- [Garnt] Tournament arc. - So as you guys know we talked
about my chess experience not too long ago on the podcast. And I got a little reminiscent
and I tweeted out saying, Hey, we should do an anime
YouTuber chess tournament. Because fuck it, why not? And chess.com promptly
emailed me within an hour saying, Hey, do you want to set that up? You want us to help you do that? And I was like, yeah. So I tweeted out asking who wanted to join and now we have the tournament arc. That's the name of the chess tournament. - We don't have a chess anime
so we're making our own. - We're making our own chess anime
- We're making our own chess anime. - So this is a special
episode of Trash Taste where it's not so much a podcast is more our experience at
how the tournament goes. And we're recording this before
the tournament takes place. And this is basically our initial thoughts how we think it's all gonna go. And yeah, I guess that's
kind of it really. - So do we want to talk about the fact that this is actually gonna be a legit E-sports tournament? Because we have like a cash pool. - Yeah, we do. - With prizes and everything. So 1st place gets two grand. 2nd place gets a grand, 3rd
place 800, 4th place 400 and then 5th through to 8th gets 200. So it doesn't matter
if you lose first game, 'cause I know I am. - Yeah. - I'm still going home with 200 bucks. - If you lose, you still win. - Exactly, exactly. - Everyone's a winner. - Everyone's a winner. - There's literally a
participation award for this. - It's like 200 bucks,
that's the best part. What else are you gonna
spend your money on, but more gadget money? - I'm putting that right into arc night. - So yeah, this is a completely
legit chess tournament arranged very officially. They've taken a lot of measures
to stop us from cheating. Not that any of us would, gentlemen, but yeah, here are the eight contestants. How we selected them
was obviously me judging if you're a good anime YouTuber. No, that's not what it was. People assumed that was what it was. No, I literally just tweeted out- - If that was the case
then half of these people wouldn't be here. - We got these contestants, I tweeted out who wants to be in it. And then I gave the list to chess.com and they selected these eight people. So here we are. And yeah, we have the very
anticipated first game of Garnt versus Mother's Basement. - I'm so fucking ready for this. I'm so fucking ready. - Shit talking you guys
were doing on Twitter was one of the funniest. It was the funniest and somehow the most pathetic
thing I've ever seen. - It was like baby mode shit-talking. - It was no you. - Another game I'm excited
for is Dee versus Joey. - Yeah, Dee was talking mad
shit to me on this discord. I saw it Dee, you motherfucker. I saw you just be like, Joey, I know you're up, fight me, bro. Fight me. And I'm just like, dude chill. - It's funny 'cause I
saw Dee tweeted earlier that he's like, Oh, I'm
going for the underdog, the underdog route in this tournament and behind the scenes,
he's been talking mad shit. (laughing) - He was so confident about himself. I mean rightfully so. As I said in the chess episode, I've never played a game of
chess up until this point. So I've been learning a
lot, but I still suck dick. - I think the only person
who has any chess experience in this tournament is
me, but outside of that, and even then I still
make really dumb mistakes. I think it'll be an interesting tournament just because of how much a
fucking mess it's gonna be. - Yeah, bottom line, this is gonna be the lowest IQ tournament I think we're gonna see. - This is gonna be a dummy
thick chess tournament. - That makes it so fun. 'cause I know that when I'm
gonna watch any of your games that it's gonna be a fucking fiesta and I can't wait to see what happens. Like I know it's gonna be a mess. - It's gonna be like when a movable object meets a stoppable force. (laughing) - I'm also excited to
see Sydney play chess. (laughing) - Just in general, that's
gonna be interesting. - I taught Sydney how to
play chess like last weekend. It was- - Did she know how to play? - No, at all. - No, not even remotely had
any clue of what any piece did. So, and Rustage, I've seen Rustage man. He's been playing a shit ton so I think- - Rustage is actually
going through his training. - Rustage is actually gonna go through like the underdog route. - I'm excited to see if maybe
that's gonna be a storm. I think it might be. And then obviously me versus John I have no idea how good John is. I'm guessing he's just okay. - Well, unless he's a hidden chess - It could be the best
game is in the first round. Me and John, battle of the wits. - You got to get the
shit talking out though. 'Cause you know, John loves wrestling. So you know, he's gonna be on board with the shit talking. - I need to see John's
into it first, right? When he's into it, I'm
like, all right, let's go. Let's go hard. So who's the protagonist of this. 'Cause I think I have to
be the antagonist, right? 'cause everyone's like, I'm the guy's probably gonna be cocky. I've already won a bunch. - I know, you're like the final boss. Is how I see, you're the final boss. I don't know who the protagonist is. - Okay, someone on this side, right? 'Cause the protagonist
never goes on the same side of the bracket as the antagonist, that's just not how it works. Everyone knows this. - I think it's gonna be more
like just like a slice of life where you're the protagonist and everybody else is the side character. Like there's no antagonist in the story. - No, I'm gonna make
sure I'm the antagonist, I'm gonna be an asshole on this one. - Connor's out here playing Kegios. And we're just out here playing Keon. - We're just like, yay. Fun times with friends. - I just want to be against
one of you two in the final. - No, I want the old Trash Taste semifinal - It has to be. - That's all I want. - Yeah. If we get that, we're all winners. 'Cause we get content. 'cause we gonna go through
a whole training arc. So in this video, you're gonna see us, our initial thoughts. We're gonna go home, we're gonna record what
we thought we're gonna do for training. We'll get our game plan. And then you're gonna
see our training sessions with the grand masters of chess and then you'll see the final- - Yeah, so we got a one
hour session, all of us, with the grandmaster. Basically just to get like
a last minute tutoring from the very best. So hopefully, we'll be able
to input enough information from him. - And these are the best of the best man. Like I think normally if you
want to try and hire the guys for some chess practice is not cheap. - Yeah, right? - So, I'm excited-
- And we get paid. - Yeah, and we get paid to do it. All right gentlemen, so good luck with your training arcs. - Thank you. - I wish any of you stand
a chance of beating me. - No, we won't. - They might as well just
give you the two grand now. (laughing) - As you guys know from the podcast, I have experience as a
kid, which let's be honest, I'm nowhere near as good as I used to be. And I've forgotten a lot of things and I make a shit ton of mistakes but I think I still
have that like hardwired awareness of the board
and how the pieces move and where they are and stuff at the time and all the options you can do. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna win. If I don't fuck up, and I just play good. I will win. That's like the same
with any sport, I guess. So my first match is
against Super Eyepatch Wolf. He's a total mystery to all of us. We have zero idea if
Eyepatch is good at chess, I'm going into it blind. I don't think he's going
to be that amazing. So if I just play normally,
it should be fine. And then I think in the semis
I'll be against Rustage, who I'm a little worried about. 'Cause he's been streaming a lot and he's been playing a ton of games. And then in the finals,
if I had to bet on it, I think it'll be against Garnt. I feel like Garnt is gonna
win against Mother's Basement. And I think that Joey
might win against Dee. That game is gonna be a
rollercoaster, Dee versus Joey. It could go any way. And I think that Garnt would beat Joey. I'm hoping, hoping that
we get that semifinal. I really want those
two to face each other. But either way, we all know
I'm the final boss of this arc. I'm going to win this. It's not going to be difficult and I'm going to clown
and flex whilst I do it. I want to become the true
antagonist of this arc. - Tournament arc. I don't know if that's
gonna turn out well. See, I'm gonna be completely honest. I am not feeling confident at all. I haven't played chess
since I was in school. So that was like when I was what? Nine to 11 years old. It's been a very long time
since I last played chess. And I've played a few practice games. I've played on chess.com, got
completely destroyed online. I know it's to just play
the game against Joey where each of us tried to see
who could basically end harder in the match. It was goddamn awful. It ended in stalemates, but
even if one of us had won, both of us had already
felt like we had lost. So yeah, I'm not feeling too confident. I know Joey's not feeling too good either. Connor is probably by himself laughing because he feels like he's
already won this or something. So what I'm gonna try and
do is my style of studying. And what that means is
I'm not gonna read a book or anything. I'm just going to try and
fail as many times as I can. And hopefully by the time
we reach the tournament I would have seen so many ways to fail I won't fail the same way when I play my real official matches. Overall though I'm just here to have fun, I'm not here to win. I'm pretty sure Connor has
got this in the bag already. What I really want to do is just not make a fucking fool
of myself on the tournament. - What up, it's the chess man, as in I really suck at the chess, man. So if you guys may know before this whole tournament
thing even started your boy had never even touched
the chess board in his life. So suffice it to say that I don't have the highest
expectations of myself going into this tournament. So I think we already know that Connor is already going
to win this tournament. I think that's just a
given W at this point considering that everybody
else in the tournament is kind of a beginner, especially myself. And the first person I'm up against is Dee from Revel House. And I have no idea if he's any good or not or if he absolutely sucks dick, like I do. And I don't really have
much of like a game plan or anything like that, I think the one problem
that I personally have with the couple of games that I've played obviously I'm probably
gonna learn a lot more once I actually go into
my coaching session with Japanese Tutor. But I think currently my biggest problem is just that I know all of the rules and I know like the
gist of how pieces move and stuff like that but I don't really have like a open mind as to like how do I attack? What pieces do I use? What even constitutes as a good
move and a total like loss. So yeah, I think at this point, for me, it's just a matter of
just practicing a lot and just hopefully with more practice, just getting used to the patterns and actually seeing the patterns, because again, like all the
games are gonna be timed, we only have like 10 minutes per game. So I don't have a whole lot
of time to kind of sit there and contemplate every
single move in detail. Although I will say that if
I managed to just nail a game if I just manage to get one W with the cleanest checkmate ever, and like, I didn't even want to, like, win from like running out
of a time-limit, right or even drawing, like I want to get that W. If I can just get one checkmate then all be satisfied, honestly because God forbid I'm not
gonna get past the first round. - I wanna show you a very famous game. And this is called the opera game. So when you're climbing a ladder, right, you don't climb a ladder
like this and then this, This is your phrase,
it's called PP on the PP, put pressure on the pinch piece. - Okay, okay. - Usually four and
you're gonna either take, or you gonna push and that is going to change
the whole dynamic of the game. - Oh man, I went from a
forehead to a fire pit. - Oh yeah, bishop to F4. - Are you a fan of GRPGs by any chance? Because this is very indicative
of your playing style. You're playing a one player game. (laughing) That was quick. Queen G6, King to H1,
and nothing can take it. This is actually called the fools game. - I'm just one of those guys who if I see an opportunity to castle, I'm just like, yeah, let's just castle. I don't know. - Whenever you see that they move at six there should be an alarm in your head. The name of the game, at least
in the opening is the center. - This is like thinking five moves ahead and I'm just thinking
two or three moves ahead. - So what happens when
queen captures Bishop on E4? - Then the king is going
to take it and move to E4. - A lot of people were
saying it's you versus Connor in the final. - Oh, really? Oh, that should be interesting. - That's what a lot of people are saying. - I mean Connor is trying
to build himself up as the main antagonist. So I don't know where
that makes me right now. I'm still trying to figure out
what my role is in all this. - So JT, they're gonna
be playing rapid chess, the actual time control's gonna
be 10 minutes on the clock with five seconds added
every move they make we call that an increment. All right, everybody we're back. I hope you enjoyed that. And now we are with the
guys from Trash Taste. We got The Animeman, Cdawgva and Gigguk, what's up guys? - Yo.
- Hello. - All three of you have
trained with Japanese Tutor and the other four competitors got an hour of training with
national master James Canty. So how did your coaching sessions go? And like, what did your fans think? Was it too much for them? - I mean, I really enjoyed it just because I think out
of the three of us here like before the talks of
this tournament even started I had never even touched
a chess piece in my life. So it was like actually
completely new experience for me. I try to teach myself beforehand before I go into the
coaching session with JT but obviously JT schooled me really hard. I'm probably gonna lose, I'll do my best, but at least I can say that
I got some good coaching. - What about you Gig? How was your a 1.5 player
chess strategy going? - Yeah, I actually went into
the coaching chess session thinking I was pretty bad at chess. I was surprised where
we were just reviewing this very high level game. I was surprised that that was the route that JT thought was best for me but it was very, very helpful actually. It gave me a different perspective of how to think of the game. And I think my audience
very much enjoyed it as well compared to like my previous streams. People seem very, very engaged and very interested in chess as a whole. It's also something that I've
like found a new interest in as well, because I hadn't played since
school before this tournament. So it's been very fun
getting back into it. - And Connor, JT came prepared with some historic chess games as well for you guys to look at, right? - One of them was a Gary
Kasparov game, right? And there's another one with some dudes who are at an all-pro or
something I can't remember. - Yeah, that's great. Yeah, yeah. - That's that's all I remember. Yeah, they were good games. I feel that I'm much smarter
in like a puzzle sense, right. When I can see, and I
know there is a solution but when it's my own games,
I'm like, I don't know. I'm just moving things. Overall, I mean, I really
enjoyed the lesson. I think my viewers did too. I mean, they loved the PP on the PP. (laughing) Great teaching methods. I'm pretty sure I've got the W anyway, it was nice having a lesson to secure it. - Wow. Well, Connor, I've got
a next question for you. So, I've been watching all
the activity on Twitter and it seems like the Twitter sphere has decided that you're the
villain in this storyline. - I don't want to be modest. I mean, that's no fun, the
tournament needs a villain. So why not? - I mean, it sounds like
you're at peace with that or I don't know.
- Yeah, I'm fine with that. It's fun. The villain never gets to
win, but we'll change that. We'll change that with this tournament. - I feel like every time
we've played with Connor we've played with a physical board. We've had like our own
training arcs together. And I don't know,
- Yeah. - it's different playing
with the physical board. I feel like I play with
like 10% less brain power when I'm playing with a physical board just because I'm so used
to the chess.com UI. - Yeah, yeah. - Do you find yourself
standing like way above it. So you get that direct down view? - Yeah, it's 'cause the
chess.com UI is so clean that I sometimes look at the board and it's just like a mess of information that I just don't know
what's going on anymore. - Yeah, it's like why can't
I draw arrows in real life? Like a pre-move, what's up with that, why can't I do that? When we played in real life,
you know what I miss the most? I'm like damn I want to know
if that was a good move. I wish that there was
analysis on for this. I want to know if that was
like a big brain move or dumb, I don't know. - What a beautiful event, right? Like eight of your favorite
YouTubers battling it out over the 64 squares.
- Yes. And we're gonna start out
with Rustage versus Sydsnap. I'm super stoked for this. Like what do you think is gonna
happen in this first match? - [JT] I think there are
gonna be a lot of blunders and a lot of exciting chess. - Yeah, I mean, I've watched them practice and they're both attackers, right? So these games are gonna be nuts, I think. And you mentioned the engine, so I want to point out
for anyone watching, who is not sure what that bar
is on the left-hand side there of the chess board, that is gonna be sort of
like a living engine analysis of what the advantage is
in the current position as the game goes. So if the white bar gets larger, that means the engine believes
that white is doing better in a sort of pure evaluation. If everyone were to play perfect
moves from that position on then that would represent
what the current advantage is. And obviously if black's bar is bigger then it's trying to tell you that black is probably doing
better, it may be much better. The bar might be almost
completely solid black. And at that point, black is
probably not that far away from finding a good checkmate. This is a best of two effectively. They will play one game with each color. So starting as white
and starting as black. They only need a win and a draw in order to win their
match for this round. So 1.5 points, right? That's one point for a win
half a point for a draw. Obviously a loss is zero. So whoever can get 1.5 or
better is gonna take it. And the game has started. - All right, let's do this. - Sydsnap starts with the white pieces. That Bishop move kind of
goes for her style, right? It's like, just get her pieces out there, throw in a check, see what he does. And then she's castled. I mean, they're both doing great. They're developing,
they're castling, like wow. Ouch. - Oh, no. - There it goes. That's her first botez
gambit of the tournament. And Syd is not happy with that. And we'll get Syd's audio here.
- I'm piecey as fuck now and nobody likes it when I'm piecey. Fuck. - [Aran] She's feeling
the pressure for sure. - So I blocked this file. Yeah. 23 seconds remaining, I got it. - She's in a must win situation. - I do like the control
that she has over E4. We don't belong to her,
the queen away here. Okay, great. (laughing) - It's over. Rustage wins his first
match as you can see, he's absolutely losing his mind. Next Gigguk versus Mother's Basement. Players are ready and we are off, the game has begun. Mother's Basement starts
out with the white pieces. Everybody seems to have really been doing some serious practice here. - Oh no. - Take my queen out. - Oh, that's a no. Oh no. Oh no. Gigguk is avoiding knight E5. Just avoiding it every single move. - And it's a great square
for your knight, right? Right in the center of the board, can't quickly be pushed
out of the way by a pawn. - Bring this a little further up and put pressure on that bishop. No, and then I will
potentially trade my queen, but- - [Aran] Okay he's trying
to come up with a plan. - And I'm loving how he's thinking, he's like, hey, I have to keep developing. I have to connect my rooks, right? This is an awesome plan. I'm not gonna tell them
where we're gonna castle. - Well, here's a critical
moment for Gigguk, let's try to listen in and
see if we can hear him. Oh, that's gonna be costly. - What an amazing turn
of events, I mean... - Yeah, I'm running out of time. Let's see what Jeff does unde pressure. - Okay, so he's basically saying like I'm gonna control my clock
by just issuing some threats. - He just gave back the piece. Oh no. If F3 takes on G4, we have knight E4. The same tactic that
Mother's Basement had. Now he has it in reverse. - Yes. I like how much tension there
are in these games so far. I mean like everybody has
chances in these middle games. All right, well, let's take a peak in and listen in to the Mother's Basement and see what is going on.
- Oh yeah. - Whereas if I move my rook here- - He's got some hype music happening. - [JT] So interesting, he
castled in this position where, I mean maybe he didn't
see that the bishop was free. He should have taken his bishop. - [Aran] Now he realizes
he needed that bishop. - And that's just kind
of hanging out there in the middle now, not doing much. I'm gonna take his bishop. - Gigguk can close this thing out. He's got a lot of choices and a lot of good things work here. There's your move, knight E4.
- Knight E4, wow. Yeah, yeah. Knight E4 is a very strong move. And again, in these structures,
knight E4 is perfect because you want to fill in those squares. And this is called an outpost. Actually having a very
strong move recaptures A2, threatening checkmate on the next move. - Yes, because- - With our rook take E1. Oh, there we go. There we go. Okay, I wonder if Gigguk
is gonna see this, but there you are 1.5 player chess. Don't worry about what he's doing anymore. There we go.
- Oh there it is. - There we go. - There it is. - There we go, big brain. Oh, this is exactly what
we were talking about in our lesson. - Fuck, I've blundered. - He hasn't blundered yet, there's a lot of pressure. It doesn't matter about
our king side anymore. We're attacking on the queen side. Our queen side attack is worth
more than a rook right now. - I mean that's all right, right? - Yeah, I think he still
keeps his advantage. If we're able to play like
something like queen C6 and get in there, we still
have checkmate opportunities. So I like the plan. And he only has 50 seconds left. Right, that is also a factor. - Oh, wow. Yeah, Mother's Basement is
definitely feeling the pressure on the clock. - Bishop D6, very nice. Mother's Basement down to 10 seconds. - Oh, oh.
- Oh wow. Living on increment right now. - This works, right? Getting the queen involved. - Oh, there we go. And he says let's throw in a check then we'll take the free stuff. - You have this. - Yeah, okay. - Nice. - Nice. Now you just have to wrap it up. It's a lot of pressure. And there's your move, B4? - B4, yeah. Great move. - Break everything open. - Exactly. - And we may just see a loss on time here and we do.
- On time, exactly. - All right, Gigguk gets the first game. Mother's Basement now
in a must win position. He's got to win the next game and Gigguk is stoked. He says one more boys.
- [JT] One more. - Here we go. Gigguk with the white pieces? Now we gonna see just
some all out attacking. Is he gonna take it to
the next level here? - I really I'm interested in how he plays. (upbeat music) I think here, we just kind of
really want to trick pieces although it's not over, right? This is still anybody's
gonna, it's only a piece. - This man is tilted to fuck man. Oh, oh Jeff. - [Aran] Be careful Gig, don't let that confidence
get to your head. - I shall reinforce that pawn. - [Aran] Okay, so he's just going for
a stable development. That's good. - He's really bunched up there. Okay, I think even though I'm down a piece I'm in a better position overall. - You know, the eval says
this is all for white but I think there's chances
for either player still. - I got to learn how to
play this more aggressively. I think. Like I got to learn how
to like trade effectively. That's my big weakness. - [Aran] Is he already
talking about this game like it's over? - Yeah, I think he's defeating himself and we see queen D4 on the board. Like wow. Wow, wow.
- Whoa. - I wonder if they know the opposite. I wonder if he knows this. - C5, now the way... Yes. And white takes. - Let's go. - He sees it. A rule that a lot of people,
a lot of beginners especially, don't remember that if the opponent's pawn tries to skip past, in
order to not be captured on that next turn, you can take as if it had only moved one space and now it's busted wide open. - Let's go. - This is forced, it's over. Gigguk has sealed the deal. - He has no choice, he has to move there. - [Aran] He knows he's got it in the bag. He's moving on. - [JT] Yeah, only one move. - [Aran] Oh, and he's savoring it. - Man, this win was so free and I didn't even have to
use two pawns on Basement. - [JT] A little bit of trash-talk there. (applause) - Easy win. Let's go. Let's go. Let's fucking go. - And there it is. It's over. He celebrates, he's moving on. We've got Dee getting ready. He's talking to his chat. Oh, look, he say it like, I hope the universe is with me on this. - They're both really
nervous, but really hyped. You can see it in both of their faces. They're they're ready for this. - Well, I know everybody in
the chat across all platforms is also ready. And so the games have started. Here we go. And Dee gets the white pieces to start. - Very nice move. Yes, perfect. Okay. Controlling the center
immediately, both of them. Keep developing our minor pieces. Exactly what we talked about. You see, they're playing
perfect chess here. - He's paying safe. So would I counter with, because do we want to start off with an exchange straight away? Not really. This out. - [JT] The best thing to do. - Please just fuck up for me. - [JT] Wow. - For me, fuck up. - [Aran] He's calculating right now. - [JT] The sacrifice is not sound and what I mean by not sound, I mean, it's not good. - [Aran] You're just giving up a piece that was doing fine right
where it was for a measly pawn. - [JT] What is happening here? (laughing) - [Aran] You could see
it in his face right now that he's totally bewildered. - I'm gonna have to take
the out with the queen, to be honest. - [Aran] What? He's saying he's gonna
let him have the queen? What? - The queen cannot go anywhere. The queen is trapped. All of these squares are covered. Wait, he does not take the queen. - What is happening? - Either they have the biggest brains in all of chess history or I don't know what's happening. - I think they're just so nervous. I think they both want this so bad. - Yeah, put a little bit
more pressure on him. I'm also banking on Joey to fuck up. And if I'm lucky enough, he just might. - He's putting so much emphasis
on Joey making mistakes as he is on his ability
to make good moves. - I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna move the rook here just so I can kind of
aim for this open spot. - [Aran] Good idea. More control of the center, right? - And now he's probably thinking that he wants to like
go into this diagonal to try and checkmating me here but I got the queen and the rook here. So I'm safe. - [Aran] Feeling safe- - I'm just gonna try and
go through this diagonal. - We normally only look at
the piece that moves, right? We say, okay, this bishop move, So what is he trying
to do with the bishop? - Exactly. - Instead of that, say,
okay the bishop moves, but what opens, right? - Yeah, and that's about, you're kind of like thinking about space as well as material. A lot of people focus on just
material in the beginning but space is obviously very important because you could lose
some serious material if you're not paying attention - Easy as possible. Ooh, this is really nice
attack on the queen. Please don't blunder the queen. Really, really nice attack. The Bishop moves on the diagonal. But see what is gonna happen. Is he going to notice it? - Yup, it's defended. You can't take it. You got to move. Okay. - Ooh. This is a really nice move. Basically saying your
queen has nowhere to go. And if we trade queens, I'm
just gonna be up two pieces. - I'm already up on material. I'm gonna do better than
you in the end game. - Best thing I can do, really. All right, I'm gonna try and
pressure his bishop here. - He's only thinking maybe
like one play deep right now. You know, he needs to do
more than that, right? You'll pressure the bishop,
okay. But then what? - I think just trading down
is The Animeman's best friend. Oh, and now this opens up the diagonal. So now we might have a very
interesting combination here. Oh, very nice. - Wow, I mean, this is,
this is textbook for black. - There is a checkmate, if he sees it, move the king away. - [Aran] Yeah, there he found it. He knows he's got it. - [JT] Let's see if The Animeman can find the move. - [Aran] He doesn't
realize he could take it with the bishop. - [JT] It's okay. It's okay. He still has a lot of pieces to go. - So that would be check mate. Wait, how's that not check mate? - Only one move and - Let's go. Oh, that feels so good. - And he does it. Oh, Oh, Oh no. And why we're saying oh no, it's because of- - You can take it two
ways and he misses it. - He misses it. - He doesn't see, he
can take with the queen. He can take with the knight. That was a free piece. They going through some
tunnel vision here. - I haven't been practicing
as much as I should. Okay, just throw this here. And if he wants to up the pressure he will try and take that. But he doesn't. - Well, you know, one of the reasons why we talk so much about
opening principles, right? Is to reduce the amount of like
deep thinking you have to do in those first opening moves. You know, if you stick to principles you're probably gonna be
able to develop safely. And so you shouldn't have to
be buried too deep in thought in these opening stages, right? And then you burn all
this time on your clock. You need that time later in the game. - This is still anybody's game. - What did we just see here? - That was just an even
exchange of bishop for knight. But that bishop is usually pretty good in these kinds of structures. Oh. Oh, the queen. - Oh, no.
- Does he see it? Does he see it? - Oh no. Oh, no. Dee.
- Does he see it? - Dee this may be the
whole match right here. If Dee has to fight this
second game with no queen. - Okay, can we listen in to The Animeman? - Why did he do that? - [Aran] He's got his mouse over the rook. No, no, no. - [JT] Oh. - Knight can't really go anywhere. - [Aran] He's not even
talking about the queen. Oh my gosh, he misses it. He doesn't see. The queen is right there for the taking. - Is he trying to like go here to like infiltrate this side as well? Because if that's the case then I can just take with the knight. - [Aran] Okay, Dee gives a check. But I mean your queen, but now the problem with this of course is he's got two pieces under
attack at the same time. - He's gonna lose his knight
no matter what next time. Every piece is covered except these two. So he's gonna have to
move the knights back to these two places. Okay. Sure. - [Aran] And now somehow, somehow Dee has wiggled out of this. - I don't think he saw
that knight, did he? - Dee also hasn't forced mate because the queen has to go here. - Yup. - Oh.
- Oh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.
- Does he see it? Does he see it? - Causing him to try
and move somewhere safe, but is anywhere safe? - [Aran] (gasps) He missed it. Animeman missed it. He could take on G7. - [JT] Wait, it's still
The Animeman's turn. - [Aran] And Dee has no idea that he is about to get mated. - Luckily this game, I haven't fucked up. I keep thinking my camera's over there. This game, I haven't fucked up really. I say that. I say that. I say that, ah. - And that's it, Animeman moves forward. He is super pumped. Fist pumping, he's got
the victory music playing and there you have it. Next up is, Cdawgva versus
Super Eyepatch Wolf. There's a lot of talk
about Cdawg's experience and now they want to see if he could put the
money where the mouth is. - Oh shit. We're here, the game has began. What? Okay, okay. What are we gonna do here? And I think what I want to do
is I want to try and castle on my king side. So I'm gonna go here. Okay, Cdawg, what do you got? He's not rushing in here, that makes me happy. - Another key is that this
bishop doesn't belong here because you're blocking in this bishop. - He's really taking that time, yikes. Oh, okay. Huh, okay. That's interesting. Why would he do that? I'm guessing he doesn't
know why he did that. Putting a lot of pressure on him. Let's see if he goes for it. I really want a castle
as well at some point, I feel like I'm being able to- - He had an extra bank of time and he used it wisely to
understand the position and knight D5 was probably
one of the best moves there. - Okay, I think this is the right move. Oh, that's interesting. - I'm actually really impressed here because you know we were expecting
very like aggressive play from Cdawg with all the
confidence that he seems to have in his ability to make it to the finals according to social media. But he's playing a very patient game. - That's an interesting move. Because again, what's weird to me is there's nothing directly
offensive in his movements. Like he's not going for it yet. And so I think what I want to start doing is I want to apply a little pressure. - Yeah, and Cdawg foresaw this move. This might be one of the
things that he's thinking about right now. Oh. - Oh. - Oh no. Oh no. And he knows it. We see his reaction on camera. It settles in and, but will Cdawg see it? Does he not see it? - He's in a really dangerous spot. And I got a rook out of
this trade if he takes, this is really bad for him. I don't know why he moved his queen there. That was interesting. - [JT] What a big brain move. - [Aran] Wow. Seems like he's lost the thread here. - The fact that he's castling now makes me think he's
taking it seriously now. I will sacrifice a bishop for a rook, no problem. - [Aran] It sounds like Eyepatch thinks that Cdawg was just clowning
him by not taking the queen. - I wanna do this.
- [Aran] No, no, no - Fuck. Oh, no. No, that's bad, that's really bad. Okay, bad anime take number two. "Tales of Earthsea" wasn't that bad, it was a perfectly fine movie. Shit, shit, shit. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Oh, it's happening, it's happening. The news is closing. Okay, bad take. Number three, "School
Days" is a work of genius. It's such a good anime
and no one thinks it is. - So if you're wondering
why he's giving opinions about anime after every piece blunder, I think that they have
come to an agreement, pre-match, that when they drop pieces they have to give an unpopular take about an anime or manga,
and it's a nice little, like a side game. - I can get my rook
involved actually as well. - [Aran] Let's see if he finds it. He might be tunnel vision about that bishop being under attack. But if you ignore it, you've got a win. - Let me calculate this. I think I can mate him now. - [Aran] Okay, he's
thinking about checkmate. - Check. - [Aran] And that patience
is on display in full, Cdawg sees it, and he is
going to secure the first game in this match.
- Surgical. Surgical win, boys. - [JT] Very nice. - [Aran] Always humble of course. - [JT] Of course, of course. - [Aran] And... - And that's mate. (applauding) - I think he knows that
I'm trying to castle it because if he takes it, that guy, I could take him out with my queen. And then he has me in checkmate and I am not letting that happen. So instead, I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put a little pressure on him. I'm pretty sure he was trying
to counter my castle there. - Cdawg seems like he's
really soaking this in. He feels maybe like he's
already got it in the bag at this point. Let's find out. - I mean, I guess that's
not a terrible move, please, please tell me he sees this. I hope he spots that I'm
pressuring his queen. I really do hope he spots it. I really don't want to take his queen. Cause then the game's just 100% over and like there's no fun anymore. Like last game was fun, he made me think. - [Aran] Eyepatch gets queen safe. - Okay, good. - [JT] Knight A1, very sneaky. Very sneaky. - Oh, why would he do that? That's such a weird move. Knights are terrible in the corner, 'cause you cut off most of their options. So the only place he
can go is here and here, that's such a strange move. We're not gonna overthink it. Let's just see it as a blessing from God. - [Aran] There's danger. There's a reason you have
to ask yourself, why? - Why would he do that? Because now my queen can go here. - [JT] There he goes. - [Aran] And obviously
Connor knows exactly why he's putting his
knight in that corner. - I'm gonna do it. - [Aran] There it is, he's committed. - Aggression will win me this game. I think he just gave me
a snack for free, right? I can trade if he takes. - [Aran] Even better Cdawg, even better. - Could force a check as well. - [Aran] Yeah, keep thinking
on your opponent's move as well. - This is pretty much over I think. He's in a really awful position and I can swing my bishop
into this fight any moment. - Got to make some quick
decisive moves here. Run king, run. Why would he do that? - [Aran] Just trying to find safe ground. - Huh? Ah, he's totally trying
to draw me out again. He's such a sneaky fucker. Oh, it's the only move I have, ah, no. That's it we're going
down, we're going down. Let's move this to here. No, let's not. Let's move this to here. At this point I'm just scoring points. Like I have 11 seconds left, I'm dead. Like I'm finished. - Yeah I should just castle. I'm just gonna do it. - [Aran] Nothing wrong with that, right? - [JT] Nothing wrong at all. We're just up three pieces. - Okay. I have so much time,
I don't need to worry. What? If he takes those
pawn, that's not a problem. Make him sweat. What is he doing? Okay, he's just throwing the game. John, let me end. You know what? Fuck it, I'm gonna take all his pieces. - [JT] So he really is the villain. He's the antagonist. - [Aran] The villain emerges. - Okay, what is he doing? (laughing) Goddamn it bro. - [Aran] All right, here it is. And that's it. - You won by checkmate. (applauds) Wow, that was fun. And that's it Cdawg. Cdawg holds his enthusiasm because he knows he's got
a long road ahead of him. This is just one of many matches that he is going to have to face before getting to the finals. Okay, I'm so excited for this matchup. I think that these guys have been hoping, since we announced the tournament, for a chance to face each
other and they have it, and the game has kicked off. The Animeman starts. The first game is black and we'll have white in the second game. Are we gonna trade queens here? - They are gonna trade queens. Oh, we have a match.
- Wow. - Okay, I see you. - [Aran] Did he forget which direction pieces are moving? - That was the fastest queen
exchange I've ever seen. Damn Garnt's coming in for the kill dude. - [Aran] That knight is lost
and he doesn't realize it because the pawns have swapped positions. - [JT] Ouch. Ouch. - [Aran] It's sinking in now. - And he's trying to make
me double up my pawns. Also, I totally missed that knight. I don't know what I was thinking there. - What I'll do is I'll move my rook there, take that, and then
I'll pressure this pawn. I'm not gonna give him any breathing room. Joey, I'm sorry, my boy. - Oh, now this rook. - If I get this rook here
and this rook's not here then I can just boop and
then that'd be checkmate. He's trying to prevent
me from going to the E4. And I think what he's trying
to do is the exact same thing. He's got this D4 open. So I need to start opening up these pawns so that the king can escape. - [Aran] Okay, he's got ideas, but are they the right ideas? - You can also see how
much effort they've put into learning about chess. They were not playing chess
like this in the beginning - Used my king to basically, I just cork blocked this
bishop from coming here, now he's pinned me. I can't force him to move
his ass out of the way. That's unfortunate. - [Aran] Okay, so now that you know you're losing material, Ooh, off the deep end. - [JT] That's something
you hate to see happen. When you're losing you suck an exchange to try to get something else. - I don't know why I did that. - I want to get my rooks involved. So let's do that. - [Aran] It's very much in his style. He's like, yeah, I can chase checkmate but let me make sure all my
pieces are involved here. - [JT] Yeah. - Animemen's down to just the rook here, and it's just not gonna be enough to come back from this one. There's a lot of ways to
close this out for white. - Just go there. No, I think that's checkmate. Is that checkmate? I think that's check mate. No, its not checkmate. Fuck, what did I miss? What did I miss? Oh he can just take my fucking rook. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm throwing. I'm fucking throwing. Oh no. - [JT] He missed the rook, but I mean he still has a lot
of pieces to close this out. and if this comeback does happen, I'm going to be so hyped.
- I gave him a free rook for nothing. Nothing. Now a choice and take that? And I'll take this.
- [Aran] Yeah, go ahead and take it. - [JT] Oh, gives up the rook. - [Aran] Oh are we in
stalemate territory here? - [JT] Let's see. Let's see. We are indeed in stalemate territory. - [Aran] Black's pawns can no longer move. So if the king has no squares,
but it is not in check it is stalemate and that would be a draw. - I really hope this
doesn't end in a stalemate. If it ends in a stalemate
I am going to be pissed. - [JT] Only a few moves left. - [Aran] Okay, getting warmer. - [JT] Definitely getting warmer. - Joey, God fucking damn it. Why are you being so difficult? (dramatic music) - [JT] This is so tense. Yep, he's setting up the ladder checkmate. The king only has one move. - Oh, thank God. - [JT] And he has it. He has it. - Oh my God, that was so stressful. - Gigguk has taken the first game. Now Animeman has the white pieces and a chance at redemption here. - He's in a must win situation. Maybe he studied a little bit of my games. This is the real Lopez and... Oh, he's playing the Berlin defense. So basically Gigguk is a grandmaster. - I'm curious to see if
we can hear how Animeman is dealing with that
loss in the first game. Joey is definitely focused right now. The past is the past it seems
for him in that first game. - Yeah, that's what I
thought you were gonna do. - [Aran] Honing in on
how to improve his play in his last chance. - I can call him the next time too I think - Look at these four
pawns in the center again. I mean, this is like
the favorite formation of the tournament arc. - Oh man, there's a lot of
questionable moves happening. - All right, nothing's stopping you from taking... Oh wait, that's... Sorry. That was his pawn there. - [Aran] Trying to move
Joey's pieces for him. - And now he has to take
back with the bishop, he has to take that. No, he has to take. His bishop has to take to
make sure it's even trade. No, Joey. He can take my queen, that's fine. I'll take with my rook. If he takes with knight,
I'll take with knight. - Wait a minute. Now the script is
flipped on this exchange. We may have another one of those, I haven't messed up yet, moments - Oh yeah. He's got the mouse over the rook on A1. - He sold that, so now
he's protecting this pawn and this knight. Very smart boy, Garnt. Very smart boy. I can attack his rook now though, if he doesn't take that pawn. - Okay, starting to show some
full board awareness himself. Did he just let that pawn go? Because after black takes on D1 and white takes back with the
other rook, the pawn falls. - If he takes this pawn, then
he will have the initiative because of that extra piece. - I don't like this one bit. I wanted to get rid of
the pressure on there. - [JT] Ooh, bishop captures F7. I don't like that move. - Yeah, unfortunately it does not work. There are too many pieces
defending that square. - He's not taking into account my knights. That almost panicked me for a second.
- [JT] Very easy to blunder here for white
- And I've remembered I can just take- - Remember the goal of the game is not to protect your pieces. The goal of the game is checkmate and you have to find all possibilities to checkmate your opponent. - [Aran] One thing you'll
notice about his clock is there's a lot of time on it, which may suggest he's
moving a little too quickly. - Man, I really want to like put my queen to some good use. - [JT] And here rook D6 is actually a fantastic move. This is pretty much a
grand master level move. - Fuck. - Understanding that the
A4 is no longer being used and contesting the D5 rook. You see how this queen is behind, that knight is attacking, right? So you think it's pinned, but actually here we
have a surprising move. You should always look for checks first. Checks, checkmate
threats, captures, right? And you wanna look for forcing moves. So actually the move here
was just to play knight F3 so that when they take the
knight, you take the rook. - One of your pieces attack. - Oh, that is a free queen. He can not take because
of the checkmate threat. - Yes. - Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Free queen. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Fuck yes. He took the bait, that was a fucking hard one. Oh, my God. - And up next, this is... We're gonna do something a little unique. We were actually gonna
do a pre match interview with Rustage and Cdawg, they both told us behind
the scenes last night that they each have a little something that they they'd like
to say before the games. And so we said, well, all right who asked for this opportunity initially to do this?
- It was Connor. - It was me. - He wants to shut his shit, he wants to be the bad guy. - I wanted to scare my opponent. I wanted to scare my opponent
before we get in the game. - We are both shitting ourselves
but for different reasons. (laughing) - I saw him tweeting out something like it's a David versus Goliath game. - It is. - But David won in that fight. So that's- - You know what, I forgot about that part. - So Rustage, let me ask you, I guess so you got any secrets up your sleeve? Your secret weapons you're gonna unleash? - All right, so here's my plan. When I heard him play
against knocks at one time he was panicking because he
was running out of time a lot. I hope that I can just
play for long enough that he runs out of
time and I win on time. - I played knocks, I think it was the first
games I played chess in like a few years. I cleaned up my game a lot since then. - Okay. - I know you're scared
of the clock, Daniel. I've seen your games. - Okay, you know what, I was, I was. (laughing) I'm planless. I'm hoping he might shit himself
in the middle of the game. (laughing) - That's a very viable strategy. - Dude, this is it. They said they wanted Team Trash this but Rustage could throw a
wrench in that whole plan. So what opening is this? This is the salamander opening, right? - Yeah, this is a salamander opening. Basically the accelerated London system - Let's listen in on the opening thoughts slash L'Oreal commercial
that is Rustage's. - I can't move this now. He's also pinning me
because my queen's here but that's why... I should've moved my queen up first. That's normally the play. He's done this. Okay, I think I'm gonna trade here. I'm pinning him. I got him in check. He's just gonna take it, but that's okay. I'm gonna move my queen here so that when I castle, my
bishops will be communicating. - [Aran] I wish my hair could do that. - I'm probably saying all
this, like, it sounds smart but it isn't.
- [JT] No, no, it's really smart guys. - I really want to take
control of this square but obviously he takes
my queen if I do that. - [JT] No, this is really good stuff. - But he's no longer
protecting that square, which is the important thing. That's what I wanted to stop, was him protecting that square. - What he's saying is really good. You have to look at all of the pawn breaks in the scenario, right? If you don't look at the pawn breaks, what a pawn break is where you push a pawn to try to change the pawn structure. (gasps) Oh. - Oh my gosh. No. - Oh, wow. Look at Rustage. He can't believe it. - Oh, (laughing). - And Cdawg is eating it up. Let's listen in. - I can't believe he did that. He was going too fast. Rustage my boy. What are you doing? I wonder if that was a misclick or not? - I'm devastated. I'm absolutely devastated. I mean, hey, that's good
storytelling, right? The hero's got to be down for the count. - He's gonna take that unless I take him. What's the reason why I don't take that? I'm gonna lose this anyway. So he's forcing this. Unless I put him in a position where I could take something else. - Okay, he said that
he feels like this game is already lost, but he's still talking about the position. Like he wants to play on anyways, right? Do the best job he can do here. - And again, when you are losing this is a great characteristic to have. Just be tenacious. Just keep playing and keep
trying to play the best moves. It's never over until
it is officially over. - How long is he gonna
take to close this one out? - [JT] I'd give him four minutes. - I took 30 seconds on that. It doesn't feel like I'm taking that long. Clearly I am. That's a move I should
have done instantly. Like in my games, when
I was playing yesterday I wouldn't hesitate to do that move. I knew it was like that's a good move. Because I'm so far ahead, I don't think I need to worry about tempo. Like I don't think there's a way that he can come back into this. If I just don't allow him
any way to get into it. I'm just gonna take free things until I've won at this point. - [JT] (indistinct) - I mean, this is unfortunate. He just blundered his queen right away. No hesitation, we just
take, I think, right? - Rustage is just gonna
have to work really hard in the next game. Have a little bit more patience, right? I mean, that's what that queen move was. It was just nerves and a
little bit of impatience. Look at Rustage, I mean, if
we peek in on his stream, he is calculating. He is looking for possibilities. So let's listen in. - I'm absolutely lost. I wonder if they're
spectating me right now being like what's he gonna do? Look at his little stupid
little brain not work right now. It's true, my little brain's not working. My stupid little dummy
brain is not working. I could move this up
and threaten the bishop, but then he just takes it. (laughing) Then he just takes it. Shit. - Is there like a little
light in their rooms that tells them when we're watching? (laughing) That we don't know about? - Cdawg's obviously moved on already. He's already thinking about
his opening moves for game two. - And there is a checkmate on the board. Very nice, finding it and quick fashion. There we go.
- That wasn't even a game. Give me a game. I want to be scared. Okay, shit, we're already
getting into the game. Fuck, okay. - Rustage is gonna give you a game. Here we go. Oh, what is that? - A Carol Conn defense? - C6. - And we're good to go. And so far we have a great opening and I think Rustage is
taking a bit more time here and really calculating and making sure that he
doesn't make a mistake. - If he takes that, I
would just take back. I need to protect my pawn. - [Aran] I wonder if he realizes that he has a time advantage
- He's using more time than me in this game,
- [Aran] Yes. - which is good. I'm hoping he's thinking more. And then we have to go to
the three-minute chess. And then we'll just both panic. - I'm down on time, but I think that again, if
I'm careful with these moves, I can get to the point
where I can easily last on two minutes, I think. - What am I doing? It's actually being defended by pawn now. So I think that's now
still a strong position. The problem with that is if he goes there it puts me in check. - [Aran] Arrow game, strong. - [JT] Wow, finding an amazing move
- I'm gonna do that - [JT] In the position. - Oh my God, man. That was a great move, he spotted it. Fuck, I'm really impressed. I can't give up the center. If I take this, I give up the center. I need to make sure I have
control of the center still. If I give up the control of the center, I think it's over for me. - [JT] Here we go. There's a small inaccuracy
here and we can win a pawn. - He's definitely gonna take
that so I take that back. And now I'm threatening this. He's gonna take that, and I
have nothing to do with that. I can just take that, but
then he's just moves down. If I take his pawn, he's
just gonna take my pawn back and then I can't take it with the queen, it's really defended. - Don't be scared. It will be fun. Take the trade. - [JT] And he's making
this move very quickly. This is what I like to see. - Fork and a fork. - [JT] Oh, he found the fork. Yep, he's already looking for it. - [Aran] Oh, oh. - Great. - And now he has material advantage. He got his rooks through the open file. - If you don't defend that
bishop on your next move, that's going next. Cdawg may have just let
Rustage dig his own grave. (upbeat music) Does Cdawg know that he
can't touch that rook on D1? - Oh my God. I feel bad, man. He's trying to get this cheese check. - [JT] He sees it. He sees it. - I know that's what he wants. He wants me to move. I'm not gonna give it to him. You know what? I'm just let him know
that he's not having it. I do whatever I want. He's just letting me end, is that what it is, what
he's doing right now? Okay, I'm gonna go up here. - [JT] You just have too many pawns. - Take it. - [Aran] Now there is no cheese. - Wait, I got to play the music. (victory music) - [Aran] Connor has
got something prepared. - I'm not done. I want him to know that I am stronger. Another queen, let's get another queen. - [Aran] He's got him. - All right, there we go. - [JT] Yeah, he's found him. Let's go. - That's it, fellas. That was a fucking great
game, Rustage, man. Very impressive. - [Aran] We're ready for
our match between Rustage and The Animeman to begin. Somebody who's gonna walk
away with an extra $400 in their pocket. And they're also gonna walk
away with bragging rights. - Immediately, I did it on the wrong side. - [Aran] He already is
saying he made a mistake. - All right fuck it. I meant to do it on this side. I did it on this side 'cause
I was practicing it as black. - [JT] He's saying he
did it on the wrong side. But it's okay, he hasn't messed up yet. (upbeat music) - Not like I'm pointing
out the obvious here. - Whoa, I'm sorry guys, what was that? - He did it. - He did it. - He just took my queen. I should have paused and
thought, why did he do that? Another queen blunder from Daniel Rustage. - I just found a really sweet pin - [JT] Okay, he found it. - If I move this knight
here and take this knight. Then I can swing in here - Nice, he found it
and that's a four corner two rooks. He found it. I'd like that move C4 again. If we have to forget the fact that we know the bishop is hanging. Oh, we can't forget it,
he actually played it. (laughing) - Instantly. - I was gonna say that
bishop's been now been hanging for five moves. So we have to assume maybe
The Animeman doesn't see it, I was wrong. - Okay, I think I might just- - [JT] Whoa. - [Danny] That's what I was
wondering what happened. (multiple speakers
talking over each other) - I did not fucking see that, dog. - I don't have any time to think if the trade is good or not. That's good. Actually unsticks my rook. Nope, unstick my rook, but
I still fucking lose it. All right. - [Danny] Then what,
he's given up the pass. - Oh, yeah, he can just take it. No, I forget the king can actually take. - [JT] I actually gone over king and pawn with Joey
- That's an annoying. - So I think this is an easy win for him. - Oh, there we go. There you go. That makes it easy - And promotes with checkmates. Animeman takes the
first game of the match. (soft music) - I'm on like self
destructive mode right now because I blundered really badly. - And now he has to take with the horse and then we trade queens. Yeah, you know what Rust, let's make this game interesting, dude. (soft music) - And C3 saying, this
game is to go either way. I have zero clues to
make a prediction now, I thought we'd have a tie tie, a tie tie tie tie, one one. I'ma be a little tight
tie after this match. - I know you don't. Yeah, that's what I thought. Oh, well that's check that's okay. Let's just take that and
you'll probably just take this. That's fine too. And I'm fucking three minutes ahead. If you're not gonna take it, I'm gonna take this pawn and promote. That's what I thought he was gonna do. Okay, now I'll just take this. And now his Bishop's in danger again. - [Aran] Joey's looking
at all these sequences. It's impressive. - [JT] Let's see if Joey realizes. The giga brain. - Oh, shit. Okay, I'm just gonna take
that then start promoting. - It's funny. It's actually Rustage missed the win. The best thing to do when
the rook was actually pinned was to just leave it frozen and start pushing the H1 right away. And then black would have
been winning by force. Now I don't know what's gonna happen. If black makes the right move here to bring up the king first,
then black is still winning. But if he pushes the pawn,
it's gonna be a draw, I think. - Yes. - Oh wow. Rustage just found that move. Now short of some horrible
blunder, it's an easy win. You can put the bishop on A8, which might be something he does to sort of feel warm and cozy. Right, just run away. In theory, oh, okay. He goes there, that's that's
the wrong way to do it. Now you're inviting the
king up with (indistinct). - [Joey] Yep, I have to take that. - He can't go down like that,
but I can still just block it. Please resign, Joey. - [Aran] Joey offers a
draw, Rustage declines. Wow. - Aran] And let's listen as he... - Yeah. Thank God. - [Aran] Wow. - Oh no, now we've got to
go to the three minute game. - The relief and yes, you're right. You now have to play 3.0 - What great technique, by the way. - Wow. - From Rustage. (dramatic music) - Oh. - Oh my gosh, Rustage. No, no, no. - It's protected by this. I blundered so badly. Of course I did. I didn't have time to think. I have three minutes. - [JT] Joey must be stocked here as well. - Let me just move quickly and
not think about it as much. When it comes to speed, dude, he's got me. How can he do these things so fast? He's killing me on speed. - He is killing him and my goodness, The Animeman must be feeling
pretty high right now. - Are you still overwhelmed? - Oh no. Why did I do that? That was a bad move. That was a bad move. I should've moved the rook. Oh, I should've moved the rook, shit in my ass hole. - [Danny] But I think
regardless of the board, JT's training and bullet paid off. Cause look at the clock. - [Aran] That's a beautiful
move to clean this up. Oh my gosh. 20 seconds left for Rustage. - Oh you son of a bitch. - [Aran] And Rustage is just feeling it. He's gonna win on time. And let's listen in as The Animeman- - Let's go. Let's go, third place, baby. Trash Taste, top three. Let's fucking go. - I don't know, just start
throwing verbal hands. Let's go. - Why would I need to, when
I'm already going to win. (laughing) Come on. - I mean like I'm gonna
scare the shit out of Connor so much that he's gonna have
to blame it on food poisoning. (laughing) - And the first game of the
tournament arc final starts now. Oh my gosh, here we go. (dramatic music) - They always say don't
bring your queen out early, right Charlie? We've told our students that for years, but if you can put the most
powerful lady on the board in the middle of the board
and she can't be attacked why would you not want your
queen in the center, right? - God, this is a fiesta. - [Aran] You might be right, Danny, that queen in the middle of the board might be frustrating him. - [Danny] Looks like he's calculating his maniacal evil plan. - [Aran] A good chin stroke is a 101 for evil geniuses. - [JT] So one of the
things that I told Gigguk is that... Oh wow. - Interesting. Interesting. Oh, I just gave him a piece. What am I doing? - [Aran] Gave up a piece and blew out my eardrums.
- I didn't think. Oh, Oh my God he didn't spot it. Oh my God. Okay. What the fuck, I'm just gonna take it. - Cdawg dodged a massive bullet just now. - I guess now I can start trading, right? - [Aran] He seems calm. - I suppose he would want
to move his knight there to get my queen off. Yeah. - [JT] He's quieter than he's ever been on stream. - [Aran] Yes. - I know that he can't
just reveal the bishop. - [Aran] Yeah, that's a
great observation, JT. This is a more serious Cdawg than we've seen in this competition. I want to cut off the square
there as well for the bishop. I don't want to allow it to go to there. Then you can't get that right now, so I guess there's no point. I don't want to have this
square though, either. - [JT] And also that huge blunder earlier might've changed his psyche and said, hey I can't do this again. - [Aran] This may also be the first time Connor's been down on
the clock in a match. - Gigguk is now in trouble, down a pawn and should be worse, but there's still the potential
of anytime you have kings on opposite sides of the board, right? Tactics galore, always
potential chances for an attack and a wonder. We'll see what Gigguk comes up here. - This is damn difficult. - [JT] Whoa. - That was a mistake, right? That was a mistake by him. - [JT] Recognizing that it's a mistake. - He's given me an opening. He's given me an opening. - [Aran] And now he's fighting. - Is he sweating? He must be sweating. - [JT] This is really scary. If I were Connor, I would be
so scared in this position. - I'm throwing so hard. - [Aran] Oh my gosh. What is happening? - [JT] It was made in one. It wasn't made in one. (laughing) - Oh my God. - [JT] Anyone sees anything. - [Aran] Queen takes
F8, lights out, right? - [JT] Yeah. - [Aran] And it seems like
Connor knows he's in danger but didn't have a sense how much. - [Danny] Checkmate won. - [JT] There's a checkmate,
come on, come on. - Okay, I'm just gonna have
to start trading pieces. Oh my fucking God. Come on. Come on. Come on. Game fucking on. - So that's history. Gigguk has never beaten Connor until now. Connor the heavy favorite
to win tournament arc is now down one, nothing. It's win or go home for Cdawg. - So game two. Cdawg has the white
pieces and he must win. He cannot just draw. He has to beat Gigguk right now. - I can't believe that. I can't believe it. - [Aran] Connor's still
reeling from that first loss. And look at Gigguk, he's playing this sort
of suffocating chess that we've seen him practice. Goes for a check. - [JT] You should notice here that Cdawg is playing extremely quickly, after fourteen moves he's
only down 45 seconds. - [Aran] Yeah, he's got to be thinking on his opponent's turn,
which is It's important. - I think Connor's sending us to our second tiebreaker today. - Wow. - Did we not get the finale
we wanted or not, people? Come on. - And I told you this is
going to be the hypest episode of the tournament arc. - I'm wondering if he's
breathing a sigh of relief. It was definitely a sigh. - [JT] Yeah. - I can't do anything immediately? - [Aran] He knows his king is safe. He's probably not feeling too comfortable- - There's a fork now obviously, but there's no way he can get it. - Like I said, if he finds G3 (indistinct) - There's a fork, right? And he can't take free rook, fine by me. - [Aran] Oh. - [JT] What a turn of events. - And now we're back even. Now we're back even. Let's go. - A healthy underdog mindset. It's okay if you're winning
to think you're close to even. Cause as long as your objective
be find the best move, it doesn't matter. - [Aran] Connor is feeling the heat. You know, I would say
he's not letting it show but his silence kind of
says the whole story. This is the mood of mood of mood of check after check
after check after check. (mumbles) (sighs) - [Aran] Desperate for
Gigguk to make a mistake and he's not making one. - Oh, I'm running out of time. Fuck, I'm gonna be
living on increments soon and that's bad. I've not got enough time
to think about this. I'm just gonna offer up the queen trade, he can take it if he wants. It still puts me in a good position because then I got my rook up here. - [Aran] Connor issuing the check first. Earns more time on Gigguk's clock. - My queen trade. Yeah, fuck it. - [JT] And Connor has
five minutes on the clock. I've got to win this
through increment now. Okay, I got to start
planning this out quick. - [Aran] The checks will keep coming, making it difficult for- - Oh, this is so fucking tense. Yes. Yes. - [Aran] Oh my goodness. - [JT] Oh man. - [Danny] You can say anything, this is crazy. Seconds on the clock, white is winning. - Is this fucking it? - [Danny] Neither of them see it. - [JT] He's just living on increments. - My pawns are trapped in the corner. Oh, this game's lost. There's nothing I can do. I've lost. I've lost. - He's emotionally
divested from this game. - As long as Connor plays good moves here he'll actually be fine. - This is a really tense game. - Wow. - Maybe he realizes he still has a rook. - Oh, oh. Connor's putting
a lot of pressure on himself as well. - [Aran] He is, but he's
not moving too quickly. He sees that he's got three and
a half minutes on the clock. Could hear a pin drop
all the way in Tokyo. - [JT] And he can not repeat, if he repeats he loses. - [Aran] Oh boy. Remember the stakes everyone. A draw wins the tournament for Gigguk. - [Danny] If he repeats
with the knight to C5, it's a draw. I don't know if he knows
the rule of repetition. If black plays king C7, it's a draw. Oh. - [JT] No, don't play king C7 please. - Oh, by repetition. What? What? What? - Connor is feeling. - [Aran] Oh my God. - How was that a draw by repetition? - I beat Connor. - Oh shit. - Oh my God. - Oh my God. (laughing) - Fuck you Connor. Fuck you. Oh my God you were the
protagonist the whole time. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. What's John saying? What is John saying? This was the most animated. This was the most animated final you could possibly hope for. - Holy shit. - Unbelievable. The protagonist wins. Gigguk, by repetition. Oh my gosh. Who could have predicted this? - And gentlemen that the tournament arc. - And I have just one thing to say GG, baby. Let's go. Come on. - You can't spell Gigguk without GG. - Yes, I did buy these drinks
specifically for that moment. - We're not sponsored, these actually tastes like piss. So, yeah. - I'll tell you what these tastes like, Victory. - They definitely do
not taste like victory. - They don't, it tastes really bad, but it was worth it for the joke. - What is absolute opposite? Can I just say what an absolute opposite? Not just the grand finals, but I think my matches wall
was a bit of an opposite. - That last day was fucking massive. - Mental. - It was insane. It definitely lived up to the hype, whatever happened. - I'm conflicted, 'cause at one part I'm so glad that we put on like an
amazing show and story, but on the other half
I just played terribly and I wanted to win. (laughing) So it's so like fuck it. I'm torn. I'm torn - Though fucking I was
sure a highlight of you. Just being like just playing
so confident being like, ah I'm gonna move this pawn in, and there's like draw. And you're just like, (laughing) That was real bruh moment. - I think I was mega
tilted from the first game and I started letting
those mistakes add up. Even though I was crushing
Garnt in the second game. - Yeah, you were. - I was like, very confident
I'd won it at one point. But I think I just remembered, I still kept getting tilted. - [Joey] Yeah. - From the previous games, I was like, why did I make
that mistake in that last game? - That was the biggest like
technical KO in that second game it wasn't like a clean
knockout like the first round. - No, it was like you just
got gold experience requiem or something like that. (laughing) I was just laughing. - Garnt beat me one time in chess and it was the one time
I wish he didn't beat me. - One time that mattered. - And one time that mattered. - What was like your
approach to the two games or like how did you feel coming into it? - Fine. I don't know. I think I just felt... I remember thinking back
like I was like, yeah, for some reason, I just
wasn't thinking clearly, like normally I would see everything. - [Garnt] Yeah. - And for some reason
I just couldn't think more than two moves ahead
for this tournament. Not this tournament, this game. - It might've been the overconfidence. It might've been the fact that
you were shitting yourself every five minutes. - I didn't want to use that as an excuse. You know? - I mean, it's a pretty
valid excuse, right? - Yeah, I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the mixture
of everything, right? Like not wanting to lose, me talking so much mad shit before it, but that was on purpose to
build up the hype, you know, which I did do. (indistinct crosstalk) - The pressure was
definitely on you to win. I was just playing to have fun. But the one thing that
really pissed me off or no, not pissed me off, but tilted me watching
all your other games. Is that not a single person, like no matter how close the game was, not a single person ever
pressured you to like make a move. - Yeah. - 'cause my one game
plan going into this was because we played twice off stream. I remember the one time you
made a mistake against me was when you were like I was
like heavily pressuring you and like putting the pressure
to go on the defense. And so my tactic for this was just, I'm just gonna try to
put Connor under pressure and see what he does. And like, I think a lot of
people went to this tournament thinking you were like
untouchable, unstoppable and I'm like, Connor can make blunders. - Yeah, I make big
blunders, giant blunders. - Especially under pressure. - And there' never gonna be
a higher pressure situation than this because- - The only high pressure
situation was his ass hole that day. (laughing)
- That's true, that's true. I'm just really sad 'cause
the second game as well, I thought I was playing so fucking clean. I was absolutely clean.
- You were though. - I know, and then I just
absolutely like threw the game, I was so sad by that. - There was one move where
I'd given up on my rook and I was just like, okay, I'm
just gonna set up this attack on the left side. - And I knew he was gonna do it before you'd even started doing it. I knew he was gonna give up. Because there was nothing you could do. - Yeah, yeah. - There was nothing, you
trapped me really well. So I was like, okay, instead
of worrying about that try to mitigate damage, I'm just gonna go like all
out persona five attack, all out attack. I'm like if Connor plays
this right, he's won. But you made like one massive blunder with that one pawn that
I just kept pushing up. - For some reason in my head,
I just mentioned this to you. I was like three moves
before I moved that pawn. I told myself, I was like, Oh, I know I'm gonna
have to push this pawn when he does this move. And for some reason I just
completely forgot that when I had to actually do the move. I just blundered the game, threw the whole game away and
couldn't get back into it. - You can literally see the
bar flip from like 90% of you to 90% of me with that one move. Just cause I'd set everything up. - There was a lot of games like that at this tournament though. - Okay, anyone who's like talk shit, it's so much harder to play on stream with like thousands of people watching you because I- - It was tens of thousands
of people watching. - I didn't play my top
game in any of my games. - I'm not gonna lie
watching your guys's game, even though it was high level, just the amount of missed
wins both of you missed, I was just like, is
this what it feels like? This is what it feels like. I understand now what it
feels like to watch my game. - You get tunnel visioned. - Yeah, it's crazy. - I think my most tilting
moment in the entire tournament was when I was trying to finish
you off in the first game. - Yeah, yeah. - And it was just so stressful
because I knew it was easy. I knew it was easy, 'cause I've done this
a million times before. But for some reason when
that time is counting down and the clock is ticking and I know I'm about one move away from like stalemating this
game that I should win. - In my stream, I was
like, dude, I can see it. This is a made in one, there was a made in one like five times and I'm just like, please just
take me out of my misery man. You are just- - And you kept like hovering
over stalemate, like tiles And everyone was like, no don't. - I'm just like what are you doing? And this point I'm rooting
for you to just finish me off because I know I'm fucked. Yeah, but no. Like everything about
this entire tournament. Like even the first day, right? With the preliminaries
was really fucking hyped. - That was good. - I think everybody, I
think really enjoyed it. - I'm so happy I got to use the ampersand. - Yeah, I know. (laughing) - You even shouted, you
were like ampersand baby. (laughing) - It was so fucking scripted. But yeah, and it was the
finishing move as well. Cause that was the move that enabled me to like checkmate Jeff. It was beautiful. - Jeff didn't know it existed. I couldn't believe it. - I still love like my
second round with Dee, Where I just like I did the
most perfectly timed checkmate. If you watch that on Dee's perspective is one of the funniest
things you've ever seen. - I think that's one of my favorite clips to come out of this tournament. Just Dee going, I don't think I've
messed up this game yet. - [All In Unison] Checkmate. - It was brilliant watching your stream. You were like, wait a minute, then you saw it and everyone's
like, yes, yes, yes. - I saw your perspective. You was getting so hyped. You're like he sees it. (laughing) - The question is when
is the handjob coming? (indistinct crosstalk) - That is Trash Taste episode 69. - I was watching back. I'm like, why are people
making so many handjob jokes in my stream? Like where did that come from? Then I watched back on your wall like Joey spots this checkmate
I'll give him a hand job. - I couldn't think of anything, I'm like I'll just say hand job. - Watching your first
game with Dee was like, I was losing myself. I was literally pissing myself because it was just a game of hints. - Oh yeah. - Dee was just giving you free pieces. He was like presenting his queen and Joey doesn't see the queen. - I don't see it, man. The amount of sim jokes
that came out of that. Joey doesn't want to take the queen because he respects the queen. There's a chess sim. - And like on the other
side of the spectrum, you had Rustage. Who played fucking amazingly. - Yeah. - Rustage I feel was like
the biggest dark horse of this tournament. He's surprised a lot of people but then he would also
just give away his queen. Like every other game - Like the first game he
just gave me his queen. And I think it tilted him too hard, cause like in second game
he was in a winning position for like a good point. - Yeah, yeah he was. - He just didn't know how
to do anything with it, which is unfortunate, because like on my stream I was like, please don't do this move. He does the move. Constantly I'm like,
please don't do this move. It's an amazing move. He keeps doing it. I'm just like fuck. - He was telling me before our match, our third place match, he was like, dude I was having nightmares about queen blunders the night before. (laughing) He was like I actually had a nightmare and I was like, if I do
it again, I swear to God, and he does it first game. He just does it. And the amount of Rustage's
queen is a paid actor. - Watching Rustage as well, like what was up with his
setup, his live stream? - He was like anime protagonist. - He had like half the screen
was his like zoomed in face with a fan. Constantly looked like that of an anime. - His camera was like
a constant Dutch tilt. I was just like why so cinematic? - Because obviously they had
the 16 by nine aspect ratio on the chess.com stream. So it was even more zoomed in. They just had like his forehead at times. It was so funny. Oh my god. I was so hyped at like how... I'm really shocked at how
good like the chess.com stream turned out. - Oh yeah.
- Yeah. - Like it was so fun. - It was so professional as well. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - It's so well done. - The whole thing came out amazingly. - Yeah. - Considering this came out
as just like a throwaway tweet from just us talking about
chess in our podcasts, it turned out to be a
pretty fucking amazing event all thing said and done.
- Yeah. - I mean, I think the real
winner here is my Twitch account. I got like a thousand gifted subs. - Yeah, dude. I think all of our Twitch accounts, everyone who participated
in the tournament got an insane growth. - Yeah, dude. I had never had that
many viewers in my life until the tournament. - You had like 7,000 viewers. - You got more than Hikaru. - Yeah, yeah, I don't know why. - You were getting more
than the chess.com stream. I'm like where are these
extra 2000 people coming from? - I think I was also chatting mad shit. That's how you make it
entertaining, all right. But yeah, the guy from chess.com said they're very interested
in doing a second one. They're very happy with the results. - Tournament arc season two. - So tournament arc season two. - Who would you guys like
to see in season two? That's the real question though. - One thing I requested was I really want to
see a loser's bracket. I think it loses bracket
would make it so hyped because it's like, all right, if someone falls out, man, like they can call that bracket- - A losers' bracket in this
would have been amazing. - That would be so funny. - Like Jeff versus Dee. - Yeah, there's so many match-ups in here that I would have loved to see that we just never got to see. And I feel bad for John,
Super Eyepatch Wolf, who had to play you in the first round. - Someone had to. - Right, that just feels bad. And he didn't even play badly. - No, his first game
he played really well. - He played really well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean he did get his training like literally the day of. - The day before. - Yeah, cause I was like
checking everyone's chess.com account like keeping checks. I want to see who's good. And that John literally didn't
start until the day before. And John's training the day before he didn't know what castling was. - Oh, my God. - So it was- - He was doomed out. - He pulled out a castle and he thought that I
wasn't taking him seriously because I didn't castle for like the first like 20 moves. - No, I think it's just because
he was just playing well. - Yeah, I didn't need to, if you're keeping the pressure on, it's like I don't need a castle. What are you gonna do? Attack me? Overall, I think a successful tournament. - Absolutely. Big shout out to chess.com for
organizing this entire thing. And yeah, we would absolutely
be down to do another one. - Yeah, shout out to Aran and the coaches for giving us your time and letting us clown around
and make it fun story. - Thank you for letting us fund our gadget addiction further. (laughing) - Do you know how many 10
roles that is on our kite? Bruh. (mumbles) - All right, that's it. Bye. (laughing) (soft music)
How did it take this long for Chess to have an anime made about it?
Cr1tikal’s recent tournament upset (and complete destruction of xQc) resembles an chess anime far more than anything that will come out of this.
I mean, you can’t tell me this isn’t the most anime as fuck thing out there