here at 30 and i had one um and uh i was like everything is going well i have a slightly worse position but we're holding we're gonna see what happens he plays knight c3 i thought about this move um just so you know little spikes and then the idea would be like if he goes rogue b1 to try to play b4 that um [Music] i'm ready like my rooks are right there and i'm just defending my weaknesses but this looked so ridiculous i mean it just looked so passive the engine is not afraid the engine's like there's nothing to fear here you just go here and you're fine and i was like oh wait no apparently now there's an ip5 did i mess something up oh yeah you just don't play an id you just go like here or something and i mean again it looks ridiculous to play like this ah the second he attacks me i play knight d7 but this just looked like like what am i doing i mean this is so passive ah yeah but like i said engine's not afraid the engine doesn't understand things like oh my god that's so passive and i have no moves the engine's like yes it's passive and what is what is the problem i don't i don't okay so you have very passive position i don't know why the engine's like soviet but yeah so that's the difference i was like okay i'm not gonna do this i'm going to do afa uh h5 first like h5 because i know that he has to lock the position he can't he can't let my knight get in that that he doesn't want that so i was like all right we locked that side now we play 98 now we're going to turn our focus this way um because he's going to try to play rook b1 which is exactly what he did and i played a5 and you know i consciously weaken my structure b6 is weak but he doesn't have a way to get to it like if he plays rook b3 great that's exactly what he did if he plays rook b5 with the intention of playing knight to a4 and then bringing the second rook i kick him out i'll just kick him out and then like for example if he plays a4 and shuts me down now his knight can't go to a4 so he's frozen and maybe i can even bring my knight to b4 so he has to be very careful with his pawn moves and then here finally my strategy paid off i was waiting for this moment like the entire game for him to do something drastic which made the position imbalance like he liked it to overextend a little bit and his next move completely shocked me he played f4 um and the point is that well i have to take if i don't take then he plays f5 and i can't just let him get free space on me because i will be suffocated to death so i go here and he rotates the rook he's like i'm not gonna make progress here so i'm gonna go win back my pawn now i have two choices here it's time to now react to him complicating matters it's maybe 10 minutes for me maybe 14 15 for him i got three options i'm like oh i think he slightly over like underestimated the fact that i have a4 here i got really excited to play a4 um because now he has to like deflect off center and i'm gonna win this pawn um apparently i also have this pawn break which i did see during the game but i was so excited by a4 that i didn't even like compare the two apparently i can just go f6 which i just didn't think made a whole lot of sense after takes takes rook f4 but again the engine's like yeah you're fine you can't really move anything but you're fine um because he can't really move a whole lot and yeah i mean f6 is mildly frustrating not not to just play um i don't even exactly know what he would do here if he takes one f4 like if he does it this way uh then i just win this pawn so i mean f6 was right there you know uh this kind of pawn break but i decided to go for a4 and what i had calculated was um if well he played knight a4 but if rook a3 i thought that i was going to play uh b5 and if knight b5 i take the center pawn if cb5 knight c7 i thought this this this this this and what i had failed to realize during the game is that i'm down upon here that's the problem with calculating like variations that are five six moves long when you have ten minutes on the clock and then you have to go in multiple directions i straight up miscounted like like when i when i played a4 because he was he was starting to play faster as well when i played a4 in my mind i was like i'm gonna go knight c7 b5 we're just gonna explode the position like this and i'll play b5 that's what we're gonna do um but it but it turns out like i calculated this this this this and here it's five five but he he can go here and uh i'm gonna be upon down now i do have some activity you know i can play king g7 um but he has activity also so he's probably just winning here uh i don't know what i would have played if he played rook a3 to be honest i mean the engine is trying to tell me f6 anyway um it's it's yeah it's trying to say that going into that line is probably best um so i played uh yeah b5 was my idea but he took what he took with this and then i took and then he he did this now here we should not trade um i thought we shouldn't trade because i was like why am i trading he's just going to promote the engine's not afraid um oh now it's getting afraid but in general if you're trying to draw gotta activate the rook and he told me here that he actually missed that after b3 i can activate this rook with rook a7 rook e7 i was actually getting very excited here i'm like all right like we're going to win this like you know we're not going to lose this game like we're playing this for a win the rook is coming maybe f3 maybe rook h4 maybe rook g4 like knight g7 knight f5 like imma get all my pieces to this king it is wide open his only game plan is to push the a pawn and the time is like equaling out i mean he's got like 12 i got like maybe like 10 8 or something um it was like maybe 11 8 11 7 something like something along these lines he plays rook b8 which i did which is not something i did not expect um and and i rotated my rook uh and then he played this move uh no i'm sorry he played he played rook d8 which pressures my knight and my pawn and at this point i realized his game plan is to go knight b6 and knight c8 or knight b6 and um well yeah like like here to threaten to threaten this stuff i have three candidate moves okay king g7 king h7 and f3 f3 is the most forcing because after something like this for example um i can like take on h4 and i i didn't know how to evaluate this at all i was like am i dumb for activating his rook am i smart for activating my rook i don't know the engine also cannot fully figure it out it thinks that f3 is a good way to go though um and then the idea of king g7 is that if the file ever opens this is all defended and then my knight can go somewhere else or i can play f6 and then takes takes and um if uh if if i play king h7 i was like well i can play knight g7 knight f5 and then knight h4 which was kind of something that i there was no other way i could activate my knight so so i decided to play king h7 and he played this and in my mind i was like okay this doesn't work because knight c8 comes in and i'm screwed like i can't do anything and if i trade rooks he just plays a4 so he's just winning here easily so i was like okay he's gonna go knight b6 and what i'm gonna do like this is what i looked at all the way back here i was like here i'm gonna go king h7 knight b6 um knight g7 is impossible because knight eight so king h7 knight b6 i'm gonna go attack his pawn he's gonna have to play rook f2 to defend it and then i'm gonna start bringing my knight i'm gonna sacrifice the pawn i'm gonna play knight f5 because when my knight moves the pawn's gone knight f5 and then we're gonna go for his position he can't play a4 because now the knight is on the same line as the b pawn so i'm gonna slide over and like you know i got like five six minutes i'm like all right quick calculation boom then he plays this and i realized i screwed up um because he can play that i completely hallucinated the fact that he can't play this move because after rook b7 is just a5 so i just bounced my rook around moved it off the center line and uh and let his pawn go super far so now it's just straight up threatening to push all the way uh and i yeah that was very frustrating um because now i'm just losing after a4 it's just losing and uh i went for knight g7 and i blundered the follow-up it's not the first mistake that kills you although it's very damn close it's uh it's the fact that the threat is not even to take the pawn uh the threat is to go here which i had spent so much time looking at knight c8 that because because this is not a threat when my rook is like back here um that this was the idea like knight f6 is mate or a bunch of forks and if i go here he just takes and knight f6 and he picks up my rook and i resigned uh and with that he actually clinched the gm norm and the title so big win for him and i congratulated him we talked a little bit after the game what's most frustrating to me about this game uh is uh is the fact that it was even for so long and i just i just hallucinated something at the end it's like funny because definitely there's a part of me playing this game that's that's thinking don't lose when i'm defending rather than at this point although like i said i was thinking maybe we'll play this for a win but then i immediately looked i found the wrong plan i just miscalculated you know time is low on both sides he played more perfectly throughout the game than me this game is like the best example of just i'm not at that level yet um because these guys will find the best plans like even moments in the game for example when he played f4 which was inaccurate like i knew it was inaccurate and then i just did not respond the right way so i think um yeah i think it's just a matter of consistency these guys will find the right plans the most critical plans the most you know accurate plans more often than they won't and even when they make inaccuracies the game goes back to being equal rather than just outright losing so yeah i mean i'm not like super super frustrated because i did everything i wanted to this game everything the whole game plan was good and i got all the way down there and uh and i screwed it up and that's why the video is called oops a lot to learn lots to learn i i'm actually not as frustrated er with this game uh maybe as one should be when they loses but um yeah congratulations to nicholas and uh we have one more round to go i gotta play uh tian chi in round number nine i will see you then

Channel: GothamChess

Views: 444,801

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

Id: uORnjjEF1L8

Length: 20min 34sec (1234 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 06 2021