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0:00 Intro
1:10 2 Openings For White
10:45 2 Openings For Black
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This video needs to state its target audience.
This guy is not a teacher, he is just a dick. You think I’m opening with the Ruiz Lopez at 700 because I think I know what I’m doing?? Hahahaha
Thats why I love gambits personally. Sure they're not sound most of the times but its easier to get known positions in bullet wich is the format that i like… either ways at my level you can get away with chucking a pawn away for a tempy pretty safely anyway.
You’re so funny
I wonder how you’d handle the best openings
Levy you should learn these bc they help you understand these positions
Hey Gotham!! Genius! Frantic, but Genius! Among other things, no Queen's Gambit at all if I can avoid it!!
levi are u on snow? plz dont lie
I play spanish with white and I play sicilian najdorf and Grünfeld with black (I used to play east indian which is definitely worse as far as number of variants and complexity). And I occasionally play Alekhine with black which is arguably even more complex than najdorf.
I am very surprised that you recommand east indian or grunfeld according to your criterias though.. slav and semi slav are sooooo much simpler.
The straight Schlieman! and if 4)b1 c3. e2e2 e7e5 nf3 nc6 f1b5 f7f5 B1C3 F8E7!!!!!!!!!!!!! d2d4 exd nf3xd4 fxe nd4f5 bf6 nd5 ff8
E7 E5 in reply to D2 D4!
Great video
How about the Scandinavian? After …1) d5, White doesn't have a whole lotbof great moves besides 2) exd5.
I'll continue playing those openings.
I'd say Queen's Gambit Declined positions should be quite good for intermediates – the Orthodox/Lasker/Exchange positions can lead to good open games. Tarrasch QGD is probably even better. I agree about the Scotch too. I do think that the King's Indian is a horror show and invites too many easy attacks for White if you don't know what you're doing. If you're confident with the QGD (which can get theoretical) I'd then take a look at the Gruenfeld, but only if you have a good memory.
The only thing I disagree with is the dragon Sicilian being good for black. It's a very, very easy plan for white to attack. Castle queenside (or don't bother in some cases) f3, be3, qd2, g4, h4, h5, hxg6, bh6, bxg7, qh7+ some mate or massive material gain. Obviously black will punctuate these moves with his own ideas that you may or may not have to react to but that plan will win you games. I have trounced players 200 elo higher than me for playing the dragon which imo demonstrates that it's so clear how to play against it will equalise you against an inferior opponent.
I just went online (check the date) and played a few games of 2+1 bullet to find a dragon player. Literally just played those moves against a higher rated opponent without a care to what he could do and was winning by the end (he burned all his time defending).
https://lichess.org/FKn5BLgz/white
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if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. – Romans 10:9
Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her. – Matthew 26:6-13
Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
To anoint your self, the sick, or a building for spiritual protection:
Get a small bottle of olive oil and pour off a small amount into a smaller vessel like a vial or baby food jar. Use the rest of the bottle for cooking. Ask the Lord to bless your vial of oil in Jesus name. Anoint yourself with the oil by placing a dab of oil on tip of finger and touch it to your forehead, and ask the Lord to bless you/heal you. Place a dab of oil on your finger and anoint the door posts and order all negativity and evil out of the house, and order that nothing negative or evil can enter into your home including piggybacking on a person entering, order it to be so in the name of Jesus. Anoint all potential entrances to your home. To anoint the sick, place oil on tip of finger and touch it to the head of the sick and say a prayer of healing over them in Jesus name. See James Chapter 5:14-15.
As a queen's gambit player, I can confirm that I get the gambit accepted a lot by people around my rating (1050) and I have 85% of win rating. But I do struggle a lot against slave or refused lines, in part because I get them only sparingly and usually by higher rating players which I don't have much of a chance anyway.
As a life-long French player, I honestly thought you were going to choose it. You really have to know the theory and middlegame ideas to survive the mainline, but I only make it to 3.Nf3 less than 50% of the time on Lichess (1900).
IMO replying to E4 E5 NC3 with NF6 for black also just gets too complicated. I am in the Hikaru coaching XQC camp honestly. Play the Petrov. If you play the QE2 variation you can also cheese some games super easily too. It got me to 1400. The lines are usually fairly straightforward development with a couple traps and trick to watch for
do you ever slow down with your speech?
18:52 favourite part
Great presentation. I long ago set aside the Ruy and Sicilian, and now you have explained to me EXACTLY why . lol
And FWIW, I thought it was one of the 10 commandments of Chess since the days of Capablanca not to take in the Queen's Gambit.
I always open e4 with white in the hope the opponent will play Sicilian. So shhhh! Don't encourage them to stop using it.
Edit: also: Albin countergambit vs queen's gambit. I love it.
Ruy Lopez is amazing. I don't care that it's the most well-explored by masters. I'm not playing masters. I only have to know it better than my opponent. And it's an opening so rich in ideas. I'm not stopping to play it. I play the Italian too for fun, but I'm not quitting the Spanish, thank you very much.
You don't need to avoid the Marshall, you just have to make sure not to fall for its traps. Spend an hour or two looking at a bunch of Marshall games, and you should be able to do just fine. Not a reason to quit the Ruy Lopez.
Bong cloud is on this list,it gotta be
I have no idea when I play chess ,I just play and am still highly rated as a 907 player!!
I would like to play you @GothamChess . I'm low level on computer never tested on board. Also play way better on board. I have my own preferred move sets and I want you to break my openings apart. Entirely. The history of the moves if any. The strengths the weaknesses. I know the advantages and disadvantages this might present me lol but I can't get past 900 ELO so idc anymore.
Thanks from germany – you are so right.
Totally right about the Najdorf, I like the Dragon/Accelerated Dragon if you want to play the sicilian who by the way, talks to me a lot more than the Caro kann.
When you're 1000 rated like me , all openings are on the cards . Ruy Lopez applies pressure early on and is great to play at this level. Yeah so what I only know the first 3 moves, does my opponent
Gotham, hope you respond…
I bought the ginger gm's botvinnik english course and have been studying it quite extensively via chessable. I notice you don't recommend the english. But for more intermediate to advanced players, what is your opinion? Ginger gm said he exclusively used it all the way to IM and that it builds a solid foundation. And i get some exciting positions often. I am at the level that i need to choose and opening repertoire and stick to it and learn it deep…and in that context, what are your thoughts on it? My 3 openings i chose are: botvinnik english, caro kann and chebanenko slav
What‘s about the Englungd gambit against d4?
https://youtu.be/kAXSq_ATpFw
3 crypto to avoid:
All of them because they are speculative assets used as a part of a "bigger fool" fallacy. Levi should be ashamed for shilling them onto his viewers.
Think otherwise?: https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g
I enjoyed the Mount Everest example; getting tired hiking in the backwoods by your house.
The only problem I face while playing paulsen variation. As black is the 5) c4
Can someone tell how to play in hedgehog system?
3:51 As i play sometimes the birds defence with black( but mostly Jaenisch) i find it enoyable when white falters
5:10 Pionzan i bad i crish white players who play it
13:00 f4 main line and i trie sometimes b5
depending on what you want to achieve, I might disagree about the Ruy Lopez. I agree, that it's super complicated. But if you're goal is to learn and get better, why not?It will take you some time, but once you managed to learn it, you will be a better player. If you look for something, that's easy to learn and just want to play some games, I actually agree. Vienna and Scotch are a great way to achieve that.
Same for the Najdorf. But sure, a good way to start, is to play some sidelines, before you take on the big theory. I learned the dragondorf, before I played the Najdorf. But in general, I would say, as long as you don't play against someone significantly higher rated than you, you can always win in the Najdorf, just because it's so dynamic. I played the Najdorf against 2000's without knowing any theory and still win most of my games. If you know how to play chess, it's a great opening, even without theory knowledge.
You frogot the tarasch in the diclined variation
22:01 playe the farajovic-gambit i faster time controls. Very satisfiyng
Ähm if you take your criteria seroisly why not includet the catalan as a oponing to avoid?
Since it is complex and has many different lines
Why you dont like this openings?
Jesus man, If only I had come across a video like this 10 years ago. I had to stumble myself out of the Sicilian and Ruy Lopez after wasting way too many hours of never ending variation studies. At least I did arrive to the same conclusions you point out and nowadays, I stick to e4 italian every single game as white and e5 as black or the "inferior" dutch whenever they d4 me. I still get crushed from time to time, but at least I know what the heck I'm doing and enjoy the openings. The best part is playing the dreadful ALAPIN every time I see c5, and know for a fact, that there is no chance in hell an evenly matched opponent has put more time and practice than me in that particular variation when having to study the other five million lines I don't even care about anymore.
Im about 500 games into the Ruy Lopez and I'm still a long way off getting down, so I fully agree with this one
How good this advice is depends on what your objective is. GothamChess assumes it's to not embarrass yourself in the opening, and optimises the advice for that. But maybe your objective is to get better, or to have a chance of swindling another weak player in the opening, and then your choice of opening might be quite different.
Good advice about not making it up as you go along in an English, and 1. Nf3 indeed makes good sense. However, 1 Nf3 d5 2 c4 isn't normally regarded as an English (around 8:50) after 2 …d4. As you mention later (10:30), it's a Reti (and a reversed Benoni), and transpositions to the English can be tricky and are not guaranteed, which might not suit everybody… 2 e3 is a well-regarded idea too, as you note. A early Nf3 cuts out lots of f4 attacks in the KID and Benoni, but such ultra-sharp lines might be best avoided anyway for most players. I'd add that there are way too many reasonable and diverse Black defences to the King's Gambit, but at least it's not the jungle that the Ruy Lopez is.
I feel an exception should be made for the exchange Ruy Lopez, which is much simpler and leads to less complex positions
I’m about 1750 and put a lot of work in the Najdorv (having always played the Paulsen without any knowledge) and score pretty well specially against higher rated players. I admit white has countless of options, but I haven‘t actually struggled remembering the patterns which often enough happen to be the same.
Also, you get to play the lines by paying many times online so you don‘t forget what you do.