if you are a fan of chess then at some point you have probably come across the channel agad matar
aka antonio rodic from croatia he's been making youtube videos now for close to four years
and he's made the game easy to understand and accessible to hundreds of thousands of people
he doesn't play a lot of over-the-board chess but i did want to honor him in my best game
series so i went through his games on leach as he plays a lot of blitz under the same handle
and i really like his playing style so i picked out a game to share with all of you
if you're a perfectionist you're not gonna love this game because there are some moments
the engine has its suggestions but hopefully we can put all of that aside and we can just
enjoy the show so antonio starts the game with e4 and looks like we're getting into an open sicilian
but he plays b4 and this is one thing i love about going through his games he plays a lot of gambits
he gets his opponents uncomfortable early he attacks them very quickly and it reminds me
of uh you know myself or mikhail tal or you know other great chess geniuses that totally belong in
the same sentence so the point here is that after takes d4 white has full control of the center and
at the cost of just a b pawn but the b pawn that you know is no longer there that's that bishop is
going to get there and potentially fighting a long diagonal black plays d5 and you would think here
that e5 is the good way to go but antonio plays e takes and you would think well isn't that helping
black develop like a queen because you can't even get the knight out right no because he plays
c4 and there is a rule of chess here beginners this is not a glitch this is called on poissant
it's a chess rule you've got to make sure to learn it but it's actually not even so good here
because after knight c3 you're just attacking the queen you're helping white develop so his
opponent played queen back to d8 and antonio plays a3 continuing this gambit at the cost of one extra
pawn he will now get full control of the center and quick development so his opponent doesn't bite
but like all smart gambits are played now is when you punish your opponent for opening inaccuracies
utilizing his two-on-one central advantage antonio plays d5 right and he hits the knight
on c6 right take take and black really does a lot of choices it doesn't have a lot of choices here
here knight a5 is kind of an ugly move and he just goes back what does antonio do he plays
bishop to c4 that seems like a more or less straightforward movie could have potentially
given a check or played bishop b2 knight f6 and now he castles and this is very important
we back up a second and i ask you what is the best way for black to guarantee castling
black needs to guarantee castling the thing is that white is a move away from castling and then
putting the rook directly opposite the king black has to go bishop first and then knight e7 which is
not very typical but in this particular case is required so that rookie one doesn't come with an
attack on the king and you can get away since black doesn't do that you would think well so
what levy bishop b7 and i'm gonna castle well now here's my question not just for the beginners but
also for the intermediate players what is the one move one move in white's position that prevents
black from castling you might say well levy that's very easy just give this check you're not wrong i
mean you're not allowed to castle out of check but i'm talking about creating a serious threat
you can pause if you'd like i mean this is a you know tribute to uh the great antonio so you can
pause the video here um but the move is bishop to f4 which he plays and now we see the problem
if black castles you will play d6 and the bishop is trapped because now the bishop cannot go back
it's a great move for him developing another piece black now has to play bishop d6 and rather than
trading we're ready to pounce with the check now black has no way to guard here he has to play king
to f8 i like what antonio does in this position as well plays the move knight to e5 excellent move
not killing the tension a new piece joins the attack black plays h6 useful move potentially
g5 but i'd like to see black developing the pieces bishop f5 getting this night out somehow you can't
quite go to d7 because of various tactics with this bishop but you know getting a piece out
antonio again plays a great move ab4 he's getting his pawn back at the right moment because if black
takes with the bishop you just keep developing black is sorely lacking in development here
spock plays g5 and hides the king on g7 looks like you're out of the woods what's the best
move here for white and again you know i uh like i said i really like this i really like this game
i really like this playing style king just made it here don't let the king breathe queen to d4
we're we're lining up the queen exactly where the king has arrived and again everything works here
the pawn covers knight c6 um it's not going to be so easy and soon you'll start chipping away at
these guys and finding a way to move this forward black plays rookie a natural move and antonio
completes his development he's not yet ready to throw a punch black takes back the pawn on b4
now this is maybe the only criticism i have maybe two adjustments to the play of antonio over the
course of this game that i found in this position he has an immediate knockout punch he's ready
why do i know he's ready because he has one two three four five six pieces out and active and
if you really want to say black has this bishop sure this knight is barely defending the king
and sure you can say this wreck i mean that queen's out but it's not attacking this and
it's got vision here and you gotta look at things near the enemy king that are
barely protected and actually in this position knight f7 is fatal because after king f7 you play
d6 and you break through if the king goes back you are lined up here you will take knight obviously
cannot take the queen takes and now knight to d5 and it's over because the bishop is hit the knight
is hit and you do not have sufficient defense at the same time in the future these pieces are going
to fall the rook will be trapped night is of the night there is a very nice fork and it could have
just been over in a second but i can't complain about the move knight to b5 and this is what
makes this game so fun it gives the game a very romantic feel okay bishop takes rook as possible
and the you know the engine tries to claim that this is the way to go but this is so fascinating
that black has a full row of pieces just not moving white is about to just jump in and destroy
everything these two moves the pin this knight is gonna find a way to jump in here potentially
um black was too afraid to take and instead played the move knight to a6 so antonio played
rook to e3 now this also is a way to give the rook away but look at this pawn takes e3
opening up the f file for the rook i did warn you guys earlier if you plug this into the engine
you're gonna lose the sense of marvel you're gonna say oh this is the computer says this the computer
says that it's a three-minute game all right it's a three-minute game not everyone's perfect
and i and i love how every piece in this game got involved for white all right so if you want to
be an engine andy you're more than welcome to do that or let's just watch what unfolds bishop to d7
hitting the knight so what does the knight do it jumps into d6 now the knight is hitting this this
this the bishop is hitting this knight because of where the knight just moved not to mention that in
some moments you can put the knight on f5 queen comes out to b6 now here there is something very
brutal which i cannot fault um our protagonist for not playing because i'm not sure i would have
played this even even if somebody did tell me the engine suggested this but here there's something
very savage and i want to share it with you and rather than playing the natural 98 it's this why
well if you take on d7 and they take back the bishop maintains defense of the knight right
but here you play rook f1 threatening the f7 pawn
and this cannot be taken if queen e3 take take it looks like you're fine i mean rook f7 king
j8 but the problem is the knight comes back it's not just about the f7 pawn it's about this it's
very important to look at checks at all angles not just rook goes down so black cannot take this pawn
and if black plays passively with something maybe like the knight coming back to block the rook
then queen f2 is a killer and there's no way to stop this again if queen e3
you've stopped me from taking because of the pin but you haven't stopped this
and now you would lose a queen a very nasty simple trade and rook comes to f1 and black is dead
so well we didn't get that we got 98 which is the which which is still a very natural move
and here as the players get lower on time a few inaccuracies happen
rookie one now i i think the point of this was just to maintain defense and not to trade rook
f1 to me is more natural but at the same time it's it's not even the best move it's just more natural
so bishop to f5 and now d6 now the pawn's going and the bishop and the knight both hit the pawn
knight comes to e4 hitting the queen and the bishop and here queen to d5 antonio could have
went for style points here and played d7 if you take i take and i make a new queen
but he sees his queens under attack so he goes and threatens a mate basically
i can't fault him knight takes pawn and now knight d7 nice move if bishop takes because the queen's
under attack the bishop is going to take this knight and now this is hard to guard so bishop
e6 bishop e5 czech disregarding the attack on the queen going for the king instead black plays f6
antonio says my queen's hanging my bishop's hanging what do i got to do what's worth more
than the queen and a bishop bishop takes f6 check i gotta hit the king otherwise he's gonna take me
king takes f6 rook f1 and now again for anybody who who will double check this with the machine
the best move for black and i'll tell you why is king e7 now
the way you come up with a move like this in the game black ran away from the queen because
the queen's a very scary piece when you're under attack like this you gotta find a move that has no
checks king e7 there is no checks doesn't mean it's not scary white will go queen to e5
pinning you and there's still danger queen f6 rook f6 etc queen g7 there's only one move
here that saves black and that move is apparently knight back to b8 tell me how many people watching
this would just calmly play knight b8 and come here alright or knight d7 or something you know
let's be serious with ourselves uh queen e5 is a very scary move all the same but black runs away
and now gives a check to white and goes back to g8 antonio obviously doesn't trade the bishops
and instead lines up the bishop this way black plays bishop f7 counter attacking the queen
this pawn we get queen f5 and now black takes the bait he plays queen takes e3 check
i mean it's taking a free pawn it's a check but the game ends with the move king to h1
a quiet move the silent killer and black is lost and the game is over because you cannot prevent
queen f7 you cannot prevent queen h7 you cannot prevent all of these things together now there
are some fun tricks but none of them work for example let's say you bring the queen
back you think you're guarding stuff right i mean looks like you're guarding stuff check
king and now since the rook is opposite the bishop bishop g6 and if black tries to really
defend himself here it's the hug of death as they say that's actually a term when too many
people go to a website do you guys know that just fun facts here with gotham chess too many people
go to a website at the same time and it crashes it's like the hug of death queen eight-shaped mate
the pieces give the king the hug of death blocking it in can't go here again because don't forget and
this would have been a nice conclusion such a fascinating position where this knight and
two pawns just like never did anything right but it's pretty interesting that after king h1 it's
just completely lost the best move for black would have been to bring the queen here actually chuck
chuck a piece you lose a piece this way but go to the end game and just be a bit more defensive
but i like this game you know i really like this game antonio doesn't do a you know tremendous
amount of over the board chess he'll maybe play one or two tournaments a year locally
uh in croatia and i'm a big fan of his he's soon gonna hit a million subscribers maybe if
you're watching this very far into the future he's already hit it so congratulations i can say that
i was the first to congratulate you um you know i started making videos five six months ago and
on the journey upward a lot of people would compare me to to antonio's content and we've
actually been on stream together we've played some four player chess maybe we'll play some among us
um after the recording of this video but i'm a huge fan of his he's done tremendous things
for chess around the world and one thing that i wanted to share with you before we sign off
antonio won this game at a time when he was peaking these are his five highest rated wins
in his career in blitz look at the month april 2020 this man and the game that i showed you was
from april 2020. he was crushing people so it just goes to show you a concentrated period of time
at home obviously that was right around uh when the covet pandemic began but
he was at home maybe he was doing a little bit more study he was feeling a bit more inspired
and he was crushing and that's when he hit his all-time high blitz writing as well so
antonio keep making great content uh i i don't think i just speak for myself when
i say we love the videos keep it coming hope you're healthy after surgery and uh
yeah two more videos are going to appear on that side and i will see you in the next one