Hans Niemann: Undeniable Genius

ladies and gentlemen if you follow the world of Chess at all you may know of a Grandmaster whose name is Hans Neeman Hans brings an exciting and enterprising style of Chess to the 64 squares as well as uh to various posts on YouTube on other forms of social media uh he's a very exciting and uh at times polarizing individual in the world of Chess uh and at the moment he's on quite a tear couple of months ago Hans won a very important tournament in Germany uh that was known as the granka classic Hans won the open section and by winning the open section he qualified for the Masters next year which means we may get a Hans versus Magnus classical chess matchup for the first time obviously since that faded day September 4th 2022 now then Hans got second place uh in a tournament known as the by police Masters and uh now he's three out of three at the charar Masters uh I think it's also in Dubai by the way uh and it's a very prestigious tournament very strong and yesterday he played an absolutely ridiculous game and today he played a nice game he's three for three I'm going to show you all his wins in this video that's all I have uh and that yeah the second game is going to absolutely blow your mind blew my mind when I was when I was watching it it was a uh it was a merciless and um aggressive day and uh I mean my my goodness now we're going to serve you up this little appetizer game cuz this game was not good it was not a good game by anybody involved and I want to talk uh but uh his opponent here is gleb Duan I think originally from Russia maybe he moved to Hungary uh and and chess.com can we please get a can we please get a photo of this guy I mean I understand Grand Masters happen you know Grand Masters happened faster in the Chess World than the United States government Prin money uh but we got to get them photos please all right D4 Knight F6 this game was a Catalan uh I actually thought Hans was playing uh White because Hans likes the Catalan a lot Hans plays Bishop to B4 check and then puts the bishop back on E7 uh let me adjust my volume levels uh I apologize uh and uh Bishop G2 Knight D7 and a very very solid line now here Hans play there's a lot of different lines that you can play against the Catalan Hans opts to play Knight E4 and this is a very provocative system where black then frequently plays F5 and and kind of just says look I want to play like a stone wall so for example if white plays the move Bishop F4 uh to get out of the way of the Knight then black will actually go G5 Bishop C1 F5 or H5 I mean both of these but basically this is what happens and then if you play too solidly black actually just throws all the pawns at you it's kind of ridiculous but it it's actually a real thing it's like one of the ways to make a Catalan player uncomfortable other than kicking them under the table for playing the Catalan now glad plays Knight E1 so clearly this is some sort of preparation giving up the dark squired bishop and in this game Hans actually was just slowly getting outplayed he had a lot less space he tried to attack his opponent with moves like F6 but gleb was very accurate the second Hans created a weakness in his possession gleb hit him straight down the E file and when I saw this game I was like oh I mean like I was watching it live I was going oh gleb is just I mean he's in the he's he's in the driver seat in this game so G4 right he takes a lot of space on the king side and he puts the Knight there and like Hans continues to try to be provocative glb captures that as well and then puts the Rook on F1 and starts rotating his pieces over I thought well I mean Hans is just stuck he doesn't have a lot of development but what Hans is doing very well is managing the clock and if you're not going to be playing a game perfectly yeah you you can put pressure on your opponents on the clock and Knight F6 Rook F6 Knight E5 Bishop D7 uh suddenly the position begins exploding right gleb is rotate is continuing to rotate the pieces over here at some moment these pieces will come over and continue to launch the attack Bishop H5 from Hans now Rook F2 I don't know why Rook F2 instead of King H2 but I guess he probably didn't like something on this diagonal so he goes Rook F2 Rook F1 and as we can see here white has done absolutely everything right the sides are clashing but black has no play on that side black has no play in the center and black is basically completely at White Mercy on the king side so this has been a fantastic maneuvering game by gleb but Hans he never let up he continued to play Fast he continued to make his opponent make difficult decisions and somewhere around here like Rook H6 white needed to play a move like King H1 to keep his big advantage and then put the you know Rook on G1 he didn't do that and so we kind of go to an end game right Hans looking to trade pieces defending the position very well I mean it's ugly but it's doing the job right and suddenly my man he got 1 minute on the clock he had 30 seconds a moment ago so now Hans is not playing defense it's time to start unraveling the position and maybe actually trying to win the damn game I mean we have four pawns per side black is in absolutely no way shape or form calling the shots here we have a rook end game pawns are falling off the board but Hans keeps just enough tension in the position white goes wrong by the way GL played this move with one second on the clock because he got the 30 seconds and uh first game of the tournament Hans basically latter mates his opponent right and wins his pawns and in this position uh gleb resigned because he's just two pawns down in a rook end game you are not going to save this and sometimes you need wins like this to start the tournament it was a little bit shaky but he was very very uh good about putting practical pressure on gleb and gleb was unable to deal with uh the time situation I mean he he he he couldn't maximize his level of play so Hans wins this game to start like I said this is the appetizer game and then oh my God he won one of the most say games I've ever seen in the second round I mean yeah just sit back relax cuz uh well his opponent couldn't relax in this game but um yeah you guys ready here we go E4 E5 Knight F3 Knight C6 we have a Spanish we have A6 main line now D6 it's kind of like a modern steinet vilhelm steinet used to play like this uh and now basically black wants to go Bishop D7 and very frequently black also puts this bishop on G7 right but in this game after playing this move C3 um and by the way I think black was 10 minutes late I don't know if anybody caught that uh yeah jaen gear did not think for 10 minutes on the first move 11 minutes and a half uh he was late I think that's what happened and so now black plays this move F5 and uh yeah that's rare right so C3 uh is uh followed by D4 is quite natural black playing F5 reminds us of the game vidit versus Prague from the candidates but that was A6 Bishop here and then F5 which is very dangerous stuff but it is what happened in that game so yeah uh now Bishop A4 D6 C3 F5 take take right castles Bishop D3 wow this is basically an attack on The Rook and more than an attack on The Rook it's also a dis you disable the move d4 right now Hans is not you know a genius for his next move but he plays Rook E1 black plays Bishop 2 E7 he's covering anything from going to G5 and trying to get his pieces developed H plays Queen B3 now Queen B3 targets the pawn on B7 but what about your Bishop isn't your Bishop trapped after B5 yeah yeah and clearly Hans came prepared in this game because he didn't go D4 right away he went castles allowed this and then played this move Queen B3 so black plays B5 indeed looking to trap this bishop but at the same time weakening two of his pieces right and so now black has to find the move Queen D7 and you might say but Levy that's not a hard move to find I don't understand what well it's hard to do this because this is very ugly are you going to defend your Pawn you know what the engine says you don't defend your pawn and if Queen A4 black plays E4 what but black hasn't even castled why would black do that yeah then you trade the queen what and then if Knight E4 there's Knight D3 so white could actually end up in this position up two pawns but unable to move any pieces because of how strong the Knight is that is the line that you have to know after Queen B3 B5 Queen D5 jacken gear doesn't know that he goes here and um after 10 moves the black position is in some trouble the idea of Bishop F5 is that if I take you with a check you go back and then you take back the bishop but after Bishop F5 Han spend some time and plays Bishop to B3 and now the threat is this and that and uh the only way to protect that the only way to protect against both of those threats is either to move the the king or the queen if you play Knight F6 I can take this now the crazy thing is the crazy thing about this move is that it looks like the queen is trapped but it's not and you will always survive and get out but what's also funny is that the queen is like almost certainly trapped in the long run but you can even sack pieces not only that you can sacrifice your queen in this position according to the the computer because after this this you are winning everything yeah it's miserable it is kind of crazy all right oh my goodness I uh yeah his position's completely nuts so here's what happens Bishop to B3 King D7 all right so far so good everything is fine but it's not Knight to D4 from Hans this targets the bishop it targets the Knight and worse than that if you take with the pawn it's mate I take the bishop check I check you again that's it that's the end of the game right there so King to D7 Knight to D4 Hans already has a major advantage and he is attacking like a lunatic black takes the Knight white takes now what do you do against the pawn on E5 about the pawn on E5 right like all of this is under pressure Knight C3 is on the way well jock andar plays Knight F6 trying to kick out Han's Queen only move you really don't want to go to B7 because if I lock you in I'm not sure you're getting out anytime soon so instead of that the queen slides back targeting the bishop targeting the pawn very dangerous position now black moves the bishop anywhere you're going to take the pawn opening up the king so you got to go here cuz that way you attack the queen and you make me move but I will play here targeting your Pawn probably making you take cuz if you don't take I take you so for a moment black is a pawn up now that level of uh happiness in the position is probably not going to be preserved much longer uh but white has to take advantage the right way now if you play Slowly with white like a move like D3 to get the bishop out black will go Queen E8 and then if you get the bishop out black will play Queen H5 or queen G6 and somehow you're not you're not in time she not in time right so you look at a move like E4 and you go how do I attack black here how do I do something with the bishop or my Rooker I can't really do anything so what can I do I can't move my if I can't go D3 I know this move hangs a night how am I going to get these three pieces involved actually what's amazing about this position is that white doesn't have to get those pieces involved at all at all white can just go here and this one very simple move poses a very difficult question to the black position which is how do you defend your Bishop if you go here you surrender the control of the E6 square at which point the King has to March out this way nobody wants that now suddenly I have a front of attack now if after H3 the bishop goes back to F5 which is what happens in the game I play Queen F3 now the bishop could go there but then again the king would be either well actually then the king is forced back to the middle and I guess jocken gear was like why would I put my king in the center now I can't castle and I literally just cannot castle like even if I could Castle can't castle and now Hans is going to continue to try to attack me so Queen to F3 he protects his bishop and now the move D3 and now there is a bigger problem D3 in this position a couple of moves ago the queen could come help but by forcing Jack and gear to play this move defending his Bishop now the bishop is trapped in the middle of all of this it can't move anywhere the threat is now just the random G4 it's just G4 so black has to play H5 the move H5 overcommits a Pawn on a light square and now the dark squares are weak and Hans plays Bishop to G5 so this bishop cuts that diagonal this bishop hits this diagonal The Rook hits the straightaway the queen hits the entire diagonal everything in Black's position is under pressure like everything and not to mention white is still going to go here and it's still going to bring another Rook how on Earth is black going to defend himself he plays C6 to try to block this diagonal and maybe walk the king away or play Rook A7 to defend the seventh rank like to play something like Rook A7 and maybe King C7 K like something you got to do something right plays C6 Hans doesn't think very long plays Knight D2 in fact look at Hans time manager M he's barely spending any time because the again a few moves ago his entire Queen side was undeveloped by playing moves like H3 and queen F3 and D3 He gets the bishop he gets the Knight now more pieces are playing which means the attack is going to be way more potent black plays Queen to f8 and the advantage for white is growing where do you open up another front of attack The Rook has pressure the bishop has pressure the queen has pressure the bishop has pressure now you know where's this King going to go is the king going to cross the center line again I don't think so probably the the king is going to seek Solace over here so if we know that let's let's Miley Cyrus it and come in like a wrecking ball Pawn to A4 what are you going to do if you come forward you disconnect from the other pawns and then I go for C6 or I put my knight on C4 if you don't take I'll take you right if you don't take and and do I'm going to take you and we're going to open things up over here jacken gear plays Queen G7 Rook ec1 rotating cuz now you know both Rooks want to Pressure Queen C6 is a devastating threat black plays D5 blocking out the White Queen the White Queen says that's really nice that you went one square forward look I can do the same thing because I'm also going one square forward and I'm attacking this black plays C5 look at the past few moves right look at these past few moves a good player controls the pace of the game and in this position it's not even about a good player he is controlling his opponent's moves he's making his opponent play his game look at this he's playing his game he's playing his game he's playing his game couple of moves later he's playing his game D5 C5 every move he's making him play his game with these two moves we now weaken the row of squares behind now we go Knight F3 and we are carving up the black position Bishop to D6 guess what we go Knight E5 anyway you can't take us because Bishop F6 Queen D5 is fatal Rook C5 Rook C7 the game is over the game is absolutely over King C7 instead now what well in this position it looks like white can't break through anymore looks like everything is protected and not only that you pinned yourself stupid so now you can't even move the Knight but the defense of the position is an illusion and it is predicated upon one and only one move Hans nean this position sacrifices The Rook Rook C5 what why would for what I don't okay we we get it if Bishop takes right discover check absolutely nope these moves don't work Knight F7 wins a rook but you just gave one up for free I mean what are we doing like that doesn't okay take the pawn take the Rook that gets taken what so what's the idea the idea is that the chess Gods give you two Rooks use the other one I don't understand well you can't protect this bishop because the queen is protecting the Knight if you play Queen E7 now my discovered check absolutely Works hi and if you go here I take on C5 with check you can't take because of the pin then I play Knight E5 or queen F5 or Bishop F6 or Rook D5 like you lose all your pieces you literally lose all your pieces one by one Rook C5 Rook C1 but that's not the end of the story because after King to B6 Hans takes the Knight because if Queen F6 that's a fork you can't take it because my queen pins the bishop to the Queen the queen goes to H6 and now we are looking to escape and here Hans nean calculates one of the most brutal sequences I've ever seen in my life he calculated Knight to D7 check the bishop would capture the absolutely free Knight but that would open up the diagonal for our Queen we would then follow up with Pawn to A5 check if the king stays in the center we would sacrifice the rook and give a check on E7 Force the king to C6 and play Queen D6 King B7 Queen D7 followed by a Checkmate but after Knight D7 Bishop D7 we would play A5 if King A5 we would sneak in with the queen all the same Bishop to B6 we would give a check the king would come out to B4 then we would take the bishop and the queen and the Rook would swarm the king along with the dark squared bishop and that is how the game concludes Knight to D7 check Bishop takes A5 you have to take if you hang out over here Rook C5 Bishop to E7 Queen to D6 and the game is over momentarily so after A5 King A5 he walks the king to B4 he then takes the bishop on on B6 the king takes the bishop on B3 Queen D4 it's a mating net Black's Rooks haven't even moved one of them finally gets into the game it doesn't matter the king makes it to the opposite end of the board and Hans ends the game with a pawn move the idea is very simple he just wants to control the second rank so if black play something like H4 Queen A2 King here Queen D3 and anywhere you move it actually doesn't matter the queen returns to the home square and delivers a Chris cross applesauce Checkmate B4 King D2 pwn goes here winning the queen that's the simplest way to get it done Queen to A2 was m in five this is m in like seven or eight or whatever and uh oh my God oh my God oh my God like what this was a crazy game and then he followed it up with a victory over Nicholas theodoro Nicholas theodoro just beat aric gei arji is the highest seed in the tournament he's like the number one ranked player in India right now he's like number eight in the world number six in the world something like that 2760 theodoru just beat areri bro y'all got to stop letting Hans get a Spanish against you and he plays this this is called the COO and what you do is you defend the pawn in this unorthodox Way by wasting two moves the position is very tricky it's very complicated Pawn takes Knight takes there's a lot of different lines uh Bishop C5 is the line that uh that he opts for and um white just plays Bishop to E3 there's another coo that you can play uh where if you trade everything you know you got to play C6 but white gets a pleasant position so instead of playing Knight E7 on the third move you can play Knight E7 on the fourth move which is what happens and now after like this the difference being you have take Knight takes Knight takes Queen takes and you have this move B5 and that is the major difference you put the bishop on B7 and the bishop gets kicked out but you can't do that the way the game is played here because the bishop is still on B5 and now it can Retreat this way but okay it's just a matter of taste now in this game Hans developed and played this very interesting idea F4 I just realized there's no time stamps on this game I don't know why that happened I copied it from chess.com and for whatever reason the time stamps got deleted the time stamps in this game make no difference um Hans gives away a pawn so he gambits this F Pawn that black can capture Knight takes F4 not only does he Gambit a pawn he's getting mated Queen D2 though pinning the Knight to the queen that drops back now we trade and I'm going to grab this Pawn on G7 and I'm going to put the bishop on F6 so both sides have six pawns this is a Berlin Pawn structure seen in the Berlin Spanish uh but you cannot take the pawn on e4 because be very careful with your King still in the center Rook E1 if Rook G4 I mean H3 should probably do the trick the computer wants to sacrifice the rook and take the bishop the top engine move is Knight D2 and just trying to win this and defend that fine fine fine and also obviously Bishop B6 would now no longer work because the KN would get captured fine so Bishop F6 H5 is the move that uh Theodor chooses and what happens in this game is very weird Hans goes here theodoro develops his Bishop Hans goes here theodoro kind of advances on the queen side Hans brings The Rook up and to D3 to pressure the D file and now something very strange happens at this point black realizes he can't really move like he can't move the bishop anywhere particularly useful he can't really move the Knight anywhere particularly useful and he starts moving the Knight back and forth at least he kicked out the bishop as it so happens it was better for black to have the bishop in there actually the bishop was better on the Square because of various tactical things as well as something being able to actually go to F6 and use the f file E5 Bishop G4 Rook F2 and King H1 now you'll notice at this point theodoru starts moving his pieces back and forth back and forth A6 you can't really move back to where it was and now he plays Rook B8 Rook C8 right Rook A8 Rook B8 Rook A8 and now I'd like to show you 2600 ELO chess just watch Rook B8 Rook A8 Rook B8 Rook A8 Rook B8 Rook A8 Rook B8 Rook A8 okay fascinating uh yeah uh black is not trying to lose the game black just literally doesn't have a move um I mean it's actually kind of insane when you think about it it's a very difficult position for black the computer here for black wants to put the bishop on C6 and the Knight on E6 it's not really clear what that does I mean it you're you're trying to I guess get the Knight on D4 let's say H3 Bishop C6 and you try to put the Knight there then I would play Maybe Rook G3 and then maybe I would trade and this is just a fork which would result in the loss of a pawn and probably theodoru saw that and was like why would I go for that so he shoveled his pieces back and forth for 10 moves literally uh Hans meanwhile made incremental improvements to his position and at some point decided that he would just start winning all of Black's material and uh he took the pawn on H5 he didn't touch the queen side because he has eighth rank infiltration ideas Rook H6 and uh yeah you can't stop the infiltration take take he tries to create counterplay I just stop everything there is no Rook to B2 so he goes to B1 Knight H5 and black is absolutely dominated there is nothing here whatsoever by the way Rook F1 is a very creative move Rook G2 is a tactical trick he doesn't fall for that Rook F6 still all the problems in the position for black and Rook G2 and that's it that's the end of the game H demon is three and0 and not only is he three and0 with his last three wins he is now up up to 26 97.7 and he's on the cusp of the 2700 Club out of which feda fell today where he was 2699 artmia fell slightly with recent tournaments uh he played in Dubai yeah if Hans gains a few more points he's back up to number 33 in the world or I guess number 34 behind dubov crazy stuff and what a game from him uh and he's three and0 he's 3 and0 and he he looks like he's got no plans of stopping he's uh he's playing very very well right now very inspired and he's on social media challenging the entire current format and ecosystem of the game which we love we love that because uh it should change uh it absolutely should change and I will be making a separate video about that and if you're watching you know far enough in the future of May 2024 I probably already did make a a video about the existential problem uh of Chess and uh the the tournament circuit so be on the lookout for that video and get out of here

Channel: GothamChess

Views: 464,496

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

Id: hKGnOfOH76c

Length: 27min 21sec (1641 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2024