Grandmaster Explains Chess Strategy In 12 Minutes [SECRET Tips]

What's up guys, today we'll talk about exchanges, when it is good to trade material, how to win material, how to avoid losing material, and how to calculate all that. And if that sounds complicated, worry not, I'll explain to you everything in simple terms. I'm Grandmaster Igor Smirnov and let's go ahead and get started. All right, let's start from the foundational things and after that we'll gradually go to more advanced ideas and as well as common errors and misconceptions. We're heading to the Lichess database of chess games because here we can see evaluation from a computer. And now let me show you something interesting. It feels like Stockfish is so advanced that we can never comprehend how it calculates and analyzes positions. However, fundamentally and first and foremost, it simply evaluates the material balance. For example, let me give up a pawn for White and let's see what computer is going to tell us about that. So I'll just go for this quickest way to give up a pawn, I'll play some random move for White, letting Black capture this pawn. Now what do you think about this? What's going to be the Stockfish evaluation of this position? And if you think that is something super complicated, it's not because we know that in chess we measure the value of pieces in pawns, so we say that a knight or bishop is worth approximately three pawns and therefore a pawn is worth, well, one pawn. Therefore, if we lose a pawn, the evaluation should be minus one. Let's try it out. And you can see that it's approximately, all right, right now it becomes exactly minus one. Like, in reality, Stockfish, of course, also evaluates activity of pieces, king safety, and therefore it comes to that, you know, conclusion at the end of that. But nevertheless, right now it shows us exactly minus one, just telling us that Black is one pawn up. All right, now let's go into something slightly more complicated. Let's say I'm initially playing normal moves, but at this point, what if I give up a knight right here and take on e5, allowing Black to recapture? What's going to happen after that? What do you think will be the evaluation of Stockfish? Again, for most people that would seem like a mystery, but you can see that initially it simply evaluates material. If we assume that a knight is worth three pawns and we're getting it in exchange for a pawn, therefore one pawn, it's minus three plus one, so it will be minus two as a result of this exchange if I do play knight takes e5. Now let's check this out. All right, it shows minus 2.2, so it is around that. As I mentioned earlier, it also evaluates a few other factors, but fundamentally it is somewhere around minus two. You can see how computer evaluates it now because it's minus two exactly. What if I find a way to give up this rook? I mean, I hope that you got the point, but let me do that just for the purpose of illustration. I'll play some weird moves just so that I can give up a rook. And I can take, or no, for just the sake of clarity, let me just give it up. So what do you think will be the evaluation of this position? We know that a rook is worth approximately five pawns, so the evaluation should be somewhere around minus five. So let's check this out. It's around that. Like again, it evaluates some other factors as well, but it's around minus five. So now you can already see that we can tap into the superpower of Stockfish and you can evaluate positions similarly. Just to finalize with the value of pieces, the value of a queen is nine pawns and the value of a king is infinite, because if you lose your king, if you're checkmated, that is game over. Now moving on, how do you win material? How do you get advantage and win the game? Well, when you're dealing with beginner level opponents, quite often they will blunder pieces and pawns. For example, here Bishop c5 is actually a popular move among beginners. Well, it just allows you to grab this pawn e5, then to play d4 and have a completely dominant position. Therefore, it's pretty easy when you deal with beginners. But how about more intermediate and advanced level players? How can you win material then? Well, there are just a few ways of doing so. Like one of them could be, for example, what if you want to get this knight? How can you do that? Like one way is to steal your opponent's dog and then to blackmail him and offer him to trade it for a knight. If for some reason that method does not sound appealing, then the other solution is using chess tactics. For example, if we go into this variation, you can go for c3 and as he goes Nf6 attacking the pawn, you pretend like you blundered it and after he happily grabs the knight, he is failing for this double attack tactics. Therefore, tactics is one of the ways to grab material and achieve a winning position even against stronger opponents. The second way of winning material even against advanced opponents, which is probably the most common way, is called an attack. For instance, in this position, what do you think is the best move for white? Most players would just play something like d3 or castle, but the best move is knight to g5. And now black has no way of covering the square and they would have to give up some of their material, which will give you a winning advantage. Therefore, when you attack, you force your opponent to lose material even if he understands the risk, but there is nothing he can do about that. In the next example, it is black to play. The question is, can black play pawn to e5? Is that a good idea or not? Are we gonna win material or lose material? What do you think about that? Well, there is another pretty well-known idea about such positions that allows you to determine that. It is said that we simply need to compare the quantity of attackers and defenders of that square. Therefore, if we play pawn to e5, for example, then we need to count how many of the white's pawns and pieces are controlling that square. And we've got 3, knight, bishop and a pawn. Versus, we've got a pawn and a knight from the black side. We've got 3 against 2 and therefore, at first, it looks like playing e5 is not possible because white outnumbers black. However, in reality, we also need to take into account that the knight is pinned and, in fact, cannot move. And if white tries to actually go for this trade, at some point, they'll realize that, oops, this knight actually cannot move and they have just lost this bishop on f4 against a pawn. Therefore, they lost minus 2 points of material plus black keeps attacking, making black's position totally winning. Here is another very common opening situation. Black has just played Bg4, hitting the queen on d1. What would you do if you're white? Now, in most cases, players simply play something like pawn to 3 or maybe knight to f3. However, it is not the only option available. There is also a very common counter-strike, which is Bxf6 and by doing so, you also counter their queen on d8. However, of course, the whole variation seems to be very intricate because you take on f6, he takes maybe here, you take there, he takes somewhere else and the variation looks very complicated. How do you determine if this whole line is good for you or not good? Well, there is a rule of thumb, which states that in Hunger Games, it's better to be first. If you face those situations where you start capturing something and your opponent does the same, then usually, if you start this process, then you gain the upper hand. So let's try it out here. If you grab the knight here on f6, now black can capture here, but in this case, that would be a trade of Bxf6, which is equal, but initially, you grab the knight, so you'll be up a piece. So what if they take the queen? That will be QxQ, you're still up a knight, which you grab right here on f6. And therefore, if we keep capturing bishops right here, KxRx, that's still a bishop for a bishop, that is equal. Therefore, at the end of the day, we'll still have that extra knight that we snatched on f6 and now you reached this winning endgame position. Here is another interesting situation. It was White to play and White played Rf3, attacking this queen. Now, at this point, black realized that it's not that easy for the queen to move away because in that case, White would be able to capture this undefended knight on h6. And therefore, black decided to play Rg8 and offer this trade of queens. Now, what do you think about this? Is this a good idea or not such a good one? Well, obviously, we need to calculate it through, but we already know that rule of thumb, that in the Hunger Games, it's better to be first, right? Therefore, if we start initiating this trade, let's say White captures right here. Now, White is kind of grabbing a rook, therefore, if we just trade QfQ, that is equal, White will be up a rook. Therefore, black has to try to grab something as well. And currently, the material balance is equal, RfR, but it is White to play and instead of capturing here straight away, they can play this in-between move and then, at the end of the day, they're up a rook. Therefore, that was totally bad for black. Is there any way out for black or is he just losing the game? Well, fundamentally, black used a correct idea. Very often, even if you blundered, instead of just feeling discouraged about that and losing the game, it's better to recollect that ancient wisdom that offense is the best defense and ask yourself, can you counterattack? You'll be surprised to how many counterattacking moves you can find if you start getting into the habit of asking yourself that question, can I counterattack? So, he is attacking your queen and therefore, you also need to counterattack his queen. And the way to do that is going to be Nf5. And in this case, it's not easy for white to get something significant for their queen and also, this knight not only attacks the queen, but it also guards your own queen, which is important. For example, if he takes right here, we can now just recapture and at the end of the day, we have equal material, two minor pieces versus two minor pieces and rooks. Or if we take it back, if initially, white just grabs the queen, you also take the queen and again, the material balance remains to be equal. There is also one common misconception that I would like to address here, because if you understand it, you'll play endgames better than pretty much all of your opponents. We said before that the value of a king is infinite, but there is an important caveat here. When we're talking about an opening and a middle game phase, in those phases, your king indeed needs to hide somewhere in the corner of the board and do nothing but just be defended. And in that case, yeah, we say that the value of the king is infinite. However, when it comes to an endgame, the situation changes drastically. In an endgame, especially after queens come off the board, your king becomes an active piece, just as your other pieces and the value of your king becomes approximately equal to the value of a knight. Now, how do we come up with that conclusion? Well, generally, how do we decide which piece is stronger? We calculate how many squares can it control and when it comes to a knight, it can control eight squares. I'm trying hard to draw all these arrows, but it's eight. And the same is true for a king. Like, your king controls eight squares all around the king himself. And that just goes to show you that it is indeed as strong as a knight. And therefore, in an endgame, you need to apply all the same principles that you apply for a knight, you need to apply them for your king. For example, if you need to centralize a knight, you need to centralize your king just as well. And you're kind of like having two pieces in the game instead of one. And just like in an opening, that would give you an edge, that gives you an edge in an endgame just as well. And here, although initially, the situation looks nearly symmetric and drawish, here White wins the game just because he's got a more active king. For example, Black goes there and White would love to go here, but the knight guards that, so we can go 9d5, offer the straight, attack the pawn, which forces Black to allow our king to go even further. And now, even though Black was on time to guard this pawn, thanks to such an active king, we will still win the game easily. We'll play something like b4 and then go Kb7, go after these pawns, we'll win them and we'll promote our own pawn, something like this. Therefore, in an endgame, the value of a king is approximately equal to a knight or three pawns. If that sounds a little complicated, then don't worry, because remember, your goal is just to understand chess strategy a little bit better than your opponents, who know very little about it altogether. Well, chess is a strategic game and understanding these things is the main foundational element to bringing you to the intermediate and advanced level in chess. Now, of course, I couldn't cover everything within this one YouTube video. If you enjoy this subject and want to dive deeper, I've got a standalone course called Level Up Your Chess, where I included all the foundational knowledge about chess strategy, opening, middle game, endgame, how to train effectively, how I play, and I commented live, so that you can see exactly how I find proper moves. And if you are interested, you can get it by clicking the link somewhere on the screen or down below in the description. Either way, have a great rest of the day and I'll talk to you soon.