Want to be 1500 in chess?

ladies and gentlemen happy New Year every single New Year celebration is an opportunity to look within yourself and find something that you can learn like a new skill or something that you can improve on like your chess uh and then you stick to this routine for the first couple of weeks of January and then you quit and go back to all your bad habits that you had you know the entire previous year hopefully that's not the case uh in today's video I'm going to play some games against my subscribers who have volunteered to play against

me uh and we are going to look at what it is that you need to gain many hundreds of rating points in chess and to be a strong intermediate early Advanced player which will put you at 95th to 97th percentile yes better than 95 of all chess players that walk the earth so if you give me a little bit of your time and we uh learn through some of these games it will be a great time it will be very exciting and um we're gonna kick things off with kind of the the lower bound uh

of of our volunteers uh who have volunteered to play and that first volunteer is uh Slim Shady if you will who is 1052 and then after this we have 1200 we have 1350 and we will be ending this video with 1700 now I'm actually not going to play anything crazy my opponent is a D4 player uh so I'm just going to play D5 and see what happens I predict the London because well yes Everybody Plays the London um and we're just gonna learn some stuff all right we're gonna have a great time there are many

there's a million and a half ways to play against London the best way to play against the London uh is to develop your King's Knight to F6 uh and then you have to use your DNC pawns together when you play against the London now you you could really do whatever you want I mean if you don't have to listen to me but the best way to play against London is to play like a Queen's Gambit style because DNC pawns really like to go together that way you will then put your knight behind your C pod

and some of you might be wondering what about Pawn takes Pawn that is it is a free Pawn for like a move uh but it's very easy to win back will just play E6 and then capture it's very difficult for white to actually hang on to that pawn uh the benefit by the way you don't have to capture you see this Pawn in the London which supports the center gets in the way of that night there is no reason to free up all of that for your opponent so you might as well just uh just

keep the pawn exactly where it is now you can develop the Knight you can develop the pawn personally I wanna I wanna keep the bishop options open so I'm gonna play the move Knight to C6 uh and the other benefit of moving the pawn to C5 is you open up your queen so the queen can go to B6 like right now for example this is one of the ways one of the most challenging ways to play against the London is to put the queen out on B6 which you would not have been able to do

had you not played the move C7 to C5 um so one of the ways you're gonna have to gain points of the rating ladder is to beat the most annoying and the most solid openings that exist uh and the London is very much one of them um Queen C2 is a move so Queen C2 defends the pawn on B2 uh there's a very common idea here in the London it's a little bit Advanced so I'm not going to play the exact idea because I feel like no 1000 would know this but you will now know

this once you have developed your Knights and your queen comes out and attacks this Pawn this queen can actually be deflected with the move Bishop to F5 looks completely nuts but the point is that if the queen were to take the bishop for free it would lose control of that you would take and then trap the rook and win it on the next turn and this is a very common idea when the queen comes out here and this queen is the only defender of this Pawn now I I don't know that so I want to

play this move and to play this move I'm going to first play this move G6 G6 is trying to develop my Bishop to G7 fianchetto and develop my other Bishop to the square F5 now you will notice I am keeping attention among the pawns so I have not taken they have not taken me I want my opponent to take on C5 because they will be losing a Central Pawn that is one of two Central pawns they will be trading it and that's something I'm completely okay with um and that's why I haven't taken and I

haven't also haven't taken because I don't want to improve their position so let's play Bishop Bishop first because I think it's a slightly better move than playing Bishop to G7 I will finish my development and now this is probably what my opponent is going to play Queen to B3 I mean the alternative is that my opponent plays Queen C1 which is a very passive move okay Bishop to D3 is is another possibility uh now an interesting moment so if we take the queen comes here and we have this kind of interesting situation where we could

take this Pawn on B2 and I'm going to do it just to kind of like justify our entire play here right I mean this was like obviously the idea oh we're going to trade and then we're gonna you know take this oh we're so smart it's it's not so clear okay um and what I mean by that is it it it looks like it's the right thing to do but anytime you take on B2 right which which I'm gonna do I mean like this is the right thing to do you know take a pawn uh

you have to be aware of the fact that your opponent can actually come down and do the exact same thing right back to you know my opponent hasn't done that my opponent just castled the king and defended this but I I'm still in a little bit of trouble here um now probably the best thing to do when you get in here is to just immediately get out um and uh that's probably the best thing to do right now now if if I just continue my development and leave my queen there what my opponent will do

is my opponent will probably play Rook to be one and try to get my queen right trying to either trap my queen or win my Pawn on B7 but let's just do that let's just do that let's just play Bishop to G7 oh what is my opponent doing why is it what what is Queen to be won that's not a good move at all what why did my opponent play that so fast I'm so confused we'll analyze after the game but my opponent had to of course attack with the Rook now this is another Free

Pawn if I play that move though Queen takes this is devastating from my position horrible and you know improving at this level you have to be thinking about what your opponent wants too right like your opponent wants to get in if I go here same thing happens so probably right now with my extra Pawn I should just trade the Queens I hate to do it right because I want to win some material and when this arrives I gotta go all right wait a minute how do I defend my Pawn in all likelihood the best way

to defend the pawn is just to push it one square I can also Castle long looks a little bit dangerous though so I think probably just defending my Center makes sense I don't think this is necessarily the best move um yeah my opponent is just playing so fast I don't know why they're playing so quickly uh okay we have another situation right like our Knight is targeted we either have to move it capture or defend it I don't think moving out of the way for the sake of moving out of the way is that smart

I'm also not really worried about if I take and taken my knight is under attack is that like terrifying no and I'm up material so it kind of makes sense okay Bishop takes and now I mean I think it's about time we Castle right so probably what my opponent should do now is to trade pawns and try to counter attack since my opponent is down one pawn it would make sense for my opponent now to try to win back one pawn and you also have to think about like where it is on the board that

you're playing okay right so now maybe Rook B5 or something would be would be quite kind of natural or Knight B3 attacking my opponent on C5 something along these lines okay Rook B7 right so yes attacking this Pawn here um I can push it I can defend it I can ignore the thread but I don't see why I would do that uh I think in the long run probably pushing the pawn is more beneficial so that the Rook never sees it if I go here then I I haven't really solved my problems but again like

another thing we have to worry about now is the clock right like we we're down three minutes we we can't be spending this much time against an opponent that's playing Super quickly so now we're gonna have to speed things up a little bit it seems like we've discovered our opponents playing style is um yeah is Speedy right so and uh I'm gonna have to speed it up a little bit otherwise we're just gonna sit here and get pancaked on the clock big big moment here now my opponent is suddenly slowing down a lot all right

Knight B3 so again I can push and I can defend I kind of like pushing it's not necessarily like the best move but I have to make a fast decision okay Knight C5 sure um I'm thinking maybe to attack the Knight activate some of my pieces I I want to trade but I don't want to go here because if I play that move then I break my pawns apart it's a very important mini lesson there that trade would result in me splitting my pawns and then my pawns are really not the advantage is not really

felt um so I'm going to play Rook fc8 and my opponent has a really nice position here very active Pieces good compensation as they call it uh form for the pawn for the material that that I'm up uh but I I'm pretty solid as well I'm pretty good defensively and I I think I will uh I think I will be all right probably Knight D7 okay this this is going to trade a couple of pieces a very important um spot here oh and actually a mistake now that I'm thinking about it very tough to see

why so I'm gonna trade if this then this that's easy now most people here would just go takes takes but I have a move here which is Knight C5 which is an incredible move Knight C5 attacks the rook and keeps an eye on the bishop 95 is the best move and I just want to get get these kind of thoughts going in your head you don't have to snap recapture at all times but I will because I'm a thousand right because most people there would just take the bishop that's just what they would do the

move Knight C5 wins material and I just wanted to point that out but you also have to get into the mindset of you know of the brain over here now here's a moment I it's a rook end game in Rook end games you have to be able to go for the weaknesses but you also have to keep an eye on what your opponent wants right so I'm going to bring this Rook onto the open file not the other one because then I would have lost the pawn and in these end games getting both Rooks on

the second rank of your opponent is absolute devastation just absolutely devastating right I mean this is a very bad move because it's a very passive passive move so Rook is very trapped here you want to go here and push you also want to make sure your King has some breathing room I'm gonna go Rook to B2 I'm gonna have to speed it up because I only have two and a half minutes of course I'm threatening to win this pawn and if the pawn moves I will sneak behind and I will win this pawn and also

you have to think about what is your most advanced Pawn in a rook end game and for me it's this one right so if I win that c Pawn of my opponent my C Pawn is going to get rolling and as that end game creeps into its later stages uh my opponent's just not okay I'm down two pawns up I don't know why they didn't defend the pawn um as the game creeps into those later stages you can part ways with some of these pawns that are very passive and far away okay I said earlier

I don't want to do this because I damage my Pawns and it's true but at the same time I'm now three pawns up so which Pawn do you want to save probably the one that has forward Mobility right so if my opponent wins my C Pawn my at least this Pawn we'll make it down to the second rank now that pawn is is very very far right so um now I gotta get my other Rook into the game because probably King F2 is coming I need to get my second Rook into the game maybe here

down and and get my my Rook to the second rank uh okay very interesting so if I go down my opponent will probably go King F2 right that's going to be the next order of business and a very a very interesting spot here um you you notice I'm not rushing with my Pawn because it's a long race you gotta get as much as you can while you know you're in the you're in the situation right so I'm probably going to lose this Pawn okay maybe maybe I can go for that pawn instead or I gotta

think what happens in the king and pawn end game who has more who has more Pawns who has more pawns I have five if this trade happens my opponent has four so what if I just bring my king like let's do the math I know my time is ticking so I have to be a little bit faster just do the math for a second if all of the stuff gets traded all of this gets traded at the end of the day I have five pawns and one is a permanent outside pass Pawn so what I

have to do now is I have to now it's much better to play the move E5 but let's just say I don't know that let's just say I want to bring my king right we're both bringing our Kings what's gonna happen now is I simply have more Pawns so at some point I'm going to use my outside past pawns not right away and what I'm going to do or I can use my Center pass Pawn right I don't have to do anything now I don't have to rush what happens now is because I have just

simply two past pawns I will just push one at a time right in a king and pawn end game it's very simple I mean the person with more pawns and the more dangerous pawns is probably going to win you just have to make sure your king is in a position where it's active enough it's preventing your opponent's most nagging Pawn from going right and so now it's very simple just stay patient I don't need to push this Pawn yet look I have two of them I have two threats at the same time and now my

opponent is gonna have to commit in One Direction so for instance if I push and he goes there this Pawn is gonna sneak away you cannot stop both pawns they are too far apart my opponent goes that way now I play E4 right you just you just simply cannot stop two pawns my king doesn't even have to move it's just whichever direction the kid the white king is going to go I will then move the other Pawn very instructive most end games that you just saw like that Rook end game will transition into a king

and pawn end game at some point and what happens is one of the pawns is now a runaway and now you could try to make a second Queen you could try like the easiest thing to do is just to pick up all the pawns and when you have low time that's what you should do that way if you lose on time notice I didn't take it was defended if you lose on time and your opponent has no pawns at least it's a draw so what you should do when you have 40 seconds on the clock

is you should try to get the last Pawn but if you have a spot now that you can just make a second Queen you should do that and notice that my King is just stopping the pawn my opponent resigns I wouldn't have resigned here I don't I I mean especially with 39 seconds on the clock I mean you definitely should play on here with white you really never know um but that game was nice because you know we we got a good position against the London which is a very very annoying opening um we played

this early Queen attack on the B2 Square uh here I discussed how you know the move Bishop to F5 is very much a thing and if they take you can play Queen B2 and as you see from the computer evaluation um black is uh doing very well here there's some kind of absurd variations here for white to try to survive none of them really work white can try to like trap your queen in the corner but if you know what you're doing here it uh actually in this version it does work ah you have to

before you take the Rook you have to play C4 the engine uh the engine likes this move C4 and then you wait for a little bit and then and then you take this The Rook after you kick the queen out this way computer is uh very very tricky but instead of that I just played normally and right here again like this this decision was very risky you know my opponent could have gotten in and it would have been a little bit tricky for me to defend the position especially if something like this happens and um

under a lot of pressure here it's actually not uh it's not the easiest position to play you know but but of course there's also threat no threats on the white king and it's a very very tricky position um what really helped in this game was just sort of my opponent played too fast I mean queen B1 is a crazy crazy move maybe it was a mouse lip but um you know and then I played B6 and the trays were coming in quickly I defended against a couple of threats very important to try to be a

solid with your pawns as possible trying to make sure they all defend each other and then obviously we had the uh we had the end game mini lesson uh for the next two games I'm going to be playing with white uh so first I'm going to be playing a 1200. uh for this game I'm I'm just going to play E4 I'm not going to play anything too aggressive in the opening my opponent plays uh E5 so let's play Knight F3 Knight C6 and there's a lot of openings obviously I'm going to play the scotch so

I'm not playing the Four Knights I'm not playing the Italian I'm not playing the Rue Lopez the Spanish I'm playing the scotch opening which is just a trade in the center of Pawns like this and then after that we will develop our Bishops our Knight Castle this trade is bad for black but many people do it Knight F6 is not a bad move uh it immediately puts some pressure on White Center I'm going to play Knight C3 it's not the best move but it is a move and it defends the center that is the best

move the ship to B4 is a very good move uh the point is that you are pinning the Knight to the king and now it's a little bit tricky here for white so the trick is that if I want to go here and I want to defend my Pawn but I can't really do that because then I would be losing my knight um so I'm going to play like again if I move my queen here I'm going to lose this right so it's not an easy position honestly you can try to defend everything with like

a queen move so maybe that's the way to go maybe Queen to D3 just defending everything in my Center so trust me it's not good um which is why you got to learn your openings right like but if you don't know your openings then you're going to get yourself into uh some trouble in the early game against the well-prepared opponent but let's just say you don't exactly know your openings you just try to follow basic principles and avoid silly mistakes such as Bishop here hanging your knight the best move in this position was to trade

the knights and then go Bishop D3 okay so my opponent castles um well since I've committed my queen already I kind of want to commit my Bishop to and then Castle queenside maybe I'll develop my Bishop here or something Let's Play Bishop G5 I like this move very aggressive pinning move preventing the pressure here and next move I'll play long castles now my opponent has a very nice idea here if they find this idea I'm going to be okay I don't want to trade I don't I feel like there's no reason to allow my opponent

to get this out but I'm Gonna Keep the pin and obviously it's a bad move right to weaken your king for no reason like this that's that's really not not recommended to play G5 so uh I know why would you play G5 right G5 is not a good move it's actually the best move it's the best move because right now the demands of the position are such that with my king stuck in the center for now um sacrificing your own King safety to unpin yourself is the best move why we'll look at it after but

it's actually the fact that my defense of my Pawn is a complete illusion I do not have a defense here because what would have to happen is I would need to put my queen in front of my king and that would result in this so the move G5 there was very good my opponent takes does this okay that that takes a little pressure off the center um now I'm thinking where to put my queen maybe E2 or E3 I think I like E3 I mean something could go to G4 but just just because a piece

can go to a square and attack you doesn't mean it's like some genius move I mean you gotta think longer than you know just oh the Knight is gonna go there and and okay so I'll move my queen I mean I could have gone to E2 sure but remember my plan is to go here like this is what I would like to do and if Bishop takes Knight then in many instances I would love to trade the queen I mean I would like to trade back with the queen if I have to take with my

pawn my king is a little weak over here so but it's still a very complicated position my opponent should be trying to play very fast in the center of the board they like with a move like D5 because if you give white a couple of moves here to do what's called consolidate the position Castle Queen side get the king out of safe out of the center yeah this is a little slow right the idea of this move is probably to build or it's to get the queen out but now I'm castleing and now my king

is out off the center and now my Rook is in the center and I I feel like I'm I'm sort of figuring out some things now yeah now here's already a mistake this was my opponent's idea but they forgot that when I take the Knight is hanging and every time a a trade happens especially a pawn trade you've got to be able to see what happens in the position now right like what's changing in the position um I I took because you know I'm 1200 right like a pawn takes Pawn easy move is it the

best move I don't know it might have been better here for me to like play this or this just preventing anything from going there because right now my opponent has what's called an in-between move before they play this they are going to play Knight to G4 that's the best move and attack my queen because they need to get out of danger and then they will recapture here we go so I could go here here here this is a little bit dicey I feel like because maybe there's some stuff here but this is defended so it's

tough I mean ultimately it comes down to something on the third rank and it's very difficult to see the difference in all of those moves if I'm being completely honest um I'm going to go here so I don't block my Bishop am I convinced it's the best move not really like I it's very tough to tell and sometimes it's just better to not spend all your time you know sometimes it's just better not to spend your time you don't want to spend two minutes it's almost impossible to tell the difference okay Bishop takes so now

an important moment am I ticking with the queen or the pawn I don't want to open my king however does taking with the queen do any damage to my position no cause that's defended so why damage your structure right it's better to keep your pawns kind of side by side than stacked and opening up your position and on the very next turn what I what I would love to do is kick out the Knight just get the Knight back to where it was and now we start kind of transitioning to that middle game phase of

okay kings are on opposite sides which means always one of the ideas is going to be just a massive Pawn wave to break open the structure whoa Knight takes D5 we missed that right what is happening here so the idea is that our Queen is hanging their Queen is hanging if we take this they're gonna take this and then our Rook is hanging two oh my is that good for us or should we try to move our Queen but if we move our Queen we have to make sure the bishop stays defended too and the

only way to do that is to play something like Queen here wow right is that a good move bad move I don't know wow it's crazy um now I see what the best move is um but I'm trying to think also like a 1200 and I'm trying to think what what would a 1200 play and it it it's not it's not so easy to uh to come up with a good move here I have to say let's see if my opponent sees what's so good about the move Queen G3 or black black can actually play

G5 now again and that would be trapping my Bishop does my opponent see that and then I want to see how they how they play trying to convert a winning position we're going to get a winning position probably they're going to be up a bishop which is a substantial advantage uh however are they going to convert it correctly which would be to try to and they do play it while they do play the move G5 so I don't want to lose the bishop in a way that I help my opponent get all their pieces into

the game so what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring my knight back I'm gonna say all right you're gonna get my Bishop how do you defend a worse position with white right this is a very important skill and I it's not to trade Queens do not trade Queens you need to keep your most important and impactful pieces in the game right so what does that mean that means your queen should really stay on the board what your what my opponent should do here is either check me or try to play a move

like Queen F6 and queen F4 trade in Queens here would be a massive benefit to Black because it would really relinquish any of my opportunities to defend myself right so Queen G5 check is played I'm going to play King to B1 and now Queen F4 is a very good move because what it also does is it strips away the defense of this so check and queen F4 is uh I don't know okay rookie eight that move doesn't have it's not a bad move um now I have to keep in mind if I like just kick

out the Knight Queen trade is coming right so what I'm gonna do since I'm losing is I'm gonna try to make sure every move creates some sort of threat or maybe inconvenience for my opponent I'm gonna develop my Bishop Target the Knight and then maybe Target this also when you are losing the clock is a piece I have 438 opponent has 4 10 right I'm not gonna sit here and sulk I'm gonna sit here and go oh my God I can't believe I blundered I'm so bad right I'm gonna try to play a little bit

faster this continues to be a good move and there's a lot of good moves I mean there's like some Knight C3 check ideas in the future to open up my position um it's a very bad position for me very bad position and this is this book was a problem actually that I mean if my opponent finds this move I I am in serious trouble and they can't hear me so I'm recording this in my room okay they play Queen G6 they didn't find Queen F4 they weren't thinking to trade now I kind of want to

line up an attack on their Queen again right so I'm just posing them problems and notice that the time is now one minute Advantage for me which is important because my opponent will run out of time if they keep playing like this um Bishop F5 is already a mistake and what I have going for me here is this kind of Target of the G file if this I could possibly have this Fork which actually could result in a pretty big loss of material for black my opponent might need to go to G7 and it just

goes to show you I mean it's chess is hard now they're down to a minute and a half and they're thinking and thinking and they should have simplified that's what they should have done they should look for a queen trade right they didn't do that now I'm just keeping Pace right this is the way you convert a winning position for black and this is the way you defend a losing position for white okay Queen G7 on the board um gotta look over here any threats no quick move by me another quick move seven seconds just

attacking the night building my time advantage remember the lower they get on time the much higher chance that they're gonna make a crazy mistake there's nothing to think about by the way this is the only move now Queen trade no do not know absolutely no Queen trade no Queen shirt we need the queen on the board we're setting up our opponent for failure we near Roo G1 boom we win the queen remember this is another possibility G4 G5 we we discussed this when the position was more equal and more balanced right okay any threat to

that move no G4 looking very nice of course it's a very double-edged sword we're playing here opponents time is ticking down to two minutes now every second that goes by right we just now I could also sit back and do nothing I can just move my Rooks back and forth Knight F4 is a great move great move all right targeting this I could try to run away but if I run away then the Rooks are gonna get traded so I think I'm just gonna go G5 I mean again I'm I'm not convinced this is the

way to go but I'm trying you know I'm trying and my opponent's down to 150. and this is under attack and this is under attack and if this then the G file is opening up which might be good for me now do not trade with the queen you gotta of course Knight takes just opening up the position opening up our opponent's king if Knight takes I think I'm gonna take with the pawn I don't want to trade more pieces than necessary Rook takes is probably not a good decision because that trades the Rooks as well

and the less pieces that I have the far less chances of me surviving but notice that I'm now up two and a half minutes right Knight G6 now do I take I don't think so because Rook takes Rook keeping pieces on the board any threats how about this move this is a little bit of a step in a different direction but now I'm suddenly creating threats over here that's going to get my opponent really distracted he's gonna go oh my God I don't want to lose more pawns if I win that pawn I'm gonna win

all the other pawns and suddenly I'm not even worse look at this they're thinking right down to 110 on the clock I nearly have three times the I do have three times the amount of time now down to one minute and this all happens because you start playing a little faster now what is that attack okay so I shouldn't take the pawn but this is what I wanted anyway now my Rook is on the same file as all those juicy pieces suddenly I probably even have attacking chances right now I am looking at moves like

this I'm looking at moves like this what do I do do I keep harassing the pawns or do I try to let's go on the H file right the G file the H file now we're attacking if this suddenly oh my goodness position is just turning around completely 50 seconds though there's no way I mean black just can't win this position with 40 seconds on the clock we've won this game because we haven't won this game yet but we will win this game because even though we blundered like we had a little of we have

a tactical oversight in the middle game um we started speeding up and we started playing a bit more kind of conservative but in a in a smart way all right now what happens if I play the move again like I'm the momentum is Shifting in the game and I see that this is under attack and I go here this is a winning move for black Bishop takes A2 check the Knight is hanging oh they missed it because they weren't looking for checks Bishop takes A2 did not have to defend that Rook takes D4 right Rook

takes D4 was going to win my queen on the next move crazy oh my goodness all right now I'm going to slide back I don't want to give my opponent two opportunities but again time is ticking at the end of the day we are going to win this because we put a lot of pressure and played a lot of good and quick and solid moves now it's kind of like that moment in the game like dude how do I not do something stupid here what if I just play A3 just kind of a pass back

move just pass back move okay Queen takes F2 fine but now hello right you you took my pawns but that opened up the files from my Rooks you don't always want to take Pawns where your king is on the same file and now suddenly in comes the counter attack and ultimately this was decided because my opponent got a little bit too dangerously low on time and this is this is simply game over now black is just actually losing it's not even a question of um this is not even a question of you know uh time

or anything like that is straight up losing position there's a couple of ways to win a nice way here is to see that Knight F7 check uh and then Queen G7 but there's something even fancier this is Rook H1 and uh if Bishop takes H1 Knight F7 was checkmate we go here black loses because if Bishop takes I either have this mate or queen H7 now this game was a very bad example of how to play the scotch I did not get a good position from the opening as you can see black was much better

and absolutely the position here demanded this move G5 it is the top computer move um Knight E5 is a decent move for sure uh G5 is the best move and um you know my opponent actually was doing a decent job for a while you know they actually played pretty decently um like this move C6 was I thought a bit slow but you know then my opponent played D5 and uh and found this move and then here you know this idea Bishop C3 and the Knight takes D5 was uh was was really impressive very impressive idea

G5 here amazing move to trap my bishop and um I think from here you know they just sort of lost their way a little bit like definitely Queen F4 was was the way um but uh instead of that you know my opponent played a little bit hesitant spent a little bit too much time and still had an advantage like through and through they were just playing very slowly you know I just sort of stalled the clock for a while and then by the time like the position got somewhere they could try to convert it they

had a minute on the clock just sort of slowed down and tensed up when they got like a very very good position and um that allowed me to you know to make a comeback but this was a total kind of push and pull between attacking defending uh converting a winning position and also trying to defend one and I you know I think uh I think we both kind of demonstrated a nice a nice job there of how to use the clock how to stall out the pressure a little bit and not you know not just

lose um like this person has me as their profile photo um I played E4 last game I guess I'll play D4 this game I'll play a queen's game but I won't play a London we already saw London I'll play D4 Knight F6 C4 and uh I will play like uh normal just two nights and then I guess I'll decide what I'll do uh uh I can play G3 and Bishop G2 like Catalan style I can also take a full Center here with the move E4 which one should we go for I'll play G3 fianchetto Catalan

Style game my opponent is playing a king's Indian defense so castles and now it's time for for chess okay Knight to C6 so I can already attack the Knight but this is like this is kind of normal stuff um I'd love to play E3 this is a move I really want to play but to play that move I gotta do something about this bishop I'm going to put my Bishop out to G5 just to have it there and then I want to play E3 to create a very strong Rock Solid Pawn structure and what I

want to do to complement this bishop is to expand on the queen side so I want to play like Rook or bishop or something and then I want to you know expand so the bishop can stay here um I guess I could take but there's really no rush I don't need to take so I'm gonna play I guess I'll play E3 now now that the bishop has sort of departed outside of the pawn chain and um maybe on the next move I'll play the move H3 maybe I should have played H3 right away I probably

should have at this level these sort of Queen's Pawn positions are very very tricky and convoluted and all the pieces sort of Tangled together I've been waiting for this move so I'm going to trade now which was always kind of my idea uh and now I mean maybe I should just do the same to my opponent I should just ask like what what are what are your Bishops maybe they're gonna copy me because I feel like even a beginner and intermediate level these sort of things happen all the time where people just copy each other

they're like oh he took my Bishop so I'm gonna take his Bishop uh but we'll see we'll see what my opponent does of course if they go here I just trap the bishop if they go here I fork okay they take um bishop or a queen are probably okay I think I'm gonna do this and if I have to I will always just back up the reason for this is because I actually think my queen is better suited over here but I mean it's very tough to make that decision you know what I mean just

when you take with the bishop you need to realize that's a weakness and if you lose that that's extremely embarrassing so just make sure that you don't lose your Pawn like it's your responsibility now uh to go and defend yourself now whose Bishop is better mine why my Bishop has an open diagonal for the most part uh this bishop is staring into a pawn that's extremely well protected so when I move this Knight out of the way I can take the pawn what King f8 is such a strange move what the heck is king2f8 oh

my gosh yeah I want to play B4 I've been wanting to play this move for a while so I can either play A3 or Rook B1 it's very very tough to tell the difference between those two moves so there is before now when I played before my knight no longer has any defense and so I need to be a little careful now do I want to play A4 or go B5 right away very tough to tell the difference between those two um I think it's probably much more human to Just Launch yet another Pawn right

that just feels nice Just Launch all your pawns forward and just go bully that side of the board uh and we you know my opponent cannot really fight back because the Knight is like this so I'm just expanding right this is like very normal if you're ever going to play a Queen's Gambit position with a with a bishop on G2 you want to always be able to expand on the queen side with Rook B1 B4 A4 because your light squared Bishop is a beast and um okay Knight goes back to A7 I I don't think

any anything's really stopping me from playing the move B5 so it seems like a good decision right I'm gonna play B5 now that restricts the knight from coming back into the game now here's a million dollar question if my opponent takes on B5 what do I do right what do I do do I oh okay oh we will not have to answer that question now it's again very very tough situation I have a bunch of everything is locked right do I go here like do what am I trying to do do I go here do

I try to trade my knight for the bishop maybe but if I do that then my opponent just goes back so I mean I don't really see any benefit this is one of those positions where you just try to improve I mean even a move like Queen up two squares is an improvement because I'm defending my Center I'm defending my knight B6 for black is kind of an improvement um now the question is I mean how how do I make progress here you know what's next I mean maybe I play H4 H5 right like maybe

this is an idea maybe I bring my Rooks to the center maybe I play E4 I don't like the move E4 for two reasons number one I block my Bishop number two I block my queen and I guess number three is like I even I even weakened my Center a little bit I don't know I don't know what to play here I mean I could bring my king up a little bit I don't know tough tough position where do I want to break through I guess I'll just improve my king a little bit just bring

my king up one square very tough position very tough position for the intermediate level um probably my Rooks need to come to the center but you could also make an argument for creating an attack with the flank Pawn here like imagine the queen got in over here right this is the way you have to think about Chess imagine the Queen infiltrated the black position on H7 so right right now white is much better because of Peace quality because this Knight is just atrocious and I have a lot more space now that is a great move

and now things get a little bit more complicated do I take I actually don't think so I like the fact that I have the better control of the center of the board so maybe I just bolster my Center maybe I just do nothing just improve my Center bring the Rooks to the center at some point I'm gonna have to try to get in with my pieces like at some point I don't know when and if this trade occurs fine but then the pressure is off my center and my Pawn is defended ah Bishop back so

could the idea be to be going like this no maybe we try to inch forward a little bit here try to poke a hole here with H5 try to sneak my queen into the black position right because again my pieces are of a higher quality and the Bishops are not of the same color which means if I Target an attack the bishop is not going to be able to defend wow wow played so very very limited caring for the king safety however the move E4 now is a problem so what do I do do I

take does that improve my chances not really because takes in here right I think I have to move one of the pieces in anticipation do I move the bishop or the queen personally I like this move why because my opponent has a bunch of Pawns on dark squares which means my light squared Bishop is like a lighthouse I mean it just it sees everything right it's going to be impossible to get rid of my Bishop on that square of course I expected E4 now here it's borderline impossible to tell the difference of any of these

moves so let's just go back here and now what we're going to do is we're going to try to break apart this structure so I think a very important move here is F3 my opponent's Pawn initiative was a bit short-lived I think they sort of thought that the pawns would live forever but now that I have this F3 move I'm asking a very unpleasant question of the position now my opponent played this to go here to try to get rid of my Bishop I went here to try to get rid of their blockade the problem

is that when they go here I'm going to take that's what my space Advantage contributes to when I take black is in serious trouble because the the king really should have been here and the king is not there that's that's a problem that is a problem anyway hope you all are good hope you are enjoying the episode now I can even take with the queen and the queen actually stops the move C6 completely what does this do this attacks this right um but what happens if I use my weakness as an asset right now I'm

knocking on the door here not to mention I'm also I could play H5 still removing the defense of this Pawn from that and yeah this is this is bad this is a this is a bad situation for my opponent very very dangerous and notice how my opponent locked their own horse out of the game they saw my initiative coming and a sort of disrespected their their their horsey right so this is an example this game is an example of um a few different things first of all it's kind of maximizing your piece play from the

opening that you were playing um taking space converting a better position and close position play I think there was a lot of closed position elements here as both sides for most of the game had eight pawns or seven so an example of how to take space control your opponent's pieces with the Pawns and so on and so forth now I could just crash through here that's probably the best way to do things but if you know I could have been patient too I could be patient for instance if Pawn takes Queen takes is winning but

in chess you don't always have to play the obvious move and this is actually a very nice idea by my opponent trying to block my attack with my own Pawn not a bad idea um I'm gonna take just out of kind of inertia most people I think would just take the pawn forcing a response out of black if Queen takes then I just March forward so Pawn takes and now we need to just get rid of the blockade there's a few ways to do that number one is just to bring the Knight right like the

queen is just under attack now uh so maybe black will sacrifice The Rook for the night but like as a defensive measure but it's uh it's already dire times and they do that's what they do Queen takes now this is probably a good move trying to fight back otherwise I'm just gonna March right in and now white has a decision I mean I I could block that's definitely the best move is to block and try to apply pressure you know let's just say we just move the queen okay it's not necessarily the best move but

let's just say we move the queen and as we try to convert the position here we have two ways of converting the position with white number one very simple trade Rooks trade Queens trade rugs trade Queens completely winning end game like and that's what I'm gonna do I'm just going to trade the Rooks trade the Queens just get all the pieces off the board the second way is to try to you know get in and Checkmate and my opponent actually is declining a trade uh so while my Bishop is a target I now have still

this removal move this rookie six and once we get that deep into the territory it's uh it's very bad my position is very very hopeless and um in fact here I have a very beautiful tactic which I think I'm gonna play just out of the beauty of the game of chess um whenever you have a disconnect like this of course if you're just watching this you should trade the Queens trade the queens or at least you know take this and just mate uh I have this unbelievable move F6 which disconnects the bishop and the Queen

however it hangs my queen however in that position I have Pawn takes Knight double check double check so that's a threat and that's a thread which means my opponent has to move the king when my opponent moves the king here which is the only legal move I will move my Rook opening up a discovered attack on that King and covering the H file so I will move my Rook to H6 and then it's basically going to be made on the next move as the queen has to block I have to play this for the beauty

of the game I have to sacrifice my queen double check and mate but if you're just playing this game trade the Queens March your opponent forward win the end game very easily but of course you know I'm sorry I have to sometimes a beautiful move must be played and hopefully my opponent sees the free Queen if not I'll be very sad um but we'll see keep in mind this only works if you take the Knight if you take the bishop this doesn't work but now it's double check so you cannot take or go here or

here right you have you have to play King Jade you cannot block and now preventing the Escape this is absolutely amazing Rook to H6 and it's made just amazing amazing little tactical trick at the end don't worry if you cannot see such things yet F6 is the top engine move it's an amazing little idea but again you do this and suddenly you are completely lost so uh be very careful um the alternative is this this F6 you know if Knight D5 you take with the pawn or you do this and this is the way you

win you just send it down into an end game your Rook swerves around you take all of Black's pawns you bring in your king and you win black has basically nothing here um this was a very interesting game you know it was this kind of idea to bring the bishop out and bolster the center and I think my opponent here should not have taken I think taking was a mistake I think they should have tried to keep two Bishops on the board because this is just a clearly better position for white and then I think

my I mean I don't know what on Earth King f8 was I don't know that was not a good move should have definitely played E5 and tried to play in the center um once this got going and I got my initiative going here I just sort of overwhelmed the black position and then Knight A7 was a bit of an overreaction I mean you cannot do such things to your own pieces the Knight is just completely in jail and um I mean just sort of like effortless improving moves here you know Queen to D3 you know

King to G2 probably should have brought my Rooks to the center probably should have played H4 a little bit faster and here was another instructive moment not to overreact not to take to just keep the tension and my opponent here playing F5 you know it was another moment like we we had to anticipate the incoming thread we didn't overreact um I really like the concept of putting this Beacon Bishop on D5 and then very nice idea here by white to just crack things open with F3 so I think this was a pretty instructive game in

terms of handling a closed position removing a blockade with Knight to E4 and then just sort of simple converting of course it ended with a brilliancy but okay I mean um this is the way you you know you win games at the 1350 level and it's like Smooth I mean it's a smooth game and I'm giving my opponents chances you know um for a final bonus game I'm actually going to play a 1750. so if you had the patience to watch an hour uh E4 is played now I'm going to play a Karo Khan because

this is my favorite opening and uh I recommend Karo Khan for everybody so if you like okay Advance variation by my opponent um what I recommend against E5 is to play C5 immediately undermining the center my opponent might even have my course which would be kind of hilarious um and here I recommend two options I mean Knight C6 to Target that um and uh E6 I just immediately get this I'm gonna see how how good my opponent is in terms of their preparation okay I'm playing a course owner I'm playing somebody who has the Gotham

course which is actually kind of terrifying which means I'm probably going to get a losing position actually if they're very well prepared um F4 is a it's a very rare move but it's you know it's me using my own courses kind of uh against myself what I like to do here is I like to fight on the light squares so it's a very natural move here to play Bishop F5 but we want to pin the Knight when it gets to F3 so the best waiting move here is actually Knight to H6 9286 there's also E6

and now it's sort of like up to White like how is white going to develop okay white plays A3 trying to play this move B4 that's White's idea um of course very logical move now part of me wants to play A5 to prevent that uh part of me just wants to you know Play Bishop G4 which is sort of what I'm supposed to play anyway uh let's think and there's another idea to play F6 to try to like break apart White Center before white is able to fully develop their pieces uh which one should we

do I'm also trying to think at like the 1700 level what looks the most natural just falling into a bad position in the opening is is okay like getting into your opponent's preparation and so on let's play this move A5 we don't exactly remember what we're supposed to play but we're at least playing logical moves against what our opponents want our opponent wants B4 so we play A5 right simple then we will decide what happens here we'll decide where the bishop goes we'll decide if when we play E6 the reason A5 is not a great

move is because the move Bishop B5 now pins you and makes it kind of hard for you to develop I've wanted to play this move I'm very happy to play this move now then I will very happily play E6 as well because my Bishop will not be blocked right and um now it seems like we're sort of making some progress like typical opening progress right like and now I'm attacking the pawn um and I will try to win it back on the next move we just sort of played logical chess like we developed our pieces

in the way that we thought that we were supposed to of course Bishop E3 should be played and I'm not rushing I'm not rushing to take this I haven't been attacked nobody's attacked me so I'm not rushing if Bishop E3 I will also play Knight F5 this is another justification of my knight being on H6 I will attack the bishop which is a free tempo for me and slowly I will try to win back by Pawn of course I don't need to think about this move it improves the position of my knight it targets the

bishop however a good Karo Khan player knows that their time here is limited meaning if white starts to kick you out you will really lose the game fast because this is all you have so an important moment okay understanding like peace Dynamics and peace play and all this stuff in chess in this position I would probably like to win one of my pawns back soon well I would also like to crack my neck how do I do that can I do that like how do I do that on the other hand I can just play

Bishop E7 castle and just wait and see but the longer that I wait and see you know the faster white is going to finish development Castle kick me out make me trade kick me out again it's a tough spot here I mean like let's say I I'm like I want to play F6 but do I want to open my king right like am I trying to open my king before I'm even castled is that okay is it acceptable I don't know um and you start looking at the position you go oh it actually is completely

fine because let's say I play F6 so what is my idea my idea is that I want to take and take I'm just immediately winning my Pawn back I take the Knight I take the pawn if you take me I bring my queen to the party that's definitely an improvement for me in the position 100 right like I mean I have an active Queen this is an interesting move by my opponent because I don't think excuse me I don't think they quite realize that I wanted to take the pawn in the center right Pawn take

C5 gross should blow my nose I muted the microphone so you wouldn't have to hear that so I think my opponent just completely forgot the pawn on E5 was hanging which is really not good it's not it's not a not not a good thing to uh forget about uh only reason I'm hesitating though like a little bit concerned the center could come under Fire like do I have to take and at this level this is the type of stuff you have to think about do you take this completely free Pawn I'm actually not so sure

if you do you have a massive responsibility to defend your position do you open up such unpleasantries to yourself before you are fully developed I have I I this is crazy I actually don't think so I actually think I want the pawn to stay there for a little bit I am not ready to take that pawn this is the type of stuff that you have to do when you're 1700 you have to avoid taking free pawns because you are not in a position to actually weaken your position so much I'm going to wait and take

the pawn at the right moment and now we have to think about the fact that white actually has two hanging Ducks just sitting there Sitting Ducks not hanging Ducks just waiting to be captured right like I'm threatening both those pawns basically whenever I want and as we compare the quality of the pieces in the position it's another interesting question this night right can wander in and plant itself on D6 that looks tremendously unpleasant I have to say um but why did my opponent not defend E5 right another thing we have to think about this bishop

is terrible right the light squared Bishop of White bites directly into our Central Pawn White's Knight likely has the best future our pieces are actually all pretty good and the dark squares here are a little bit loose so move like Bishop H4 is always a very curious you know move like what happens if both dark squared Bishops were traded now okay at this point I don't understand why I wouldn't be taking this Pawn and yet I still don't think it's the best move um I think probably I can still stay patient but okay I mean

at this point why not win the pawn back it's basically the entire justification of the Karo Khan also removing control of that square makes this impossible right so seems like everything is okay sounds like everything is okay I think my opponent should have probably played Rook 2V1 oh this is a bad move at this level you need to begin sensing things retreating like this and I would say this like nine times out of ten retreating is not going to be the best move now I can pounce first of all I see a Target I want

to go attack it idea number one idea number two shove my Pawn forward continue to try to March forward also looks good idea number three trade off the dark squared Bishop I trade the dark squared Bishop a bunch of real estate opens up I actually really like this idea Bishop H4 Rook State and queen C7 probably were also very good but I think the the dark squares in the white position are open for business like Queen H4 93 Knight G3 this Knight can rotate around as well and my center block just sort of like repels

these two pieces completely they cannot do anything and I think retreating was just a step in the wrong direction for white no of course you could have also attacked this and the only reason I don't I'm not jumping out of my chair to play the move d4 is you have a massive responsibility again every time you make a move like D4 to understand I'm changing the position in a huge way in a huge way so am I weakening my structure I'm not I'm not 100 sure you know okay Bishop B5 I have absolutely no idea

what that move does so I can take but we've been discussing this throughout the video like just because you can doesn't mean you have to why don't I just bring my queen over here right just sort of bringing my pieces to the side of the board adding pressure just slow and steady positional Improvement just proving things making the position a little bit better so on now the time situation is evened up we are bringing now five pieces to the king side I actually predict the game will probably be over before move 25 like it will

be completely lost for white I think the way we are going to utilize this position for ourselves is we are going to create a big attack I think these Knights I think the queen I think these two people all these pieces are just simply going to overwhelm the white position I don't think my opponent is going to be able to deal with the incoming assault I just don't think like anytime you want to launch a successful attack you need to have two more attacking pieces then they have Defenders and right now we have four attacking

pieces you can hardly argue that there is a defender in the white position I want to play Knight F3 check of course Pawn cannot take will go to the corner but I want to have a queen ready to go for checkmate so why don't we do that I'm not rushing to take because I don't want white to control the file so Queen to G3 and the threat is Knight to F3 and queen H2 mate and I have absolutely no idea how white can possibly stop this I guess white can play King H1 preemptively but I

feel like we have something there too maybe not maybe I'm overvaluing the position yeah maybe King H1 is just the best move and then they live to fight another day I don't know could very well be the case position is not as over as I anticipated and I mean again in a position like this you you need to win you need to not sacrifice something for no reason I am setting up a threat but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's 100 guaranteed King H1 played now if I replaced my queen with an eye that would

be really Splendid I can't do that exactly uh so now a question what if I rotate my knight to F5 for example to try to move my queen out of the way and then another option here is to play Rook to F5 try to trade on my own terms and it's very tough to tell the difference and with three minutes on the clock and time ticking I mean you just kind of have to do something uh I gotta be very careful moving this Knight because it's never too late to blunder a check a pawn with

a check and then lose a couple more pieces so I am going to play this move Knight F5 I'm monitoring all of these pieces to see if at any point they can do anything to me I don't see that they can do anything to me I'm not worried but once they start coming back it's a totally different story I absolutely can start doing things you can start trading and all of a sudden like I don't have enough attacking pieces and I gotta be careful I mean gotta be careful listen it's never over there we go

wow nice find so I don't think I want this Exchange if I take there's also this check yeah my idea was to move out of the way and then land my knight in but now it's probably not going to be possible oh boy okay maybe Knight to D4 Queen is defending my knight lean H5 is a big threat but it's a very light threat to Perry I can even take at that point it's a very tense position I mean I have a big Advantage but there's nothing that wins outright and there's some annoying moves my

opponent can start playing here like Queen to E1 like trying to trade queens and suddenly I don't even know I mean I I can't even tell if I'm if I'm winning in that position I'm certainly doing very well but I don't know if I'm winning anymore and I I don't really want to trade Queens I would probably back up and it's okay to back up to not trade queens in a position like this so I'm winning but it's uh opponent's doing a good job here trying to defend themselves yeah Queen H5 I anticipated this big

threat uh you always look for checks and captures and attacks I don't really want to do that I could trade like now would be a good moment to probably take because now Queen takes Pawn is not possible anymore um but I think it's far more human here to play a move like Ponto G6 attacking the queen forcing it to skedaddle and then still trying to like find some sort of Checkmate like I feel like human beings are just very they can be very tunnel vision e I want to give a mate I I don't wanna

and I think I see one kind of but it's very sophisticated whoa Knight E2 counter-attacking my queen incredible wow I have a very interesting idea here I'm not gonna play it because I feel like no human would see that with a little time I'm just gonna move my queen if I had taken the night my opponent's idea was to come back I had a very interesting idea there I'll show you after the game very very tactical ah they hung their Queen they uh that was a big mistake this is under attack Rooks I'm gonna trade

Bishops and then this is a threat take the pawn and this is easy designs so when my opponent played Knight to E2 I could have played a very interesting idea I could have played I well actually Queen E3 was the best move oh never mind I thought I could have done this I thought I could have played Queen takes D3 which is called a Desperado the point is that I'm going to lose my queen anyway and so I thought take take but then this and it's actually not so clear I had calculated very briefly I

calculated this this and if this then this very tricky stuff um when there was like uh there was some idea there but it was actually pretty good defense I would say overall by my opponent um yeah it wasn't so bad from the opening I thought white had a very pleasant position and then I think here my opponent just went a little bit crazy now again I was deciding between F6 and Bishop E7 I think F6 actually might have been yeah the computer thinks I'm I'm a complete idiot a computer thinks that if I'm gonna do

anything here I should play A4 and try to win this Pawn back by putting something on A5 which is uh yeah that's very sophisticated um but here I was doing all right yes I should have just focused more on the center I decided to break and now an important question should I have taken no a computer thinks this is too dangerous for black it likes the way I played it and then here finally I'm taking and I I have an advantage and yeah it's minus point two but look at look at what happens after this

move minus one and immediately this I mean this little reroute by white cost white Four Points of evaluation so yeah just kind of misunderstanding the position I thought Bishop H4 was a very instructive move uh trying to secure dark squared equity and it's the best move according to the computer so Bishop H4 I think is is is very very nice Bishop B5 was played in the game but you know even if my opponent had played this I would have gone here I would have been threatening some 93 stuff and then you know D4 comes next

and Knight D3 comes next or Knight G3 comes next and black just has a crushing position so um I hope that was a fun episode I think a lot of these games you know like to summarize if you've made it 80 minutes into this thing um sometimes openings are it's good to have opening knowledge but in basically every one of these games I sort of was trying to simulate emulate whatever that I'm on my own in the opening that I'm no longer uh playing from memory and I'm just sort of trying to anticipate what my

opponents want at all times uh uh I'm trying to show you how to balance between winning and losing positions how to play the clock and I think a lot of these different elements combined will contribute to your long-term improvements so if you manage to catch this in the beginning of 2023 set some New Year goals stick to them and uh uh in about a week or two I will be launching my middle games master class with a lot of different examples and a lot of different concepts that people struggle with so do check that out

on Chesley there will be a free sample chapter uh if you're watching this like in middle of 2023 it's definitely out uh so definitely make sure to check it out it's got a lot of the stuff that we covered in this video in those games and in that course and I think it's really a nice road map on how to get better at the middle game as a beginner as an intermediate so and if not you wouldn't want that one there's a lot of different other courses that we have so yeah happy chessing and I'll

see you in the next video get out of here