what's up chess fans welcome to your day 2 recap of the pog champs today we had
four people squaring off xqc the man the myth the legend himself the people's champion taking on
easy with aces uh poker superstar and it your second matchup featured wagamama dota superstar
going up against uh half tour who was the world's strongest man easy with aces had the white pieces
to kick things off and he got things going with the queen's gambit knight f6 played by xqc not
the most accurate move uh because here you actually can capture and if the knight takes
you then take the full center whereas if the queen takes you bring out your knight but
the game very quickly be became a queen's gambit declined uh and here xqc went for the cheese
as hikaru described it this is a trap and what you're trying to do here another version of
this trap is to play knight d7 this is called the cambridge springs queens game with decline
trap and the point is that you are looking to bait your opponent into this because you
they're gonna think that they can't take uh you can't take i suppose uh like this because
there is a queen but then there is bishop b4 check and it's actually heartbreak because
you have no way to protect your king without giving away your queen so you can keep this in
mind if you play queens again but declined and they play bishop g5 block your queen out like
this vincent though principal takes the knight then takes in the center and reinforces with e4
however here xqc finds a very very nice idea plays f5 now this is breaking some opening principles
not developing the pieces very cleanly still a very interesting tactical idea you can't take it
vincent brings out his bishop and now takes takes will result in the defense of this piece
xc plays knight c6 fantastic move developing again hitting the center knight f3 here from fenton and
long castles and short castles now at this point uh even though easy with aces does have a pawn
advantage his awkward coordination in the center means that black can potentially start to already
start to create some threats with moves like rookie 8 bishop e6 and so on xuc plays a little
bit more solidly plays the move g6 not a bad move by any stretch of the imagination looking to play
bishop g7 now here there's a couple of ideas you still can't move this pawn forward whatsoever
because the knight on d5 is hanging maybe you play rook c1 and start to create some sort of attack
you also have knight g5 which abandons the defense of the d4 pawn but looks to get into f7 not so
easy to defend either because the queen actually has no move to stop that black maybe would
have to play something like bishop to e8 alright nonetheless vincent plays a3 which looks like it's
not very strong but he's trying to play b4 b5 so bishop g7 hitting the pawn in the center with the
bishop and queen a4 this is a really interesting idea uh defending and attacking at the same time
the thing is here xqc detonates what looks like a really nice tactical idea knight takes d4 and
that does work because you can't take it with either of the pieces since the queen is hanging
and the knight is protected but he forgets that this knight used to serve a defensive duty on
a7 and now after queen takes a7 he's in some trouble checkmate is threatened so he played c6
a better version of this would have been to stay patient just for a moment playing king b8 setting
that up that is a concept that uh beginners overlook uh they want to make a move but they
forget that a piece served a defensive purpose so he plays knight d4 plays c6 now queen a8
from fenton queen b8 played and knight e7 and actually despite both pieces jumping into their
maximum it is impossible here for white to do any further damage after queen a5 check
b6 and queen to b4 black's position is more than okay here what you should do is you should damage
my structure you have to not forget that that is possible and then maybe start bringing more pieces
to the game easier said than done obviously but a move like you know rookie 8 for example which
hits the knight and sets up maybe a backwards bishop move pinning me to my own queen very very
dangerous xqc in the game play c5 this move is a mistake because even though it attacks the queen
that pawn also used to serve a defensive duty and covering the d5 square but very very tough to see
and now we get queen c4 he does damage the structure and plays bishop takes b2 but
that's not a pawn that you want to grab i know it's a free pawn and i know that it attacks the
rook but sometimes in chess that's not enough and this allows the rook open life and here he tries
to equal the danger and he probably thought well if he takes then i take life is good
and he wasn't wrong except i don't have to take you right that's that's the point is that in
that one branch of thought you're correct but here fincen just finds the check check and now
you pick up the bishop and uh you you're just gonna break through on this side of the board
all of a sudden the game is completely lost not just because finton has a three-point advantage
most importantly the king is the most active piece for xqc and now you're gonna start bringing into
pieces and immediately swarming you're not looking for an end game that's exactly what finton does
he brings in the second rook he takes on b6 and uh here it's basically made in a variety of ways
and he finds another one of the clean ways to do it i should say queen b5 queen c6 overall a very
interesting game that left theory very early both sides could have you know potentially potentially
marginally improved on their play but hey that is not a bad game between two players rated 873 and
1056 so now that easy with asus has a one point lead xqc has to win to force the armageddon in
the second game he had the white pieces carl khan and now at this point you either play
this or you do something with this pawn bishop d3 is it's not a good move because it's too cramped
the best thing here for black is to take force this bishop out and just develop the knight
and hit the bishop uh which would either force white to trade it somehow give it away like by
defending it or moving back and you don't really want to do that in the game we got an exchange
and then finton played a little too aggressively for my liking there's nothing exactly wrong with
the move e5 but the karo khan move is e6 you want to keep your center kind of locked together and
e5 can actually come with the drawback rookie one is a fantastic move and in this game finton
did not develop his kingside pieces so actually at this moment as early as move six there was
a crazy tactic that xqc could play a move that looks completely impossible you can pause here
and try to find it i'll take a sip of my water i don't have any more lake rocks gotta go restock
and that move is actually the illegal looking knight takes e5
because even though you lose a queen i have a tactical opportunity in the center of the board
where i discover check you and you obviously can't block with the queen i will just take uh and white
is winning here white is just winning because what happens is i take your queen and even though you
can escape with the bishop i just take a ton of pawns and uh well you're down a piece and i don't
know what is that two pawns yeah not very good so knight takes e5 would have actually been crushing
uh and vincent would have had to find the only move which is this
protecting his king and just losing a pawn instead xcc played very solidly and the way
you find moves like knight e5 is just tactics against the king in the center of the board
h3 takes takes knight f6 good move so far bishop b5 also excellent and here takes takes
all excuse he had to do was find this move he would have been in good shape but he plays b3
misses it still missing it and now it's a little bit too late finton plays e4 queen c7 bishop takes
f6 and here tragedy struck for finton because mr easy with aces i i know you're watching this
has criticized the move on poisson so many times and in this game it would have served him a really
big benefit if he had just found the move on poisson and recapturing this is impossible because
of the attack on the rook xqc would have had to find c3 instead we got a pawn attack xqc played
very well here created some chances on the queen side found the move a4 defending and defending h6
rook ac1 and another opportunity here if finton played bishop g5 with the x-ray the only move
to stop that is f4 and then there's another on poissant opportunity and this is maintained so
in the game instead he offered a rook trade it's a very very balanced endgame actually i mean i know
there's a situation that xqc has to win here to force the armageddon but a very instructive game
which simplified into a queen end game that should end with a draw by repetition here that would have
been the best thing for white uh i think i'm i'm i'm not quite sure xqc wanted to draw and
given the match situation he did keep it going uh but you know black is doing very well uh and
here the way you actually win this position with black is you consolidate uh and you you make sure
that you can get get checked but that there is no perpetual so what you're trying to do with black
is you're trying to stop the perpetual get your king to a safe square you're not really worried
about this pawn because now your pawn promotes and your king's diagonal is safe so actually e2
was a mistake because of queen c8 queen f5 but it doesn't matter great consolidation here promotes
a second pawn aggressive move there's a lot of different mates here and he finds one of them
queen three to f2 and easy with asus takes a two nothing win over xqc three points for the overall
score group tying him with it's hafu in the second matchup of the day uh we had the mountain with the
white pieces taking on wagamama like i said dota superstar e4 c6 i did teach wagamama his openings
but i also teach half tour so it was a bittersweet coaching session for me and here he busts out the
hillbilly attack which i was not expecting this is not what i had shown after i showed him the
exchange car con i hear the point being that if takes you play queen h5 but we got e5 takes takes
and a nice idea here d4 this is actually not what black is supposed to do half tour in this game a
common theme for him is going to be attacking the center with pawns and breaking up the opponent's
position that's what he should have done because he actually developed his pieces beautifully but
then he missed certain chances he actually had chances here early on to like really do some
damage to wagamama's position uh multiple times i don't know what this knight b5 move is i have to
talk to hafthor about it uh and now bishop e2 is a nice find because if queen takes there is this
so actually you have to go here miss that uh but then another thing that he he continuously just
missed the removing of the guard uh and then when it was too late he was trying to bring his queen
over to the king side to create an attack and just a quick central pawn fork there from wagga
put him a a piece up on the face of this big attack you can play a move like g6 but he
finds another a nice idea knight to h5 and then g6 and well he hits the queen defends the pawn
and uh rookie four played he doesn't get tunnel vision he notices here that there is
uh well um just kidding uh he didn't notice i don't know why i thought he noticed
i'm just go i'm just gonna record straight through this blooper but i swear i thought that he found
the the fork okay well wago mama should have found the pawn fork instead he did get tunnel vision
uh and took on and took on b2 uh i just i guess i trusted him and at this point i tuned out of the
show uh the other idea that he could have played is knight f6 which is just bringing the piece back
and hitting the two of these pieces uh but instead he did play cb2 and after rookie five
that's a nice idea from after i mean he's just chipping away at this and uh king h8 doesn't
solve your problems because i still take and then i mate you so then he brought the knight back and
uh well trading the rook when losing is not great and yeah i mean half tour in big trouble
good simplification here from wagamama picks up as many pieces as he can uh runs loose with the
pieces and chips away at half thor's defenses not afraid of the mountain and when it came time to it
promoted upon and delivered a checkmate there's a lot of ways to do this but i think he did it very
well and he managed this time well we moved to game number two he's got the white pieces now d4
playing the london a london getting london imagine that and a very good honestly a good setup here
from half tour uh i did show him how to play like this like with bishop f5 and just trading off
this is a very very equal position knight g4 is not really what you want to do here black really
wants to play e5 and c5 taking central space so move like c5 here is good knight d7 knight c6
but by no means is it like winning for black it's just a nice and comfortable position
there's other ways to attack the london but i you know this is just a very simple and solid game
wagamama does end up playing correctly he uses the open file and he plays in the center of the board
and here it's a great move because you can't go back to where you came from because i'm
going to fork you in the center again just like last game so this time hafter learns from his
mistakes rook c1 nice idea this capture again not great because it undoubles my
pawns and now i have central control black is a little bit better here f5 is a very cool idea
but not under these circumstances uh here half torn missed that well hafter probably thought that
it takes knight takes and then he's very happy because his knight is in the game he's pressuring
the center but there's just a move here you push in the center these central pushes and the queen
is now no longer able to defend the c7 pawn from the rook you can offer a trade but this end game
is bad for black it's just bad for black because i've got the pass pawn it's protected i control
the only open file so my rook is dominant and pressures your entire position and i will then use
that positioning to further improve my position along with this maybe win a second pawn and win
the game 27 was played rook c7 good good idea to offer the trade here and wagamama doesn't just
go for the trade he's a classy bastard and he plays rook c1 and i mean that in the nicest way
reinforcing his rook and there's just nothing that can be done here queen eight takes takes
takes takes rightfully swamps everything off and in this case he swaps everything off
because he noticed that the queen was protecting this pawn he noticed that he had vision here
and then surgical knight c4 queen defends queen cannot break through tries to bring
the knight to d6 and successfully does so and i think hafthor either
didn't spot the threat or just wanted to be classy and end the game with knight to f7
rather than knight takes c8 nice finish there from wagamama clinical game here from him i mean wow
what a win from start to finish didn't he use a dominant attack just slowly improved his position
played in the center and uh nice positional win from guy rated 1440 i mean beautiful play
and this was the conclusion of day number two tomorrow day three we've got everybody else
participating some of my students like cutie cinderella dog dog who i've done lessons with
on my youtube channel if you haven't caught those there's a whole playlist actually of pogchamps
lessons and now recaps and that's basically all for now hopefully you know this recap was
more serious uh and actually there were certain things that you could learn from pick up on both
in the opening and in the middle game and the recaps will continue the entire pogchamp season
there are more videos over there i'm constantly uploading videos as well to the e4 rating climb
please enjoy subscribe if you haven't already you're awesome and i'll see you in the next one