so yesterday morning i was going through my usual routine of streaming chess and losing 90
of my blitz games and to turn around my poor results i knew i had to challenge somebody who
i could defeat i saw that semi-arena was online he was playing some 10 minute games and getting
a little bit of work before comedians on board with the indian grand master ganguly so i sent him
a couple of 10-minute challenges and one game was longer than the other and the hope was just
to show you intermediate chess and turn it into an intermediate chess lesson so you can use the
time stamps on the video player to jump around if you're just interested in the cat gambit in
the title go toward the end of the video and you will see what happens alright first game i began
with d4 and i don't know somebody's openings and by the way he is just the letter m because
he's bm which is blundermaster knight f6 and i played like this very standard trying to go e4
he has the option between going uh into the queen's gambit declined or playing the name
so indian he does that i play g3 so this is a system that kind of resembles the catalan which is
a setup for white after d4 c4 knight f3 followed by putting the king's bishop on this long diagonal
the fiance on g2 and these positions are really nice because after something like this
black capturing on c4 um opens up your bishop and in the long run you will win this pawn back
at the same time you will end up with two central pawns because you'll you will retain your e and
d pawns whereas this pawn will go away and that's kind of the whole point of this setup
you know black will do something like castles knight to f3 and like i said if dc4 you'll win
the pawn back in the long run by playing knight going like this or just taking the full center
i have a video out on the catalan if you'd like to know a little bit more about the setup
but same uh fell directly into my trap well not really a trap he just took too early and now
i'm not gonna develop at all or take the center this bishop is all of a sudden a target i only
have one check in this position that makes any sense that is not the check it is with the queen
and now you hit the bishop and the king and uh if this there is takes and some samay just resigned
i did say that one of the games was longer than the other we will jump into that game
in a second i still wanted to show this game because it could be useful
for some of the folks that are interested in the queen's pawn uh or exploring you know
a new opening if you play e4 but you want to go for the catalan try to go for the catalan
uh the game is over here because after bc6 queen b4 i'm just up a piece um i mean he can continue
the game with something like queen takes pawn but i'll play knight f3 i'll develop my bishop
and let's not forget that he has the triple pawns isolated by the way so he rematched me
and it didn't make sense to just play a game so fast so we go to the second game now this game
this game i'm gonna walk you through my entire thought process move by move and i think you
will enjoy it quite a bit so he played e4 and i know that against e5 he plays the king's gambit
i didn't want to give him that satisfaction so i went for d5 instead but when he took i
didn't take back right away and i played knight f6 this is an invitation to a gambit excuse me after
white plays the move c4 white can hang on to the pawn here and what black does is play the move c6
and the point is that if you take this pawn now you have very good control of this square
and white is going to have difficulty taking the center if white plays knight f3 for example
trying to go d4 you will play e5 and this is actually known to be better for black
because black has a lead in development even at the cost of one pawn this position is very
interesting very kind of cool way to get a player so quickly out of their comfort zone with this
uh it's better for white to just play normal chess like with d4 knight f3 or knight c3 which
is what semi did in this game um or to not take the pawn when it arrives on c6 you can play d4
and now this is a kara khan defense by what's called transposition a different move order
um i like this uh as as a weapon with the black pieces there's a very fun line after d4 bishop g4
this is called the uh the portuguese gambit you could go look that up do a little bit
of research on it can lead to some very crazy and dynamic and interesting positions
uh otherwise like what some i did in this game i just took back and he played bishop c4
so then i played the move e6 so i'm guarding my knight in the center and now already we have a few
things i'm going to kind of walk you through move by move when you play e6 you block in your bishop
this way so long run you're probably going to put it out there bishop will come here and castle
we will then decide what to do in the center of the board that's exactly what happens i finish
my development with bishop to e7 you might say levy why not bishop to c5 for example
well it's not good to just absentmindedly put bishops into the center of the board
especially if they can be hit with enemy pawns this is something that not just beginners do
intermediate players do this all the time they just put the bishop in the center because that's
what they think it should be uh but then this comes and now you have to move the bishop again
and bishop d6 also doesn't quite make sense it's not a not necessarily a blunder but my
queen would no longer guard this but they're both okay so there should be seven castles castles
and here semi plays d3 uh he could have been a little bit more greedy and played d4 maybe
taking the whole center um and like i said i continue with my plan of b6 and trying to put
my uh my you know my my piece on b7 so here's the first kind of instructive moment take take
bishop takes d5 e takes d5 objectively speaking it's probably still equal here
it is a fair trade three points per side but this trade is really only good for black
why what i always like to say is unless there's a very good reason to do it
don't just trade bishops for nights just don't do it because now i'm just left with a light squared
bishop so my light square control suddenly goes up a lot and if i just put the bishop somewhere where
it has open scope and it's not boxed in it will be really difficult for white to fight against at
the same time this could be a weakness um and in this particular case it's not so that's where like
the offset is well if you create a weakness then you can trade bishop tonight of course
but when he does this what look at what he does to the structure the pawn moves this way
and that opens up the door for my bishop so he plays d4 um now a move like bishop to a6 attacking
the rook isn't a good move because he'll just move his rook to the open file and i've just helped him
develop at this point i have a few options i don't yet know where i want this bishop to go
so i played rook to e8 because maybe this bishop will go back or that way or to f6 it's not yet
quite clear and he copied me now a very important move here as it pertains to the pawn structure
c6 and you say levy why aren't you playing like bishop g4 bishop f5 both of those moves are good
they would be perfectly reasonable moves but the thing about c6 is that this kind of a structure
negates the effect of the c3 knight so the knight can't have any pressure on this pawn it has no
access to the queen side i mean knight a4 doesn't accomplish anything and it can't go to the center
so if this knight wants to go anywhere in the in the rest of the game it will need to spend a full
move going backwards before going to the other side of the board i also now can move my queen
because before i couldn't and that's why the structure is kind of like placed the right way
that's that was my logic with playing the move c6 now could i have played bishop f5 probably
but at some point i'm going to have to play this move c5 a little bit too weakening so he plays h3
and now i develop my bishop to f5 that's not a really difficult move to make i'm just
developing my bishop and his most natural move here undoubtedly is bishop to f4
if i'm looking at this position with white i'm thinking the bishop just has to come out
okay it has to go there he does have bishop g5 in this particular position because if i take it
he will take my rook and then he will take back but obviously bishop g5 doesn't look
possible and normally isn't because you just lose material bishop f4 here and don't even
think about it but he played queenie too so this is kind of already where like the
you know the 1470 he's 1470 at the time of this game that's like where it where it becomes kind of
more obvious like the move queen to e2 doesn't let me move my bishop because if i move my bishop
he's just gonna take but does it create a threat does it improve white's position long term no
and i just finished my development with knight d7 and now my rook actually does have protection and
in the future his queen could just be a target so there's no real long-term plan behind the
move queen to e2 and it would be better for him to just put his bishop there because it's
a much more flexible move it doesn't commit his queen directly in the line of fire of my rook
and actually on this very next move he thought about it and he was like well i kind of don't
like that the rook has scope on my queen right so you have to try to kind of come up with a two or
three move plan which is hard to do in 10 minute chess but that's why that's why i'm i'm doing this
kind of video to walk you through that thought process now bishop f4 probably still is possible
um it's probably still the best move but now you're starting to worry about attacks on your
queen so he played bishop to e3 and now that i can move my bishop without the rook getting taken
where's the best square for the bishop think about that for a second i'll i don't know i'll
take a sip of water i guess if you said bishop to d6 you're a hundred percent right this is
the best move if you plug this position into even the computer of all the moves black can play this
one improves the position the most why because with one simple move you've now taken away the f4
square you fight for the center you stare at the king's area and the rook is open are you winning
no absolutely not and here semay plays the best move he plays queen d2 right but now we're seeing
like kind of like weird shuffling now for him the best thing to do on the next move with queen to d2
would be to play the move bishop to f4 for example if i play the move a6 here the best move
for white is bishop f4 trading a very passive piece for a very active piece and if i trade
he now improves the positioning of his queen hits my bishop is maybe gonna come in here and threaten
stuff that is the way you play positions with a totally symmetrical pawn structure
you'll notice we have three and four right so the bishop coming to f4 would be really useful
so you got to think about that that's why in this position i played queen c7 because it doesn't let
him play bishop to f4 and now my rooks are connected now he played knight to e2 but
what's funny if you look at this position what is white's best move as a result of queen c7 continue
to think about the concept of trades like i just showed you that this would be the best trade
think about the concepts of trades after this move how does my opponent create a threat
offer a trade here move his knight to h4 that is actually again if you look at the computer
it's the only move in the position hits the bishop and would force me to block myself
in or just back up and let him trade because this bishop is very good and it would improve
his position this is the only light squared bishop on the board and i would have to come back to e6
at the same time kind of interesting that's not possible right now
so it is possible as a result of this and during the game i was like i think he should go knight
h4 he didn't do that he played knight e2 when this knight moves away it seeds control of the
e4 square so which of my pieces have i not yet improved my knight and now i'm gonna go to e4
right that's ex and now again knight to h4 is possible he does that i use the concept of danger
levels here i don't need to get my bishop out of danger if i can attack something more valuable
right now he plays queen c1 again the queen has now made three moves and his rooks are not
connected and i did not want to trade you should not trade bishop back to d7 it's okay to retreat
because now what is his knight doing here right his knight now has no way forward it's on the
side of the board um and during the game i was expecting him to use the queen behind the pawn and
push the pawn as a result of the move knight c3 just to create progress on this side of the board
somehow maybe pressure me here once this opens and the game he went back to c3 here i thought
for a little bit and i i thought about taking and my logic is that this messes up his structure
this trait helps me because it messes up his structure and i can maybe double my rooks
put pressure down the file maybe c5 to open up the queen in the future but then i decided on
the move bishop before and my logic was well i hit this twice and if he takes me i'm not gonna take
i'm going to take his rook if he takes me here then i will take so i'm going to win material
at the same time if he goes back to d2 well then i will just take the bishop
and again i will have two bishops for two nights which is i mean it's a nice advantage to have
then you will slowly open up your position that's what you should do when you have the bishops try
to open the position it's just what i was gonna go for do i want two bishops versus two knights
or should i have damage to structure probably i should have damaged the structure actually um
but then after bishop to before same did some he his blunt his inner his title
struck here and he played the move knight takes d5 i don't actually know what was going
on here i think this was him offering me the cat gambit this is the beginning of the cat gambit
the cat gambit um you will learn in a second is the following after i took back he played the
move c3 attacking my bishop and i went back to d6 at this point semei offered me a draw
and he wrote in the chat hey man i'm playing here with my cat and my cat is very sick i have to take
my cat to the vet if i don't it's a matter of life and death can you accept the draw please
and i figured well all right i'm a good guy you know i believe in you know in the health of
humans and animals and and all sorts of living beings so i will accept the draw offer and i
will sacrifice 44 points of my rating to you seme i will and that's how i fell for the cat gambit
apparently this is like a massive inside joke on the semi channel he apparently offers
you know these kinds of things like for fun and the whole community was in on it
the chat like completely exploded like 500 people came in like oh i can't get so anyway
it's all in good fun um on a serious note i will end the analysis of the game with something like
you know if the bishop had gone back to d2 for example um there would be a capture here and like
i said we would try to fight with the do bishops at this point you would try to create the move c5
uh as long as you're not weakening the pawn on d5 too much that would sort of be the issue
uh but what i should have played which actually was probably better is this trade
and i can't end the video on on that even though obviously that is where the game ended
um really the the the question here would be how does black maximize the pressure here and how do
you play with the pawns versus the pieces i did say that you would maybe double up your rooks
a good way to do that would be to win a tempo with the move rook to e4 now if white plays the move g3
white is chronically weakening the center and not to mention there might even be a sacrifice here
so you always have to look when you have a giant kind of lineup of pieces at the
opponent's king side that these tactics do await knight g2 for example bishop takes
a move away from checkmate white would have to defend and again i'm just coming
in with all of my pieces here the rook the queen the bishop the two rooks i should say
so g3 wouldn't have worked and instead something like knight f3 and rook a to e8 and so on and
so forth trying to improve the position maybe at some point throwing in pawn play
and and black would try to capitalize on the advantage even though the material is
completely equal this position is actually minus two so basically two full pawns worth
of evaluation in black's favor now here before i sign off here on this video obviously you know
there is a joke involved here but if you can get past that and you're not offended by humor which
a surprising amount of people are and will be upset that we took a draw in that position
on a serious note uh there's a couple of takeaways from this video so first of all there's the two
openings that we talked about the nimso the catalan the portuguese gambit if you'd like
to go investigate those at the same time it's the concept of when you should trade bishops
for nights so definitely a concept to review how to play positions of symmetrical pawn structure
and you'll notice thinking what does my opponent want what trades in the position
would be good where is my worst place piece and how can i activate it right they make a movie
does that move create a threat no okay great then i can continue to improve my position
when i make these videos there is a lot of these little bits of information to pick up on
i don't always necessarily go okay now we're gonna learn this concept but you should listen closely
because that's what chess is all about there's all of these tiny details even throughout a game
which lasted what was that like 16 moves 17 moves every move there's a little bit of battling going
on and kind of thinking and a piece moves and a square is no longer controlled for example
things like that all right if you want me to do more stuff like this in the future but on a more
serious note where we play a game from start to finish let me know i'll see you in the next video