at least once a day i'll read a message from somebody watching one of my streams or in my
youtube comments saying oh look harry potter is playing chess people tell me i look like
daniel radcliffe for harry potter all the time i don't know what you guys think let me know i
get other people as well i get elijah wood remy malik from mr robot and uh and others
well i came across an opening that is called the potter variation i figured what better
way to dedicate a thumbnail in a video than to uh talk about this opening so the opening uh and the
variation in particular is in the scotch opening the scotch opening is a really good opening for
beginners intermediate advanced players and it's very practical because it happens after e4 e5 and
we i'm sure you see this all the time if you play the king spawn and if you don't well if you do
play e4 you will see it all the time so i'm gonna jump into uh into the variations i put all the
moves in the description of the video so to learn these things you copy paste that into an uh into
an engine you run it through a machine and if you ever have any questions that i don't cover here
you try to continue that research a little bit on your own because there's no way i can cover every
single possible move okay let's go so e4 black has to play e5 knight f3 and here black has to
play the most classical move knight c6 um if black plays knight f6 which is maybe potentially looking
for a stafford gambit or something there's nothing to fear in the stafford gambit um you can just
take you know and then play like d3 and bishop b2 daniel naradiski made a video about this um but at
the same time if after knight f6 you just played three d4 anyway uh that's completely okay as well
but we're focusing on knight c6 and here you're going to play d4 this is the scotch opening it's
a great opening uh and it's it it doesn't play the bishop out and it doesn't play the night so you're
just trying to fight for the center right away more often than not black is going to take here
if black doesn't take for example you might get d6 um against d6 the best thing for you to do
you you can take this and then trade the queen so something like takes and then they can't castle
anymore and now you would just develop your pieces you're always a little bit better here
something like knight c3 get the bishop maybe castle queen side so that your rook hits this
king bishop comes out very active very very active position but at the same time you're
you're also very happy to just push attacking this knight um and then just take as much space
as you can take it with the pawn first then put your pieces out like this but this one's a little
harder to play because here the position's a bit more closed most often you will fit you
will you will have this capture and then you will take back and you're very happy with this trade
because now there's no night to hit your queen and you'll play knight c3 bishop e3
castle queen side and a lot of the positions we're going to be castling queen side in in
in this uh suggestion in this variation that i'm going to show you after knight takes d4
so in the scotch there are two main lines and they are bishop to c5 and knight to f6
most beginners probably will actually play knight f6 or take um they might play bishop c5 and i
could be completely wrong on this and i'll tell you why it's just that like beginners are more
used to getting the knights out so they might just play knight f6 here then again they also
could just attack your knight so i i will start with bishop c5 the classical main line of the
scotch is bishop to e3 but this is the potter variation after the move knight to b3 okay so
you bring back the knight counter-attacking the bishop it's not the most popular move
uh and black has a choice of what to do let's say black gives you a check that gives you a check you
just attack the bishop that's not complicated now the bishop has to run away uh and if the bishop
goes like to e7 for example the best move here for white is actually f4 not just developing a
bishop to e3 this is designed to prevent knight f6 because now you would just attack the knight
so black has to move the knight probably back if you go to e4 i'll find a way to attack the
knight somehow and this is very unpleasant for black more likely you will face bishop to b6
and now you develop the second knight and what you want to do is pin this knight when it gets
to f6 like queen e2 and castle queen side and in a perfect world that looks something like this
so something like let's just say h6 you just come back castles queen e2 and you put the queen here
so that the rook has this line the queen defends the central pawn you can push e5 in the future
and by castling to the other side of the board now you've created some attacking possibilities
so for example you might consider knight to d5 putting more pressure on this knight
as it's pinned if black plays bishop to e6 you can play something like f3 g4 g5 you do this
because you're trying to create an attack on the king and you need to open the g file all
these different attacking possibilities you can also play f4 not so fast because bishop g4 but
the idea still applies trying to attack on this side of the board knight planted in the center
because the kings are on opposite sides there's a lot more attacking possibilities
than uh you know in normal scotch when you would castle short potter variation is very venomous
which i say a lot as people have told me but but i like that word you know because it has
a little bit of of bite it looks like you're just casually developing your pieces um the best thing
for black to do in a lot of these positions is actually to play g5 at a certain point but
for newer players this is a huge weakening of the position and even though black might get
a decent position here like in terms of their development uh playing moves like h4 breaking
apart this structure and then castling queenside will give you very nice attacking possibilities
if they play knight f6 if they play knight f6 hitting this pawn this is a very good
line for black but i'm going to show you a cool weapon and if you are a beginner uh
you will win a lot of positions from this point forward because the moves that black has to know
from a theoretical perspective are very unnatural let me show you so you're going to take on c6
bc6 is the move because if dc6 you take the queen and then you just do what you do you
know showed you this already so they will take with the b pawn and now you attack the knight
now nine times out of ten if you've never studied this position with black you're gonna play the
move knight to d5 or knight to e4 um knight to e4 can just be met with something like queen f3
just getting after this knight knight to d5 should be met with pawn hitting the knight now the knight
cannot come here and if it comes this way you just keep developing my personal favorite here is to go
bishop to d3 anticipating that black will castle this king so something like this castles and if
black castles here you can already even start to create some sort of attack it can get very very
dangerous queen h5 there's some tactics here uh knight c3 knight comes the bishop is going
to come this way i think his black's knight is just stuck on the other side of the board
so knight d5 c4 is very bad but what black has to play here is the move queen to e7 this is like
played by so many grand masters pinning the pawn to the knight up to the king you see why this is
so unnatural because beginner's gonna think my knight's hanging i just gotta move my knight but
uh advanced player will know that you have to play the move queen to e7 here and that's why
uh after queen e7 you play queen e2 you defend the pawn still threatening this and now knight
to d5 again now in this position you don't play c4 i'm gonna recommend you a very very cool weapon
the reason why i'm not recommending c4 is that it's extremely theoretical there's a line here
for black bishop to a6 which pins the pawn to the queen now we see the point of making me put my
queen here because you're you're able to pin me if black knows this you have to know a lot of theory
white is fine here if white you know knows b3 for example there's all sorts of different setups here
feel free to study this position on your own using an openings database or an engine
but that would simply take hours of analysis so what i'm recommending is a very cool idea h4
i think what the heck is this why would i play h4 a couple of ideas number one the control of the
g5 square and the bishop coming to g5 in the future uh another idea as crazy as it sounds
rook h3 and the rook can swing over and start to create pressure like this also if black ever
plays g6 bishop g7 you can play h5 and you're already trying to come in with the pawn here for
for a beginner it's very difficult to find a move with black one of black's best moves here is a5
uh i i can basically guarantee you that if you get this position no one will ever play the move a5
unless you're like 2200 that move tries to play bishop a6
now that the rook is protecting and there's some theory here something like uh
i don't even remember the exact theoretical move i believe it's c4 and if black plays something like
bishop a6 we've already seen this position something like b3 uh to defend the pawn for
example this knight can develop the d2 or c3 of this knight moves very very theoretical position
more more likely is that black will play d6 or f6
just trying to trade your your paw your pawn here in the center and the easiest thing for
you to do here is to play c4 knight will go to b6 because here's the thing if bishop a6 now
there's a huge difference huge huge difference you can take the pawn now the queen is hit
and there's there's some issues if pawn takes pawn for example you have a queen takes the knight has
to come back because it's under attack and now you just develop normally knight c3 bishop f4
g5 long castle open file these pawns are going to be targets you get the queens off the board
but your position is still very comfortable so something like knight b6 and a very
simple trade and we have kind of a similar position this pawn is not really a weakness
uh and you can use it for the future like i said h5h6 it's protected if you ever put the bishop
there and if you want to just in this particular case you won't be able to but if the bishop is not
covering that square bring the rook up and over h4 is a cool move check it out on the database it's
not the most popular but it is played by a lot of super gms this isn't me just making some stuff up
for uh click bait purposes and that's really the two main lines bishop c5 and knight f6
all right now now you know what to do in the scotch you have the potter variation with
bishop to c5 we already looked at knight takes d4 and there's really limited other options
uh my most you know my favorite is queen f6 don't take the knight if they attack you uh
against this i would recommend going for knight b5 point is to go to c7 simple and straightforward
uh if black plays something like back to d8 well you can just keep developing knight c3 bishop f4
you know just get i mean this is silly w what is this why are we going back and forth
so bishop f4 knight c3 develop your pieces uh but there is one very uh tricky line tricky tricky
line in uh in these positions and it's the move queen to h4 so it's after knight takes d4 queen
oh sorry i clicked the forward arrow queen to h4 i have played this myself with black and this
looks very scary the point of this is that of course if g3 you're just gonna take this pawn
and you're not quite winning the rook if white plays queen e2 but uh it's still very
unpleasant and if knight takes c6 i still take because it's check and then i win the night back
so the best move here for white is the move knight c3 now a lot of people play this
but then with black you play bishop to b4 and this is this does look very dangerous you know if white
plays something like bishop d2 suddenly they've lost their knight and now they're just down a
knight so they can't do that um if they play queen d3 looks like it's defending everything black
plays knight f6 hitting this again and it's just becoming more and more difficult to guard this
thing because you're gonna take and then win it so the best move here for white if you ever face this
best move here for white after bishop to b4 is the move bishop to e2 and it looks like
you're just you don't know what you're doing it looks like you've just given away the e4 pun if
they take on e4 you can't take because you're pinned you're gonna play the move knight d to
b5 now giving this away but threatening this if they take the knight you take with a pawn
and the second that they take here you have bishop to f3 you can also take check and then when they
move play bishop f3 and the issue here is that everything is guarded and if they move back
you're going to win their rook they take say so you've avoided all of the danger in your position
and you've won a rook this is very you know this is like taking someone who thinks
they're trapping you and leading them down into the trap and trapping them right back
you will get this and of course like i said if bishop c3 there's this
now this is one of my favorites let's say they you know they go back they're not attacking
your knight they're just defending well here you have this move f4 brutal move defended defended
and if queen c3 you have this and they cannot stop themselves from losing material you can give queen
h4 a try you will catch people if they haven't watched this video and if they haven't prepared
this if you play this with black if you play e4 e5 with the black position with the black pieces and
you get a scotch you can try this queen h4 move you will catch people uh but it's not uh it's not
it's not a great move if they play knight c3 in here now for example if knight c3 bishop c5
still kind of tricky don't take because you get checkmated just go here this is the one you cannot
play the potter variation you just have to be solid here with the bishop on e3 here and castle
a queen this out this early can only be a target so something like knight f5 hitting the queen
uh once you consolidate g3 kicking the queen away just don't fall for the queen's nonsense
and you'll be okay that's basically it i have nothing else for you in this video just a
full-on study of e4 e5 and the scotch uh and the cool thing about it is that i got to make the uh
the potter variation with knight b3 uh yeah let me know what uh what you guys think you guys agree
i look like daniel radcliffe harry potter that's the one i get all the time who do
people tell you you look like is what i want to know i'd be very curious unfortunately in
youtube comments you can't share pictures but it's probably for the best because otherwise
who knows what people would put in the comments man they're already crazy as is
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