a couple of days ago i played an epic match against my good friend and fellow content creator
eric rosen this match was the quarterfinals matchup in the i am not a gm speeches championship
held by chess.com the match format is 75 minutes of five minute blitz with one second bonus time
45 minutes of three plus one and 25 minutes of one plus one bullet this video is a highlighted
version of the amazing commentary by aman hamilton and robert hess i'm going to take you segment by
segment and give you my comments as well at the end i'll share my final thoughts about the match
and if you're looking for the full version i've put a link in the description below
to the match as well as the interview let's go and look erika stevens yeah how did that happen
wow the knight g5 rook i faded e4 there's so many good moves here where's knight g5 no knight f6 is
too passive and rookie one played with 2.9 94 check winning material so it looks like levi's
getting this there's a queen d5 check and he's trying to win some pawns back for the material
but levy blocks the queen f7 this looks like it is levi's game oh but if you trade queens that's got
to be a loss yeah the problem is queen d2 is such a strong threat and somebody who doesn't resign
very frequently is eric rosen he plays the games out he gets these tricky stalemates and things
like that but of course levy converts that one nice game there okay and if i play that pawn is
pins you're not actually threatening the knight on d4 maybe there's a movie thrown he plays bishop g5
for that reason and look at levy quickly renewing the discovery against the queen queen it's for it
le'veon in eight seconds he's now down maybe bishop v8 queen d6 an idea that gopher h2 mate
he doubles rooks on the f file and now we're gonna have to see eric getting under 10 seconds this is
gonna be a wild finish look at queen h6 g5 g5 will trap the queen that's a win on the spot he has to
play f3 that's not a move you want to play and no replay he's threatening g5 against queen he won he
freed up the square and all of a sudden levy's thinking 2.7 seconds the queen comes back to e1
and now queen b won and look at this it's turning around yeah bishop f4 and queen g3 though
he wins in exchange this is not over though bishop f4 keep that e3 pawn queen d5 king h8 and queen
somewhere are you just going to figure out where to knock him out in 1.3 seconds
both of these players are just almost losing on the spot we need d4 check rook d7 coming up
we have queen d5 check queen careful queens
what a swindle because robert all he had to do was play queen takes f7 with a check
is someone gonna flag this game it really feels like it oh you got 1.8 he barely got that move up
three seconds for eric he plays h that's a good move pawn chain rook five another good keep the
piece defended now the seventh rank is scary pawn goes down rook b7 rook d7 to follow rook d6 here
probably wins g6 i think that's king this king can come into the position king f6 king g5 king
f4 careful of that king oh my gosh he takes g4 whose past pawn is better i don't know but don't
play rook g3 g6 is hanging rookie two's almost mate though yeah it's almost major plays rook d2
oh my goodness oh my gosh so the five plus one blitz is now over eric is leading four to three
and we've been trading wins from the get go a lot of super stressful low time moments
now we begin 45 minutes of the three plus one blitz segment by the way three seconds for each
player so there could be a flag and now rook c3 knight g4 if you take enough three kings you two
and you oh you can't keep the bishop oh that's even better he's gonna go oh my gosh i knew it
that's so funny eric finds all of these stalemates he did it last year against elizabeth pitts and
he managed to actually get a stalemate in one game but levy's too aware of what's going on the
first nine games of this match were one with the black pieces let's see what ends up happening yep
and he takes that bishop a5 and he's gonna grab the bishop because you take them queen takes
b8 remember the knight on f8 the rooks are not connected no that's a problem 1.3 seconds left
so bishop takes e6 he doesn't do it yeah and now all of a sudden levy's trying to escape but his
next bishop is trapped oh my goodness look at it it's like he's playing against horde chess
oh tbc the queen drops the queen drops oh and that's a win for eric the first victory for the
white pieces of the match so now eric broke the streak of only black winning he takes a 6-4 lead
and he actually ended up with a seven and a half four and a half lead in the match a three-game
lead that i had to overcome i was able to win the next game and make it seven and a half five and a
half but he made a very interesting decision he resigned with five seconds on the clock in the
blitz segment to force another blitz game what a way to defend that pawn queen a5 is not normally a
resource you lean on to defend your center pawn especially with all the pressure building up here
the queen lining up towards the king on g8 queen a5 combining defense and attack and watch out for
knight g5 right now because that rook needs a defender and knight g5 third should take on f3
and remove the rook's defense while shattering the white king side pawn structure and that could
spell big trouble and there it is that's a big move it is and you can react to this in a number
of different ways but what looks unavoidable are the double pawns here well you can react a number
of ways or if you're eric rosen you just don't react at all we don't even know if he's playing
in the game right now oh god there should be four four four it just wins on the spot and he takes it
first but bishop b4 is next that's over that's over black black wins robert oh no okay so now
the second and final portion of the blitz is done it's seven and a half six and a half i'm on a
two game winning streak going into the bullet where i should be a little bit of a favorite
we start with the first game and oh my gosh this first game i have to win it i must win it to get
back into the match even the playing field and start taking over let's see what happens
yeah what's going on king b1 king b1 getting out of bishop g5 with check
rook takes g2 queen g2 and already the other rook comes in i think this is going to be anyone's game
12 seconds look at the time advantage for eric rosen and the rooks under attack you're gonna
bring your rook back probably to h7 to cover the f7 square good idea rook f7 perhaps queen
d i like that g5 is hanging you can just grab that pawn but you lose g6 so he's trying to figure out
he covers that knight f4 oh this is getting really really good here for levy i feel like
but bishop g5 is a great story wait is the knight trapped in g6 rook g7 yeah nice it's stuck in the
corner oh my gosh nobody puts the knight in the corner except levy e4 and there it goes i take d4
who's better two seconds a piece oh my gosh rook c three g rook f7 you can win b7 you can win c2
there's no mate if both sides are trying to mate the other knight b5 looks like a good
move take that knight okay see two's hanging so now it's even material in the rook ending but
someone's gonna lose this game though someone has to good move king seems to go for c6 and he
defends e6 pawn and now his pawns are saved king b6 and king c5 can oh he's hanging v7
is hanging over now the king's coming to be four rough d6 rookies looks huge rookie sticks is huge
he plays it kicks the fight back he goes here oh six one second e6 with check okay take him
a fourth sure white has lots of time it should be a draw here rook to e8 the king should chase the
brilliant brilliant defense and one second oh we touched the book
the rook covers the square look at levy he cannot believe it
so i lost an absolutely heartbreaking game as you can see where i was better for a long time and
ultimately eric held it together better than i did i lost the next game now it's nine and a half six
and a half with 17 minutes to go i won the next game to make it nine and a half seven and a half
and then in this next game i am suffering with the black pieces let's see what happens finally
and uh levy levy's in big trouble here take some rook e5 although the g3 pawn hangs so yeah he's
going king c3 king d4 whoa i like that move oh king d king d5 who's better here black is better
now look at that king that's a hero and where do you win rook she says bring the rope back to e6
g to e6 and bring the the rooks down this is all of a sudden good for black you can play d3 and
a king d4 and then rookie two check look at that king it's a hero went all the way from like g7 to
d4 wow and look at this rookie two check trading off some rooks king c3 bring that king in oh my
goodness and you can't move you can't take the rook d e's nothing to do and brigade two me the
king helps in the checkmate oh my goodness rookie three yeah this is just completely winning eric
gonna waste some time but it's about to be a one point match with nine minutes remaining plenty of
time not sure about that move yeah i'm not a big fan of three seconds left for black i didn't even
notice the time if you take on g5 to whoa talking about the other thing but update on g6 wait oh
they're works hanging the rook sayings you can't take the knight rook h6 knight takes pawn takes
and then you have h5 oh roxy's h5 is winning it's winning for what oh he blew his hanging
he left the rook hanging and he doesn't even react how do you blunder a rook and just take
us more of a nibble out of your sweatshirt and nothing else who is this guy eric was up nine and
a half six and a half i won four straight games i buckled down i found it within myself to calm
down and focus and i won four straight but i was up a game with one minute left on the game clock
i played a garbage last game eric held it together again better than i did and he won the final game
of regulation to force a tie break now we play four games of one plus one bullet if it's tied
two to two we play an armageddon here we go to get away from it's a queen c6 oh boy that's
a draw that's true yes he wants it there might be more i don't know where more is but maybe there
is more kingdom does that secure the draw at this point he is thinking about bishop f1 but he should
not play that movie he did it oh my goodness oh my gosh and he does it wait check oh no he missed it
wow and that decision by eric he shook his head the first real reaction we've
seen from him he was like i can't believe that just happened i played bishop f1 was so
unnecessary he didn't need to do that you just be okay with the draw and go to the next game
very shocking well there's gonna be g4 to follow but uh eric rosen has got to be happy with his
chances here yes because now all things are opening up and rookie three very good four
oh no or maybe not the three move f three and go for checkmate oh my gosh this might be so quickly
rook e3 play but g takes h3 and the queen comes down to g2 and that looks like game
h2 okay but we're you can't stop being too there goes the pawn and get a queen yeah a drawback oh
he's fist pumping he's fist bumping he's still got the game to complete but the queening and he's got
it he's up a rook and there has to be a checkmate in the next few moves so levy rosman against all
odds he was down three points at some moment here he goes checkmate next move and that is the match
and look at levy he is elated there is a fist bump he's gone i was probably jumping around his
room i feel sorry for whatever objects he has around him they're probably breaking right now
holy smokes the emotions finally pour out because they've been bottled in the entire match
rosen and rosman just gave us probably one of the best streets ever for in terms of entertainment
robert you know bringing you this prime time show i'm not a gm maybe any speech championship match
i feel like this has been the most exciting and so my friends i was able to win the tie break
three-nothing and take the match it was extremely stressful the only lead that i had came with one
game to go in regulation time and ultimately i pulled away in the tie breaks listen i gotta give
so much love to eric rosen he is a stone cold killer he prepared so well for this match with
the white pieces got himself some really good positions and if i told him in the interview if
i was gonna lose to anybody it would happily be to my friend eric now let's take a look a little
bit more at the preparation side of things and overcoming adversity during the match so the first
thing any title player does to prepare for a match is to look at the openings of the other person of
course i know eric makes a lot of youtube videos but what does he really like to play so i used
openingtree.com i also have chess bass but that program is quite expensive and for serious players
even though eric rosen is actually quoted here and basically you put in a chess.com username or
a leeches username or whatever the color and you analyze games and basically what i realized is
that when eric rosen is playing with the black pieces he really likes to play queen's gambit
declined and personally speaking i really don't like to play against the queen's game of decline
if i know it's coming i would rather play into c4 and so what i was doing is in the beginning of the
match i was messing around with a lot of englishes because i saw the statistics and i saw that
he might play e5 and we did have a few reverse sicilians which was actually kind of a lot of fun
but i did not have a lot of success with these variations where eric was taking early on c4
basically even though i knew what he was going to do against me i was not very comfortable in these
positions it was the first time that i was really exploring with them he was more confident and it
did not go so well as you can see nobody kept you know we both kept losing uh with the with
the white pieces so what i ended up doing as the match went on and really i think this was the uh
the the the big difference maker um what i ended up doing is i ended up playing b3 in the blue
this was my this was going to be my surprise however the match went in the bullet i was gonna
play b3 because when i did my homework i realized that eric likes to play e5
and he would go for this variation and i figured that when we got here and this is
what i saw on opening tree that we would get this position which is extremely imbalanced
and basically a position like this might arise knight g3 bishop d6 knight c3 something like
this like a really super dynamic position where i play queen e2 and long castle
and he doesn't have a lot of time in the bullet segment to figure out how to play against this
and it ended up working i won seven of the last eight games and the crucial adjustment that i
made was when eric was playing d5 he won the final bullet game with this variation the final game to
tie it up and take it to tie breaks and i played f3 e4 and during the break i made a mental note
to myself that i was going to play knight f3 and what ended up happening in this game is i played
very solidly i didn't mess around i cracked open the center with the c pawn and ultimately i just
got a very easy to play position that eric was unfamiliar with and with the time ticking down
by move 20 of this game i was winning and i had 30 seconds versus eight so that small opening
adjustment to b3 won me a ton of games in the bullet if not almost every game i played i think
except the very last one so i was very happy with that i was very happy with that change
um now eric from the other side every time i had black in this match eric started out well let me
actually just take you to a game eric started out with e4 which was already a surprising because if
one word is associated with eric rosen it's handsome but the other word would be london
i was expecting london's i was expecting eric to mess around with d4 bishop f4 but he played
e4 and he did that because he thought i was going to play the karo khan and he was right
and i very stubbornly did not change this i personally don't really like to watch the same
opening a million times but my logic was play what you know this man does not know it better than you
you've played it your whole life don't go away from it and eric prepared the exchange variation
one game eric played that i prepared for in his last match again the value of preparing
openings i knew that he might try this and i knew that he might try this variation and he did
knight f3 bishop d6 he played this in his last match against sagar's shot and what i
did is i improved on that match rather than what sagar played which is bishop to g4 i played this
castles castles and we got a very interesting dynamic position but i knew this was gonna happen
and that was a really interesting game i ended up winning that game it had nothing to do with
the opening but eric didn't go back to it eric stuck to the exchange variation specifically
this system after queen c7 knight a3 a really unique move i mean obviously and the point
being that you fake this and then when i play here you drop back to c2 and throughout this
match i was trying different things there was a game i played knight f6 and then i cracked
open the center with e5 eric immediately made an adjustment and improved on his play he played this
the very first game in the match he played this move and he got a worse position the next game
he made an adjustment played this i played e5 take take and we got a super weird position like
he volunteered his bishop for capture but it's an isolated pawn so then as the match was going on i
made more adjustments i was like okay some games i'm gonna play g6 bishop g7 actually
this game in particular i did exactly that and then i played this move queen back to d8 and i
was trying to play bishop to f5 but in this game that i'm showing you he kind of adjusted for that
and we were jostling back and forth and that's basically the story of the openings
he played one consistent thing and i found my success in the bullet changing it up my strategy
whatever the score was in the blitz segment was going to be to play b3 because his prep wouldn't
matter there and hopefully he was not expecting it i hope i hope he didn't expect it because
um i had some success now as far as big picture you know um i mean what to say i already kind of
had one outro uh it's a lot of stage fright for me right now uh on this you know to make this
a really epic outro but i wore a heart monitor during that match my heart rate stayed above 120
for one hour i burned like 500 calories i didn't sleep till three in the morning it was at 9 00 pm
eastern time that's uh 21 o'clock and i didn't sleep till three in the morning i was just so
wired i was so excited and it was an extremely fun match and i just want to like give all of you so
much love who stayed up watching it who watched it the second they woke up the next day who cheered
for me who cheered for eric just you know he and i are very close friends i'd like to think
so he stayed at my house in 2020 he's one of the only creators that i've seen in person in so long
in january 2020 he crashed at my apartment um in new york city uh when he was coming into new york
so if there was anybody that i was going to have a good match and compete against and be happy to
lose to like i said it was eric so on that note now my friends all we have to do is win this thing