ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the road to Grandmaster playlist here on the Gotham chess YouTube channel uh this is the recap of my first game in my second tournament back so I played a tournament in Madrid that is earlier in this playlist if you haven't watched it go watch those games uh and now I am playing a tournament here in New York City now this is a 10-player single round robin which means there are nine games they're over 5 days so it's a very intense tournament two games a day except today where I played one game in the evening uh and uh yeah I am the third highest rated player in the section but I accepted an invitation to play because there was no spots in the GM Norm section and I want practice okay and practice is what we are going uh to get now um I got there today and and I am streaming all of these games they're at 12 and 6 Eastern every single day on my on my twitch channel uh 10 and 4 on the last day and um for context in round number one and please disregard all of that we are moving more closet stuff here so um for a little bit of context here uh my opponent in the first game of this event uh is kind of a fascinating case so uh my opponent lost 80 rating points in the last two months he's like a 20-year-old guy I played him two years ago I had white and I won and he was higher rated then than he is now it's actually very annoying because his real strength is like 2,300 plus he is more than capable of playing a very very good game he's just had two really bad months I think he might be in college now so he's focusing on things that are shockingly more uh important than chess and another problem is the following he plays the two nights Caro Khan and this is a problem because if you have watched this channel for a long time by the way can I just say isn't it great I get to film my recaps in my own like in my own place it's just it's amazing oh and friendly reminder tons of behind the scenes content prep my deeper thoughts existential thoughts about life and so on on my patreon you can subscribe at seven bucks a month uh it's better than a twitch subscription um so if you have watched this channel before you know that in uh Spain I played this I played this against Sosa and that game went Bishop F3 Queen F3 E6 he played Bishop E2 which is main line and in that game I played this which i' never played before uh in my return to GM I've been making my carocon better right so I I I basically have multiple lines in multiple variations because if I'm going to play the caroan at a high level at a GM level I need to be able to out prepare my opponents and get them into situations they can't you know trick me anywhere or whatever plus I know this opening really really well now here's the problem I can't play this against denila now you may ask what do you mean what do you mean you can't play this let me just fix the crop here the streaming software malfunction a little bit and decided to like cut a bunch of the space so the clock is cut off apologize for that give me a second I think that should be all right whatever you you tell me if it looks ugly um so the reason I can't play like this against danila is danila plays D4 D4 is not a great line but even if you know everything against D4 it's just equal now if Sosa played a very forcing line like D4 I would have been okay with it my opponent in the previous tournament but I couldn't do that now couldn't do it because well even if black you know even if white knows everything whether it's Bishop here or whatever I mean I have no idea what denil had prepared but I was like H I don't want to play one of these foring lines where you know so what I decided to play is actually something I've played in a few Blitz Games uh which is this move Bishop E6 now here black can do everything black can play Queen A5 trying to play Bishop F5 black can play Queen D5 black can play Bishop E6 which is trying to develop the Knight behind the bishop or black can develop the Knight like this this is the main line play now goes Bishop C4 Knight F6 there's a way for them to sack their Queen but threaten Checkmate you blunder it or don't and then this is a very thematic position it's been played many many times I decided let's go Bishop E6 I've played this in a few games and I thought he would not be prepared now here's something funny I saw that he had played Knight D7 D4 see he loves the pawn on D4 so that's what I figured out and a couple of years ago he played like this against Akira Naka actually I played Akira in Madrid in Spain and here's where it gets funny in our game I win Bishop B6 he played the best move by the way which is this even though he spent 6 minutes I was really annoyed by that because if you've never played this before you might play D4 D4 is a mistake but like B3 is a good a good move maybe C4 to stop this he played the like one of the kind of Cutting Edge moves one of these moves that's pretty new uh it's a decent idea and now black has Bishop D5 right away trying to put pressure and that's also in my notes and maybe I'll play it in another game but I had Knight D7 D4 Knight F6 and then here I sat at the board and I was like I prepared this position and I'm not even joking I looked at Queen E5 Queen D3 Queen E3 and queen H4 which are the only moves that he can play but I didn't look at Queen F4 I mean it's not like Queen F4 wins the game but I was sitting there at the board going why didn't I I mean he's played a very similar thing right I just showed you he played literally this position and then sure enough he played Queen F4 and what's funny is it's basically the same thing except these two moves are included which I thought might benefit me now again the problem with playing down by 100 points and and kind of having that feeling like you have to win I know the best move in this position the best move according to the engine anytime the queen goes to F4 is Queen D6 I have studied these positions the problem is and even if he doesn't take this is complete symmetry like yeah I can win this position if you know he falls asleep for 85 minutes and then wakes up cuz he didn't sleep a lot the night before but uh you know I I didn't want to do this and and that's again that's sort of the issue of kind of playing down so I played G6 which I thought was a reasonable move the computer here wants to play Bishop G4 and develop in the center which yeah I mean you know I haven't played this position that much and so I was playing it the way I thought it should be played which is I put the bishop you know on G7 and that's actually not that accurate uh it it actually is better to sneak out of here and go here and that's kind of like this is like a pit stop for the bishop in many ways it's a pit stop because if you go back to the beginning there's no way you can develop it it like this and if you go here trying to play Bishop F5 this move exploits your position so I should have played Bishop G4 I went here he went Castle I played Bishop G7 and then he played this move C4 now what I KN understood about the position is I have a bishop and it's going to stare at his center right I also have this bishop which I would like to trade off at some point because otherwise I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it I could put it on F5 but I thought C3 made sense uh if he had played C3 I would have probably castled and tried to play on the light squares would have been a very interesting game but he went C4 and right away C4 gave me an interesting idea because again I know I need to get rid of this bishop like let's say I Castle I don't get rid of my Bishop I thought he plays Knight E5 so I cannot play Bishop G4 anymore right then I thought okay maybe I can you know move my queen somewhere let's say queen D6 and I thought he's going to play B3 Rook E1 you like again I I I'm just going to make a couple of moves like he's going to play Rook D1 and he's going to play Rook E1 and and I saw this position coming like he's just going to make a bunch of regular moves and I thought what am I doing now it's not that simple right like of course Queen D6 B3 the computer already F you know wants to begin fighting back maybe Knight E5 is not the best move but he doesn't have to play Knight you know he could play this and now I can't go here where am I putting my Bishop right computers already trying to sacrifice a pawn I mean I'm not going to do that why I mean I would I would have probably gone like Bishop F5 but then he's going to again just make improving moves so I thought oh what about this what what about Bishop G4 I thought this was really smart and I have a very simple plan he's going to go here I'm going to take I'm going to play E6 he's going to put one rook in the center I'm going to Castle he's going to play B3 and my plan here is to play like Queen A5 Rook d8 double on the dile put pressure on this Pawn this Pawn can't move forward because I control that square with my entire life and I was going for this type of position because he had not played C3 to get a rock solid Center but because he had played C4 so I thought this makes perfect sense now here he did something that made Hikaru damn near have a panic attack on stream hearo was covering the game and he was um he was laying into my opponent and I got to tell you I I was very confused why my opponent was not just saying like if you really want to put the bishop there go ahead he played Rook E1 this move is a little bit too sophisticated for me I did not understand it so I castled I also should not have spent that much time it was I mean I I was trying to exploit like The Rook positioning and just I mean Rook e w I should have castled in 5 seconds so not a good time spend now I'm sitting there thinking of AG three and he he spends another four minutes and he goes here which I thought also didn't make sense like I thought the bishop wants to be here or I thought the bishop wants to be on B2 supporting the center and and I just thought the bishop on E3 doesn't make sense and so here I play this move E6 because again I'm also being stubborn I only am going to take his Knight right I'm only going to take his Knight if he attacks me otherwise I'm just going to you know prepare for that structure so I thought we had a very clear thing that was happening here and then finally he played H3 but he spent 24 minutes convincing himself of this and when I when I was witnessing this at the board I was like oh he's like really malfunctioning I mean like some I mean you play you don't even think about H3 if you're going to play I mean you just get the bishop now I think he thought about Knight E5 but that move doesn't even make sense because I mean at the very least I can trade the knights like at the absolute very least and I might not even do that you know so he finally goes here and so now I need to show why I did all of this right and I'm up 23 minutes on the clock so I tried to play my next move pretty fast it didn't pan out I spent almost 10 minutes I don't even know where time went to be honest the truth is I'm really solid and I stopped D5 but I kind of don't have a very good POS like my position's pretty boring and what I should have done here no joke is I should have played Rook e eight let's say he goes here then I can go out here and attack the pawn and cause some problems so he actually can't really move his Rook like let's say he goes here the engine wants Rook E7 Rook D7 let me tell you something right now I am not smart enough at chess to play like that I'm just not good enough yet that's the last thing I was thinking of just a slow maneuver and the point is I'm completely solid he just can't do anything and then I'll move my queen and then I'll go here another option and I had a major question during the game is do I trade the Queens and you may remember my friends uh we don't know each other but you know you can you you can call you call us that Queen F4 I I again I told you I know I'm supposed to trade the Queens the question was do I trade the Queens if not Queen B8 do I play Rook C8 and then do I trade the Queens right do I trade the queens and I just couldn't bring myself to do it I couldn't because I thought if I trade the Queens I'll never ever win I might not lose but I will never win this game like if I play Queen B8 take take I just thought yo I have no play all my pieces are on the sixth Rank and Below he has two Bishops he's pointing at my position he's just going to play like B4 I'm going to try to put pressure on the center he's going to go here and I'm going to sit like this this is what I'm going to do this is how we're going to play this game you see he's going to March forward and probably this is holdable and I was is like man this is so upsetting like the two nights caran is actually quite an annoying opening I got to tell you so I said okay Queen A5 I'm playing Queen A5 that's what we're doing Queen to A5 with one plan in mind and then a second plan plan number one double the Rooks on the defile plan number two bother the queenside pawns plan number three trade the queen when I want so for example Bishop D2 I was thinking of Queen F5 and I thought okay I did trade the Queens but he made a concession right so this was my plan Rook d8 Rook D7 Rook d8 Etc Queen A5 he played A3 I expected A3 to enable the movement of his Rook so the pawn is no longer hanging and also to play B4 um here I spent time because I didn't know which Rook to put on d8 and actually I chose wrong although I thought I was choosing right during the game so I expected that he would go B4 right and I thought well when he goes B4 I'm going to go Queen A4 and I'm going to hang out I'm going to try to hang out in his territory right and I thought it makes more sense to play Rook d8 why does it make more sense to play this Rook to d8 because the bishop is there so if I play B5 for example he takes and my but this is hanging however if this is here and then I can play B5 well then I'm in great shape because I'm going to get a knight to D5 and have a better position almost or take take or take take so I just thought well of course Rook ad8 makes more sense because I'm no longer at the end of a diagonal of a bishop what could be more natural and it doesn't really matter because I'm going to double the Rooks anyway like I didn't think this was the better move I was wrong it absolutely was the better move and he played B4 and so at this point I thought for a bit again my my time Advantage getting a little bit lower but I had a very clear plan here and my very clear plan was I want to play Queen A6 and Target this but if I do that he's going to play Rook C1 and then my Queen's a bit offside and if I play B5 he's going to take it because I'm trying to secure control of the D5 square and then he plays Rook C6 and then I resign right so I have to play like here and hang a pawn Rook takes Pawn discovered attack so okay Queen A4 o sorry Queen A6 Rook C1 didn't like it so I thought oh I'm gonna go here he's going to go Bishop D1 and we're going to repeat moves and I actually calculated like first of all I can make a draw probably Bishop D1 but I calculated something here which I thought was really smart so from a distance I calculated Queen A4 Bishop D1 Queen A6 Bishop B2 B5 cbcb A4 utilizing the pin of of the bishop on the queen and all of this but in that time because his C Pawn has G to go Knight D5 hitting the queen and the bishop the queen and the bishop when the queen goes back I play Knight C3 which hits B5 A4 and the bishop on E2 so I calculated this this this this B5 take take A4 Knight D5 Queen F3 and then something like this I don't even have to do that apparently I can go here and just take the pawn on B4 but as you see the calculation is correct that I send they calculated this whole thing I thought okay now I'm ready to take over the game sitting there I'm sitting there and I'm going wait but what if he plays Rook C1 anyway so now I I I don't have this B5 concept because I was relying on his Bishop to move and he plays it now to my credit he spent 18 minutes so I clearly confused him a little bit and at this point I understood Bishop D1 is coming so he's going to kick out my queen and then he's going to go here now what's funny about this position is even though this looks completely like everything went wrong for me because if you think about it literally his Queen side was immobile it was not moving and suddenly I baited it for I I put my queen there as a target for him excuse me for him to to just kick me around and yet and yet after Rook C1 it's fine and I should start preparations against his center now I played 98 later in the game but this is very clever and those of you who have watched my lessons with Coach Nick Suns if you haven't all of them are on the patreon that was a seamless integration one of the biggest things that he's told me is the concept of two mistakes where you make a bad move and you get surpised surprised by an opponent's response and your second move is even worse and that's what happened in the game now in my defense in the game I completely missed his idea and it's the only way for him to get an advantage and it's a pretty nasty idea it's the best plan in the position if he does not have this idea I'm about to take over the game the idea is really smart it's it's actually a very fascinating thing that he did uh now what I should have done is I should have went here because even if he plays Bishop D1 and even if he plays A4 he has weaknesses like he has to be careful too so somehow the engine is completely Not Afraid and uh had I got knight8 I'm not really sure what he would have done to be honest I mean I'm really not sure it's very hard for him to make a move this is a very nice move and the point is that again now if he tries to like you know execute his plan I'm I'm bringing my knight to the center he doesn't have C5 he could go like here but then the Knight gets to the best square and I'm putting pressure so it was time for Knight E8 I didn't play it in the game he finds Queen C7 Queen A5 and when I saw this idea I mean that is that is really smart and the point is even though the queen is here targeting it weakens my position so I have to go here and at this point I was like oh man he outplayed me he just out I mean queen C7 Queen A5 was a nice idea I did not I did not see that and and and now look at his Bishops a a while ago I said the bishop there made no sense now it's going to make a whole lot of sense and he's going to go B5 and I have I have misplayed in a way where my queen is like it's a miracle it's not trapped but I saw that it wasn't tra stable I I I always have a way to get out but I'm like oh my God am I going to lose this game now I play 98 because this is coming now my original intention was to play Rook d8 but I didn't have a good response on B5 I just thought like I'm getting steamrolled so I went here and the point is that now this Pawn is hanging all the time whereas previously it wasn't he goes B5 I take apparently the engine here wants him to take with a c Pawn which somehow doesn't make sense to me but maybe it doesn't even even matter uh he took with the pawn I thought he was going to take with at this point we're both getting quite you know we're getting to 10 minutes getting that critical time time time uh spot in the game now I wanted to take on D4 here but I thought it was just a bad move like I thought somehow I'm going to blunder something I also thought like at the very least he's going to win my Pawn I don't know I don't know I thought about it engine likes it but I went here and now this is where he had his biggest advantage in the game this is where people on the live stream panicked but I don't think it's findable the point is my queen is surviving I mean first of all he's almost trapping my queen just by the way the only reason my queen survives here is because I have B6 which is pretty disgusting and the point is the queen is stuck guarding two Rooks so he can't take the pawn I take here and then we trade and then you know it's fine so he played what I thought was the best move like during the game he went rugby one and I thought the whole time that was his plan so I thought during the game I'm worse but I'm going to defend and you know he's making me suffer but you know I I thought he was playing all the best moves so Queen A4 I have to trade the queen and my plan was he's going to take take he's going to take like let's say Rook B7 but then I was like I'm not even sure this is that good for him I have an outside pass Pawn like he has a very strong Pawn but I'm going to go here and then I'm going to push I mean you know and if he if he takes with the bishop if I'm stupid he's going to go C5 C6 and of course I can resign the game but I'm not stupid so I'm going to take on D4 and he can't really do this because I take the bishop and then I and so you know my Pawn is going to survive so I'm sitting there going wait I don't think this is that easy I thought it was really easy so he took on B5 and now was his last moment he actually told me he wanted to play this move during the game he took with the Rook which to me looked much more natural taking with the pawn is better actually his plan is he's going to go here and Rook C7 and he's just going to put pressure on the pawn forever in the meantime I'm going to run to D5 it's going to be here here he thought about taking and then he thought about going Rook C7 and you know this position is really really scary but I Will Survive like he's going to get here and he's going to get here but this is a draw because he can't really move his Rook but it's going to be a while he's going to run his King I'm going to cut him off he's going to go here I have to play E5 he's going to chase me you know he's got to be a little careful though so he thought about cb5 but he ultimately took with the Rook I went Knight D6 because because it defends my pawn and Texas rook and then I went here right it's the only move that I have this is the only plan that I have I can't take on D4 because of a really nasty trap Rook D1 E5 looks like it holds everything he takes the pawn which I saw which I saw and I was like uhoh I can't blunder that and now I'm going to lose because I'm going to lose this Pawn I'm going to lose the game so I went Knight D6 Knight F5 I thought okay he's going to take my Pawn I'm going to take here but I have to do it the right way so he took on B7 and I thought I was very smart here before I'm taking the pawn I'm going to attack his bishop and make it leave now again there are wayte to screw this up for example uh I mean this is very exaggerated but like you know this is a scary end game CU he's two squares away from queening you know what I mean so that's why I went Rook B8 because I thought well now he's got to go there now I'm going to go here and I thought the difference here is that I can get count play with my pawns so C5 F5 something like this I bring my king I bring my Rook it's probably going to be a draw so Rook B8 then he went here I was like that's an inaccuracy because I have Rook B6 actually he's not going to go there because that doesn't make any sense he's going to go here and now we have a problem because he can't even push his Pawn so the the the major point of the white position being advantageous was the pawns I mean if we go back like six or seven moves I mean it was it it was the pawns it was the Maj majority and it was my weak B Pawn I was able to play this very nice defensive maneuver just in time and then I suddenly was like wait a minute he might be in a little trouble here and he went Bishop G5 at this point already you can see that this clock management I'm Up 3 minutes now here I did something really dumb I did something really dumb I'm very annoyed at myself about this I really like I thought I was doing a nice job putting clock pressure on him and then I thought down to 4 seconds uh um this was so stupid it really was and and I think it was it was really stupid because For the First Time In the game I felt like I was in control you know because I hadn't been in control he was out playing me and I just got jumbled up here like first thing I saw was this which I thought was a super cool move threatening Knight E2 and also threatening Bishop F2 but it's a bad move because I get my knight trapped which is super tragic but kn C3 is still fine then I thought well I can play H6 but I was like I don't want to play H6 cuz he's going to go here and here he's going to realize that his move was bad then I was like I can play F6 but then I'm weakening my pawns I thought I could play E5 I thought about Bishop C5 Rook D6 Knight D4 I thought about Knight D6 and I thought and I thought and I thought and I thought and I thought I played King G7 to get my king off the back rank to fight for the dark S I played this move with 4 seconds on the clock I got up to 34 I was so mad I was like what am I doing but then here he almost passed panicked and he almost went Rook won actually if you watch the live stream it's on Twitch it's um on Twitch like the streams are only available for subscribers I don't do that to earn any extra cash I actually do that uh because uh sometimes I'm playing music and um there's like issues sometimes with copyright so I just I just pay wallet and and and so on uh but now you can even upload vods with no music so I might just disable that alog together uh but if you if you watch it you know you'll see that he almost went Rook A1 he literally put his Rook here kept his hand on it and was like and panicked and went Rook D1 played Rook D1 with two seconds on the clock now again I was looking at all sorts of different things ultimately I settled on this also with two seconds on the clock I got that 30 extra seconds and so I thought he was going to go Bishop D2 at which point I was going to go E5 he was going to go here I was going to move my Rook somewhere and we were to play this end game I was going to try to pry apart his Knight and Bishop his pawn and Bishop uh but then he then he went Bishop d8 he he he put the bishop on d8 and he blundered and he knew right away he blundered he played Bishop d8 he went to press the clock and um yeah I had seen this idea from a distance like Rook D6 setting up some nasty stuff but he made it even worse so now his Bishop is hanging discovered attack and uh he had to sacrifice material and now I fulfill the death Destiny of prying apart these two pieces this is a winning end game because what I'm going to do now is I'm going to advance my pawns Advance my king all while monitoring the advancement of this Pawn his Bishop is totally out of the game so I went to the second Rank and uh he can't really chase me down here because he's going to lose he's going to lose his Pawn he can run but I'm in the Square like even oh that's funny I'm not a okay well I wouldn't have blundered that but you know I would have went like Rook B2 and I threatened his bishop and then he would you know and then I would have stopped him and this is also winning because I bring my king I sack the rook and yeah so uh but he resigned and I and I managed to win and I mean yeah it's literally he made he made like one bad move the whole game and and he lost um there was a moment earlier in the game like I said where you know the engine was was screaming uh that I was like significantly worse uh it was here he had to play Rook A3 uh Rook A2 Bishop D1 and then take with a queen that's what he had to do he had to kick my Queen off the file and do this and now he has a pretty big advantage that's not easy to see Rook A3 Rook A2 Etc like CU you're tunnel visioning on trapping the queen but the point is after Rook A3 Rook A2 I get kicked off the B file and then he takes and that that was the important thing like he needed to keep his pawns together put his pieces like this and yeah uh he didn't see it and I I mean I I didn't see that maneuver and you know to go forward go back and backwards again and then take I now should I have been this provocative you know I want to say no but the honest truth is the real issue here is that this move Disturbed me and I thought I had to go here I played it instantly cuz again I thought well he's going to go Bishop D1 A4 but I should have formulated and I should have found Knight E8 that's what I should have done knight8 is a findable move because you go here and you go it's actually not so bad he plays Bishop B2 there's no threats he plays A4 now he's under threat he plays C5 he loses a pawn so you know def Queen B4 like it was findable I actually I'm I'm I was annoyed I played Queen A5 during the game but I'm more annoyed I you know I I just kind of like offand played Queen B3 but first game Shake It Off I won uh and uh the tournament goes on I'll put a link in the description for you to follow along and I'm going to go to sleep now because it's 12:45 in the morning so whenever you watch this I appreciate you very much and uh check out the patreon and get out of here