The Man Who Invented Chess

ladies and gentlemen I'm old now some of you watching this right now might go whatat are you talking about you're like 28 years old I don't know how you know my exact age but I'm 28 years old I feel old like sometimes my back hurts sometimes my brain hurts sometimes it's hard for me to uh Focus for a prolonged period of time in any case the average age of a top 100 chess player is 31 in general in most sports once you get into your mid late 30s you're sort of past the sport very rare to participate in any high level sport uh past the age of 40 but in chess we have a major exception and the exception is none other than the absolute Legend five-time World chess champion vishwanathan Anand he's 54 years old when I'm 54 the world won't even exist in 2050 nuclear meltdown I don't know all something's going to happen all right I'm just looking forward to making it into my 30s first this man is 54 years old he's a five-time world champion and one of the best chess players in the world still and in this video I'm going to show you two games that he just played in the German Bundesliga many of you football fans obviously know about the Bundesliga Bundesliga exists also in chess it's a team format vishi played an absolutely breathtaking game against hikara Nakamura he played another breathtaking game against nijat basa both of these players are playing in the candidates tournament to compete for a World Chess Championship just unbelievable stuff uh also I'm in Boston uh I'm currently in a hotel room and I'm here for the MIT Sloan analytics conference shout out to anybody that I uh saw there I actually participated in chess boxing today and yesterday I got to meet Luka donic I uh post actually Luca donic got to meet me I'm just kidding I got to meet Luka favorite basketball player and um we went to a Celtic X it was very nice posted about it on social media so um Luca is a fan of Chess let's start with this uh game that vishy played against Hikaru and then I will show you this Banger of a game that he played against the BOS of I really feel weird making vishy content because VY content can be broken down into damn he old but damn he's good and I I just kind of feel a little silly doing that but like vishy play Vish still like a number one ranked player in India I mean it's just unbelievable stuff um so Hikaru opened with E4 against vishy E5 and Hikaru likes to take opponents out of a comfort zone uh by playing this four nights four nights is is a pretty boring opening by by the traditional sense and um hikaro likes to play D4 and this leads to a very forcing line like generally if white wants to play D4 white will play it on the third move of the game and just go for a scotch Scotch is not like a critical line nowadays uh for an advantage it's generally Bishop C4 and Bishop to B5 uh but uh hikaro does it this way which just takes people sort of out of a comfort zone that they might have studied now black plays Bishop B4 white takes on C6 before developing here now here's something slightly strange happens uh sometimes where black will play D5 and then after white takes uh blackw Castle opening up the second Pawn for capture but whites King is out in the open it's not a big deal we have takes takes and now we have H3 and we have this move C6 H3 is played to prevent anything from going to G4 C6 is played to strengthen the pawn in the center and basically Hikaru has played this position a handful of times he actually used the Four Knights to defeat Fabiano caruana uh earlier in 2023 in a serious event I believe it was the Grand Swiss he actually beat Fabiano with this opening to qualify for the candidates um and the point is that white just gets some easy development and it's a little bit difficult for black to move his pieces um just you know he can't really make a whole lot of forward progress so vishy backs the bishop up to D6 hikaro puts a rook uh in the center you see all his pieces kind of out and about he's barely using any time and now Vue plays this move Knight D7 so he spends a considerable amount of time and he brings the Knight back undevelop it it's a creative idea gets hikaro out of prep hikaro thinks for 10 minutes on the next move black wants to reroute to C5 and E5 and he also just wants to trade the queen because black is trying to neutralize white right so hikaro plays Bishop F4 this he puts the Knight on C5 very Nifty idea this is defended and he wants to trade off hikaru's two Bishops and basically just play that middle game now Hikaru I really love his position I mean everything is perfect Knight Bishops Queen strong Rooks in the center uh but vishy just you know Rook B8 puts the Rook on the open file just an improving move asking hikaro if he's going to play B3 he plays B3 and now Queen F6 so the sides are clashing right this is chess kind of at its peak uh vishy weakens that pawn on B2 but he targets the Knight on C3 he's not threatening to take it by the way it's actually defended because the bishop can give a check and then you would win the queen this is called a tactical defense you're defending a piece tactically you're not technically defending it but you are because of this defensive resource but black is threatening the bishop on F4 which is why Karu moves the knight from C3 to E2 and vishy says you know what Hikaru you want to you want to mess around I'm going to go use my lone Pawn to kind of chop away at your position here big question for white is if you want to commit a pawn to A4 I don't really think so CU even though it freezes the pawn here and doesn't let the pawn come forward when you play A4 it weakens the pawn on B3 and black can always capture and if the Rook can't take back this is going to be very weak so also if you play A4 there's potentially something coming to B4 in a lot of lines like maybe even now uh so you got to be a little bit careful uh if you're going to move a PA to A4 so we have Bishop takes Queen takes and hikaro plays C4 just kind of trying to play energetically you know he got all his pieces out so if you play energetically in chess you gota you know you got to actually justify it you got to do something about that this she says okay well it was always my idea to trade now Karo plays Queen D3 and here I would argue is like the critical moment of the game everything she's done has been good but everything hikaro has done has been a little bit better and if anybody's got an advantage here it's hikaro he's got significant pressure on that pawn on D5 and he's probably going to win it now in a position when you're under pressure and there is a chance to trade pieces pawns Queens Rooks at the highest level of the game you think the right way to simplify a position you probably do the same in any sport but in chess in particular because there's going to be less pieces like in sports people don't really come out of the game unless they get red cards but you know even then you got nine 10 players um or in hockey you have power plays or whatever but uh penalty boxes in other sports you know you you in chess there are theoretical end games so black is questioning what's he going to trade he plays A4 and I think what vishy wants vish's dream is a position where hikaro will end up up up a pawn maybe but Vish is going to have considerable pressure right he gives him this Pawn says Hikaru you can take my Pawn but now this is going to be split and I'm going to spend the rest of the game just hammering away your double disolated pawns your advantage is kind of minimal we have Bishop A6 Queen C3 which pins the pawn to the queen therefore disabling the move Bishop takes because Queen takes Queen B4 so vishi goes for a nice Queen trade and he's trying to basically say look Hikaru if we trade queens and you try to win my Pawn right then what I'm GNA do is I'm gonna play take take take Rook D5 Rook A4 and that's your extra pawn and you'll go here and I will go here and you will go here and I'll play Rook A8 and good luck ever moving your extra Pawn you know and and in the meantime I'll I'll also go bother your king and that's what he's saying he's saying you have an extra Pawn but you're never going to be able to move it cuz your Rooks have to protect it even if you get your king over here I'm going to just check you Etc so Karu says all right let's go for all of that Rook D5 Rook A4 Rook D2 he does it this way every good chess player at the highest level knows how to attack and knows how to defend just sometimes the attack is too powerful and the defense is you know it's it's good but it's hopeless so we see hikaro now he's going to go to work this is the best thing he could have gotten he has this end game this is a very very very common end game Rook and three rook and three with an outside pass pwn now what's important is that you see how the Rook is defending laterally well if White had enough time to play Rook D1 okay and then Rook A1 you see this is a completely different story this is probably holdable but it completely depends on the position black has to play Rook A3 first of all you have to prevent white from playing A4 if white gets to play A4 white is now significantly closer to queening and black has has significantly less time to move away with the Rook but these end games are always up for debate side defense is really bad and now hikaro is going to try to go to work we see vishy there look at that just throwing these pawns down the board to bulldoze them because he knows he needs to simplify the position we have F3 he goes back to A4 now Kar is doing everything right he's going to kick that Rook out look at this idea by vishy sacrificing his H Pawn he's already down a pawn he gives up another one allows Hikaru to bring the king even more forward and then he takes the pawn on F3 so now vishi is about to take the pawn on H3 but hikaru's Pawn is ready to go but VI has calculated out that after A4 Rook H3 you see A4 is maybe the one serious winning idea you got to be really careful here how you do this all right do you have time to go here I don't know because I'm going to put the Rook behind the pawn but maybe maybe you have enough time F5 maybe A5 King G6 A6 Rook h8 A7 Rook A8 and maybe maybe maybe I'm fast enough right because if I go King D4 play F4 you run your king over there so it's very very close and vishi brings The Rook down holds the pawn from a distance I mean this position looks hopeless this looks hopeless because White's Rook protects this you stop the pawn from coming forward look how far away the king is and white is just going to push this is a complete nightmare but vishy calculates this out finds the only defensive move here the only defensive idea you might think here that black needs to come help the pawn push so he would play King G6 but this is too slow let's say black plays King G5 H4 check just pushes the king back and that's it you just win you just play A6 and you know you're completely winning so vishy finds Rook F1 removing the eye from the pawn completely now white just pushes but now black pushes and the point is that black will now Advance forward Force white to play defense against this pawn and in that time black is going to bring the king and the second White's Pawn gets to A7 you're going to bring the Rook A7 you're going to bring the Rook King B6 now the king's going to walk in it's incredible I mean this position looks completely lost for black just visually it just doesn't look like it's supposed to make any sense but white is unable to do anything despite having pawns on the opposite ends of the board and vishy plays this out absolutely perfectly threatening this pawn and this pawn and this Pawn to come down and he holds this game this game goes a couple more moves and you know again some of you might be watching this going uh well why is this impressive by the way yaru the end there right we fight until Kings why is this impressive this was just a draw bo boo boring no because again like the average age of a top 100 player is 31 like I'm I'm telling y'all the stamina to play this game out I mean just at the ultra Elite level finding the only defensive resources uh in a position to kind of hold stabilize uh and not not find himself into you know in in additional trouble is absurd like he he's so good and he makes it look effortless sometimes uh and in the next game he really made it look effortless in the next game my man vishy was looking like was looking like a guy we all know um in this game vishi played n bov as I was saying nijat basov is a uh is a grandmas from aeran I think he's the third or fourth highest rated player in the country and he qualified for the candidates by getting a really good result in the World Cup uh in this game vishy went E4 vishu is a lifelong E4 player he plays open positions he plays spanish's and uh yeah in this game vishy demonstrates there's levels to this like VY had to reach that high level to hold hikaro off because hikaro is a top three player in the world right now but there's levels to this so n plays C5 the Sicilian vishy plays Knight F3 n plays Knight C6 probably looking for a sveshnikov with Knight F6 or maybe something else um and vishy plays here the Rosal Lio the idea of the Rosal Lio quite simply damage black structure or in certain positions not do that at all and just sort of develop Castle end up bringing the bishop back here which you're going to see in this game black has a choice here the main line is G6 after G6 generally white is capturing although not always but black plays E6 E6 is a little bit of an ugly move black loses control of the dark squares but black wants to put a knight here sort of blocking their own development but basically saying look white if you take my knight it's going to be stupid cuz I'm going to take back with the Knight and you know I'm going to be in good shape so we have castles Knight E7 vishy plays Rook E1 and basically this is saying look black you're stupid because I'm not going to take the Knight now instead when you play A6 I'm going to bring my Bishop back to F1 and then you know life is going to be good or I'm going to bring it here put my Pawn on C3 Slide the bishop back and then play D4 so there's a lot of these ideas uh abos of plays B6 so abos of plays a move that has not been played in the Masters database uh much like it's uh sorry it apologies it hasn't been played much in the Master's database it's not a very popular move he plays this move he's trying to get vishy a little bit out of the comfort zone black has played many things here B6 uh is not a popular move Vue responds with the best move without even thinking so he plays C3 Vish understands the idea is to play D4 he's not going to move his Bishop until his Bishop is attacked now it's attacked now what I found fascinating about this position is this position has been reached about 20 times in the Master's database white has played Bishop A4 white has played Bishop back on this diagonal and white has brought the bishop all the way home like I just told you Bishop A4 makes some sense and it's a very much a baiting move like you're baiting black into attacking you more Vish plays a move nobody's ever played before so this man is still studying lines frequently he has Cutting Edge preparation everywhere he is constantly working on and evolving his chess and it's just super cool to see that so he plays Bishop E2 nobody has played this move yet in the Master's database and stockfish evaluates it as the best move it looks weird what's the difference between Bishop to F1 and Bishop to E2 well Bishop E2 blocks The Rook but I think the argument is that it isn't that big of a deal I think the argument is that the bishop will go out to F3 if necessary and on F1 it can't go out to F3 if necessary that's just the whole point so vishy comes up with a very interesting idea uh abos of now spends 16 minutes because he's never seen the move Bishop to E2 which I you know again when you make vishy content it's kind of like this man has been at the elite level of chess for over 30 years it's just a spectacle like it's just it's just very very cool even if he's not playing as much he's always got things up his SLE Le so Pawn takes uh Knight takes D5 and now vishi plays D4 kind of showing the idea of White's position just trying to open up the position a little bit black plays Bishop E7 and vishy takes his first thought of the game uh essentially after you get this far in any opening and this is how I urge the advanced Watchers uh to think as well you have to know the ideas you don't always you're not going to always remember the exact move at the exact moment like up until here you could play on memory now you don't have memory so you have to remember what's the plan well the plan actually for white is to play Pawn takes C5 C4 and trade the Queens the computer evaluates the queen trade and the ensuing middle game queenless middle game with all the pieces on the board has the best option for white to play for an advantage because likely black will have to split their pawns say why does black have to split their pawns why won't Black Play Bishop takes C5 well they can but then the bishop becomes a Target so it's actually almost better for black to split the Pawns get the open lines then to take with the bishop that's what vishy does so he takes on C5 he he thought for a little bit he was probably contemplating C4 b or DC he takes he plays C4 and he trades the queen and um life is good like life is good here he plays Knight C3 time for a boss of to think um the imbalance of the position that's why I call it a queenless middle game cuz there's a lot of pieces still on the board um it's a middle game for sure and the imbalance is in the pawns black has an e- Pawn white has a B Pawn so white has what we call a queenside majority and in any game you're looking at the open squares and you're looking at the physical pieces right things are unprotected so Bishop F3 ideas are on the table uh advancement of the pawns is is possible something landing on the D6 Square would be very nice question of will black Castle or does black even have to Castle right so abasa plays Knight D4 he goes for an IM immediate clarification of the position however that completely justifies vish's setup like vish's entire plan of Bishop here is now made possible so his setup is fully Justified if black played for example um Bishop to C7 what would white have done he would have targeted this pawn and it's actually shockingly difficult to protect let's say black plays a passive move like Knight D7 well white would apply more pressure now if black defends himself like this that moving directly into the line of sight of these pieces but also this guy would rotate and go there or there and all of a sudden black doesn't have sufficient defense on the pawn so seeing all of that coming abasa says you know what let's do something like this bishu says my brother that is exactly why I put the bishop on E2 because now it goes out to F3 you have to move your rook and I'm going to jump out here with my knight and this clarification of Knight D4 got rid of this weakness but what did it do look at the structure now white has three on one white just got a three on- one that's what white has white has these three pawns and they're going to start moving and that might that may prove decisive that pawn imbalance might already be so strong as long as white stabilizes the position and doesn't do anything dumb he's the game plan is literally to push those pawns plus some other stuff so goes here V she thinks brings his Rook up which this move looks so ridiculous to me but if D3 you play Rook E5 and the bishop has to go somewhere and let's say it goes to B4 you would play A3 but if Bishop D6 you would stop the pawn so the pawn is just completely stuck right and if D3 D2 you would have taken the bishop so here now suddenly vish's Advantage is growing because remember in every end game Vish is going to be much better because he's going to trade the pieces and win that pawn imbalance so Rook C7 Rook E5 Bishop B6 vishy takes a pawn so now that three on one is three on zero for half a move and now it's two on zero it's just two past pawns it's just a matter of time it is just a matter of time like vishy is going to try to go as fast as possible with these pawns okay B3 The Rook moves Bishop d to abasov gets a little bit closer vishy principled man computer likes Bishop E1 for the record it likes to just sit back Vish says let me just get rid of these pieces like how is abasov going to defend himself of course the computer is a little bit more confident right plays moves like King E7 but it's two on zero like at the end of the day a human being is going to really struggle to defend this position that she plays Knight B4 basa plays Rook C3 it would have been a little bit better to go all the way back with the Rook but he plays here this just waiting he he he's waiting for the moment that he's going to start to unwind his position he doesn't trade the Rooks but you might say well Levy didn't you just tell me that trading pieces was good not if it's going to put you under pressure you see now black white is playing defense we don't want to play defense we want to play offense A4 okay Bishop A6 B4 yeah black is the one playing the offense so we don't want to give black any offense we want to put the pressure G5 desperation stopping any advancement the king comes now it's time B4 H5 A4 now what's funny is again computer always somehow is more confident it's like Rook B6 and it finds all these different consolidation ways but it's not going to work because once the pawns get rolling it's a wrap in this game Rook B8 now it's a matter of are we going to push a pawn we're going to give a check we're going to push a pawn we're going to put the pawns like that why they blunt the bishop if you put a Pawn on A5 all your advantage disappears because B5 immediately comes Under Fire and the point is that if you play B5 the move G4 has a lot less sting after take take and just casually sliding back you're on the defensive but only for a second so Bishop E8 getting the bishop out of the line of sight now vishy just has to consolidate everything King D5 King D5 is crazy King D5 is crazy he's bringing the king forward so now V says all right I can push my pawns but what about this what about this F3 move look at this now I'm trying to get my Bishop into the game or I'm gonna take with the pawn I'm gonna take with the pawn bring my king and I'm gonna have some open lines over here so he's got he's got everything right the world is his oyster abasa plays G3 suffocating the white king not allowing the king to move Bishop plays Bishop F1 what was the idea of Bishop F1 why did he play Bishop 2 F1 like what why why did he have to retreat I mean why couldn't he have just given a check or I don't know Rook B1 well he saw this coming and he was like what is black going to do if I just play Bishop F1 right now he's going to play Knight H5 anyway but now this is a check King goes to the middle rookie one king F5 the king is getting walked along the rank apparently you should have played defense with your Rook here but then I guess vishy would have went Knight D3 and he would have brought the Rook back and a Bossa played Here and Now Vish is going to swarm the pawn while his queenside pawns are still there Rook A8 the Knight blocks the passage the Knight doesn't just block the passage B6 White's King is safe it's a little bit dangerous but it's safe and the bishop defends the knight from a distance perfect coordination everything is coordinating yes this is a free Pawn but then I would play B7 B8 so black has to go here technically he could play B7 Anyway by the way he could have played B7 and after Rook takes he could have played Bishop D3 Bishop E4 just by the way and if King G5 he could have played Rook E5 King F4 Rook E4 King F5 Rook e E6 King G5 Rook D5 f F5 Rook F5 King H4 Rook E4 Knight F4 Rook F4 vishy I can't believe you didn't see Checkmate in seven moves um this is why chess is brutal because we get to watch these games after and see these horrendous mistakes that these players are making as a joke B7 I told you those pawns are going to be decisive and they just are they just are and the craziest thing about those pawns and abas of resigned on the next move after Knight E4 because M has threatened your losing another pawn and this is still on the way the craziest thing about all of this like the way vishy won this game all of this was born from the opening idea like the opening idea of Bishop to E2 was designed to go here ultimately move this Knight and put a bishop on F3 and the idea found itself right here this was the whole point Black's defensive idea to simplify Y and move the weakness into a strength completely backfired white played in a way where the bishop was in a unique position it was going to go to F3 and white was going to swarm this Pawn on C5 abos of sensed that he spent 10 minutes he tried to clarify the position and it played directly into vish's hands from the opening he got the two on zero he played a great game and he won and abos of is in the candidates like and hiard is in the candidates and my man vishy is just just putting on the show like it's crazy to think we may have a Grandmaster knock on wood knock on wood in his 60s at the 2750 level we're 5 years away but it's exceptional like I I'm telling you I feel old at 28 V she's like double my age almost it's like unbelievable I play chess I get tired like he's just scrapping with the best players in the world and just beating them and drawing them and holding them you know defensively is just incredible stuff um so when you make content about vishy yes at this point it's like wow he's crushing it but it's not just he's crushing it but he's crushing it like 23 years above the average age of a top 100 player like it's Sensational Gary Kasparov retired from chess when he was 42 years old admittedly to go into politics but would Gary have played when he was at this level at 54 who knows I mean he still plays but doesn't play classical so we'll never know um anyway I hope you enjoyed uh anon's just just incredible and um I'll see you all back in New York City get out of here

Channel: GothamChess

Views: 459,741

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

Id: t-G0s8HgtcA

Length: 26min 36sec (1596 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 02 2024