Original subtitles

this is going to be a video about chess

openings and how you should approach

them it does not matter what your level

is

you will absolutely learn something from

this video if you're beginner

intermediate or advanced i've split it

into three parts

in the first part we'll talk about

different openings like theoretical and

setup based ones

and what things like theory and novelty

mean in the second part we are going to

talk about

databases how do you use an openings

database how do you break down the

branches how do you prepare for

opponents and so on

and in the third part we're gonna look

at how to analyze your own games

you can feel free to jump around i've

put timestamps on the video player

let's go okay what is the opening

in the opening stage of the game we

obviously develop our pieces and we give

the uni

the the game its unique flair it means

that sometimes we already on the first

move decide are we playing the king's

pawn or the queen's pawn

theory in openings is a position that's

already been explored by grandmasters by

computers it's in a database somewhere

it is recorded

a novelty then is the first move out of

theory novelties can be good and bad if

you hang a queen

it's bad make a new move new idea could

be good and then people start to kind of

flock in that direction

the opening for many beginners let's say

after e4 and then black you know plays

e5

it's it's it's a time to just develop

your pieces safely

and make sure that everybody's getting a

turn and that's good that is a very good

way to start

learning chess to keep your pieces safe

follow the rules

but then you need to start realizing

that chess is a competitive game i mean

for some it's war

you know um and you you're already

making decisions

immediately move by move of what your

opponent is doing so for example

against e5 we can play very traditional

knight f3

knight c6 both targeting this pawn and

then play four knights

right and then develop our bishop

because this is what the golden rules of

chess say

two knights two bishops fight for the

center but you can also

play something like f4 which is called

the king's gambit and a gambit in chess

is when you sacrifice a pawn or two in

the beginning

and you get all your pieces out faster

and you get better control of the center

because that's where the game flows

through

this weakens the king but now black has

doubled pawns and you're gonna get two

pawns in the center

and a gambit there's many types of

gambits can throw your opponent off

because they're not very popular

right you also can play one of my

favorites the vienna which is

non-traditional

this is not something that people learn

and then there's like things like

cheesing you know like going for the

scholars mate the wayward queen attack

and these are things that you have to

know what to do against

the difference in openings between

theory and setup is that in a theory

based opening when you play e4

you cannot play the same way against

everything that black does

what does that mean so if black plays a

sicilian defense for example

you can't really play the same way as

you would against the the

kara khan like the kara khan defense

right so you've gotta know

different things against different

things that's

the best way to put it but a setup based

opening is like for example the london

where after d4 it really doesn't matter

what black plays

as long as they don't target this pawn

with like you know a wing attack

they play d5 you'll play bishop to f4

they play knight f6 you'll play e3

and you'll go for a setup that pretty

much

always resembles this

i'll say this a little pyramid structure

the two knights like this

the bishop and this bishop black has a

lot of different things that they can do

and you'll kind of always go for this

and it's good because it's easy to learn

as a beginner you don't really need to

think about

what black is doing but then you're not

really always putting pressure on black

right if that makes sense like

what i always tell london players is

that if they're gonna play d4

they gotta they gotta look what is black

doing knight f6 bishop f4

they go for g6 now the g6 lines here

are called king's indian positions when

the bishop goes to g7

and d6 and castles right that's called

the king's indian

there are ways for london players to mix

it up to not go the same way

and maybe put their knight out here

remember last time they put the knight

on d2

and then i'm going to put my queen there

and castle the other way which is

non-standard

but you're observing what your opponent

is doing on a move by move basis

and then you are adapting to it kind of

the advanced beginners and intermediate

players need to start understanding that

they can't just pre-move the opening

it's it's also about what the opponent

is doing they need weapons they need a

way to challenge each thing that their

opponent plays

okay and you could study openings in

videos books

courses i have many openings courses and

i get this question all the time

how do i study like what do i do how do

i look at databases how do i know what's

the best thing

well i mean hopefully that was a pretty

good introduction because uh we are

about to jump in

to uh to database study okay

i've pulled up the chess.com database

now i personally

at the master level have always used the

program called chess base right

chess base is very expensive uh it's the

most extensive program

uh that uh that exists uh for for like

master level players

and it's not very pretty it looks like

this this is chess base

um it's got all these things down here

and i will show you how to read them in

a second

um now if you want to use chess.com and

obviously leaches has their own database

and they oftentimes compile what's known

as master games and even like

amateur games games that are 1600 1800

2000 rating

of course it's better to learn from

masters right so when we look at the

database we see the first move second

move

so let's play e4 and then we see

sicilian has been played

half a million times and most databases

will have some sort of percentages

you know 34 black wins 37

white wins 29 uh is a draw

you know the further you go down let's

say we go for a vienna and then we go

for a vienna gambit

look how little games are remaining

right because we've gone deeper and

deeper

and the way you study this is you really

should choose the one that's

played the most or second most and is

significant i mean if a move has been

played two times in a position that's

been reached

1400 times it's probably not the best

move

but you would combine this with a

computer evaluation which i will show

you all

afterward now chess base is a little bit

more extensive and as i said leaches has

one of their own

but you got to be careful because things

that are being played a lot at 15

1600 level will not always be played a

lot

at the advanced level so if we look at

one of eric rosen's favorite openings

the stafford gambit look how

few games this gets featured in right

that's because the truth is

masters kind of know how to deal with it

a little bit better at least in longer

games

in blitz and and blitzen bullet not not

really i mean you've seen eric's streams

uh he beats many many good players but

in classical the stafford gambit at

master level

is rarely seen but you you at home

should be doing things

practically just because grandmasters

don't play this in the world

championship doesn't mean it won't work

for you

so always remember that simple fact now

for the next portion of this database

study

um i was gonna pull up some subscribers

who volunteered to be in this video and

i'm doing this for a reason because i

want to show you

the power of playing things that are not

considered

the top move like the second most

popular move for example so

here's an example i pulled up steven0396

his most popular move that he plays

according to chess.com explorer feature

is the move e4 he plays it a lot

and he gets e5 450 times

then he plays knight f3 and then knight

c6 is the most popular

but look at how many times he's faced

the stafford gambit knight f6

knight e5 and knight c6 just 20 games

of how many games of e4 e5 450

right so it shows you the power of

taking

someone out of what they're comfortable

in into a position

that they might not know so it's good to

play these things that are non-standard

right because

if we just follow his most popular move

every single time

looks like he plays the scotch i'll give

you another example in the scotch

take take there's a tricky move here

queen h4

how many times has he faced it once

queen h4 is not a great move according

to computer

but it's a very tricky move in the

scotch and he's only faced it

one time ever according to his database

right and he blundered

he actually blundered queen takes e4

check which is the whole point

so it shows you the value right of

playing these tricks

and if we go to the masters database

let's let's go back to this master's

database and pull up that same position

all right just to show you

kind of the effect look at queen h4 here

it's the fifth most popular move

according to the masters database right

it does get played

it does get played according to the

masters database but this gentleman had

never faced it ever before which is

quite interesting

and if you play the kara khan against e4

um then c6

right how many games of c6 has he had

fifth most 41 out of like

700 right so again kara khan is a is a

great thing that i recommend for many

players against e4 rather than just

playing standard stuff with e5

that's in my opinion what i think is the

best i think gambit's

kara khan is the way to go challenging

the opponent early on in the game

um now another person this person is

1500

kind of pink jig so jake

is uh he's a long long longtime

supporter of the stream he's also

uh enjoyed my youtube content since i

only had like 200 subscribers so

i got to feature him he always used to

play e5 against e4 over a thousand one

hundred games

if you play the vienna against jake look

at where that takes you

82 out of thousand games and then

against knight f6

one vienna gambit three three vienna

gambits ever

to his credit he did play two wins but

one of them

this is a bad move but he still won the

game so vienna gambit takes a person

who's played a position a thousand times

into

three three times ever that's huge that

is the benefit

of of playing things that are not just

copying your opponent to actually

learning

something specific like a caracon

defense or a vienna system

uh so that's one thing that i wanted to

pull up another person this one's

interesting because this person is

1900 this next person uh gm

uh 500. i've played this person many

times

and this person plays d4 i wanted to

look at it from white's perspective

this person plays d4 a lot it's their

most popular move of almost 2

000 games now look at this if you play

the dutch defense against this person

that takes you down 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 35 games

out of nearly 2 000 that this person has

to deal with the dutch defense

another idea for some of you dutch

defense go check it out

right um dutch defense is event is a

great defense i mean it's

it's wonderful and you see that it can

take even the strongest of players

out of positions that they've seen one

more the budapest gambit look c4

400 games here how many games of e5

which is the budapest game but 25

25 out of like five or 600 games that is

how you would apply

the usage of an openings database right

to scan against

certain players or just explore

positions that are

not so theoretical you know things that

i recommend

for example in my uh in my kara con

course

uh sorry in my in not in my course with

the white pieces so just one thing that

i wanted to show in my course for the

white pieces

against the karakan i recommend the

advanced karo khan which is very trendy

now

second most popular move and against

bishop f5 i recommend not knight f3

which has 7 500 games and probably even

more

but the second most popular move right

which has

only three thousand and now when players

go h6

right we go g4 and now we're down to

about two three hundred games

out of a position which has been reached

how many thousands of times right

so we go lower and lower and this

position will appear later in the next

part of this video

we are going to show how to analyze the

games you play

okay the games you yourself play uh and

uh

how to learn from those games and how to

incorporate the use of a computer

to analyze games after they're done

we'll go all the way back to the

beginning

and for this next portion we will go

back and start to analyze games

that i played against subscribers so

we'll start with this one

okay this is a game i played actually in

the most recent video i uploaded on

youtube which is how to win a chess it's

a

playlist i started to play 10 minute

games against my subscribers and

i was black i was playing against um a

1059 rated player

uh and he played the vienna gambit

against me i played d5 which is the main

line

he took i took he went here i took

he took so far so good this is all known

and here i played the move c5 which i

believe is the most popular move in this

position

and here my opponent played d4 which is

not correct

and a few moves later actually ended up

losing his bishop by virtue of a fork

so let's say you have a game like this

with white let's say you play this with

white

you blunder a piece how do you learn

from

a game like this okay uh well here you

go

we're gonna have to go back to our handy

dandy database right

and we say well what happened you know i

was playing my vienna gambit

what did i do wrong how did it go so

wrong for me so far so good

take take and here my opponent played c5

right

oh i mean i played a move that's that's

basically not in the database at all

uh and if we go to the even more uh

robust

uh chess-based database right uh what

whatever it is that you are using i'll

pull up the chess-based database

just for instructional purposes um watch

this

so look take take right and black play

c5 which is one of the main lines

look at this how many games of d4 in

this position

like 13 and the score is 34

which means that 34 of the time white

wins and

66 or 65.4 percent of the time it is

black who is winning and there are no gm

games

if we see if we sort the database by

white who's got the higher rating with

the white pieces

not a single gm all 2000 2100 and some

of these people down here

who last played in 1889 so you know

we're not in very good territory

so then what you do is you go back and

you incorporate engine analysis

and you say all right well that wasn't

right right that that wasn't good

i i i have to do better than that um

another example that i can give in the

vienna gambit is you know just if we

flip it to white's perspective real

quick

uh on this big board um if they play

something that's not in your in your

analysis at all like for example in this

position

people uh will sometimes play the move

knight

to g5 which attacks the queen and here

people just freak out they go i don't

know what to do

so now i'm going to kind of incorporate

the the last layer

uh of study that i wanted to to

demonstrate which is the computer

see this thing that i've popped up on

the screen you have to use the computer

after the game not before and what does

it say the top line

it says the move that gives plus 1.3

advantage which is a pawn and

three tenths of a pawn is queen takes d5

queen takes d5 because you've blundered

the pawn

knight g5 is not a theoretical move it's

a novelty and it's not a good one

because you just lose this pawn

that is how you learn openings right if

there's only one move in a position in

an opening that's good

you still have to find it because

otherwise like for example it's like

walking through fire

right if you can walk through fire but

get across okay that's that's fine but

if you walk through fire and get burned

all over the place you're not gonna do

it again

right you're not gonna right and here

white is just

it's just much better so that is how you

incorporate the computer into your

opening study you go

move by move is this something i know is

this bad is this good what does the

computer say

uh i will give you another example i had

this game against the subscriber okay

this was a kara khan an advanced car con

with this move h4

my opponent played h6 bishop h7 and i

know that when the bishop goes off of

this square

the most critical move is this pawn

sacrifice it doubles black's pawns

and it weakens the light squares and i

played bishop d3

take take and queen a5 check the point

here is you go here

now this game didn't go very well for my

opponent and from the opening i

i had a quite a big advantage actually

so again if we pull up the computer

what does it say here it says plus two

it's the eighth move

and white already has basically a two

pawn advantage and think about that

white is down upon

white sacked upon so white is down a

point of material

but is up plus 2.4 and growing

that's huge that's a full piece and more

compensation

so what did my opponent do wrong then

right that's the thing how do you learn

from a game like this what did my

opponent do wrong

uh should we go check our our handy

dandy database

maybe we pull up old chess base or

whatever it is that you want to use

um whatever website you want to go on we

can uh

we can go and explore if we pull up the

chess based screen again we

we have the vienna gambit here but let's

take a look now

at uh at the position that we got from

the opening so g4

ah we see the problem bishop to d7

is the move here theoretically and

bishop e4

is a move bishop h7 has a 73

win rate with white if they play this

move

and after e6 look at that 76 percent of

the games are won

and that is why you will not find many

top level games here and if you do

white is winning white is winning a lot

of them now sometimes in raiding

mismatch situations look at this

here black won this game 01 but black is

2408

and white is 2066 right so

that's yeah that's kind of the point

that that is how

you explore your openings and that is

what my opponent did wrong he went into

a variation

where 75 of the time white is winning so

you got to fix that you can't just

repeat that mistake right

i'll give you one more example a final

example here against jordan 2197

jordan uh sub of mine uh also on twitch

uh we played and i played a london

and he kind of londoned my london and i

i know here that there's a critical move

which is c4 right which is c4

uh e6 and queen b3 this is kind of the

point in london positions when your

opponent moves the bishop off this

there is c4 and queen b3 and you go for

this

and uh he played queen to b6

queen b6 is very standard move now here

if you don't know your theory

uh you will not know that the most

critical and challenging move

uh for the black position is the move c5

say why

why why why is that the case like why is

that the most popular

and challenging move that exists because

if you trade the queens

you've now given me a brand new open

file

and in doing that you've also given me a

b pawn which i can push

to chip away at your position supported

by my bishop

now again just one final scan

if we go to our handy dandy database

right we will take a look here and

we'll see that c4 look at the bottom

left of your screen c4 scores 62

right c4 e6 queen b3

queen b6 c5 look at this move in this

position

c5 43 games 70

after c5 70 ha

that's a nice number that's a that is a

nice percentage

that's a nice percentage and then we go

like this right so

from here we have to develop an

advantage and and that is that is how

the game goes like that

this is how openings are studied

whatever database on whatever website or

whatever program you're using i'm

showing you chess based

it's for profit you know it's a paid

program

um obviously you know we all know that

the leeches database

it's a free one but it also is for 16 18

2000 and it's it's tough to filter all

of this it's tough to kind of balance

um the the desire to

to see whatever while your peers are

playing uh and also not all databases

cover

uh moves for people who are like 1200

they are a bit

uh rating discriminate rating

discriminatory

i hate to tell you uh but that that is

how it works

what wherever it is that you study this

it could be on opening tree which is

another resource

that is how you start learning and

exploring opening so what do you do from

here if you're a beginner

if you're a beginner don't just play

standard developing stuff

look to practice look to practice uh

certain things that are maybe the second

and third most theoretical incorporate a

gambit

with whiter with black into your into

your openings because gambits are very

tricky

and people aren't ready for them if

you're an intermediate player

uh add a layer to the opening that you

play

right try to get ahead of the theory for

example so what does that mean

adding a layer to your opening means if

you play e4 and they play karo khan go

play that h4 line i just talked about in

this video

add that if you're playing something

else and it's not working find

what in your own database is causing you

to struggle if you lose 60

of the time against a certain opening

you need to learn a certain line that is

how

that is literally how i became a master

in chess from 2000 to 2200

i just deep dove openings and i learned

the theory i learned things and i got

myself

easy positions against strong players

and i got my game to the next level so

hopefully this was helpful if you have

any other questions feel free to discuss

them in the comments

um i think i covered just about

everything i set out to cover when i hit

the record button we're like 22 minutes

in and

you know the usual stuff if you're

enjoying my content feel free to check

out my other playlists

i have things on openings middle games

tactics uh

recap videos of tournaments and so on if

you're not yet subscribed consider doing

that

uh and much love i'll see you in the

next video