The most famous game of all time, beating the opera game: Carlsen-Nakamura 1.e4 e5 2.Ke2 Ke7 3.Ke1 Ke8 4.Ke2 Ke7 5.Ke1 Ke8 6.Ke2 Ke7 1/2-1/2 You did miss a teachable moment here, though. This game was drawn by threefold repetition when the position after move 6 repeated the position after moves 2 and 4. Why wasn't the game drawn after move 5 repeated the position after moves 1 and 3? (Because in the position after move 1, both sides can castle, while after moves 3 and 5, both sides cannot.)
@@thecakeredux > So the same configuration of pieces is considered a different position based on castling rights [...] Yes, and also en-passant capture options. I figure the equivalence definition for two game states is this: the pieces have to be in the same places, the same player has to have the next move, the same set of moves has to be available, and for each move the same set of moves has to be available for the other player in the reached position. (This need not continue ad infinitum, because the set of moves only depends on the most recent one move, not on the entire game history. At least if we ignore the 50/75-move draw rules.) If the rule book says something different, I figure my definition is equivalent to what the rule book says.
"Your opponent willingly makes a mistake and you get angry because you can't punish it" Oh boy this hits home. That's why I end up watching every video with dubious gambits and catchy titles about traps so I can find the proper refutation. But every single time I end up in a new trap I didn't know before.
Occasionally even a GM will fall for a trap they have never seen before... It is rare, but it does happen. The difference is that a GM can usually simply calculate and see it coming, and GMs have played so many games that they have seen all of the common tricks and traps hundreds of times. So while being aware of opening tricks is a good thing, you can never be aware of all of them. The real solution is to just practice enough to where you can catch one in the act and not fall for it.
@@SuperAWaC My approach is to try to go through all the traps I can so I can see patterns and also patterns of refutation. For example d6 is very often quite effective to put down fires from white's gambits. So as black if I don't know what to do then I often consider d6 before other moves.
Don't memorize traps, just practice tactics. Recognizing a potential fork soon to come is much more valuable than memorizing a potential fork in this or that opening.
5:01 Favorite quote of the lecture: "This is the way I feel... with perfect play, after Ke2, probably white's losing. And it's also possible white is just much worse."
I think normally serious players doing this is good for chess. It shows how it doesn't always have to be super serious and predictable. Finding effective ways to punish openings like these is also fun. It makes chess feel more human and fun.
Imagine if you watched a basketball game and one team just sat at half court til the other team had 10 on the board a. Chess is literally by nature unpredictable. There are countless openings. This is trolling. It is a tactic but it's 100% psychological.
The most disappointing part of the Magnus Hikaru double Bong Cloud was they went into a very early repetition instead of playing it out. The fact that they did a double Bong Cloud was epic on its own, but if they played the game through after that it would have been legendary.
Well yeah but the reason they played the double bongcloud is that neither of them wanted to play a serious game of chess lol Magnus playing Ke2 was basically offering an invitation to make a quick draw so they could both rest
I think the context that a lot of people are missing is that at the top level of competition players "handshake" on known draws all the time. Might as well play a 2-move draw rather than going through the motions of 30 moves to reach a known drawn position.
It wouldn't have been all that impressive if they would've transposed the bongcloud into manual castling on both sides. It'd technically become a normal game at that point. Hikaru has done that a bunch of times in his bongcloud speeding. Granted, moving their kings diagonally would've helped a lot though.
19:18 Follow Anarchy Chess for some of these kinds of openings. I saw one called the Unga Bunga, and when I ran it through the engine the critical move drops the analysis from +.6 to +.8 (Unga Bunga is a black opening out of the Caro). I've been playing it (blitz 1600ish) and it destroys people there, as it looks SO STUPID but they have to be precise, and it pulls them out of opening prep, which is a big advantage for you if you familiarize yourself with the opening. It only comes up if they play 2.Nf3 and advance the e pawn. Unga Bunga is: 1.e4 c6, 2.Nf3 d5, 3.e5 d4 From here the most common response that I've seen is c3. You need a high depth, or a trololol mindset to find the equalizing move, d3. From there the opening has as much complexity as your typical main line with hundreds of years of theory. You need to explore it yourself, usually by messing it up and analyzing your games in post, just like every other opening. They will get your d pawn, but they have to spend a lot of time to do it, and they can't get away with just ignoring it, usually. Some of black's best move lines involve even more absolutely stupid looking moves, such as Qd5 before moving any other minor pieces, so you've pushed one pawn 3 times, and moved your Queen out early, and it tends to make people REALLY mad 🤣. The Unga Bunga is probably objectively a draw even though it looks ridiculous and breaks most opening principles.
To 16:30, after Qh4+, I learned that playing d5 idea Bg4, pinning the knight once it moves to f3, was sound and if the knight on c3 took on d5, you would quickly castle queenside and develop an attack on the exposed king.
The Double Bongcloud opening, also known as hey, let's play chess without the castling rules. Why? Because we're bored and want to see something different for a change.
Ever played Chaturanga? The ancient castle-less form of chess? I think it's actually more fun. I get disappointed when I go on a Chaturanga binge and then come back to regular chess and everybody is just spamming diagonal attacks with bishops and queens (diagonals aren't as OP in chaturanga) and castling when it doesn't even make sense In chaturanga, bong cloud type positions actually make more sense. The king is safest on the second rank (again, it's those damn diagonals that make this harder in modern chess), and since you can't castle, moving the king is the easiest way to connect the rooks.
16:36 According to the engine the h4 check with the queen is the top move. The only other top move is pawn d7-d5, and it transposes into the same line! There is an interesting sequence of top engine moves from that point on: 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nc3 Qh4+ 4. Ke2 d5 5. Nxd5 Bg4+ 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Nxc7+ Kd8 8. Nxa8 Ne5 9. Qe1 Nxf3 10. Qxh4+ Nxh4+ 11. Ke1 *
28:17 I'm sure the 2020 STL Rapid and Blitz was on the internet, and indeed not over the board. At least the official broadcast showed players in different appartments staring at monitors. But that might have been to confuse the audience.
15:30 hey, that's my variation in the King's Gambit -- and actually i can totally recommend it against amateur players... NOBODY knows what to do against it... it's official name is the Mason-Keres Variation. Nowadays I prefer playing the Vienna Gambit, but I came to the Vienna via the Mason-Keres. EDIT: and yes, Qh4+ *is* the best move, but then Stockfish recommends to move it back to e7. Most people go on a wild attack but the king actually is okay on e2, and meanwhile White gets a nice center and after a well-timed Nb5 White will often be in trouble. Very underrated variation.
F3 Kf2 has been around for decades. I was introduced to it in the 90's. Grandmasters played it in the Master challenge events against members of the World Chess Network and was called "The King Can Attack Too" opening.
This concept around minute 18 of throwing opponent off balance, Tal did that to Botvinnik in one of the world championship matches with his famously anti-positional recapture.
One thing is that it could be used simply to take an opponent out of their prep. Maybe the opponent has great opening prep, but they aren't as strong tactically? In blitz this could be an advantage of sorts.
@@meekrab9027 Ummm. Most high level players know very many openings and "know the best moves" for quite a depth. How do you know that "You can do that equally well with openings that aren't objectively worse"? Did you read the "Maybe the opponent has great opening prep" part?
@@jazzyrick Any opponent who's into chess enough to have opening prep in the first place is going to know how to take advantage of all the problems playing the Bongcloud causes for your position. Their chess skills aren't going to totally short-circuit just because you moved your king, right?
I will say this again: 2.Ke2 is actually an advanced strategic move. The Whole point of Le Bongcloud is to 1.Lock the centre. 2. Mobilise ALL your pieces to the Kingside and attack once your opponent castles kingside. Ke2 actually helps connect the rooks. And you want to trade the bishop on h3
This man actually just had a Finegold lecture cut short. He heard "you should move your king up the board in the e... bssshhcchh .. bvvvvvvvt... pssssshhhhee ... ame."
If you like this you might like the Hokey Pokey System. It has two main variants, the King's Hokey Pokey (nf3, ng1) and the Queen's Hokey Pokey (nc3 nb1).
I was curious (26:03), so decided to ask Stockfish (15 NNUE, depth 40) what it thinks of the clearly-not-optimal moves you brought up. And yes, hanging the bishop is *way* worse than the bongcloud. BongCloud is only -2.22, as nothing is traded off but black has better development. It expects the followup 1. e4 e5 2. Ke2? Nf6 3. d3 d5 4. Nc3 Be6 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Bg5 d4 7. Nb1 h6 8. Bc1 a5 9. g3 a4 10. Bg2 Bd6 Hanging the bishop is *much* worse, a whole -6.80. It thinks it leads to trading off a knight and the queen, leaving white ahead in material and obviously better developed: 1. e4 e5 2. Ba6?? Nxa6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 d5 5. exd5 e4 6. Qe2 Nb4 7. O-O Be7 8. Nxe4 Nxe4 9. Qxe4 Qxd5 10. Qxd5 Nxd5 The aggressive queen move, however, is only -0.25 -- it leaves white no worse off than black is at the beginning of the game. It's certainly forcing, so if white wants to play something predictable then for humans it's probably totally fine. The computer expects 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 d6 3. Bc4 g6 4. Qd1 Nf6 5. d3 Bg7 6. Nf3 c6 7. O-O O-O 8. Re1 b5 9. Bb3 Nbd7 10. a4 b4 Even wasting another tempo with 3. Ke1 isn't nearly as bad as hanging the bishop. None of black's top five second-moves really set it up to punish white, but if they play normally with 2. .. Nf6 then white moving the king back is only -3.16. Looks like it just forces white to make too many queen moves, instead of doing normal things like developing knights: 1. e4 e5 2. Ke2? Nf6 3. Ke1 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Nf6 5. Qxe5+ Be7 6. d3 O-O 7. Be2 d5 8. Bf4 Bd6 9. Qg5 h6 10. Qg3 Bxf4 11. Qxf4 c5 But continuing to push the king forward (to "protect" the pawn) is even worse than hanging the bishop! It's a whole -7.22, giving black such a huge positional advantage that it can go trade-happy then eat some pawns, leaving white's king all on its own with a huge attack coming: 1. e4 e5 2. Ke2? Nf6 3. Ke3?? Bc5+ 4. Ke2 Nxe4 5. Nh3 d5 6. d3 Qh4! 7. dxe4 Qxe4+ 8. Kd2 Bxh3! 9. Qf3 Qxf3 10. gxf3 Bf5 11. Bd3 Bxd3 12. Kxd3 Bxf2 13. Nc3 c6 14. b4 Nd7 15. Rb1 Bb6 16. Ke2 O-O-O 17. b5 Rhe8 18. bxc6 bxc6 19. Na4 Re6 20. Rb3 Rde8
I like to do a version of the bongcloud with f4, nf3, kf2. You then play as a Bird's opening but you artificially castle instead. At least one advantage of that is moving the rook to E1 instead of its default square F1, but you're wasting tempo with the king moves anyway so it's actually not a real advantage.
there's also the kinda famous old game Lindemann - Echtermeyer (Kiel 1893) which goes 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Ke2 Qe4#. The story goes that Lindemann played an illegal move and, by the rules back then, had to move his king instead, so he had to play Ke2. May well qualify for forst moves in chess history :)
I'm a casual chess player and watched while high. Could not stop laughing, such an interesting perspective on internet culture. Please let this go viral
This is one of those things that the more you see the name, the funnier it gets, like the Groverhaus. This opening is seriously the Groverhaus of Chess
Actually it's pretty good opening for below 1500, because they try to attack you with only their queen and they end up with worse position having queen chased all over the board with tempo, while you get free development. Ben had great observation about below 1500 level.
I'm only in the 800s range in 5min games. The bong cloud is tough when you're learning it because it doesn't follow any of the principles I've been trying to learn.
I'm over halfway through this opening lecture, and I have not been told what to do on move 3 if I play this opening. OK, it's not a good opening, but a lot of players memorize 15-20 moves of "good openings", and can play a very solid game, not by skill, but by memory. So why not just show the attacks you can get under when playing the bongcloud, and your best resources against those attacks and what mistakes your opponent could make that could equalize or make your position better than the opponents?
I conjecture that, if we somehow had perfect knowledge (i.e. a 32 piece tablebase) that with perfect play, the bongcloud is still holding a draw as either color. It's not obvious I think, but since it is presumably true that the opening position is probably a "tablebase" draw, I think it's not so unreasonable that these moves are not losing enough.
Did someone really pay Mr. Finegold to do this lecture? That's borderline sadistic.
lol
Who would do such a thing
@@truwigl3582 you’re a legend for this
the bongcloud of internet sponsorships
the real question is, what would it take to get an 'advanced Bongcloud theory' lecture out of Ben now?
"Practically speaking, The Bongcloud isn't as bad as it is." -GM Benjamin Finegold, 2022
18:48 "And that depends on what your definition of 'is' is."
Ben Finegold is rated 2022 now? When did that happen?
It couldn't be more apparent that talking about the bongcloud is physically painful for Ben.
Probably 75% of this video is him expressing that it's a joke and he gets jokes. There's not really much bongcloud content or analysis.
The truth hurts.
@@equaltocody "not much content or analysis"????
I'm here to learn how to finally counter it.
@@peteypete9357 we should really ban the Bong Cloud in tournaments, it’s just too much
@@angelman906 tryna bring cancel culture to chess now? It's your job to beat it, not get mad if you keep losing to it.
My takeaway from this is that Ben Finegold recommends the bongcloud.
Man i cant wait for part 2!
The most famous game of all time, beating the opera game: Carlsen-Nakamura 1.e4 e5 2.Ke2 Ke7 3.Ke1 Ke8 4.Ke2 Ke7 5.Ke1 Ke8 6.Ke2 Ke7 1/2-1/2
You did miss a teachable moment here, though. This game was drawn by threefold repetition when the position after move 6 repeated the position after moves 2 and 4. Why wasn't the game drawn after move 5 repeated the position after moves 1 and 3? (Because in the position after move 1, both sides can castle, while after moves 3 and 5, both sides cannot.)
😂😂 Why we love chess. Thanks for posting 💙💙
I didn't know that, pretty cool 😅
So the same configuration of pieces is considered a different position based on castling rights being lost or not? That is very interesting.
@@thecakeredux There are four considerations for whether two positions are considered the same.
@@thecakeredux > So the same configuration of pieces is considered a different position based on castling rights [...]
Yes, and also en-passant capture options.
I figure the equivalence definition for two game states is this: the pieces have to be in the same places, the same player has to have the next move, the same set of moves has to be available, and for each move the same set of moves has to be available for the other player in the reached position. (This need not continue ad infinitum, because the set of moves only depends on the most recent one move, not on the entire game history. At least if we ignore the 50/75-move draw rules.)
If the rule book says something different, I figure my definition is equivalent to what the rule book says.
Finally, they did it. The madlads absolutely did it. They made Finegold cover the Bongcloud
We ouchea
"Your opponent willingly makes a mistake and you get angry because you can't punish it"
Oh boy this hits home. That's why I end up watching every video with dubious gambits and catchy titles about traps so I can find the proper refutation.
But every single time I end up in a new trap I didn't know before.
Occasionally even a GM will fall for a trap they have never seen before... It is rare, but it does happen. The difference is that a GM can usually simply calculate and see it coming, and GMs have played so many games that they have seen all of the common tricks and traps hundreds of times. So while being aware of opening tricks is a good thing, you can never be aware of all of them. The real solution is to just practice enough to where you can catch one in the act and not fall for it.
@@SuperAWaC My approach is to try to go through all the traps I can so I can see patterns and also patterns of refutation. For example d6 is very often quite effective to put down fires from white's gambits. So as black if I don't know what to do then I often consider d6 before other moves.
Yeah, and then they complain when you start playing the London. Trust me, restricting complete bullshit to the Englund is the better option.
Don't memorize traps, just practice tactics. Recognizing a potential fork soon to come is much more valuable than memorizing a potential fork in this or that opening.
Just play long games. You'll never fall for cheap traps because you can figure them out on the spot.
A 47 minute lecture about the bongcloud??? Im in
45 mins of "don't play this opening " 2 mins of analysis
I'm hoping I can finally learn how to counter this powerful opening.
@@peteypete9357 You counter the bong cloud by doing a double bong cloud. The board then explodes after this move.
Now we just need a jerome lecture and we're set
5:01 Favorite quote of the lecture: "This is the way I feel... with perfect play, after Ke2, probably white's losing. And it's also possible white is just much worse."
I thoroughly enjoyed watching Ben struggle to even give this lecture. It goes against every fiber of his being.
I think normally serious players doing this is good for chess. It shows how it doesn't always have to be super serious and predictable. Finding effective ways to punish openings like these is also fun. It makes chess feel more human and fun.
Imagine if you watched a basketball game and one team just sat at half court til the other team had 10 on the board a. Chess is literally by nature unpredictable. There are countless openings. This is trolling. It is a tactic but it's 100% psychological.
the fact that the hotbox variation exists is magical.
The most disappointing part of the Magnus Hikaru double Bong Cloud was they went into a very early repetition instead of playing it out. The fact that they did a double Bong Cloud was epic on its own, but if they played the game through after that it would have been legendary.
I remember that game. Thanks for mentioning it. That game was very suspicious.
I mean the whole point of it at that time was that they didn't want to play a meaningless game since they qualified lol😂
Well yeah but the reason they played the double bongcloud is that neither of them wanted to play a serious game of chess lol Magnus playing Ke2 was basically offering an invitation to make a quick draw so they could both rest
I think the context that a lot of people are missing is that at the top level of competition players "handshake" on known draws all the time. Might as well play a 2-move draw rather than going through the motions of 30 moves to reach a known drawn position.
It wouldn't have been all that impressive if they would've transposed the bongcloud into manual castling on both sides. It'd technically become a normal game at that point. Hikaru has done that a bunch of times in his bongcloud speeding. Granted, moving their kings diagonally would've helped a lot though.
19:18
Follow Anarchy Chess for some of these kinds of openings. I saw one called the Unga Bunga, and when I ran it through the engine the critical move drops the analysis from +.6 to +.8 (Unga Bunga is a black opening out of the Caro).
I've been playing it (blitz 1600ish) and it destroys people there, as it looks SO STUPID but they have to be precise, and it pulls them out of opening prep, which is a big advantage for you if you familiarize yourself with the opening. It only comes up if they play 2.Nf3 and advance the e pawn.
Unga Bunga is:
1.e4 c6, 2.Nf3 d5, 3.e5 d4
From here the most common response that I've seen is c3. You need a high depth, or a trololol mindset to find the equalizing move, d3.
From there the opening has as much complexity as your typical main line with hundreds of years of theory. You need to explore it yourself, usually by messing it up and analyzing your games in post, just like every other opening.
They will get your d pawn, but they have to spend a lot of time to do it, and they can't get away with just ignoring it, usually. Some of black's best move lines involve even more absolutely stupid looking moves, such as Qd5 before moving any other minor pieces, so you've pushed one pawn 3 times, and moved your Queen out early, and it tends to make people REALLY mad 🤣.
The Unga Bunga is probably objectively a draw even though it looks ridiculous and breaks most opening principles.
Thanks for this introduction which is surprisingly useful as well :)
I find this idea of "playin for fun" intriguing but suspicious.
Thanks for the entertainment!
Ke2 - resigns, what a cool ending to a Bongcloud.
I've decided to start getting serious with my chess, this lecture is a valuable resource.
After watching this lecture, I was inspired to play the bongcloud in a 1-minute game and lost.
Since Ben told us not to blame him, I blame Danny.
Ah yes, the Bongcloud Opening……. named after Grandmaster Cloud
First name Bong
I thought it was named after Mr. Opening.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_⚗️💨
Brings up images of ff7 mc playing chess.
Finally, a good opening!
Watched this at half speed so that I could take notes
I really enjoyed this. Ending w Ke2 was great.
Happy birthday, Ben!
You are by far the most entertaining streamer I’ve been seeing lately.
Hope you have a wonderful day.
"On the internet, silly things happen." GM Benjamin Finegold, 2022
One of the best lectures .. and then some.
To 16:30, after Qh4+, I learned that playing d5 idea Bg4, pinning the knight once it moves to f3, was sound and if the knight on c3 took on d5, you would quickly castle queenside and develop an attack on the exposed king.
this is my favorite lecture so far
Classic opening. Great lecture. Highly recommended.
I was secretly hoping Ben would cover this and the Jerome. Whoa. Thank you sponsor!
"It's a good opening, but only if you're the guy who hasn't moved his king." xD
Ben said "Chess could be fun too" like 20 times, it's like you know he's about to smash his head into the wall after this video.
~ 15:08 KGA: Nc3, Qh4. Kh4, Ke2
The Double Bongcloud opening, also known as hey, let's play chess without the castling rules. Why? Because we're bored and want to see something different for a change.
Ever played Chaturanga? The ancient castle-less form of chess? I think it's actually more fun. I get disappointed when I go on a Chaturanga binge and then come back to regular chess and everybody is just spamming diagonal attacks with bishops and queens (diagonals aren't as OP in chaturanga) and castling when it doesn't even make sense
In chaturanga, bong cloud type positions actually make more sense. The king is safest on the second rank (again, it's those damn diagonals that make this harder in modern chess), and since you can't castle, moving the king is the easiest way to connect the rooks.
@Sam Eash there is no such thing as op in chess, chances are you are just trash in defending
13:58 OMG i watched that Chang - Lendl game live too... was 35 years ago but damn that was still one of the craziest and most heroic fights ever...
15:01 to start the lecture.
I'm surprised you didn't cover Simon Williams' win with f3 Kf2 against Martin Simons, would've been a great addition to the lecture.
Yeah but British chess is the worst chess in the world
The definition of is joke was amazing, I’m 21 but man, that joke landed nice 😂
Clicked on this so hard I broke my wrist!
16:36 According to the engine the h4 check with the queen is the top move. The only other top move is pawn d7-d5, and it transposes into the same line!
There is an interesting sequence of top engine moves from that point on:
1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nc3 Qh4+ 4. Ke2 d5 5. Nxd5 Bg4+ 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Nxc7+
Kd8 8. Nxa8 Ne5 9. Qe1 Nxf3 10. Qxh4+ Nxh4+ 11. Ke1 *
28:17 I'm sure the 2020 STL Rapid and Blitz was on the internet, and indeed not over the board. At least the official broadcast showed players in different appartments staring at monitors.
But that might have been to confuse the audience.
"Maybe there's some bongcloud in the air where they live" I literally spat out my drink 😂
Finally a good lecture!
15:30 hey, that's my variation in the King's Gambit -- and actually i can totally recommend it against amateur players... NOBODY knows what to do against it... it's official name is the Mason-Keres Variation. Nowadays I prefer playing the Vienna Gambit, but I came to the Vienna via the Mason-Keres.
EDIT: and yes, Qh4+ *is* the best move, but then Stockfish recommends to move it back to e7. Most people go on a wild attack but the king actually is okay on e2, and meanwhile White gets a nice center and after a well-timed Nb5 White will often be in trouble. Very underrated variation.
It's like giving odds. I usually move to king bishop square not k2.
F3 Kf2 has been around for decades. I was introduced to it in the 90's. Grandmasters played it in the Master challenge events against members of the World Chess Network and was called "The King Can Attack Too" opening.
Kg3 was often whites 3rd move 😂
39:00 onwards
"Troll-value" lol.
"That's a good, you know, circular... something..." Ahhh. I am relieved, Thank you, Dr. Finegold.
This concept around minute 18 of throwing opponent off balance, Tal did that to Botvinnik in one of the world championship matches with his famously anti-positional recapture.
Ben we need more bongcloud lectures
One thing is that it could be used simply to take an opponent out of their prep. Maybe the opponent has great opening prep, but they aren't as strong tactically? In blitz this could be an advantage of sorts.
You can do that equally well with openings that aren't objectively worse, though.
@@meekrab9027 Ummm. Most high level players know very many openings and "know the best moves" for quite a depth. How do you know that "You can do that equally well with openings that aren't objectively worse"?
Did you read the "Maybe the opponent has great opening prep" part?
@@jazzyrick Any opponent who's into chess enough to have opening prep in the first place is going to know how to take advantage of all the problems playing the Bongcloud causes for your position. Their chess skills aren't going to totally short-circuit just because you moved your king, right?
I will say this again: 2.Ke2 is actually an advanced strategic move. The Whole point of Le Bongcloud is to 1.Lock the centre. 2. Mobilise ALL your pieces to the Kingside and attack once your opponent castles kingside. Ke2 actually helps connect the rooks. And you want to trade the bishop on h3
i remember watching this game live with an engine eval and Levy and Anna covering the game. It was hilarious
not the lecture we deserved but the lecture we needed
1:56 -- the "lighter" side of chess; I see what you did there
“a bong cloud of your own at home” 😂
15:50 I can't believe I used to think the King's Gambit was such a cool opening.
“It’s a good opening, but only if you’re the one who didn’t move your king”😂that got me
Funny and educational lecture on this legendary opening!
Can we get a lecture on the Duras gambit and the Tumbleweed?
39:04 Damn, dude actually made an Alekhine's gun. fucking awesome
"Bongcloud spirit", best two words ever !!
Ke2 on move 2, opponent laughs while secretly stressing out.
Ke2 later on in the game, opponent resigns.
Always repeat.
A great lecture on gaming psychology in general
This man actually just had a Finegold lecture cut short. He heard "you should move your king up the board in the e... bssshhcchh .. bvvvvvvvt... pssssshhhhee
... ame."
If you like this you might like the Hokey Pokey System. It has two main variants, the King's Hokey Pokey (nf3, ng1) and the Queen's Hokey Pokey (nc3 nb1).
I was curious (26:03), so decided to ask Stockfish (15 NNUE, depth 40) what it thinks of the clearly-not-optimal moves you brought up. And yes, hanging the bishop is *way* worse than the bongcloud.
BongCloud is only -2.22, as nothing is traded off but black has better development. It expects the followup 1. e4 e5 2. Ke2? Nf6 3. d3 d5 4. Nc3 Be6 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Bg5 d4 7. Nb1 h6 8. Bc1 a5 9. g3 a4 10. Bg2 Bd6
Hanging the bishop is *much* worse, a whole -6.80. It thinks it leads to trading off a knight and the queen, leaving white ahead in material and obviously better developed: 1. e4 e5 2. Ba6?? Nxa6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 d5 5. exd5 e4 6. Qe2 Nb4 7. O-O Be7 8. Nxe4 Nxe4 9. Qxe4 Qxd5 10. Qxd5 Nxd5
The aggressive queen move, however, is only -0.25 -- it leaves white no worse off than black is at the beginning of the game. It's certainly forcing, so if white wants to play something predictable then for humans it's probably totally fine. The computer expects 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 d6 3. Bc4 g6 4. Qd1 Nf6 5. d3 Bg7 6. Nf3 c6 7. O-O O-O 8. Re1 b5 9. Bb3 Nbd7 10. a4 b4
Even wasting another tempo with 3. Ke1 isn't nearly as bad as hanging the bishop. None of black's top five second-moves really set it up to punish white, but if they play normally with 2. .. Nf6 then white moving the king back is only -3.16. Looks like it just forces white to make too many queen moves, instead of doing normal things like developing knights: 1. e4 e5 2. Ke2? Nf6 3. Ke1 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Nf6 5. Qxe5+ Be7 6. d3 O-O 7. Be2 d5 8. Bf4 Bd6 9. Qg5 h6 10. Qg3 Bxf4 11. Qxf4 c5
But continuing to push the king forward (to "protect" the pawn) is even worse than hanging the bishop! It's a whole -7.22, giving black such a huge positional advantage that it can go trade-happy then eat some pawns, leaving white's king all on its own with a huge attack coming: 1. e4 e5 2. Ke2? Nf6 3. Ke3?? Bc5+ 4. Ke2 Nxe4 5. Nh3 d5 6. d3 Qh4! 7. dxe4 Qxe4+ 8.
Kd2 Bxh3! 9. Qf3 Qxf3 10. gxf3 Bf5 11. Bd3 Bxd3 12. Kxd3 Bxf2 13. Nc3 c6 14. b4
Nd7 15. Rb1 Bb6 16. Ke2 O-O-O 17. b5 Rhe8 18. bxc6 bxc6 19. Na4 Re6 20. Rb3 Rde8
"I can't really make jokes because the truth is jokes" accurately describes Finegold''s behavior most of the time
This is the ultimate "I'm going to out tactic you" throw down... Intentional handicap
Ba6 is probably the most common mouseslip usually from the Ruy Lopez. .
"It's a good opening if you're the guy who didn't move your king"
Hilarious!
I like to do a version of the bongcloud with f4, nf3, kf2. You then play as a Bird's opening but you artificially castle instead. At least one advantage of that is moving the rook to E1 instead of its default square F1, but you're wasting tempo with the king moves anyway so it's actually not a real advantage.
I think as he put it at around 1500 it doesn't really matter because no one is employing perfect play.
@@gurgleblaster2282 based
i started playing joke opening after boring myself playing E4 or D4 all the time. its fun in blitz and bullet. The grob (g4) is my favorite
I'd say The Grob is not a joke opening, simply a dubious opening
@@JordiCasany man its been a year. I keep playing the grob and its shit lol
@@Leonardohummel I am not saying otherwise, but I have seen strong amateurs beat IMs with it in slow time-control serious tournament games.
Ole Slick Willy was a true politician the day he asked "depends what you definition of is... Is" lol
The only chess lectute i am going to attend.
there's also the kinda famous old game Lindemann - Echtermeyer (Kiel 1893) which goes 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Ke2 Qe4#. The story goes that Lindemann played an illegal move and, by the rules back then, had to move his king instead, so he had to play Ke2. May well qualify for forst moves in chess history :)
"Immortal Draw" in the Vienna would be a nice game to show for why you need to be careful about opening the king so early
I'm a casual chess player and watched while high. Could not stop laughing, such an interesting perspective on internet culture. Please let this go viral
It's not the Bongcloud Attack because Mr. Attack has fully given credit for its popularization to Mr. Bongcloud.
I love how over half the video is Ben warning folks that this is a bad idea. LOL
I saw this title and thought there’s no way in hell this happened. Bravo 👏
This is one of those things that the more you see the name, the funnier it gets, like the Groverhaus. This opening is seriously the Groverhaus of Chess
Actually it's pretty good opening for below 1500, because they try to attack you with only their queen and they end up with worse position having queen chased all over the board with tempo, while you get free development. Ben had great observation about below 1500 level.
I'm only in the 800s range in 5min games. The bong cloud is tough when you're learning it because it doesn't follow any of the principles I've been trying to learn.
Happy Birthday Ben!
Ben Finegold, you are the best!
I'm over halfway through this opening lecture, and I have not been told what to do on move 3 if I play this opening. OK, it's not a good opening, but a lot of players memorize 15-20 moves of "good openings", and can play a very solid game, not by skill, but by memory. So why not just show the attacks you can get under when playing the bongcloud, and your best resources against those attacks and what mistakes your opponent could make that could equalize or make your position better than the opponents?
So what you're saying is you think this is a good lecture in theory, but not in practice
TCEC double bongcloud championship!!!! and then let's see how engines develop around that opening.
I like openings that take opposition out of their comfort zone. I study a lot of Mikhail Tal’s games because of this.
I conjecture that, if we somehow had perfect knowledge (i.e. a 32 piece tablebase) that with perfect play, the bongcloud is still holding a draw as either color. It's not obvious I think, but since it is presumably true that the opening position is probably a "tablebase" draw, I think it's not so unreasonable that these moves are not losing enough.
😂 I got it when you slid in that POTUS joke.
10:22 "and.....................i mean" 🤣
I will pause before this starts...
and make a cloud with a bong.
There is definitely some bongcloud in the air where I live.
3. Kf3: "Taking another hit"
This was recommended 5 months later
I always thought it was called the bong cloud because the king's shape makes it kinda looks like a plume of smoke rippin off the back rank
Now this is content
The real troll here is not Nakamura, but the person that made Ben do a serious lecture on Bongcloud
Is Move Two after E4, King E2 theory?
Was hoping to get your take on Hans Niemann cheating accusations today