ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the road to Grandmas Series this is episode number 42 and in this series I take you through my behind the scenes training to achieve the highest title in all of Chess which is biggest chess YouTuber followed very closely by the second biggest uh title in chess which is grandmas in this episode we're doing something super exciting first of all yesterday I had my best tournament performance on chess.com ever i t My overall best performance which I actually got several times including last week in this very series but also this was my best run I beat many many good players multiple Grand Masters and I'm going to cover the games for all of you and I'm going to preview my next tournament which starts tomorrow night it's here in New York City uh no Spectators it's a closed event but you can follow online uh all the information I will put in the description for you to uh follow along and a very quick preview for all of you uh the patreon subscribers to the road to grandm series already got a preview of the tournament uh and also uh right after I'm done recording this video I'm going to record a much deeper analysis of all the games of today's video plus other things that are not covered because the patreon folks they're awesome and they get some bonus content in the road to GM Series this is the tournament it is a closed event uh it's 10 players it's around Robin uh and I'm playing uh actually a close friend of mine Mr Kiren Griffith very strong uh International Master very handsome and talented individual as well as several Grand Masters and the pairings and results are here so in the first round I start off by playing Grandmaster zurc kamalov who I actually have played before I think even maybe on this channel it's going to be his second or third time being featured in a recap nine rounds uh and uh super excited just super excited to play not much else I can say about that uh patreon heard it first now yesterday uh and you know I I will just say going into this tournament with two very good results I uh I I I will be very happy so yesterday I played in ches comps title Tuesday tournament and I uh had my best run ever at the last round I had eight points out of 10 so if I won my last round uh I would have gotten fourth place because the top three were Magnus Carlson Daniel nitzki and shakri Aram medarov who finished I believe with 9.5 I would have finished half a point behind those guys but unfortunately I lost to xuang Yu uh Chinese grandm and he played a very nice game against me so overall I got eight out of 11 but I've never had eight out of 10 and that was a very very big deal it's a magic number uh and I did it and in the middle I had this run where I beat three very strong players which I'm going to show you now and for the patreon folks I will analyze I'm about to right after this I'm actually going to record a deeper analysis of some of the other games uh wins and Los losses and so on very instructional so I opened up with Pawn to E4 my opponent for this game Alexander shimanov who I've played multiple times now I've played him six times three and three let's all take three and three against shimanov he played the Scandinavian defense an opening I'm very familiar with and have a course on Chesley on which starting tomorrow for the tournament and for Labor Day here in America will be on sale Pawn takes D5 Queen D5 and here I played an extremely rare move but one that is actually quite poisonous Pawn to H3 this is a surprisingly powerful move because the point is I want to play Knight F3 D4 C4 and I want to disallow the bishop coming to G4 by the way uh I should quickly say those of you that own my E4 course I know I'm talking a lot about the uh the paid content but uh I'm going to tell you something for free right now I actually recently added some analysis on the Scandinavian defense to the E4 course uh to bolster some some tools there uh so H3 is the move I chose in the game and actually he replied with C5 which is the best move according to the computer and this is where my knowledge of this opening stopped you may be wondering why he didn't check me I mean I would just block or even with my queen for example you know Queen E4 check not that good of a move uh if white hangs the pawn it's pretty good uh but if white doesn't hang the pawn and just plays Knight E2 then it's nothing special so here I played Knight C3 Queen d8 and here I actually kind of fell asleep uh not like really but you know I was expecting Knight C6 which stops D4 and he he played Knight F6 which completely allows me to you know play in the center and this move would have stopped him from going Knight C6 because I would just shove the pawn forward be very careful putting your knights in the center in chess when they can be attacked by enemy pieces like this because especially by enemy pawns because all of a sudden they have to run around the whole board and it's just really really bad news I guess in that case he would went there but I would have protected that first and then I would have played A3 uh I didn't do that and actually I went here and another thing you don't want to do with your Bishops you don't want to develop them too early so that your opponent can block their diagonal uh and actually in this game he just went Knight C6 and he blocked my diagonal which I didn't think he was going to do uh because I thought he would want to get his Bishop out first but he played E6 which is obviously slightly passive on this bishop and here again I should have been a little bit more cerebral if his development uh I put my Rook on the open file which obviously nothing wrong with this move but here you know I didn't know how to develop and I I kind of absentmindedly played a move in one and a half seconds which is just a little bit too fast um I should have realized he's going to play A6 B5 right because there's no other way to develop I should have went A4 uh and and and the point is that after A6 D3 castle like he he doesn't have an easy development for this bishop instead of that I played A3 this is simply not a good move because I let his Queen side just get active so he gains space and finishes his development and overall black has the better development here because what ultimately is development in chess development in chess is getting your pieces out and giving them good future prospects right now my pieces are out but I cannot say you know they have very good future prospects like at this point I was already looking at sacrifices near his King cuz I really didn't know what to do and I knew his next move was night D4 and I've kind of lost the battle for the center because his Bishop is going to be very good so normally in this position realizing I kind of slightly messed up in the opening I would tank a lot I played Queen D2 I spent some time I didn't really know what to do but then I quickly played Rook D1 again I didn't know where to put this Rook um you know you could put the Rook on C1 because if there's a trade here he's going to go here I kind of quickly played Rook D1 not the best move but I'm trying to keep even on time and now he plays Knight d four so he is better here it's minus8 um I would say that makes the win probability maybe like 57 to 58% but it's obviously nothing crazy I really have to take otherwise he is taking me unfortunately now he gains more Central presence and his C file is open and he plays this nice move Queen B6 ready to begin advancing on this side of the board and putting pressure on my queen side so I see that coming right and I play Knight takes F6 and reason I played Knight takes F6 because I thought look I don't want to give him more options I want to kind of simplify things down the crazy thing is the best move here for black very well could be Pawn takes F6 with just a very nasty idea to play King h8 and just oops it's a very common concept so if you have a position where you can take and the opponent cannot easily transfer pieces to attack you like for instance Bishop to H6 uh Rook d8 I I can't get my queen here like I can play Queen F4 but there is no mate I lose the race to the mate and I lose the race to my king so be mindful of those things he took the bishop and pretty quickly he didn't even consider G takes F6 so at this point I was like okay he's going to try to come here and I want to move my queen somewhere so let's play Bishop to B3 and when he plays A5 let's play A4 now I would love if he plays B4 then his queenside initiative is completely stopped and as we see the position gets back to equality uh so he needs to continue to put some pressure on me now he has the concept of Rook C5 trying to transfer the Rook to this side of the board and then try to attack me it's a little bit of a weird concept but he actually goes to play it in a little bit so takes takes um this is hanging but then I have Rook to B1 uh not to mention that you know he doesn't really want to trade pawns he just wants to win my Pawn so he plays Bishop to D5 now he is threatening to take I play King H2 he's going to take play Rook B1 he's going to play Queen C3 previously I would be winning his Bishop but he moved the Bishop the bishop D5 I play this really depressing move I really didn't want to play this move that's why I spent 27 seconds here cuz I was like Rook behind Pawn like this is so ugly but to be honest with you I guess I'm behind a queen and a pawn so Rook B1 is actually an improvement here he he went again for this Rook C5 idea and the intention was to go somewhere over here and here I seize back control of this game I realized he missed something the point is I have a weakness right this is my weakness he's clearly got some eyes on it uh and my Bishop you know is a moment away from getting getting traded it's very bad suddenly I play C4 and I think he completely missed this move um he streams his game so I haven't checked but um I don't know if he missed this move or maybe he underestimated it but suddenly if we on pant right now I don't have a weakness anymore and I attack his Queen so this is a weakness but his Queen is already hanging and mine is protected uh so he's got to move his Queen but the thing is if he doesn't take me on ban like moves Bishop back I get rid of my other weakness too and even a position like this white is not worse if anything white is better why is white better pass C pawn bishop D6 is a fork my Bishop gets in the game The Rook gets in the game strong Pawn wall uh and here he kind of starts spinning out of control I play C4 I kick out his bishop and now I realize I can just simply play Rook to B8 so I'm up on time which is very rare territory for me against these Grand Masters I trade off this Rook simple chess this Rook is coming too Rook B8 he can't really stop this so I play Rook B8 and at this point I'm up 30 seconds on the clock so naturally I'm getting a little bit nervous but he just loses a pawn here he loses the pawn on A5 I won the battle uh of the middle game with this nice comeback move C4 now I hear something really strange happens for some reason I spend 12 seconds on the Move Pawn to F3 it's it it kind of feels like I was gathering my nerves like he's threatening mate I don't know what I was thinking about really gives me a check and shimanov is tricky and very fast so he doesn't want to sit and play defense he plays G5 and here he simply blunders that this is a fork and I win his bishop and then I win his Pawn now I'm two pawns up with a pass pawn and a big time advantage and you know what you know what I uh I played very well I Advanced my D Pawn Advanced my C Pawn I got this Pawn all the way to C7 I mean just Total Domination and here I start having a mental malfunction like a complete mental malfunction I give him a check and we get here and for some reason here I completely forgot how to play chess like I play King G3 which is a crazy move which is a completely crazy move my idea of King G3 was that I'm gonna play one of these Pawn but like I could have just played it I could have just played the pawn move then I was trying to set up a mating that here so like a full Panic sets in even though Pawn to F4 is just made in a few moves uh then I give him the wrong check like F4 Bishop D1 is just mate uh then here I get down to like 5 seconds and it was main two here Queen H6 but I was so worried about getting my Bishop into the game I played Queen G3 and I played Queen F4 and actually now I played a move here with like almost no time on the clock uh but luckily I didn't lose and this is mate but yes there was a moment here on the stream I played a move with almost no time remaining so as we see here from the time bonus yeah it could have been better it could have been better but the attack works out the position was quite bad and it's checkmate and we won and we breathe a sigh of relief um in the next game I was paired against a 2930 rated player this is an international master from France whose name is Marco Mata uh and he's a very good I think he's like 14 15 years old very good player uh and in this game I turned back the clock and I'm 28 so that's turning back the clock to like being like 22 and I played the Dutch defense I haven't played the Dutch in a minute uh uh but I was enjoying a lot of Dutch uh yesterday and and against this D3 setup with E4 I played Knight to C6 and then I played E4 E5 and basically this is a reverse Vienna so it's like I played E4 E5 Knight C3 Knight F6 and it's the Vienna Gambit but it's the Vienna with black so this is a way you can ensure you get a Vienna every time KN C3 is not a good move because I can pin his Knight very quickly and then this position is already believe it or not better for black so my opponent clearly did not have an understanding of these structures didn't have an understanding for the Dynamics here of the position uh and uh he gave me his Bishop but it just helped me develop a piece then I gave him my Bishop it didn't help develop any of his pieces cuz my knight actually has better future prospects than his Knight his Knight is just going to be a target for attack so he goes Bishop to E2 and here I could have played more calmly I could have played Bishop D6 S I could have castled but I went G5 so I'm a maximalist I'm trying to go G4 I'm trying to go Knight D4 you know you're giving me space I'm going to play confidently I'm going to play aggressively he castles long and here I can actually win a pawn I can play Fe here G4 Knight D2 and queen F2 but somehow this feels like you're asking for trouble Rook F1 stuff you know you win a second Pawn suddenly there's Bishop F7 but actually it's black who is just comfortable and happy uh I just went G4 and F4 so I sealed the position I want to put my knight here I want to develop my bishop and I want to Castle I just want to also maintain a space Advantage um he started trying to break out and I played H5 and I really liked my position here of course it's quite clear I will not be castling Kings side uh because that's where my opponent is going to try to break things open and even if it costs him a pawn me not you know having any King safety does not sound like a very good idea the Knight goes to B3 I sense that pawn to D4 is coming so now I develop Bishop E6 and now he has to go D4 because in a nutshell what I'm threatening here let's say he plays King B1 is I'm actually threatening in many positions to take now if he takes with a pawn and I put my knight here positionally he's dead lost cuz this bishop is horrendous and my knight will live forever I mean I will play C5 you will never EXT my knight from the center of the board he doesn't have a pawn to do it he doesn't have a piece that fights on a dark Square to do it he'll have to sacrifice material he has to go D4 at which point I was going to take his Knight try to win this Pawn he would probably take me to try to attack my queen and after even I thought even something like Queen E5 Queen B3 and long Castle the position is very complicated but this is hanging so maybe what we do is D4 here here Knight E5 protecting this and then this and here black is very happy I have a very powerful knight also can't be removed he's never going to get to my king but he thought for a while here and he went here and this is when I had a feeling he messed up cuz now I get the middle which I just talked about and now I just castle and you take a moment and look around here and you go how does white ever make a move like white only has one way now to get rid of my knight and it's Pawn up to C3 how will you ever orchest at that in this position your queen cannot move right C5 so he starts fighting my blockade I'm like okay B6 of course you don't want to push pawns where you're being attacked but if your opponent also has to get out of your position life must be pretty good now I see the queen I see my king I can obviously keep attacking but I say let's play Simple King B8 let's just move the king off the sea line we pressed the clock not actually cuz we're playing online now the opponent has to to make a move what what is he going to do well he plays A4 he tries to continue to attack me which somehow doesn't make any sense because I have a lot of reinforcements for my king he's only got these two pieces and it's not like they can really get in anywhere here I took a long think because a lot of moves look good and what I decided here is I'm going to take on F3 I'm going to eleviate some of the pressure and play something very simple I'm just going to go here so now his Bishop is is locked behind his pawn and I control the G file so the signal that I'm sending is I'm ready to attack you on the G file at any moment so be very careful the center is deadlocked you you're not going to be able to break me out and when I want I will infiltrate so be careful he does what he has to do he plays A5 but now I boot his Knight so I push the pawn kick his Knight out and now who is attacking who right he's been attacking me but now he's got a queen and a king on the same final as this Rook this Rook is here he plays King B1 I play very simple Pawn to A6 so now his Knight can't reenter the game ever and I'm going to put my king on the a file he plays Queen B2 he wants to play Pawn C3 so now I take this moment to capture come here bring my queen all the way back I defend this I attack this I'm ready to Fork him and the position's falling part here I actually blundered something so I blundered that despite winning his pawn and CB and putting my KN now here I played the best move but I thought I blunder I played Knight D4 and I sat there in a cold sweat and was like oh my god he has this if I move my king which was my plan queen B7 is a mate I completely hallucinated but my position is so dominant I have such active pieces I can afford King C7 and and if he comes here and I come here all his pieces fall apart he can't defend everything and that's basically what happened he he didn't even do that he went here and suddenly Rook B8 and I have this this right this this and the Rooks and there was a moment here he thought for 13 seconds because he couldn't believe what happened to his position the opponent's king shelter was torn apart all pawns eviscerated right and this sort of All Began here when he started realizing wait a minute I can't do anything like Gotham has this Knight on D4 I don't know why he calls me that but as opposed to Levy but uh he realized like I can't do anything I got to do something but it's his own pawns that were torn to shreds and despite me blundering this queen check the position was so look at this I mean this is just this is beautiful look at this piece coordination every piece is playing he goes Bishop A4 I just take it and uh I take his Queen take the Knight and uh I missed uh Queen takes D3 because I had six seconds but okay Knight B3 is also Checkmate he went Rook A2 uh here I miss Rook C1 but instead I went Queen B4 it's also completely winning Knight D2 Queen A3 and queen A2 and I won this game as well well this was a very nice win I was very I thought this was a beautiful game uh a positional win with black very rare but from this position to just outplay my opponent in this Dutch structure I have a really nice feel for these positions I really like to play them in Blitz because the Dutch and classical is kind of terrible you kind of sit for like 90 minutes wondering why pieces are on certain score but in Blitz it's just so much fun and then I won a very nice game against the the multiple time I think aani National Champion uh vasif durar B uh this game was also I didn't know again I I like to play on Anonymous mode so I hide the usernames I didn't know I was playing him um but uh yeah I was very happy to uh to win this game as well and I played against Mr scarabe against Mr uh Materia I played with 95% accuracy chess.com thought I was 3,150 and then against Mr viif uh oops I just analyzed the exact same game uh I played this game at 96 so I played even better although the previous game I think was a bit more impressive this game the engine thought I was 3,200 so playing very high quality chess right before the tournament is always nice and I won this game with the Gotham Scandinavian literally if you if you guys go to Chesley click the Scandinavian course I'll link it in the description everything you're about to see is free there is a free sample chapter with this exact line so you can learn what I played against V you don't have to pay anything so you have nothing to lose you're sitting there like I don't want to do that I don't like the study chess I don't want to spend money good it's free go study this exact chapter takes takes he went Knight C3 I went Queen A5 Knight F3 Knight F6 D4 Bishop F5 this is all chapter one Bishop to B4 you give up the bishop you drop the queen back and you play Knight C6 all for free this is all in the sample chaps chapter one Baseline Scandinavian knowledge now in this position white has many plans uh there's a trap with this move D5 it's not really a trap but it's a very aggressive move it doesn't quite work out for white white can play Rook E1 Queen E2 H3 I've seen everything move that I haven't seen too much as B4 B4 has multiple ideas one of them is to kick my knight from the center and not have any pressure here another is to bring the bishop back um now there are many moves here like castling Rook d8 Bishop G4 right away pinning the Knight um in this game I played Rook d8 now I didn't think there was any difference there is a difference um the difference is that here after B5 Knight A5 is a bad move because your knight is trapped after the bishop moves if B5 Knight E7 white has Queen E1 trying to go here which is really nasty it's actually quite a nasty move uh and that is why it's actually more accurate to start with castles because after B 5 you jump with the Knight into the middle and your king is out of the center of the board now I know but I thought what I did was fine and here V played A4 and I was like wait a minute is this not a free Pawn now I imagine what he wanted to do was give me a check and he thought C6 takes but I I can just come back now the computer still thinks that white is doing well after Bishop B4 A6 Bishop C5 Queen A5 take take it it thinks that after Bishop B5 Knight C6 Bishop B4 white is still pressuring me because I cannot Castle shows you why you needed to Castle faster but if you play A5 which is what he played now Queen D6 and I'm just the pawn up and here I was super happy I thought he' just straight up blundered like I thought like he just lost the pawn he miscalculated something so I was super confident he went Rook B1 and the again mistakes come in pairs so I just brought my knight back attacking his Bishop you know he's trying to win my Pawn but I'm attacking his Bishop he brought the KN the bishop back and here I I can play B6 uh but I simply castled which was a mistake because I thought he couldn't take on B7 um what I had calculated here was Rook B7 Queen C6 Bishop D5 right because it was a fork and here I would play Knight takes and I thought after something like Rook B2 I just have a nice POS position for example Rook B8 we we maybe we trade with a lot of pressure on on the side of the board again the computer is the computer it finds ways to try to not be worse I could have of course played B6 but the went Knight E5 and uh that's just a bad move it's it's a it's kind of a move you play out of uh inertia like you just want to make a forward move but after Pawn to C5 uh White's entire position is falling apart Rook B7 is still hanging but def hangs E5 hangs and then after that everything hangs everything hangs so just like in this game against Mata there was a moment my opponent spent like 20 seconds and had nothing in this position V spent 47 seconds it felt like an eternity so obviously at that point I'm getting nervous because I know I'm playing somebody good just from the point total of the tournament now I'm like I can't blunder so Bishop D5 I take with the queen now B7 is protected and this is falling the bishop to G5 I simply take on D4 now I'm two pawns up the Knight hangs this hangs this is hanging in every line as well plays rookie one he's down to 21 seconds I'm up a minute with a totally dominant position time to fall apart right now nervous nervous system has to fall apart so I just thought I'm like wait a minute that's another Free Pawn I'm three pawns up he goes Bishop F6 Pawn F6 Knight G4 now I'm like wait a minute what about King G7 like of course the the simple thing you do here is you take Queen G4 Queen G5 take take you try to win this end game against The Grandmaster cuz you have two pawns up but I was like what kind of a baby wants to trade the pieces King to G7 good luck trying to get with your queen CU I take one G4 and guess what guess what your knight is trapped on top of everything else Pawn to H5 the Knight gets stuck he sacrifices it now I just have to take a few deep breaths that is what I had to do here to Center myself 51 to5 I mean he is on he's laying that like he the it's over I just need to put it away not blunder anything he plays F4 I got to protect my King Pawn to D3 marching into the position right he comes to E2 he's looking for this I brought my queen in he gives me a check King is safe a little bit scary but safe Rook e to and I'm like okay I got to trade pieces so let's get the Rooks off the board with no pieces he is never mating me he plays H3 and that now I'm like okay I got this i got this right we're bringing in the Rooks he tries to create a little bit of counterplay here against my king but every move I play as a check it's easy because if he plays Queen E2 it's Rook D2 so he plays here now it's Force Checkmate I bring in my Rook play Queen F1 play Queen F2 and I beat viif I don't think I've ever even played viif H I think these games were like like a long time ago I think it's like bullet from like 2017 I have a lot of like random records I've beaten fuja 10 times but in hyperbullet in like 2017 or something something super ridiculous maybe 2019 I think in in in modern day I've I've I've never played uh I've never played with um you the last time I played him was uh I played him once in 2024 and the rest was like three years ago yeah all mostly bullet games uh some games in 2021 and bl it's complete nonsense on the screen but I forgot I played him in U April of this year so it was nice to get revenge played this game at 96% and um I had eight out of 10 in the last round you know I played uh xuang Yu xxy soul and he he just played a beautiful game I mean he uh it was a sicilian I played my favorite line I got a position where you know I thought it was complicated I ended up sacrificing a pawn in this game damaging his structure he just called my BL and just outmaneuvered me I mean he he played very dynamically in the center on the queen side and then he hit me with this really nasty tactic at the end where he G it looked like he blundered Rook takes Knight but he had this and he's threatening my rook and a geometric forc Checkmate on the edge of the board yeah I got I mean you know there's levels but uh I'll get there and uh I've never even been 29 900 so this is a 3,000 rated Blitz player but I won five games in a row in this title Tuesday which felt quite nice and uh I got up to a rating of 2783 which is also quite nice and uh we keep rolling along tomorrow we have a new tournament beginning GM Norm here in New York City coach will be covering it it will be streamed on YouTube and on Twitch and um patreon folks stick around not here but on patreon I'm gonna go into depth on some more games from these title Tuesday runs the past two weeks and as always you will get you guys will get a lot of behind the scenes content as well that's all I have for you today get out of here