A Grandmaster Plays a Beginner | Chess Mastery Explained

Hello everyone and welcome. This is Daniel, and I'd like to welcome you to another video that I'm doing specifically and exclusively for YouTube. Now this will be part of a series of videos in which I talk about various instructional aspects of the rise to chess mastery. So there will be a series of videos where I talk about common mistakes that beginners and intermediate players make. And in today's video, what I'm going to do is play a 15 minute chess game against someone in the beginner slash intermediate rating range. And I'm going to talk through my moves very carefully and I'm going to talk through my opponent's moves and point out the mistakes that my opponent is making as well as the things that I'm doing in order to, well hopefully I'm going to win the game, in order to win the game. And afterward I'll do a quick analysis session and extract a couple of lessons that you can apply in your own game. So we're anticipating that this is going to be a pretty one-sided game, but what I'm going to do here is very very carefully and in a detailed fashion I'm going to talk about every one of my moves, the decision making process that's leading me to make it, as well as how I go about identifying mistakes within my opponent's playing. Well how that can teach us to be a better chess player. So without further ado, I am going to seek a game in chess.com's 15 minute plus 10 second increment pool. Now what the 10 second increment means is that every move that you execute, you get 10 seconds added back to your clock and both of us start with 15 minutes on our clock, which will give me plenty of time to, well hopefully, talk through my moves and think about things. Normally on my stream I play blitz chess, which is three minutes per game, and bullet chess, which is one minute per game or lower. Playing a slower game is a new experience for me and here we go, we're playing Niyoyu 25 from Belize, and my opponent opens with 1 e4. I am going to open with 1 e5, which is my main move. It's also the most popular chess move, it's the king's pawn game. He goes knight f3, well I'm going to go knight to c6, just defending the pawn. This is standard fare, and he plays bishop b5, which is the Ray Lopez opening, also called the Spanish game. And the idea of this move is that he's indirectly putting pressure on this pawn on e5. Now you might say, well how, this move has nothing to do with that pawn. Well it does, because this knight on c6 is defending the pawn, and well, white's bishop is potentially threatening to take that knight. So what I'm going to do is play the move a6, and this might seem to merely bring on my fate, because he can take on c6 and then capture my pawn, but after the game I'll talk a little bit about why that's not as effective as it might seem. So he drops his bishop back correctly, and in turn I will simply develop my knight and pressure his pawn on e4. Now once again, once again, I'm not really attacking this pawn on e4, and in short the reason why is because I haven't completed my development. When you haven't completed your development, especially your king development, as you can see I haven't developed my bishop, I haven't developed my king, you want to be very careful about grabbing pawns. Now it's become a moot point because he's brought his knight out and defended that pawn. So I'm a little bit annoyed by the pressure that the bishop is exerting over the knight. So what I'm going to do is go b5 and chase his bishop away, and this will allow me to develop my pieces in a harmonious fashion. Now I'm looking at this bishop from f8. When you're developing a piece, a lot of beginners, they just choose the first square that comes to mind. So they'll develop the bishop here or here, and they won't realize that every development square has its strengths and weaknesses. Now what I'm trying to do is find the most active development square for every piece that I'm developing. When I'm looking at this bishop, I'm asking myself, where can it develop most actively? Where can it control the most central squares? And I'm seeing that that square is definitely c5, because it's also contesting the weakest square on the chessboard, which is f2. That could be a precursor to a potential attack that I could load up with a move such as knight to g4. Now I'm anticipating my opponent will just continue his own development by castling. This is still theory. This is still very much common fare. I've probably had this position before in some of my blitz games, and we'll see what Mr. Nyoyu comes to the table here with. And he does castle as anticipated. Now I'm looking at this bishop on c8, and where I'd really like it to go is g4, because I'd like it to pin the knight to the queen. Pins are a huge asset. All things held equal. I could also do what's called a fianchetto. And a fianchetto is when you place one of your bishops on what's called the long diagonal. There are two long diagonals that crisscross the chessboard. But I'm looking at this development square for the bishop and saying, well, if I put it there, it's going to be blocked by my own knight. I want to open up the diagonal, the other diagonal, for the bishop to put it on g4. Still completely normal. And what my opponent could do here, potentially, is play the move h3 in order to stop my bishop from coming out to g4. This is called prophylaxis, which is a very intimidating-sounding term. And so you realize that all that it really means is the stopping of the threats posed by your opponent. That is literally what prophylaxis means. And a lot of chess terms can sound intimidating. Now, it appears that my opponent has unfortunately disconnected the game. So he's got two minutes to reconnect. And I certainly hope that he does. And internet problems are just the reality of chess in the COVID age, when a lot of tournaments have moved online. And it's just important to have a stable internet connection. And I've certainly lost a lot of games by knocking out the connection to the router with my feet. So it looks like my opponent has luckily reconnected as he continues to ponder his move. So once again, he plays d3. And he does allow my bishop to access this very active development square. Now, notice how I've positioned all of my pieces on optimal squares. This bishop sort of lining itself up with the king. This bishop pinning the queen. He chases my bishop away. Now, a lot of beginners, they have a tendency when they see a capture to go for that capture. So here I can capture the knight. But that would defeat the whole purpose of what this bishop is doing, which is essentially immobilizing that knight on f3. So I'm just going to drop that bishop back to h5. He pins my own knight. He liked that idea. Okay, so this is a very interesting situation that's now arisen. Now, I'm annoyed by the pin, and I'm sure he's annoyed by the pin. The question is, who can get rid of their pin first? Well, I think that that person is going to be me. I'm going to do the same thing he did and chase his bishop away and tempt him into taking my knight. He drops his bishop back. And here what I'm going to do is just say goodbye to that bishop. I'm going to play the move g5, attacking the bishop. The bishop has to drop back to the g3 square. Now, you might be looking at this move g5 and saying, wait a second. You're pushing pawns out on your king side. Aren't you about to castle short? And if you castle short, won't you have a very weak king? Now, the answer to all of those questions is undoubtedly yes, as my opponent plays a bit of an enigmatic move. But after the game, I'll unpack that a little bit further and explain why this is in fact justified. In many cases, the better you become at chess, the better you also become at strategically violating opening principles. Now, as we can see, my opponent has just left his bishop on h4. So I'm just going to grab that guy. And he's also not gotten rid of the pin. So in parallel, I'm going to think about what I've gained with this capture. First, I've gained a bishop, and that's a pretty big gain. But I've also gained access to this g file. And when you're thinking about your opponent's king, you want to think about avenues to access that king. Avenues just mean diagonals and files that you could occupy, arteries, paths that eventually could lead you into an attack against the king. So he's played knight d5. First question I ask myself, is he threatening anything? It might look like he's threatening my knight, but that knight is securely fastened. That's some airplane talk. It's securely defended by the queen. And so I can proceed with my main plan. Now, what is my main plan? Well, can I exploit the fact that my bishop is pinning his queen? I'm looking at this knight on f3 and asking myself, can I apply pressure on that knight? Because remember, this knight cannot move. If this knight moves, he's going to lose his queen. So what I'm going to do is play the move knight to d4. This has two purposes. First of all, I'm attacking his queen. Second of all, I'm putting pressure on his knight. Am I attacking his knight? Not really. Because if I capture his knight with either one of my pieces, he's just going to take back with a pawn. But in chess, it's very important to evaluate transformations. Whenever a piece has been captured with a pawn, you want to look at the fallout. And as he takes my knight, I'm going to recapture his. And the fallout is going to be that he's opened up that g file. First of all, I've taken his bishop, so now I can put my rook on g8. And once his pawn leaves g2, well, my rook is going to have a direct avenue toward my opponent's king. And that's ladies and gentlemen, a precursor to checkmate. So let's take this guy. Knight takes f3 check. Again, I'm not trying to win his piece. I'm trying to open up an avenue toward his king, which I'm now going to occupy with my rook. This is a check. He's moved his king to h1, and now it's time to deliver a series of crushing blows. Now what form are those crushing blows going to take? Well, I'm looking at this f3 pawn. The fastest way to evaluate whether or not you can take a pawn is by counting the number of attackers and defenders. If a pawn is being attacked, or any piece for that matter, is being attacked more times than it is being defended, you may take that piece or pawn in the absence of any other extenuating or indirect defenses. If a piece or a pawn is being protected the same number of times that it's being attacked, you usually cannot take that piece because you're going to run out of attackers. That's just sort of there is some math behind it. Here we have two attackers and only one defender, so I'm taking that pawn with my bishop. This has several effects. First of all, ladies and gentlemen, I'm winning that queen. This is a fork. Some people think that forks can only happen with knights. Not true. Forks can be delivered by any piece. Yes, even the king can deliver a fork. A fork is just a specialized way of saying an attack against two pieces at once. It's also a double attack. That's the more generalized expression. I think forks have a connotation as being knight forks, but this is a bishop fork. I'm attacking his king, and I'm attacking his queen. Unfortunately, by the rules of chess, he's got to move his king, or he's got to give up his queen for the bishop. Now it turns out that I'm not even looking for his queen here. I'm looking for his king. A very important thing to do is that there's this famous expression, when you see a good move, look for a better one. You really do have to do that. When you're attacking, it's very easy to get waylaid by the promise of taking a piece or taking even a queen, but you need to be always asking yourself, well, can I do something more? In this case, can I deliver checkmate? He has decided to take the bishop. I'm going to take the queen with check, but again, it's not about the extra queen. It's about the fact that white's king is cornered. I have the rook and the queen in the attack, and I have a checkmate in this position. And that checkmate is to place the queen onto g2. His king has no squares, and the rook is defending the queen. That's why it was so important to put the rook on g8. So this was a short game, but it was a good one. And let me just very quickly walk through some of the topical moments in this game and explain some of the rationale behind some of the moves here that I made. Now, let me call up this game in a separate window. Now I played e4, e5. You played the Spanish game. This was the first very instructive moment. He could have taken the knight, and he could have taken the pawn. But several centuries ago, a chess player by the name of Paul Morphy—many of you probably have heard that name, one of the greatest chess players of the 19th century, originally from New Orleans—I believe that he was the first one to come up with this idea, to discover that, in fact, black can play the move a6 and seemingly give up this pawn. Now when you're thinking about chess tactics and finding good moves, one thing that you always have to do is detect undefended pieces. An undefended piece is just a piece that's not being protected by any other pieces or pawns. And by the way, when I say the word piece, I'm also including—pawns are pieces in my eye. So everything that relates to pieces also relates to pawns. They're basically one unit. So I'm looking at this knight on e5 and this pawn on e4, and both of those are undefended, which means that if I attack both of those at the same time, well, one of them is going to have to move, probably the knight, and then I'm going to be able to take the other one, which is the pawn. So here I'd encourage you to pause the video. Many of you will know this move, but those of you who don't have a great chance to practice some tactical vision. Well, the move is actually queen to d4, bringing the queen out early, but it's justified. Attacking the knight, attacking the pawn. This is another fork. The knight has to move back, and not only do I take the pawn back, but I take it back with interest because I'm checking the king, and the king is going to have to make a move, either by blocking with the queen—now the king has to move out—or the king has to move in this position to f1. Now, it's not a good idea to move your king out like this in the opening, because obviously we want a castle. Now the rook on h1 is hemmed in, and well, this king is pretty weak. So that is the reason why a6 is justified. Now, Bxc6 is still possible. That's called the exchange variation, but usually white doesn't follow up by taking the pawn. Now, the next couple of moves were very much justified by both sides. We're developing our pieces. He castles. I go d6 to open up the diagonal. He goes d3 and follows suit, and I think that really the critical moment—well, there were two. First of all, he plays the move Bg5. Now, he could have done the same thing that I did to him in playing g4, and I think that he probably should have done that, because once I drop my bishop back, he can breathe a little bit easier, and perhaps now he can play Bg5. And the funny thing that happens here is that I can't do the same thing, because well, my pawn is being obstructed by the bishop, so he keeps the pin for the time being. Now, instead of this, my opponent played Bg5, and I think really his pivotal mistake, the first of two, was to play Bh4. What I think he should have done is actually taken my knight, and then noticed that this knight on c6 is undefended, and this rook on a8 is also, guess what, undefended. Can he attack both at the same time? Not quite, but what he can do is play the move Bd5, skewering the knight to the rook. And in this position, I was planning to play Nd4, sacrificing the rook for a very strong attack. I won't delve into these complications in this video, because they're pretty complicated. I think this sacrifice would be justified, and in future videos, I will talk about the art of sacrificing properly, so stay tuned. But something like this, or maybe Nd5 in this position, and hitting the queen, would have been something that kept a very much reasonable position for my opponent. Instead of this, he drops his bishop back, and now, if he drops his bishop back further, I have the very unpleasant move Nd4. Again, applying pressure on the knight, and I'm going to cripple his pawn structure on the next move by taking that knight with either the bishop or the knight. Instead, my opponent made a big mistake by going Qe2. And I don't know exactly what explained this, sometimes you want to be very very careful whenever you meet an unexpected move, especially if you're a beginner out there. Just the range of chess moves that you've seen before is limited. So a move like g5 might have caught him off guard, and that mechanism in his brain that is responsible for detecting threats, that might have failed. So the lesson here is that when you meet an unexpected move, take some time, slow down, and try to understand what your opponent's threat is. And another way to pose that question is, if it were my opponent's move again, what move would he play? And by framing it that way, you're often able to kind of tell your brain to look for the right kind of things. And once he gave up the bishop, the rest is very simple. Nxd4, hitting the queen, putting pressure on the knight, taking with the queen, taking here, and finally realizing that the g-file has been open, giving a check. Had he gone to h2, by the way, I would have given him another check, driving his king back, and then I would have done the same thing I did during the game, taking on f3, and then checkmating him in a couple of moves. Now he played Kh1, I take on f3 with the bishop. Again, I'm not doing this in order to win the queen, although that's kind of a nice byproduct. I'm doing this in order to deliver the final blow to the king. Check, Qg2. You could have put three queens here, on all of these squares I highlighted, and read four queens. And this would have still been checkmate. Checkmate transcends everything in chess. So first and foremost, you should be looking for the safety, looking out for the safety of your king, and making sure that none of the moves that you make permanently compromise the safety of that king. So this was a very, very, very good game. I thank Ni Yoyu for being a good sport, for reconnecting. It was short, and I'll definitely be doing this in the future, maybe with some higher rated opponents, but hopefully you found this little video instructive. Once again, I'll be coming out in the near future with another series of videos on common mistakes that beginners and intermediate players make. And I'll be basing that, of course, on my own tournament experience, and I'll be also doing more of these YouTube specific videos where I play games and talk them through. Well, that's it. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you found this video instructive. I would love to hear from you in the comments below, and I'll be seeing you again very shortly with another video. Thank you.