Unveiling the Strategy | Sicilian Najdorf | GM Naroditsky’s Theory Speed Run

foreign [Music] so let's begin another speedrun game incoming it's a 2108 GM 109 all right so we're going Sicilian and as I explained two games ago I've made kind of an interesting executive decision which is basically past 2100 to play my actual opening repertoire so rather than going with the accelerated Dragon which we've had quite a bit of um I'm going to revert back to the night ORF and I think it's a win-win I'll introduce the basic ideas of the night or and obviously it's an opening that I know really really well so you'll kind of get another feather in your cap now the previous time we faced Bishop B5 check and I got completely outplayed and almost lost the game it was a really fascinating video by the time you're watching this on YouTube that video should be up already and here are opponent opts for the main line which is called the open Sicilian of course we take on D4 we developed the Knight to F6 and here there is a major fork in the road first of all white does not have to play Knight C3 but does so in like 99 of cases here there is a major fork in the road the night off is the most popular response it is followed by the sort of second tier Sicilians the Rouser or the classical Sicilian as Knight C6 and of course the dragon the traditional dragon is G6 but that's not all there are a couple of other moves more obscure moves E6 is the shenan again which I also talked about in that other video because we actually got that structure through a different line but that's still not it there is even the Obscure move Bishop D7 which at one moment was quite popular and there's the cotton hour variation which is the immediate E5 I'll show that line a little bit after the game because E5 kind of fails on a tactical front but in this game we play the night or A6 named after polish Argentinian GM Miguel night or if who breathed the most life into the actual opening and since this is the first time I'm playing the night or the the body of theory that could be in that could be talked about is is way way way too fast for even a 10 hour long video so I'm gonna have to restrict myself essentially to what our opponent plays because books have been written simply on this one line white has seven or eight uh incredibly theoretical and dangerous continuations that range from Bishop G5 to the Fisher attack with Bishop C4 uh to more positional moves like A4 and Bishop B2 I'll give you kind of the the general menu maybe try to give you a flavor for some of Black's typical idea is after the game but here we are facing What's called the English attack and the English attack is defined by this move F3 that white plays for two purposes the first is obvious white is securing the E4 Pawn but the second is to prepare What's called the English attack it's named after uh several English Grandmasters who were kind of the first to play this system regularly after black Castle's King side White's point is to run the pawns off the board G4 G5 H4 Etc and that is why white starts off by playing F3 here another fork in the road for black the shenanigans structure is reached if we play E6 but the type of night ORF that I personally like to play a lot more and I have a lot more experience with that structure does anybody know what the other main move is other than E6 which leads to a fundamentally different type of position these two lines are have not a lot in common believe it or not and the other move of course is E5 immediately attacking the Knight and if you're seeing all of this for the first time if you're a newer player watching this on YouTube I would if I were you I wouldn't worry too much about sort of trying to understand the point of each move because this is like opening Theory that's been known for many many years and it's hard for me to explain all of this from like first principle so what you should focus on right now is that this is opening Theory I'll contextualize this after the game but for now we just need to get to a fresh position so here following E5 we need to secure the D5 square that is of course the main positional drawback of all night orbs where you play E5 and so it makes sense to bring the bishop out to E6 securing the D5 score and preventing White's Bishop from developing to C4 now we continue developing our King side Bishop E7 typically white plays Queen D2 in order to prepare long castles and that's why the night orph is such a fascinating opening in many lines there is opposite side castling this is the most kind of traditional nidorphy type line where black attacks on the queen side white attacks on the king side now let's see who watches my stream regularly because in this position the main move by a country mile is Knight bd7 G4 and then B5 but there is a much more obscure move that I really really like to play I've played it successfully for right about a year now in in online Blitz and this is a move which was popular about 15 years ago and I have found that even top players are completely clueless against this line because yes black is worse if white plays perfectly but if white makes even one small misstep this line can lead to Absolute crushing defeat in 20 moves and the move I'm talking about is not weird per se I think it makes sense when you see it but it might seem awkward because we've already played A6 and A6 seems to prepare B5 and that's the main way to attack but the move that I want to focus on is actually a five I've played it over the board I've played it hundreds of times online and our opponent clearly still bursts in this line Bishop B5 is one of the best moves now the point of Bishop B5 is to prevent black from playing A4 which would kick the Knight to this ungodly Square on A1 but the drawback of putting the bishop on B5 is that it can be vulnerable to attack by the B8 Knight and here you simply have to know the ideas of the line in order to play it successfully so here are the move is Knight A6 which is probably not a move that you would arrive at if you were looking at this for the first time you would probably be inclined to develop the Knight to C6 but there is a very concrete point of Knight A6 and that is to drop the Knight back to C7 in order to dislodge this bishop on B5 and if it is successfully dislodged then we can continue storming the queen side with A4 alternatively if white leaves the bishop on B5 after an ic7 we get the bishop pair and once the Knight leaves C3 this is one of the main neither of ideas across almost all variations you should be aware that this move often is in Black's favor particularly if you have the bishop here what am I talking about of course I'm talking about the central breakthrough D5 which makes sense positionally because it eradicates the weak Square on D5 right that is the way that you eradicate weaknesses you like push upon and change the structure and Z5 is no longer a weak Square so D5 is a very kind of seminal idea in this particular variation of the night ORF as well as in most uh variations of the night or of both positional and Tactical King B1 so that is a good move and of course now we follow up with Knight to C7 posing white with a dilemma this is one of the lines in which white has to know really like four or five moves of relatively obscure Theory not just to get a better position but if white doesn't know it then white often ends up like much much worse or or even lost so I'm banking on the fact that our opponent isn't like wildly well versed in theory I play this against Fabi in a title Tuesday game and got a winning position out of the opening so it's a little bit risky I will reveal like some of White's best continuations even though it works against my interest after the game but let's see how this turns out I still think that you can play this line successfully um with black definitely an online Blitz because even if I place down the best line it's still very very hard to play practically yeah so here the main move is actually Bishop E3 to B6 which is not necessarily an obvious move it well it sort of is if you if you understand what you're looking for Bishop B6 pins the Knight to the queen and seems to permanently prevent a problem of Knight takes B5 but in response to Bishop B6 black guys I would call it a sexy move blackened unpin the Knight by moving the queen and shifting it over from d8 over to B8 Queen d8 to B8 and sometimes in that line the queen can make its home on A7 in certain situations but the main point of Queen B8 is to re renew the threat of Knight takes B5 so in some ways I'm trying to like explain opening Theory which is hard to do with an opening as tactical as the night orphan this is a a a small taste of why I did not recommend the night or uh to newer players right at the start of the speed run the accelerated dragon is a much more accessible Sicilian it's a little bit less theoretical and it's easier to understand like why you're putting the pieces on the squares that you're putting them almost the placement of almost every piece can be explained apriori whereas the night orph is just such a tactical line that a lot of moves they can be explained you can understand why they're played but largely you have to understand them through the lens of studying a bunch of variations and then the move starts to kind of make sense I don't know if that explanation itself makes sense but hopefully it gives you a little bit of context okay so here I have to remember the move because we have two options the first is to push D5 and that has to be calculated the second is to bring the Rook up to A6 which is another very typical idea in this line and kick this bishop away from B6 now the benefit of playing Rook A6 is that if the bishop simply moves back to E3 we play B5 and we win the game the bishop on A4 is trapped so after Rook A6 what is white planning what is our opponent going to do well of course white can take on C7 but generally that's kind of a win for us like we want the bishop pair we want to force white to take on C7 now after Rook A6 I guess there is also the move Queen to E3 in order to protect uh the bishop on B6 that actually might be the best line I'm pretty impressed with uh how our opponent is handling handling this line he knows a lot more than even some GM so I'm pretty sure Rook A6 Queen E3 is to be avoided which leaves us with the other move D5 now we don't care about the A5 Pawn in almost no cases are we concerned that White's gonna take on A5 because that merely helps our attacking cause it opens up the a file and most of the time white can't even get away with taking on A5 because there's like too many hanging minor pieces so I'm pretty sure the D5 is the better option here I will be honest I don't know this position like I'm out of book but D5 feels a very very exciting B in the spirit of the position and C I think confronts our opponent with difficult practical problems so on a basic level this move works as follows it opens up the dark squirt bishop and there are enough Defenders on the D5 Square so we have one two three uh minor pieces guarding it white has one two three four pieces attacking it but because the queen is in front after e takes D5 Knight takes D5 Knight takes D5 Knight takes D5 you know it's like the fact that a queen is among the primary attackers overrides the fact that there are more attackers than Defender so obviously their Queen takes D5 is not possible because white drops the queen so of course white can win this Pawn by first taking on C7 white can play Bishop takes Knight eliminating a Defender and then white can grab the pawn with uh his own Pawn and in that position well in that position we had the Tactical move rook d8 in order to recover the pawn our opponent takes on D5 with the Knight okay we don't have much of a choice here let's take back with a knight and after Ed it makes the most sense to take on D5 with a knight because if we take with the bishop that doesn't come with Tempo and remember again our general approach here is to drive the bishop out of B6 and already things are getting a little bit difficult for white because again if white plays Bishop F2 we move the pawn up to B5 and the game ends immediately and I have won countless games exactly in this kind of way where White's just sort of unsuspectingly moving pieces and suddenly these minor pieces are actually incredibly vulnerable to to a pawn storm so I already think that white made a rash move I think Knight takes D5 was kind of an impulsive reaction I'm pretty sure the bishop takes C7 has to be played and now I'm starting to remember that there's like a queen sack line there that I'll show after the game the fact that our opponent is starting to think already tells me that he senses that he's done something wrong Queen F2 okay maybe not maybe this is still Theory and I'm totally wrong that's totally possible Queen F2 makes the most sense okay now we should not rush to grab this bishop I know that in general I explained that we want to remove this bishop but if we take it the queen replaces it and the queen is then going to be pretty hard to dislodge from B6 let's see if we can play for maximum here because if we force this bishop away from B6 then we will in fact be able to play B5 so what are the alternatives to Knight takes pieces well of course one of the reasons that we play A5 is to guarantee the option of Rook A6 so let's consider Rook to A6 okay so we hit the bishop the bishop has to move it'll probably drop back to C5 in that line okay six Bishop C5 then we should not take on C5 because white recaptures with a knight and uh so it hits a rook it's our Bishop that's awful so after Rook A6 Bishop C5 I think it's important to notice that that Bishop on E7 is protected by the Knight so I think we can actually straight away go B5 and if white plays Bishop takes C7 then we can play Knight takes C7 but unfortunately in that final position can anybody spot a Tactical Defensive move for white in that final position after Rook A6 Bishop C5 B5 takes takes and then Knight C5 yeah Knight C5 is the move exactly very good uh Misha and then after Knight C5 I'm trying to figure out if we can pin the Knight with a move like Queen to A7 then white plays Bishop takes B5 things get very messy so let's do this again okay six Bishop C5 B5 Bishop takes C7 can we play B takes a four instead maybe that's a good alternative things get very very messy there but it actually seems to me like we can or at least we might be able to sacrifice the exchange for a long-term attack on the Kings on the Queen's side technically the side of the board is still the queen side even though White's King is located there yeah Rook A6 is too juicy not to play takes takes do we have any interesting options there I don't love Black's position after the trade on B6 just because we kind of stagnate on the king side of this Knight is a very important attacker sometimes it can jump to B4 or C3 so we want to avoid giving it up if possible okay let me do a little bit more calculation silently and don't worry like I'll explain all of this after the game but I just have to think seriously because the lines are incredibly incredibly complex even for me I mean this is the no joke absolute no joke you can lose this with one little inaccuracy calculating an insane line so there they're there Bishop has to move where does it go it goes to C5 though okay then we play BC Queen takes C2 Rook C6 looks very dubious but it could be rewarding so Rook A6 Bishop C5 B5 takes it takes Knight C5 we can play Rook C6 then white plays 96 FB but should be three four white plays Bishop B3 immediately we can play um can't quite work it out okay but let's go Rook A6 I feel like we have to take up the gauntlet I've sunk way too much time into this move to not play Rook A6 at this point I've sucked I I've sunk sunk way way too much time to then just play Knight takes B6 but I I'm still not sure what I'm gonna do after Bishop C5 B5 Bishop takes E7 because the option of stacking The Exchange there is very enticing but it leads to just complete and utter chaos that's unevaluable like it's impossible to say if black is winning black is losing but my gut is that it's on sound I feel like that exchange stack is on sound so I think we're gonna go for the simpler option of recapturing on E7 I provided the white finds all of this which is still not a given absolutely not a given that white finds Bishop C5 I think some people would panic and like play Rook takes D5 very typical Panic reaction when you see that the b-pawn is going to advance on the next move um another panicky move would be like Knight C5 oh let's try to complicate things but Knight C5 just loses the game and uh it loses because after Rook takes B6 Knight takes E6 another complicated question for you guys does anybody see Black's winning move there so if I place Knight C5 Rook takes B6 and Knight takes E6 what's the winning intermezzo consider the placement of The Rook on B6 and what it's doing yeah it's actually Knight C3 check and then you take the Rook on D1 attacking the queen it's not Rook takes C6 because that leaves the Knight on C5 exposed and it's actually not F take C6 because white plays Rook takes D5 removing the defender and the queen makes contact with the Rook so just crazy lines there our opponent is probably calculating them as well and again I just want to make sure that particularly newer players who are watching this don't be discouraged if you're feeling lost right now or you're feeling like what am I supposed to learn from all this I don't get what you're saying this is normal like this is what the night off is like and just be patient try to pick out like what you can if I'm saying a lion and you want to follow it on your own board that's fine you can pause the video and make the moves on the board uh to help yourself visualize but just try to follow as best you can and I'll try to give as much detail as possible afterward okay so um we're gonna go and nor am I trying to deliberately like obfuscate my thinking this is just this is genuinely incredibly complex complex and our opponent is dodging all of the minefields beautifully so we have to play Knight takes C7 and here I don't even spend any time considering B takes A4 this was the exchange sack that I was talking about it was B takes A4 Bishop takes f8 and a takes B3 there I think white has a ridiculously Advanced winning move C4 we'll see if I evaluated this correctly after the game Knight C5 Okay so very important position now taking the bishop here doesn't seem promising white plays Knight takes A6 and then evacuates the Knight back through C5 we can play Rook to B6 which is the move that I was trying to figure out for a while but white plays Bishop B3 there and we don't trap the bishop because the bishop has an exit point it can just take Black's Bishop on E6 what are the other options available to us well we could say okay we can see the alignment of the Knight and the Queen and we could try to pin the Knight with Queen A7 or even Queen to B6 okay what is black white gonna do there well White's probably gonna drop the bishop back to B3 this is sort of the bailout option like to play Queen A7 if Queen A7 white can actually play Bishop takes B5 so if we make one of those moves it's probably Queen B6 and I don't love the resulting position but it's a good bailout option to have in our pocket the other interesting option is to play Rook to C6 and the point of Rook to C6 is that it targets the Knight on C5 white still has to play Bishop B3 there I would imagine and there maybe we can Target the Knight again with a move like Queen B6 or queen A7 same type of idea the point is we we send the Rook 2 C6 first as opposed to playing Queen B6 first then The Rook is very awkwardly stuck on A6 so from that perspective I like the look of Rook C6 and if after Rook C6 white takes the Knight first we take back with a pawn bishop B3 A4 traps the bishop so it also sets I think a nice trap let's go with Rook C6 we need to watch our clock here down to five minutes but I think that's enough time Bishop takes A2 is a thought but what it does after King takes A2 okay our opponent is playing really really magnificently so now I'm gonna have to hunker down and play a little faster so what do we do now well now we have another dilemma because if we take on B3 we double White's pawns very likely which probably is the best move we can also play Queen B6 straight away but why would we succumb to damage of our own like white we'll play Bishop takes C6 F takes C6 and can drop the Knight back to E4 um unfortunately the bad luck the queen had it been on E3 would have been indefensible by the night as it stands 94 Knight D3 guards the queen so we can't win the night Bishop C4 blunders the fork on D7 this is another mental note that you have to make forkable squares Knight D7 is a move you have to watch for regardless of what you do so I think we should play Bishop takes B3 now you might say well what about Knight D7 here but it fails tactically Knight D7 here Bishop takes C2 check it can be a bit hard to count the material in the resulting position but it is winning for black just trust me on that so White's going to recapture this bishop with what my guess is a takes B3 is the most natural move but not necessarily the move that I knew our player might choose a newer player might be very concerned about doubling the pawns and might recapture with the Knight which would have allowed us to fuel the fire of our attack with A4 now we want to attack the Knight how do we do it well again there's Queen B6 and this time it's a bailout option because Queen B6 basically forces an end game Knight D3 we can trade queens and the end game is probably about equal but are there ways to extract more juice from the placement of this Knight well there is I think a nice way to do that and that's to double the Rooks on C8 which might strike you as like an unexpected movement maybe like oh there is a rook on f8 well there is and I think we should put it to use and I think we should play Rook F2 C8 and attack the Knight on C5 in so doing we're taking the sting out of the move Knight D7 which still might strike you as a bit scary and it scares me a little bit but now Knight D7 doesn't really do anything we play Queen C7 we triple on the C file remember that once that happens C2 starts to hang and then the Knight on D7 is stranded so intuitively that doesn't seem dangerous to me so white has to move this Knight B4 we just play a takes B4 so there's no way to defend it and legendary triple stack so White's probably going to move it back to D3 and in that position we have yet another decision that we have to make fun times what decision do we have to make after Knight D3 like specifically what move do we have to decide whether to play or not to play two Rooks for the queen so we can grab the pawn on C2 obviously White's gonna recapture we take on C2 and white plays King takes C2 now I have a very strong intuition about whether or not to go for that line but I'm curious to pull the crowd like ask yourself right now this is the good test of your intuition and this can help you develop better instincts do you feel like going Rook takes C2 do you think it's a good call Practically or should we keep the initiative and play a move like you know H6 or maybe F6 and just keep the pressure going on C2 and I'm not saying that I'm right but I feel pretty strongly that I know the answer so my intuition is to absolutely play Rook take C2 for Two Chief reasons the first is that remember we get an additional Pawn which may sound unimportant but a pawn and a queen for two Rooks is better than just Queen for two Rooks all of that is the moot point let's leave that all aside until after the game because our opponent is surprised us with Knight t7 now don't fall for Rook takes C2 here because white simply plays Queen takes E2 classic Desperado sack and our Queen Hanks so we have to go Queen C7 now clearly I missed something here because I don't think our opponent would be going for this move without seeing a follow-up because the Knight really is you know stranded amongst the trees but we need to be very patient and very mindful of tactics here because Rook to d8 actually succumbs to this crazy idea Knight takes E5 and white uses the back rank mate to evacuate the Knight so just actually incredible idea by our opponent what does that tell us well that basically tells me that the biggest problem for black gear is the back rank weakness so a move that I would be seriously considering particularly in time pressure is either H6 or F6 F6 kills two birds with one stone because it secures the E5 Fawn but conversely F6 weakens the king a little bit so it's very hard to decide between H6 and F6 we don't want to go G6 because it creates a hole on F6 so I'm really struggling to decide here we're down to three minutes we also could ignore and just attack on the queen side but given the time pressure I think H6 is a very wise decision I'm gonna go with my gut here and my gut is to play H6 my God is to not weaken our King any further and then it needs to be weakened H6 feels right to me we'll check with the engine after the game as I said in the previous game it's not like I have access to some hidden store of information that helps me make these decisions they are hard decisions for anybody to make even a GM now I think we have a bit of a respite now it doesn't make sense to attack this Knight because if we shift our Rook to d8 well that fails tactically to Knight F6 I actually think that the situation has quieted down temporarily which gives us a Tempo which we can use to further our interests on the queen side so I think we we should just continue our attack right and we should play A4 we shouldn't take our eyes off the main goal of this position which is still to go after White's King and we're dangerous to low on time now what else am I noticing here well I'm looking at the E5 pawn and making sure that you know white can't capture it so I calculated 95 Queen E5 anyway that doesn't work B4 by our opponent and I just realized that I completely forgot that gave him the C5 square that was a bad move A4 was a bad move immediately spotted by our opponent but maybe we can play A3 and try to justify it maybe we can play three and try to justify no that was a very very bad move I completely forgot that white gets the C5 Square I might have to play a little bit more silently the last part of the game here because we're getting low on time so A3 Knight C5 yeah clearly this guy is a GM Hunter because yours truly is getting outplayed here okay so maybe Knight F5 Knight T4 that idea does come to mind Knight G6 is a more conservative way to do that but Uh crap that was a really bad move I completely forgot about that okay so let's try to reshuffle our pieces a little bit ah Rook C4 he's actually got Knight B6 Jesus oh wait we have a cool line there it doesn't work are you kidding me man I can't seem to get anything to work here okay let's go Knight F5 which which I should have just played on the previous move I mean I I don't have no idea why I didn't see this we should have just gone 905 here and then the Knight would have continued to be stranded on D7 just kicking myself for that mental lapse very very poor uh poor poor move by me but still the position remains like Ultra playable I don't even think black is work well maybe black is the worst at this point but not much worse that's for sure because our King is now fully safe yeah the Rooks on the D file are very annoying but if we sidestep all the threats carefully I think we should still be fine I think we should still be fine yeah I'm gonna try to bring the magic here I can't guarantee anything but I will play my full strength not that I wasn't previously but I'm gonna try extra hard now to bring out the GM Magic I'm trying to figure out what we do if white plays Knight C5 that's a big dilemma it was C3 doesn't play it ooh but C3 looks like a juicy move because we now have A3 ah but white then plays Knight C5 but then we play a b i plays Rook D7 play Queen A8 terrifying it's terrifying it's terrifying you can also play Knight T6 you can also play Rook D6 the guitar goes the clock okay we gotta try it man this guy is good okay now I gotta like super ultra Focus Rook D6 is an option here actually not a bad one I think um very very hard to decide here what to do I'm getting I'm getting soundly outplayed let's go Rook T6 let's try to take some pieces off the board he finds the move that I was afraid I mean okay takes but still I'm not entirely convinced why this is bad for us Rook takes D2 I was expecting Queen takes D2 now I thought we'd go Knight D6 and try to repurp rotate rotate the Knight to C4 now I thought we rotate the Knight to C4 no for sure okay but B3 incredible strong very strong move I think to stop night sleep we're restricting our Knight my gosh okay what do we do now I guess now we play Queen C6 or queen B6 okay my intuition is to play Queen to C6 in order to Target the F3 Pawn which is one of White's main weaknesses okay now our Pawn on A3 is a big asset for us because yes it's a weakness but if white takes it with the King then the a file opens up and that gives us potential conditions for some cool tactics so I'm not necessarily gonna go Rook A8 automatically if he goes King A2 I am most worried about King A2 I think that's a very very professional move which is not an obvious move I think for most players to go after this Pawn but of course it is for this guy E4 comes to mind trying to create some counter play um let's see yeah this this might be a tough game to say but Knight B7 actually it doesn't look half bad maybe seven doesn't look half bad yeah let's go Knight B7 try to take the knights off the board exchange White's strongest piece exchange White's strongest piece change White's strongest piece now King takes A3 it's probably the best move and the Knight takes C5 there's Queen takes C5 yeah probably King takes A3 Knight takes C5 Queen takes C5 is one possibility other moves are available in this position as well watch my accuracy be like 60 in this game no I really don't think it's 60 I think it's I think it's good I think I'm playing well with the exception of A4 which was a big very instructive mistake but a big one okay yeah why does white is better for sure white is better here but white is better but black is very solid I mean our king is not unsafe there is a move that I'm really worried about I won't say it just in case I'm not to be totally clear I don't think our opponent is stream sniping but just to be totally sure there is a move that I'm worried about here and it's another incredibly professional move it's a findable move and I I'm positive he's gonna find it but um still I I wanna okay no he didn't find it he takes B7 which is not what I was worried about to be completely honest I was most worried about 94. I was worried about 94. yeah I blow under the sorry yeah yeah King a39 C5 Queen C5 of course there's Queen A6 check uh winning the queen sorry about that I was only thinking Queen takes F3 but then the real king is objective it's late it's late it's 5 a.m so apologies for that yeah this is an each Gary's training account but this worries me a little bit less because now I think the position is close to equal maybe a little bit worse for black but I feel like we'll be able to hold it maybe not though maybe not entirely possible that I'm like misevaluating this and this was the best line for white okay I think Queen C6 makes the most sense here targeting the weakness 23. Jesus this guy is good okay what do we do now how do we play Queen F6 maybe is a very tricky move here trying to activate the queen through H4 I really like the look of Queen F6 actually I think this might be a strong defensive move we're trying to get our Queen active basically my strategy in this position with black is twofold the first is I want to provoke white into taking A3 I think King takes A3 would be a huge mistake here but I'll explain it later the second idea that we have is to bring the queen into the attack via H4 which I think our opponent might have missed now Quinn F2 is a big threat as this queen takes H2 and things are getting very sharp unless he found he finds some crazy defense here which I don't see biting tooth and nail here trying to gather chances yeah black is in trouble but it's like long-term trouble it's not like white threatens to win the game right away it's just the long-term sort first of all the queen trait should be avoided here at all costs we should never trade Queens here because White's gonna put this Pawn mask to good use A3 is going to fall in a rook end game and White's just gonna create connected passwords so mental notes itself do not allow Queen trade under any circumstances King takes A3 is possible but is always going to be met with an a-file attack obviously not right now but I'm not worried about King takes A3 and we can also try to chip away at the queen side yeah one person in the chat is suggesting a move that I have in mind which is Queen E2 we can play a move like H5 and basically we can try to perpetually weaken White's Queen said whoa whoa Queen B7 that can't be the move can it now we can take H2 probably we should take H2 I feel like this is logical and now we have to figure out where to put the Rook probably we should play yeah my guess would we should play Rook f8 in order to bring this Rook to a secure Square Rook E8 had the drawback of being a vulnerable Square for The Rook now white cannot take on B5 because of Rook A8 it's not made but it wins the queen the biggest issue to me in Black's position is the fact that we have a four on two on the king side but but it's hard to make a past Pawn out of it and our King is also on that side of the board so we can't just push our pawns with abandon whereas White basically can like if white plays C4 at the right moment we might be screwed in the long run but man if white goes C4 too soon white could very easily get checkmated here so I don't even know that black is worse here I don't think black is worse uh from a practical perspective whose King is safer well it's impossible currently ours obviously currently it's hours but there's you know a counter balancing factor in that like we basically cannot put our Pawn majority to good use at all because the moment we play a move like F5 everything opens up and uh oh it lagged there briefly I don't like that we cannot afford to lag out that's for sure yeah of course listen we can sack the F1 to push the H1 the the problem isn't in creating a past Pawn it's that when we create it it comes at Great cost to the safety of our King so for example the moment we play F5 the queen starts to make contact with G7 so like the move Rook to D7 might lead to Instant Checkmate so my strategy here with black is a bit different it's actually to go after White's King and to set up Checkmate threats and threats of Perpetual check against White's King I'm actually forgetting for the time being about the pawn majority and I'm looking for moves that trap the white king in something resembling either a meeting net or Unstoppable Perpetual check and once you start thinking in that direction I think the move our opponent might be worried about is Queen C2 and he has good reason to be worried about it because Queen C2 is a very deadly threat and the reason it's a deadly threat is because we're trying to get the queen over to A1 that's a checkmating square but the additional benefit is that we also have this check available on C1 so if after Queen C2 white plays rookie three we have Queen C1 check forking the King of The Rook I don't see a clear move here for white and our opponent is sinking almost all of his remaining time on this whoa what a game it's gonna be a lot to analyze here all right now I'm liking this a little bit more he's down to two and a half minutes if he gets down below a minute I think we'll have good winning chances like our opponent already can't do this again what he did here take like four minutes he can't do that again yeah so I'm gonna audaciously pour some more tea as our opponent is thinking yeah so as some of you are pointing out it's not a disaster but if you play a move like Queen to G1 you let the white king Escape back to the second rank now in that case you could deliver a check on F2 but why give the white king more freedom than it needs like the queen on H2 is genius because it restricts the king as does the B5 Pawn so it's a very unlikely pair but notice the cooperation between between our three pieces right the king sorry The Rook the queen of the B5 Pawn all of them are playing a role in boxing in White's King on A3 the pawn is controlling A4 The Rook is indirectly defending the pawn and the queen is cutting the king off along the second rank making it very difficult for white to even move hopefully our opponent isn't like disconnected or something he's down in a minute and a half now Queen T5 is not obvious at all Piggies on the seventh that is not an obvious move to me Queen E4 was the more natural move to me now I don't think that changes our plans I think we should still go Queen to C2 trying to put a little pressure on his clock now very important yes I see the alignment of the Queens but obviously The Rook has nowhere to go with check Rook two E3 we have a draw in our pocket now we can give a check but I think we can play for the win here and I think right now do not play Rook a a check because that loses The Rook with check but that's not the only Avenue uh through which we can involve our rook and we can also play Rook to d8 and I think we're winning I think after Rook d8 black is winning because we're threatening Checkmate in a couple of moves on D2 if white blocks with his own Rook then we have Queen C2 check for king the king of the rook and if rookie two I have to calculate this but I think Rook D1 is winning Rook D1 Queen ah check King H7 Queen E4 check we go G6 we end the checks I think we can play Rook D1 and I think we've won and we strike first with mate let's go what a tough game Queen A8 checking H7 Queen back to E4 we covered with G6 white runs out of checks and white is no way to stop when A1 mate well yeah our opponent played definitely you know 23 2400 level for sure and that sometimes happens when players are a little bit provisional like and don't play quite as much but big big big kudos to our opponent that that was close and in fact the last three games are all very close okay a lot to unpack both theoretically and and in terms of uh what happened in the later middle game I know that I kind of sung the Praises of this line our opponent ended up knowing more Theory than I did but do give this line a chance I promise that it'll it'll bring you a lot of success at most levels Okay so okay so here's a little bit of of an overview let's go to the main nidor position remember that in our previous game we faced the canal attack this should be five check and we ended up getting into a similar structure to the night off because white later played D4 you can watch that video separately here we entered the main line at night of so a little bit of history when was the night or first laid and by whom I actually don't know the answer to that question let me check and it's not necessarily neither like as I've explained many many times like an opening isn't always named for the first person to play it although sometimes it is um it's often named for the person who introduced the most uh knowledge into the theory it's actually named it's actually first played by savelli tardukauer Antartica hour was a grand master and a incredibly strong player and an opening innovator tardikauer was way ahead of his time in his opening repertoire he would play one f for he played one B3 the guy was a genius tartik hour was the first to play the night Earth against Frederick Yates in 1926 he lost and uh neither wasn't neither of didn't play the night Earth until 1939 13 years after it had first been played it's just that he was the most stable practitioner of the night orphan he introduced a lot of ideas that we now take for granted just like the alkyne wasn't first played by alakai himself but he kind of played it with the most intention if that makes sense okay um so A6 why is the nighter of such a scary opening to learn well largely that is based on two things its reputation is one of the most like crazy theoretical lines I think stems from two important factors the first is wait let me open another instance of the game the first is the complicated nature of ideas across all nighter variations and the fact that you have to know a ton of different structures and a ton of different attacking ideas and you have to know where to trade which pieces so strategically it's very complex but in terms of the breadth of theory white has literally like eight or nine moves here that you have to know to the teeth you have to know it by heart what are those moves well in this game we Face F3 Bishop to E3 is a very similar move and often transposes into the F3 variation if white drops the Knight back to B3 But Here There is a more positional line there's Knight F3 there is Bishop G5 which is widely considered to be the most dangerous move it's also the most popular there is the Fisher attack Bishop C4 if caught unaware this move can lead to very quick victory for white there is uh the positional Bishop B2 that was favored by karpov and Geller among others Geller there is H3 which became Ultra Ultra popular in recent years and Still Remains one of White's best weapons there's the slightly more obscure but still very topical F4 there's gotta komsky's favorite line A4 there's Bishop D3 which also got very popular lately and then there's like a series of very provocative and rare moves that still have to be studied H4 I play myself in the US Championship a couple of years back there is like A3 is a move I faced Queen F3 with black recently and didn't know what to do there's Queen to D3 against Ray Robson I played Knight to B3 and it's not like if you don't know all of these lines you're gonna lose out of the opening but if you want to play the night or fall you have to know all of these moves so just imagine the amount of theory that and within each of these moves there's like a gazillion sub variations you have to choose a line for black and you have to study all of white subsequent setup so it's studying the night off is a lifelong undertaking which is why although I love it to death as an opening I just don't recommend it to a lot of people if you want to take a crack at it there are you know I think there's a chessable course on the night off but there's Anish Gary's chess up of course on the night off but it's it's a very very serious undertaking just know that okay so in this game uh in this analysis we're going to focus on the English attack exclusively with F3 okay so we play uh E5 white plays Knight B3 and comparatively speaking this is a pretty narrow narrow it's narrow line um compared to some of the other variations where white can deviate like on every step Here There is almost no deviations because yeah Knight B3 Bishop E6 is essentially forced almost everybody plays Bishop B3 here Bishop E7 is fairly forced and here Queen D2 is the only feasible move there are some obscure lines but the important thing to know and I didn't know this uh and I lost to this as a 2100 I played the immediate G4 I thought well why do we need to play Queen E2 why don't we just immediately uh it's like in baseball right getting the lead why don't we get the lead on the king side attack so that when black castles you know we go G5 quickly I'm such a genius does anybody know the actual reason that this is bad and there's a delicious opening trap associated with this G4 is a big mistake white to play Black to play and get a big advantage like to play and get a pretty big advantage it's D5 very good it's D5 white plays G5 and you push D4 white plays Jeff you play Bishop F6 and black is better I've won a couple of games where white goes Bishop D2 and says well let's avoid our Pawn structure from getting ruined this ladies and gentlemen is one of the quickest checkmates in the nighter I have one Blitz Games Against title players like this and so what that means is white has to go uh the other way white has to go Bishop F2 black plays DC you get into this end game and obviously this end game is better for black material is equal and white spawn structure on both sides is incomplete uh shambles so just very important thing to know G4 is met with D5 there is also the move Knight to D5 here uh but I've never been particularly uh impressed by a black as many things that they can do I like just Knight t5b and Bishop F5 which is a very standard reaction to the move Knight E5 in the night off and then you often drop this bishop back and start attacking on the game side so realistically Queen E2 is the the only sort of serious topical line we need to castles kingside and Castle's Queen side okay so this is uh starting off point for a wild mass of theory that is the subject of its own books this position was first reached in the year 1971 the first person to reach this position with black was Robert James Fisher against Robert Byrne Fisher was the first to play this line with black and Fisher this just tells you how ahead of his time he was he understood that the correct move is Knight bd7 he understood to play B5 and in this position he made an inaccuracy a move that has fallen out of favor which is the move Knight H5 the Knight is very awkward here but it was played up until the 2000s the main line as later discovered is to counter attack white snipe with B4 which leads to a wild wild line white typically drops the Knight back white attacks on the king side black on the queen side and you literally get chaotic unexplainable crazy amounts of theory where both sides are like trying to tear each other's throat out um what you can do if you're interested in this you can very easily look these lines up on on lead chess or you know on YouTube but part of the reason I recommend A5 is that it it it evades The Madness of the main lines with Knight bd7 and nb5 uh this is totally brain melting and it's not particularly instructive this is where I don't like the way that some instructors present learning openings like there are certain openings where you will have to devote a certain amount of time to memorization and the process of memorization is not itself instructive so people often ask well I don't want to memorize because that doesn't help me become a better player well you have to do it not because it helps to be a better player but because it's a prerequisite to playing certain openings and this is a great example of like where you basically have to just memorize if if you want to play this line just to be totally honest but A5 is a nice compromise because there isn't quite as much Theory here I think the ideas are more understandable and uh it's it's a sideline which means white is less likely to know uh the best moves this was invented by a Hungarian Grandmaster Yvonne nemetz and it was played by a lot of GMS in like the 80s and 90s and then it gathered momentum into the early 2000s so we're analyzing the English attack and the sideline I propose is A5 okay so the most popular move is is in fact Bishop B5 which is what we faced uh in the game although it doesn't score very well it does not score very well um just a second make sure I'm involving the engine here just to just to see what the what the top stock fish recommends nowadays after A5 give me a second of course it's freezing as usual typical absolutely typical sorry odd second here this is hard this is this is hard to even talk about because there's so many moving parts and I want to try to remain instructive but there will be some theory that we have to get through here because I don't think A5 is is well explained in like chess literature so I'm going to give you some of my own analysis all right let's see if chessify works this time I mean even Hikaru I don't think would necessarily be very comfortable in this line okay so according to the newer newest stockfish the best move for white is actually to stop the pawn in his tracks with A4 and A4 is not an easy move for white to make because it creates a major major hole on before and this is actually how I like to play here with black you can play either Knight C6 or Knight A6 but I usually play Knight to C6 okay I might say well I get it so far you're trying to get the Knight tv4 and once you get the Knight to B4 not only are you pressuring the C2 Pawn but you're also in many cases preparing uh D5 so it's not enough for white to know A4 white also has to know like a crap ton of uh supplementary Theory oh my gosh my chest face is just like really struggling here okay so after Knight C6 White's best movements to play G4 black plays Knight to B4 and most of the online games that I have uh in this variation continue with with G5 which is also one of uh White's best moves and the problem is that black is just not in time uh to play the move D5 now the line that I really like to play online is to drop the Knight back to E8 so what we're talking about here is um White's best response to to the A5 variation which is A4 Knight C6 G4 and ip4 G5 now if you run this position on the engine uh you will find that the engine recommendation is to play Knight H5 and the Knight potentially can access F4 but the cool moves to play online is Knight's E8 and if white is caught unawares by this move my success rate in this position with black is something like you know 75 percent because well if you're looking at this for the first time who can tell me like what seems to be natural here for white what seems to be a natural continuation in this position for white yeah so I mean to me H4 seems to be the move you play if you don't know anything about the position because you try to keep attacking so H4 black plays Rook to C8 now again you don't know anything about the position you probably play H5 black is already not worse here black strikes at the center with D5 I've had a ton of games that go this way now what is the point of D5 well black is trying to go D4 and at this point white cannot take with the Knight because he's gonna lose his Queen they're gonna lose our Queen after Rook takes C2 um so white has to take with a pawn and this is the point now the bishop drops into F5 attacking C2 from a different angle okay well how does white defend this Pawn it's actually not easy to defend this pawn and the only move that doesn't lose is Knight B3 back to A1 all other moves simply lose the game I've also faced Bishop to D3 a bunch of times and here you can trade and take on D5 forking the Knight and the pawn on F3 White's position is collapsing there's a beautiful line where if white plays Knight A1 here black plays well that's not as beautiful of a line there's Knight A2 check and black basically has a devastating attack um white has to find the move Knight A1 and only now do we understand why we put the Knight specifically on E8 a couple of moves back we now involve the Knight via D6 we play Knight to D6 and as it turns out this Knight on D6 becomes oops sorry becomes a very very important attacker because it accesses the C4 Square blockades the pawn and black has fantastic compensation for uh for the sacrifice for the sacrificed Pawn that is the bottom line so for instance after Knight A1 Knight D6 white has a hard time finding a move most people here they try to go after me on the king side with G6 but I just play F takes G6 H takes G6 and you can just take with the bishop white is no attack you can involve your queen you can drop the Knight into C4 and black has excellent long-term attacking chances now what most people do not know is that in this position white has a much better move than H4 Grandmasters know this but you know your average show is is not going to know Theory nearly this deep the correct move your for white which unfortunately does kind of bust the line is F4 F4 is incredibly strong because white is trying to drive the pawn up to F5 and dislodge this Bishop from E6 so black has to react to that if black plays e takes F4 white plays Bishop takes F4 and the idea of this trade is actually very positional it's to get the the Knight the D4 Square in the center oh if black tries to do the same thing and we play the move Rook to C8 black is kind of gonna run out of attacking Firepower here this is very very technical very technical but at this point white can start playing H4 and black is just not in time to create counter play if we still try to play this D5 move after 85 Bishop F5 this is where white has that extra resource that they wouldn't have in the previous line who can tell me what this resource is this is the refutation to the uh A5 variation in the way that I play it so I mentioned this a little bit earlier it's not Bishop D3 we already talked about that um why did we play F4 think about it that way why did we play F4 so there's two possible moves here the sort of thematic move is Knight to D4 and if we compare uh in this position the H4 variation if we compare this position with uh the position where you play F4 instead so let me just click straight into it in this position you can see two two Chief differences the first is that white can now play D6 and trap the bishop but also very convincing is the move Knight C4 which hits the bishop protects C2 and black runs out of active attacking ideas oh if you want to play this with white this is the best line you want to go A4 but I mean this is like incredibly esoteric I would say knowledge comparatively speaking and if you want to play this with black but you want to know the best line objectively which keeps chances alive it's actually to go Knight H5 here and this the position remains like incredibly complicated I was analyzing this a couple weeks ago and after King B1 you want to go F6 things get very Advanced here so I won't talk too much about this line I'm already boring people to death but hopefully this gives you a little bit of context in the uh uh in the A5 line so in in this game we Face the main response which is Bishop B5 this is the most popular response uh at a human level to to the move A5 okay so A5 let me just uh I'm also making these moves in chess space so I can tell you the engine evals and stuff so A5 Bishop B5 and now of course we play uh the Thematic idea Knight to A6 getting the Knight back to C7 okay so King B1 is a recommendation from some old books but I actually think the black is totally fine here at this point according to the engine Bishop B6 and now of course you have to know the move Queen to B8 um and now we Face Bishop to A4 and this was the first critical moment where I couldn't decide between Rook A6 and D5 and D5 is actually the correct move and we're following a game between Peter Spindler it is the Russian championship 2006. this is the only game in this position where D5 was played in five other games Rook A6 was played so both of these moves are possible but stockfish does prefer D5 at a very very high depth here and Peter smithler did take on C7 and the game ended in a drop so this is the moment where our opponent deviated from Fury by making the mistake Knight takes D5 and this is a mistake according to the computer so I won't talk too much about Rook A6 other than to say that it's possible but let's focus in this game on the Move D5 so I think our opponent just rushed rushed in with Knight takes D5 without realizing that he's facing the the massive problem of the beep on advancing to B5 and trapping the bishop the correct move here is Bishop takes C7 Queen takes C7 now of course white can already play e takes D5 and who can remind me how we would respond to this move another important idea that features frequently in this particular line do we just move the bishop what do we do yeah we play Rook FTA and now a queen sacrifice that also occurs in other lines of the night or if White's best move this was found by svidler is D takes E6 and after Rook takes D2 the position becomes wildly complex white plays e takes F7 check black recaptures on F7 and white takes back with the knight in order to give the bishop an attacking Avenue via B3 the engine evaluates this with a smidge better for white but largely it should be a draw black has enough activity here to keep our King safe we play Rook to d8 smithler played A3 I mean kind of showing that he doesn't really know what to do black actually parked his King on G6 which is not accurate according to the engine according to the engine the best move here would have been a weird move Queen C5 actually aiming for F2 and the position is very double-edged but essentially balanced this is an important idea to know like a lot of top players have lost because this sacrifice can be incredibly strong uh in in a lot of different positions and I'm actually gonna find a game here really quickly if I remember correctly it'll show you a good instance of where this queen sacrifice can be winning for white and also winning for black yeah and and hopefully through the lens of this analysis you're starting to understand like this is one sub variation of a sub variation of a variation of the nighter right and and we're like swimming in complications and we're in a position that hasn't even been reached before and still yet you have to know this because this could very conceivably be reached you're starting to see just the breadth of theory that that you have to know and why why these things take people like years to to actually learn and even then you don't like fully learn it Okay so I actually was wrong white ended up losing this game which is good why was uh I I don't you know I don't love showing Kuryakyn games but but still with our primary motive here is to provide instructive value so there was a famous game this game was very very popular at the time that it was played it was kayaking against Anand in uh Wake On Zay 2007. and in that game in that game uh vicious played the main line here he played Knight bd7 and they went down uh the sort of the main path 92 98 this is the crazy line that I was talking about except karyakan played H4 and vishi played A5 King B1 Knight B6 I'm quickly gonna get to the critical position they were making moves blah blah blah D5 and guess what happens here Bishop takes B6 Queen takes B6 and if you're paying attention and you should know the course that the game takes karyakan takes on D5 vishy pins the pawn and uh karyakin he first played Bishop C4 the Knight hits the pawn and kuryakin decided at this point to sack his Queen with d takes C6 Rook takes D2 ef7 checking h8 Rook to two with a crazy position that is approximately equal which Vision won in the end so this queen sack exists in several different variations of the English attack this game was like very hotly debated and analyzed when it was played because the night off was like huge at the time our instance of the sack is pretty similar and also leads to a complex uh position but our opponent of course plays a knight takes D5 so let's uh focus on that move instead okay so we play Knight takes D5 and the engine already shows a winning advantage or black in this position the question is what did we do wrong because clearly I messed this up you will not believe this you will not believe what the top engine move is after Queen F2 I can give you five attempts collectively as a chat to find the engines the like strong engines assessment here but there is also a move that makes a lot more sense to me which is also very difficult oh what an incredible idea so the top the top suggestion is H6 just rubbing it all over White's face that that they can't do anything here but the second engine recommendation is gorgeous and also leads to a winning position for black it's the move Bishop to d8 which I saw this is a sensible idea right you force the trade you have to take and uh well what do we want to do here we want to go B5 why did I reject this well I rejected this because you're giving white a Tempo what can white use this Tempo to do well we already know that this becomes a big problem because this allows the bishop to evacuate via B3 but what's incredible is that in this position black is not obliged to recapture and black has the ridiculous move B5 right away now you're like my head is spinning I don't know what's going on black is completely winning here and here's the reason why both Bishops are hanging let's consider the options of moving both of them if white moves the Bishop from d8 then it's all very very simple B takes A4 Knight C5 and of course there is this Fork Knight C3 using the B file if white tries to Desperado give give away the other Bishop it's essentially the same thing I mean black plays Queen takes B5 now white has to move the Bishop from d8 and it's the same exact thing black plays either A4 or Rook even Rook fc8 is very strong because the attack on whites King is gonna be completely Unstoppable like all of the pieces are just converging on White's King so just I saw Bishop d8 but B5 was completely not on my radar and what's so interesting about this is that a couple of weeks ago yes a couple weeks ago I did a lecture at the chess camp that I was teaching in Atlanta on avoiding autopilot moves and I identified like a couple of instances where autopilot moves are the most common and one of those instances is automatic recaptures so one of my like biggest takeaways from that lecture was avoid automatic recaptures because you never know when a tactical opportunity can uh manifest itself and the game that I showed to to illustrate that concept was a capablanca game that has nothing to do with the topic at hand but just to show you really really quickly what game I chose to illustrate that so it was the following game this is going to be a long video so I will not be offended if you go to bed or you don't remain for all of it I promise all right so here is the Kappa blanca game that I showed to illustrate this concept the point is this in this position Kappa takes the pawn on B7 and black plays Bishop takes Knight on F4 and obviously the the autopilot move here is to play GF but then I'll I'll kind of give you the elevator pitch here black is able to reach a drawable end game so you have to say wait a second is the recapture Force once you realize that it isn't you're able to find a sequence of really really pretty in-between moves who can come up with the winning idea here for white this is a great exercise for you to train your Advanced tactical awareness if you're watching on YouTube you start with rookie one check but that looks like a blunder because black can cover with the bishop and now you strike with D6 check the bishop is pinned the queen is pinned the king can't take because of Rook D1 if the king steps back black gets checkmated here with Queen B6 and Rook C1 and if the king moves forward then the queen retreats to B3 again if the king takes then Rook T1 wins the queen if the King goes to F5 there's check check um and here Kappa Blanca wins with check check win the queen because if black goes the other way if black goes to H5 there's G4 and queen H6 mate all of this had to be calculated by Kappa Blanca when he played rookie one in fact when he played Queen takes B7 so long story short this is a well-known situation in which our brains are often incapable of even generating uh an alternative to the automatic recapture and the more like natural the recapture the harder it is to find a move like B5 I would show you that blind spots persist all the way to GM level it's totally natural to have these blind spots and you shouldn't feel that you know I have it all figured out tactically this is instructive for for me as well so that was our big mistake I played Rook A6 which to me is a much more natural move um but this relinquishes all of the advantage this relinquishes all of the advantage after Rook A6 the evaluation according to the engine is only a small Advantage for black actually now it's showing basically equality okay so that was the missed win we played B5 white plays Bishop takes C7 here I did see the possibility of B takes A4 because it's another capture and after B takes A4 the position that I was struggling to evaluate is Bishop takes f8 a takes B3 like how on Earth do you evaluate a position like this and the evaluation is actually equal the move that I was worried about is C4 which is a crazy move it counter-attacks the Knight and I was worried that Black's attack Fizzles out now you guys should understand that in such positions you almost never want to play Pawn takes Pawn because white is going to use the umbrella method and just hide behind the pun by keeping the pawn on B3 you're opening yourself up to many more attacking options so here the correct move is to play Knight to B4 threatening like a smothered mate white has to take that Knight and now black throws an intermezzo forcing the king into the corner because if the King goes the other way if the King goes over to C1 then you play B takes A2 and the pawn is basically Unstoppable now you play a B threatening Checkmate on A2 white has to go A3 and the attack is Unstoppable after Pawn takes spawn you're threatening to take on B2 and play Rook 2 A2 check and to and to win the game with a straightforward uh straightforward attack very very simple nothing particularly complicated in any of these lines but because I was totally unsure of how to evaluate this position I decided to err on the side of being more conservative and so I decided just to grab uh the bishop on E7 and play this position probably a mistake in retrospect uh because according to the engine this is a very promising position for for black white has to play the com Bishop C5 black plays BC of course King takes C2 is out of the question and here white black plays Rook C6 I did see this position in my mind and also didn't know what to make of it apparently in order to keep equality white has to countersack The Exchange and go Rook to one this is just engine BS I don't think anybody would play that Rook C1 is a mistake because of Queen C8 creating the hidden threat of Bishop F5 pitting the queen to the king and if white moves the king into the corner then suddenly Knight B4 comes with a great effect because if white plays Queen A4 who can answer the following question can black play Rook take C5 why or why not the H6 business that move that the engine mentioned H6 I think it's just like a preliminary Loft move because Bishop d8 will be coming next yes you can take on C5 because at the end of the line you can block with a queen and reach a technically winning end game with two pieces for a rook ridiculous levels of tactical complexity all of this hinges on these like minute details and that's what makes this opening so exciting but I decided to avoid this particularly because we were in time pressure at this point um so Knight takes E7 Knight to C5 only move Rook to C6 which is I think totally natural Bishop B3 and the engine gives equality here Bishop takes B3 a takes B3 Rook F to C8 attacking the Knight and amazingly Knight D7 is actually the only correct move I have to give our opponent massive Kudos because I was expecting Knight to D3 but after Rook takes C2 just so you know the engine eval in this position and if you're watching on YouTube you should pause and try to evaluate this position like do you think black is slightly better do you think it's equal what is the actual evaluation here so it's winning for black it's plus three and the reason it's plus three as I explained during the game is that the king is essentially weak forever even if it hides on B1 black is always going to be able to play A4 and open up the queen side Black's Knight has tremendous prospects in the center so you go Knight F5 the King has to escape now you make some lifts with H5 just so there's no back rank problems and White's Rooks are also kind of biting on granite particularly the one on E1 then black is gonna go Knight T4 Black is going to go A4 and you are eventually going to get to this King so I don't want to give get too technically here because we have more stuff to talk about but definitely in this position we would have taken on C2 and the queen is much much better than the two Rooks because of how exposed uh Whites Whites Kings okay so 1987 is correct amazing uh black plays Queen to C7 and white plays Rook td2 he has to defend the pawn on C2 now we played H6 which the engine likes it's one of the top moves just making a little bit of Loft white plays Rook H to D1 and here a very fateful moment where I made a very big mistake A4 is in fact a big mistake after B4 it's plus over minus black is in serious trouble after I made that move um the corrective appear would have been in fact the immediate Knight F5 as like I had indicated during the game trying to get the Knight to an outpost on D4 and now the engine line is crazy it goes G4 Knight T4 now white to play and find a pretty simple tactic who can spot like you know pretty stock tactical move here that leads to liquidation it's yeah Knight takes E5 removing the defender now you can achieve a draw several ways with black you can play Queen takes E5 or you can counter sacrifice on B3 this is a Desperado and it leads to a liquidation takes takes takes takes and finally the Smoke Clears and it's basically a draw because the position is like largely symmetrical so that would have been a natural conclusion to the game instead I played A4 overzealous forgot that white gets this evacuation Square not evacuation Square you know it's like a helicopter that flies to evacuate you but it's like a Ritz Carlton Hotel room inside that helicopter so once the Knight gets to C5 it's like a permanent Outpost and then the Rook dives into D7 and black is suddenly in big trouble here I found the only move that doesn't lose on the spot Knight F5 our opponent plays the move C3 guarding the D4 square and now A3 once I realized that I was in trouble I knew that I have to play very very actively in order to generate concrete counter play and after Knight C5 yet another very very difficult decision and here I made another mistake after Rook D6 White's position is technically winning although the mistake started to come in bunches here G4 is also inaccurate white should have simply played B takes A3 and black has essentially no compensation at this point for the sacrificed Pawn white dominates the D file and black is running out of ideas what would have been the correct move here and why did I not play it well the correct move would have been a takes B2 why didn't I play that move what was I scared of well I was scared that the Rook would infiltrate D7 and that my queen could potentially get trapped and in fact it does get trapped if you play Queen B6 there's Rook B7 and if you guys want to see a beautiful line here black has a devilish defensive resource let's see who can find this resource but then who can also find White's response which keeps the queen trapped this is a very very difficult move but you can try to guarantee the Queen's safe passage to d8 by playing not Rook A8 because here you play Rook B6 this is an empty check in white wins but Rook to d8 which is a hard move to wrap your head around like wait what if white just takes the queen but now you take the Rook with check and remember light can't go up to C2 and attack The Rook because because you're gonna promote so white has to waste time taking you take on B6 and you have two Rooks for the queen position is unclear but white does not have to engage right you don't have to respond to the email why does it have to engage white can just go Rook G1 or Rook F1 which is another hard move to see because you just leave the open file but Black's Queen remains trapped Now The Rook is in the Queen's way um don't have to respond to chat exactly so therefore what that means is that you have to go the other way you have to go to B8 and what I was worried about here is that white would essentially Checkmate us on the F7 Pawn I saw this move and I like crapped my pants because Queen to D5 is a huge threat our pieces are super passive and according to the engine black can hold a draw here but with some crazy ideas like black has to find this move I already did not see this move because from a distance I thought that there was a fork how could I have missed the simple Rook takes D7 Queen D7 Queen A8 only move defending the Rook attacking the Knight and black is somehow surviving Walking the Tightrope and actually winning in this position so after Rook C7 black is only slightly worse just ridiculous and not particularly instructive so let's actually get to the game Rook to D6 here G4 kind of gave us a new lease on life because after Rook takes D2 I think what our opponent might have forgotten about is that Queen takes D2 allows the Knight to jump to H4 attacking White's only Pawn weakness on F3 and therefore keeping uh the material balance so white was forced to take with a rook but now the Knight is able to potentially access the C4 Square which which means B takes A3 is no longer good here due to Knight C4 that is the difference right that is why white should have taken immediately here if black plays Rook takes D2 the queen captures on D2 and keeps the Knight out of commission the Knight is unable to access this Outpost because white dominates the D file forever okay so subtle difference here therefore white was forced to change their plans and play B3 but now with the A3 Pawn comes long-term counter play and I played Queen C6 our opponent very professional King A2 Knight B7 and this is I think the final critical moment in the game I think this is the moment where white missed his last chance to get essentially a technically winning position so our opponent traded and it's still better for white but it's very very unconvincing the correct move here was a difficult one to make who can tell me what it is who can tell me what the correct move is Knight C5 to E4 and the point of this move as my coach would say is to play for Domination this is a hard concept for a lot of people to understand and I think this position is a great window into how players of different levels approach the same position so let's take three levels like beginner level intermediate advancing my point is never to denigrate a beginner I think in fact it's the contrary it's a show like what you have in store for you so I think a newer player would look at this and say okay well uh the knights are are facing each other but I don't really see the benefit of trading on B7 so let's just take let's take A3 that seems like a free Pawn now it's not a free Pawn because black has Knight takes C5 and if the queen recaptures then black wins the queen which I missed during the game but that's not even that important because if the pawn recaptures black plays rookie a check King B2 and after Queen to A6 black gets a devastating attack down the a file so in fact white has to leave this Pawn on A3 using the umbrella method an intermediate player would operate like our opponent did and say okay well we have to trade Knights because otherwise we lose the C3 Pawn so let's trade Knights and play a general improving move just to defend the C3 Pawn okay this is an advantage but sure would say okay the Knight on B7 is on the worst Square of the entire chessboard and this is an opportunity for white to assert complete positional dominance by playing Knight to E4 notice the role played by the G4 pawn it prevents black from playing F5 and pushing away the Knight the Knight on B7 cannot rejoin Society in any meaningful way black has no moves and no ideas you can try to take a pair of Rooks off the board but after the Rooks are traded NY plays Queen C5 black is just collapsing the B5 Pawn is ultra weak A3 can now be captured and Black's end game is Dead lost so I can probably find examples of moves like this if I looks hard enough but I've talked for long enough so I'm gonna I'm gonna run a quick search and see if I can find a similar idea see E4 say black has a knight on B7 yeah definitely there are actual examples of like moves like this but I'd have to look a little bit harder to uh to to to actually find a meaningful example yeah I'm seeing a lot of examples of this move being played but the basic idea is to play for Domination um and to use your pieces to restrict the mobility of your opponent's pieces 94 is an incredible move and it just shuts down all of Black's ideas probably I would even plant move like Rook 8 here and try to grovel and here it's actually not so easy for white to finish black off like you want to improve your position slowly Rook D3 black has nothing better than to shuffle now Queen D2 it's very instructive to see how the engine wins these types of positions very patiently Rogue T5 nothing crazy just like moves that step by step induce a weakness and now you go Queen D3 and you win the B5 Pawn like black collapses on one of several fronts and this is because the B7 Knight is totally out of the game and that is a series that I want to do at some later Point like get a bunch of players and compare how they approach the same position thank you slim G for the sub in any case after the trade of knights I think black has excellent practical chances to save the game and obviously we ended up winning the game and we won the game really because of the mistake I made at the very end Rook D3 Queen F6 notice what I'm doing I'm not even trying to defend this spawn because I understand that anytime white takes it we can give a check and swing the queen over and the a-file attack is at the very least going to give us practical compensation what I'm trying to do instead is seek maximum activity for my pieces how do I approach that well there's two forms of activity there's one that comes from attacking your opponent's weaknesses this is what I was trying to do on C6 and then the other form of activity is essentially infiltration you're trying to detect which Avenues you can take for your pieces to aim to infiltrate the enemy territory so in this case there's only one Avenue when you see this Pawn construction you know that there are some dark Square weaknesses and so that's how I was able to find this queen Pathway to H4 just trying to get the queen as active as possible and after Queen f60 the engine already throws equality it's already equal Queen E4 Queen H4 Queen B7 is another mistake and now black is better here black is already better so White's last chance to maintain the balance would have been to drop the Rook back to D2 and the game continues but here our opponent lost the thread Queen B7 Queen H2 King A3 Rook f8 and um already it's almost impossible to defend this without uh without an engine Queen E4 Queen C2 it's still not losing for white until he played uh the panic mode rookie three there was an only move here that's almost unfindable and that is C4 and this gives white chances to hold the game black is only slightly better because if black plays Queen B1 to threaten checkmate you don't go Queen E2 that blunder is made in one you go Rook D2 and somehow white is still holding on amazingly check Rook B2 because the queen holds the A8 Square according to the computer oh what a move there's Queen E3 here that's the top engine move Queen to E3 are you freaking kidding me and you need to play this move only after the white Rook gets to B2 because it deprives the king of the Escape Square ridiculous this is Checkmate on the next move but white is able to hold by playing the incredibly calm Rook B1 renewing the threat of Queen takes E3 black can check on A7 black and check on F2 so the attack continues the attack rages on but black is not like winning by force here after King A3 Rook d8 is winning because of this uh idea but white has to go King C3 so at some point the position becomes indefensible for a human and most of these positions that involve a permanently weakening like this are impossible to defend unless you're Magnus Carlson or you have or your stockfish or you have three hours on your clock and can't blame our opponent for missing Rook d8 I think what happened was he was fixated on preventing Rook a gate and forgot that there are other avenues other ways to get to whites King so ultimately we end up striking first and here our opponent resigned because the checks run out very quickly and there's no way to stop Queen A1 check me oh my God what a ridiculously complicated game with so many different stages so a couple of takeaways if I could even dare speak in those terms so in this game we followed the English attack I don't know if I'll repeat the night off again just because this was a crazy undertaking we focused on the English attack and we focused on the sideline A5 evading the main line which goes Knight bd7 and then B5 so the point of A5 is to push this Pawn up to A4 we'll probably get a chance to Play It Again what I didn't talk about here is moves that are not Bishop B5 or A4 and there's plenty of those moves like King B1 is a popular move here and black is in fact supposed to push the pawn all the way up to A3 and induce weaknesses but I think we've had enough theoretical uh Exposition for one day a lot of like newer players go G4 here because they don't really sense the danger inherent in pushing the Knight away to A1 and here again you play A3 and then Knight A6 Knight B4 followed by D5 it's this like typical idea so I showed you what the best line is in my opinion which is A4 then we looked at the actual game continuation we saw that our opponent's main mistake was Knight takes D5 instead Bishop C7 leads to a wild unbalanced position we understood that Rook A6 As Natural as it is was a mistake bishop d8 and B5 avoid autopilot moves is a good takeaway from this particular segment of the game then things were relatively tame until the night landed on D7 that's when things got crazy again we looked at some cool lines I made a very serious mistake in playing another autopilot move A4 I thought this was good based on general principles but I didn't stop to consider what B4 gave our opponent which was this massive outpost on C5 then Black's position becomes very dire I make another mistake in playing Rook to D6 then another series of inaccuracies particularly Knight p7 which would have allowed Knight E4 here white is still winning but once the knights are traded black was able to find counter Play We activated Our Queen we got the queen into the attack forced the white king to take the poisonous pawn and ultimately used multiple directions to finish off the attack crazy game and I know if you're watching this on YouTube first of all thank you for making it to the end this was all over the place tons of complexity but this is a taste of what of why chess is like a ridiculous game because because this is just one tiny corner of one tiny line of one tiny variation and this already can be analyzed for 10 15 hours this game this line and the night off is one of the openings that opens the Pandora's Box because the position is so unbalanced and with opposite side castling by definition you get complexity because both sides are attacking and defending all at the same time and so structurally tactically the positions are wild chaotic and can be studied for many many years so if you want to open that box then play the night off look at Anish giri's chessable course that would be my recommendation it's pretty accessible relatively speaking but for newer players that is why I recommend a more uh relatively speaking Tamer Sicilians such as the accelerated Dragon which is easier to understand and easier to learn all right guys on that note I'm gonna head to bed urgently because I have title Tuesday in the morning and I don't want to miss it I'll be doing it in Russian in the morning and then in English in the afternoon I hope you enjoyed the game I apologize for all the long-windedness and uh you know if if the theory was too much but I'm just honestly trying to give you a window into what chess looks like at this level without sugar coating it and I there's nothing I hate More Than People pretending that it's all very easy or that memorization isn't required this is what you're gonna have to do if you want to hit you know 22 2300 rapid and you know this work has its redeeming components as well thanks everybody see you guys later goodbye [Music]

Channel: Daniel Naroditsky

Views: 172,897

Keywords: chess, computer, cheater, online, free, candidates, championship, magnus carlsen, emory tate, hans niemann, chess board, bobby fischer, garry kasparov, hikaru nakamura, stockfish, kasparov, alexandra botez, viswanathan anand, anish giri, lichess, anatoly karpov, alireza firouzja, lichess chess, gothamchess, fabiano caruana, ding liren, levy rozman, ian nepomniachtchi, auto chess, sergey karjakin, agadmator, praggnanandhaa, puzzles, pieces, live, set, reddit, master, opening, shredder, tata steel

Id: zEqoGIgzk1E

Length: 88min 42sec (5322 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 15 2023