Two Knights Variation How to CRUSH the Caro Kann with Traps

Kerrigan defense is preached by some internet influencers. I won't mention them by name, but if you want to be Gotham chest subscribers Here's how you can do it I recommend that you use the two knights game where you bring both of your knights into play quickly now There is a little but important difference compared to the main line in the main line You play pawn to d4 and in the line that I recommend you go knight to f3 And although they share a lot of things in common in reality having this extra piece into play Provides lots of interesting tricky aggressive opportunities that we're gonna talk about today. And in fact, it's really well-rounded system He'll be covered no matter what black does and in all of these lines, you'll have a nice attacking position Now the most played move by far is pawn takes e4 People who see this system for the first time will often push the pawn forward hoping to drive your knight away Which is actually an inferior option Brawls often bring their bishop out to g4 right here and we're gonna talk about that as well Anyway, let's begin with the most common move pawn takes e4 you recapture and now in most cases they go knight f6 Known as the tartar cover variation. They expect you to take they're going to recapture and that leads to quite a dry position Which black is aiming for instead? I recommend that you play a much trickier move queen e2 which provides defense to this knight and also creates certain tactical opportunities For example, if black realizes that you are in fact going to take on f6 on the next move and after that Black can't recapture with the e-pawn as they intended because of this pin So they'll have to recapture with the g-pawn which a little bit creates a massive pawn structure And many of your opponents will not be comfortable playing that Now if let's say your opponent wants to guard this knight and play knight to d7 Which is a standard move for the caracan generally speaking they fall for a relatively well-known trap knight d6 a pretty sneaky and beautiful Checkmate because the pawn is pinned now, of course in most cases, they're not gonna fall for this trap But anyway, we have a lot of interesting attacking opportunities in most cases They're gonna take on e4 Now you recapture with the queen and now they have a little bit of a problem of how to bring their pieces into play actively For example, they can't develop this push up normally because you took away all these squares Now they'll usually play knight d7 aiming for knight f6 Winning a tempo attacking your queen to this you bring the bishop out and after knight f6 I recommend that you just drop the queen back which sets a very subtle trap Now it looks like you just play normal developing move but in reality if they play the most common of bishop g4 which aims to pin the Knight and after that they want to play e6 and finish their typical caracan pawn structure to this you play a bishop takes f7 That's a little bit nice tactics that fundamentally wins the game It's a temporary bishop sacrifice But now you follow up with this double attack and on the next move you regain your sacrificed piece with interest Now this situation you're up a pawn their king is open and if they're careless They can even be checkmated right on the next move. But either way you already achieved a winning position Apart from developing their knight They may also play bishop f5 by analogy with the main line of the caracan where it is actually considered a very good move Strangely enough against the two knights game. It usually backfires pretty badly Now you go knight g3 attacking the bishop as it drops back Then continue with pawn h4 aiming to push the pawn forward and to capture the bishop Therefore they usually move their own pawn providing the escape square But now you start this quick attack with knight to e5 aiming to grab the bishop They cannot really allow this to happen because after that they'll have to open up their king and ruin their pawn structure That's why they usually bring their bishop back But now you follow up with a strange looking move queen h5 you create sort of However, it's not very easy for black to defend against it because what can they really do? And in most cases they play this awkward move pawn g6 if instead they try queen d5 It's actually a losing error because then you play bishop c4 and you just add even more firepower to your attack Now they're completely defenseless. They're gonna be checkmated or lose a lot of material So let's take it back in most cases. They play g6 Although they guarded the absolute square, but now their bishop on h7 is completely out of game You have another beautiful follow-up all of a sudden you don't move your queen out of this attack But instead you play bishop c4 quite an interesting move You let them grab your queen because if they do so they're going to be checkmated after bishop takes f7 And even if they're smart enough to notice this and to cover you then bring your knight all the way back to e2 your queen I mean and now your queen is standing here really well But also thanks to this in-between move bishop c4 your bishop is also placed to an active square Now there is one more advantage to this system Virtually any normal looking move of black is losing the game on the spot if they play any casual Developing move if they bring their minor pieces out Anyhow, like all of that fails to the same tactics knight takes f7. Notice that we've got a lot of pieces aiming towards This direction and we're just going to make use of this now knight takes f7 blows up their defense We also hit the queen on rook. Therefore they need to take it. But now queen takes e6 Check thanks to our bishop. We can execute this quick and nice checkmate in general What I like about the system of play is that although you don't aim for a specific opening trap There are just so many traps along the way that your opponent is highly likely to get in at least one of them But even if he doesn't, you know, you still end up with a good position All right. Now we covered knight f6 we cover bishop f5 How about them trying knight to d7 another standard caracan defense move where they prepare to develop this knight on f6 With the intents to recapture. So if you're gonna take with your knight, they're gonna recapture with this time from d7 So that's their way of calculating lines where we have something special prepared here just as well As always we bring the bishop to c4 After they play knight f6 we don't take because that only makes their life easier instead We play knight to g5 aiming to checkmate them on the next move Therefore they have to cover but then you play queen e2 and actually we have seen this pattern in the previous variation just as well We have a number of pieces aiming towards this Square e6 or f7 and if they're careless if they play any defensive move like bishop e7 or even worse h6 No matter what really you're gonna sacronize right here And that's exactly the same attacking pattern that we've seen before king takes queen takes e6 Now if the king comes back, there's just queen to f7 checkmate on the next move Thanks to our bishop supporting the queen so the king has to go forward But of course it's pretty easy for you to finish the game right after that queen f7 and it can be something like this Finishing the game with a fancy pawn move pawn d3 mate. You may be thinking Igor. It can't be all that bad There must be a way for black to just play a normal chess game And indeed they just have to be very careful as I said, they can't bring their bishop out or play pawn h6 They have to really defend this square and the way to do is is to play knight to b6 Which opens up this bishop that currently guards the pawn e6 plus they put some pressure to your bishop Even though the bishop is already defended. So it's not a big problem Now, how do you develop your attack right here? Well, we use the fact that the knight from d7 no longer guards this square and we can jump there right away And there is no way for them currently to guard this pawn f7 Therefore they have to be really resourceful because if they just allow you to take this pawn Forking their queen and rook they're going to collapse and crumble away very soon So they have to find the only way that just loses a pawn with no other dreadful consequences So if they're smart enough to find that the line is knight takes c4 And after we recapture the key move for black is queen to d5 and they manage to trade off queens because their queen is attacking our knight So we have to do that. So if they find this maneuver, they stay in the game. They don't lose immediately Nevertheless even in this case at least we grab a pawn and we attack the rook so still we end up with an advantageous endgame So after rook g8, perhaps the easiest is just to move this knight away It's just to be sure it's not trapped there and you end up with this Advantageous endgame with an extra pawn because we grab this pawn on f7 plus he can't castle kingside because the rook has moved now Of course for many strong players This would be a dream come true position having an extra pawn and you know Carlsen would consider this technically winning for white Of course, I understand that for many players It still remains to be pretty tricky on how to play such positions when there is no straightforward attack available And that's not the subject of today's video So if you're curious how to play these type of positions I recommend that you check out my free masterclass where I share with you like Fundamental strategic ideas that help you to play this position as well as any other position when there is no straightforward attack of opponent's king By now we covered black taking this pawn on e4 and after that strangely enough You have these three minor pieces that we can often bring to the game quite quickly Developing all kinds of tricky attacking opportunities if black plays one careless move Now let's move it back and let's move on to the next option of black Which is pawn to d4 at first looks like a very tempting opportunity to push the pawn forward grab more space attack this knight Hoping to push it back looks like a super good move for black to play The reality is the opposite is probably one of the worst attempts of black to respond to the two knights game Because after knight to e2 this pawn on d4 rather becomes a liability not an asset We are already attacking it twice and black needs to defend it somehow and it's not easy Fundamentally, they just stretch their position too much with the rest of their pieces being undeveloped And they just can't provide enough support to this pawn. Like one of the common blunders would be to play pawn e5 Yeah, that sure enough does defend this pawn on d4, but that just blunders the other one on e5. Therefore that's not helpful They have to play the second move of this pawn on the c-file which loses the tempo But they have to do it just to guard this pawn on d4, but then you just keep attacking it Usually they defend it and after that you exchange and then you follow up with queen a4 That's the useful move to remember you pin the knight and you also add one more attack to this pawn on d4 and now you're attacking it three times with your both knights and queen and After this black already can no longer hold on to this pawn. They're going to simply lose it again It's just like we said before the pawn is too far away from the rest of their army That's why it's not helpful for black to have it there In most cases they follow up with yet another error. They play pawn e5 to guard this pawn on d4 However, they miss the fact that your queen not only attacks this pawn, but also pins the knight Therefore you can actually capture this pawn for nothing Moreover, you're now attacking this knight on c6 and after they defend it Usually you just trade or knight right here then grab the other pawn on d4 Now if they want to get at least one of their pawns back They'll have to keep trading everything and now you can also throw the bishop out attack the king and at the end of the day You're up a pawn plus their king is exposed. You're already attacking it You're gonna castle play a rook e1 and fundamentally you're having a winning game Now let's talk about the most stubborn move played by pros bishop g4 Which aims to pin your knight and after that they wish to complete their central pawn chain by playing pawn e6 In most cases white goes pawn h3 which leads to like very complicated theoretical positions I recommend that you instead play bishop e2 which is sort of a standard reaction to them trying to pin your knight But in this case we have something completely different in mind. Actually. It's not a defensive move Now one of the questions you may have is what if they play pawn d4 attacking your knight? Well, actually let this be a puzzle of the day It is white to play and if you can't find a good move for white, please write it down in comments below Now in most cases they play e6 because that was their plan to bring the bishop out and after that to have this pyramid of pawns Now you're playing pawn d4 They develop attacking your pawn You push the pawn to e5 knight to d7 and they're very close to reaching their kind of dream come true french Sort of position where they have this pawn chain that their bishop is active on g4 not passive on c8 However, we have here something to upset them. It's the move knight to g5 So instead of trading off potentially his bishop for your knight You want to keep this knight alive because after this they need to trade bishops And actually i've played this kind of positions as black is for some time I've been playing the hollow hunting hand defense and I know that it's very difficult to deal with this knight like strangely enough It's not easy to push it away because there is always some queen h5 thing or knight takes e6 tactics And somehow it has a number of attacking opportunities here. For instance, if they go bishop e7 Trying to just naturally push this knight away. You don't move back. You play queen h5 aiming for this checkmate Now it may feel like the easiest is just to trade knight off But now after bishop g5 you keep attacking after that You just castle kingside or possibly even queenside and having these two active pieces against their king Is somewhat unpleasant and actually you have a great position here Really if they don't take the knight then they have to do something to stop your queen from taking there They go g6 thinking to push it away. You go forward queen h6 Now you also cut off this square making it impossible for them to castle And maybe in some lines you're even willing to grab this pawn So if they try bishop f8 attacking your queen You bring the queen back to h3 Now they usually play bishop g7 trying to kind of fill these holes on the kingside Then you can just castle and again they're in trouble. They still cannot castle this time if they do so It's going to fail to this checkmate There is always something that bothers black if instead they go h6 Which I believe is the most played move then it fails once again to these tactics knight takes c6 It's not even a sacrifice because you get three pawns for your knight So you attack the king after this you grab the third pawn still attacking the king And let's say they do something you do not want to trade off queens because you want to attack his king so you just slide back and now you have three pawns for a knight, which is Like considered to be a material balance But in reality their position is completely destroyed your king is exposed You threaten to play e5 with a double attack Even if they manage to prevent this somehow You're just gonna push the other pawn forward f4 f5 and then you know Keep pushing one of them forward and it's gonna completely press black and win the game quickly if they ever gonna castle You know, it will always fail to this bishop takes h6 tactics Let alone pawn h6 you can see that there's just way too much for black to handle here Hopefully now you know how to deal with the caracan defense If you want to know my favorite opening line against the sicilian defense It was even picked up by Carson check out this video right here where I cover it And if you want to level up your chess overall beyond opening knowledge and moves Then check out these free masterclass that levels up your position understanding either way. Have a great day