When John plays a 1500 they blunder all their pawns in the opening. When I play a 1500 they invent a brilliancy in the taimanov, take all my dark and light squares and blitz out 10 move deep tactics
I am currently slowly climbing in the 1200's on chess dot com and i think i face players who, like me, have played a lot of games and don't care much about the rating and keep playing on their 1200 account but from what i see in these videos, man... those 1200, most of them at least, play MUCH better than the 1500's i see here! (but i play rapid 2x30 mins games tho)
@@aashaykulkarni6733 I'm a 1000 rating in blitz and apparently this places me near the 60th percentile, but several years ago the 60th percentile was a higher rating, closer to 1200. www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/8dpj12/what_rating_do_you_consider_beginner_in_chess/ This example has a lot of hearsay but there were other older posts I've read that compare ratings to percentiles from years ago. This leads me to think that while the number of players has increased, the quality of players entering, playing and maybe even leaving their accounts unattended (likely after realising how stressful the game is) has pulled the mean ratings down, to inflate the "higher" percentiles. Sorry to be a devil's advocate here but please let me know what you think lad
It's beyond me how you can maintain calm coherent commentary while playing under single-digit time pressure. Just phenomenal. Entertaining and enlightening. The best chess channel on TH-cam. Well done.
It's weird because I'm 1503 now and I don't realize I play that shitty lol...... I probably blunder left and right, luckily my opponents are just as bad as me.
It's insane how much your channel helps. When I started watching at summer, I was about 800 rated. Now I'm in this section, having just hit 1500 recently.
I watched this whole series about 3 years ago, when I was rated maybe 750 or so. Now I'm over 1500; if I make it to grandmaster in another 7 years, I'll let you know. Thanks John!
@@ThePathOfEudaimonia As for me i got from 700 elo to 1300 elo on chess.com in 3 months but i practiced a lot i played a big amount of games and learned from this channel educational series and by practicing tactics in chess.com + studied opening theories in youtube and lichess it might help u
Your videos are the best John, I've watched your for about a year and a half and improved my rating from 550 starting out to around 1250 now. This series alone make a big difference
That was a really helpful comment at around 30 minutes in when you mentioned that the classical response to an attack on the wings of the board is to launch your own counterplay in the center. That gives me yet another tool to consider when planning out my games. Thanks, John!
These Climbing Videos are really good John. It is amazing how good and fast you are. It's so impressive how you can break down every move while under 5 minute time pressure. You are really helping my game with these videos so just wanted to say thank you!
That bullet chess part was insane. I watched some bullet chess the other day and i honestly cant keep up. What these guys achieve is out of this world!
This is the epitome of what all instructional videos should be but sadly no one does. Thank you very much for the brief thought-line during game, and then the expanded reasoning after the game. This was absolutely what I needed. I wish more people would follow this format.
JOHN!! I love your videos!! Since I have began watching, I have won 14 of my last 18 games, and I have so any more videos of yours yet to see. THANK YOU , you have changed my style. I have been stuck at 1200-1280 for the last 5 years since I joined Chess.com. Thank you so Much. I hear your words sometimes when I play and you are such a good coach.
Chess ratings were inflated a long time ago, now the popularity of the game has exploded. 1600’s when he made the video are now 1300’s when you made your comment.
@@BlitzMaul I watched the whole video. I saw all the tactics. All the moves were very natural to me except one move that John also didn't see it immediately. He didn't need to show his IM skills really because most of his opponent played very poorly. Players at that rating now play way better than that.
John, your ability to trade at the right time and to refuse to trade at the wrong time is something that I've definitely been able to take into my games. Just wanted to say thanks.
I've been fluctuating between 1350 to 1400 for an annoying amount of time, so this was incredibly helpful! Hope you continue doing these every now and then
Thank you for your series "Climbing the Rating Ladder", very instructive to me. You're really an excellent and pleasant teacher! Greetings from Germany!
Please do more of this series. :) maybe even like a separate series just for playing 1,400-1,600 rated players. That’s a large portion of your audience because every 100 points it’s like exponential with how much people get cut off. I’d love to see more games of you playing ~1,400-2,000 rated players and pointing out their mistakes. These vids where you play lower rated players are popular on your channel but you haven’t done much of them since this series.
+John Bartholomew I must say THANK YOU for all your videos series, including this one and chess fundamentals. Simply the best. You, sir, answered a lot of questions that I had, in a very easy way to understand. You got the gift of teaching! I'm learning chess all by myself, so, sometimes I get stuck and struggle to find a lesson that covers some points that sometimes I don't even know how to adress. My thought process changed completely since I started watching some of your videos. Thanks again!
these videos have been a huge help. I have been watching for hours. I am about a 950 player, but after watching these videos im sure i will be going up. thanks John!
Thank you, thank you, thank you +John Bartholomew! I have become an addict to your channel and you got yourself another stalker! ;O) I have instinctively strived for your style of play: Simple, logic, "correct" ... Yes: of course some fancy stuff when there is an opportunity, but actually some of my superheroes are Capablanca and Botvinnik. STINKING solid for their time!
+Stefan Holbek Happy to hear it, Stefan!! Simple and logical chess is the way to go - doubly so if you're just getting your feet wet in chess. Thanks for watching!
'as soon as you involve emotions in your decisions, you're going to make mistakes' ne'er a truer word spoken, and something I struggle with. you exemplify it brilliantly in all your videos
Awsome job. Best teacher for my taste. You do mention the obvious stuff that others youtuber doesnt. For a lot of us, this stuff isnt obvious yet. Also, from what I see, I just need to get my simple tactics in good shape and ill get past 1000 easily. No super complicated opening line, just solid chess. Thank you sir, see ypu on chessable
Finding this series really useful. However I am baffled at the apparent worsening of opponents in this episode from the 1200-1400 group. 1500+ players making shocking blunders. Thanks.
I've come back to this video after a few years, trying to refresh. I'm still really irritated by losing to good players in 1100-1400. Then seeing people like this who are 1550+. The random nature of -1450 kills me.
thanks for the videos, John. I've recently climbed from 800 to 1400 in standard chess on chess.com, and now I'm going to join my local club and play over the board! You're a great teacher
Against garazda in the second game, when John made a check with Queen and discovered attack on white Queen with his rook, garazda shud have blocked the check with his queen right? He shud have exchanged the queens. How did John missed this step in the analysis?? @JohnBartholomew pls explain this. I am confused. You can go to 38:42
Re: Garazda game. You consider the move Nxe5 a number of different times in the game. The best time to play it would have been at 18:00, after he plays ...Qg6. If he accepts the sacrifice with ...dxe5 then you can play Ba3. This puts your queen and bishop on adjacent diagonals and forces his king to the 8th rank. It also opens him up to Rf8, forcing him to give up his queen!
loving these vids john, it's really interesting to see your thoughts on lower rated players. Looking forward to seeing 1600 to 1800 (im around 1700) hopefully then I will gain some knowledge and get even higher:)) great content.
John, it is such a pleasure to watch your videos. You are very instructive, clear and a great communicator. Many thanks for sharing your knowledge with your distinctive calm approach.
Great Work! The 3min games were a bit fast for my 400 raiting point brain :) But I see me running out of Videos. I think 1year later would be a great time to start the "climbing the Rating Ladder on Lichess" with perhaps 2 Videos below 1000 :P I really enjoy to see you pointing out the weeknesses of the position and show where to break open the position. Do you plan about doing some opening Videos? If so please point out the "plan" of the opening. On which pieces we should focus, what should we attack, what trades are in our favour, what are the strong squares. I know, no openings below 1200, but I like to prepare at least a little bit :)
You are very good at thinking out loud. It's very helpful especially when you are explaining the moves you make and the consequences of your opponents moves. Thank you, very informative!
at 1:02:06 John talks about how Black will attack on the queenside, and White will attack on the kingside. John starts his attack, and seems to be one step ahead of White as far as the attacks go for each side. My question is, where/how in the opening did Black obtain the advantage to be ahead as far as the attacks go? They have both just castled (and John/Black castled first), so White made a move in the first 8 that he shouldn't have (or that put him behind). My guess is that move was 6.h3. Can anyone comment on this?
@14:45 what would the result of white Knight to B3 be like as a line? if taken, you retake with the pawn behind (getting your dark square bishop out) but if not taken you are definding the white square bishop on C4. From there you then are attacking the pawn on E5. Thoughts?
I am giving a late response to a comment 2 years ago. However, I just wanted to answer the question for future players. At 14:45, White doesn’t want to play the move Nb3 because it would lose a piece for white. If Nb3 defending the Bishop on c4, Black will use his Bishop on c5 to eliminate the Knight on b3. Than when white recaptures the Bishop on b3 with his pawn. Black will use his Knight on a5 to take the white Bishop on c4 who is no longer defended. The conclusion is the Knight move to b3 is simply a bad move because Black can do a combo attack. If white wanted to defend the Bishop on C4, the best way to defend it would be to move it to e2 out of danger. All the other defending moves also seem bad. White could play pawn moves like b3 or d3 to defend Bishop on c4, but if black takes on c4 with his knight. White will get damaged pawn structure. Normally, Bishop’s are regarded as the better minor piece in comparison to Knights. Strong Players don’t like giving up their Bishop for a Knight for no reason. Usually, A strong player might give up his Bishop for a Knight + inflect Pawn damage on enemy structure. Openings like French Winameir Or Rosalino Attack Or Dinzi Indian Or Nimzo Indian The above are few opening examples of players giving up Bishop for a Knight + giving their enemy Long term pawn structure damage. In this situation at 14:45, if White played a pawn move b3 or d3 to defend his Bishop, it would most likely be inaccuracy or error because he would be giving up a Bishop for Enemy Knight + his pawn structure would be damaged. If Black side player was able to do such a thing, He would be smiling from ear to ear. He would be so happy. He would make out like a Bandit. This isn’t what the White side player wants to happen.
Highly instructive channel, an amazing teacher! So eloquent and knowledgeable. It's amusing how easily you find great, sensible moves against a range that I greatly struggle. Can't wait to learn more.
Fascinating.... I remember a friendly game against a 2100, myself at 1500. I felt having more trouble with every move, and being totally out of my league, but I managed to hold out for quite a bit. I thought. Hearing John's thoughts on many vid's, I now know that I was indeed totally out of my league and probably did not consider 90% of what was going on. He was just being friendly🤣
You're amazing, I've been following this series and the part I like the most is that many games won't reach an endgame with similar material, you'll always have pawn or a piece odds...if you capitalize on the opponent :-)
John these are great videos packed with great advice even though I have years of experience of playing chess, I notice my games improve when I watch your vids. I have a friend whose written some great books explaining deja vu and basically the hypothesis is that we are living in a simulation, when you have a deja vu you are remembering both your future and your past run in the simulation. When I was younger the universe conspired to keep chess from me so I never played any competitive chess instead I became a pro sportsman. However, for the last 17 years I have been coaching junior players because I feel its good for children on many levels and the skills they learn through chess are transferable into academia. If I do have to return next time I would like to be exposed to chess as early as possible and see if I could be a GM! ;)
God I love your videos, you give so much great advice. Thank you so much for sharing. Awesome analysis and chess play. You definitely earned another subscriber and fan
This is very useful. Thanks. Revealing this thought process is very helpful. I will follow all of the videos. I am 1300 right now. I regress back to it every time I reach 1400 which I have reached three times.
Hey John! Thanks so much for these videos. Your commentary explaining your thought process and how you arrive at good moves/lines is awesome! It is really helping me develop better overall positional play.
@33:59. White is in trouble. However, moving the king away makes the material loss worse. The best move for white (I think) is blocking the check with e5. Then, black takes the queen. Next, white's pawn e5 takes black's Nf6 with check. After black captures the white pawn, white captures the black rook. This way, white has a rook and a knight for a queen and could have put up more resistance. (rook and pawn vs queen is almost always hopeless.)
10:17.I think thats a good tip for real life too.I smashed studies in high school but relaxed in college and that did hamper my progress quite significantly
"Relax" yeah right. I never relax during a chess game. Apparently I am putting all of my energy into the wrong purposes. This series has taught me how to refocus my energy, thanks John!!
Great videos. Im around 1200 and just had a 99% game after watching this video. It could have been 100 but I misclicked once:) very helpfull and I appreciate you explaining stuff for us begginers. Keep it up
Well clearly thats not true but John does make it look so straight-forward and simple. Something about it creates the illusion that its just them sucking rather than John being really good.
@@jeremystone3723 Because you don't play as good as an IM. You're spectator of someone way better than yourself so obviously it seems easy and sloppy...
@@jeremystone3723 If John were to play against the 1400s that you draw against, he would win against all of them while making it as easy as it looks in the video. You probably put your pieces on suboptimal squares without even noticing so you wont have as many good tactical opportunities as John, or you just miss out on many tactiacal opportunities. You might not even notice as white that black blundered a pawn in the first moves, and just play on normally, or only play main line openings that your opponent knows how to not blunder against.
46:47 Although the capture of the rook on a8 caused a resignation from the opponent, was there not a way to instead lure the Queen or the Rook off of the f file? I'm thinking Bd4 would be a solid move because we still protect the f2 pawn while placing black's queen under attack and...unless I'm mistaken...the only move that white could make that would not result in an imminent mate (within 3 moves) would be Qf8 and even that move allows for Qxc7 which gobbles up another pawn and creates a double attack on g7 leading to an eventual mate. Is it not reasonable to take the moves that lead to a guaranteed mate or should we simple take the largest material advantage we can get right now? Can somebody check my work on this? I've checked and re-checked but I'm still a novice so I want to see if somebody wouldn't mind examining my line.
If you can find a guarenteed mate (check it with stockfish), that is always the best move. As a novice (I am too), you will rarely be able to find actually forcing non-obvious mating combinations. Taking the material almost always works out better for me in my games, and I never feel bad dropping a mate in 4+ for a good evaluation (+5).
ERRRRR! at 53:32 that's the kind of thing that gives a beginner like me heartburn. In this case the correct plan is to trade your good bishop for his bad bishop, open up the position near your king, and give yourself doubled pawns. I need a drink LOL!
Exactly. It's a pity he doesn't elaborate on this, and address the fact that his advice here is contradicting other advice that beginners receive. I often play the Italian/Giuoco Piano/Pianissimo, and this exact thing comes up, with this specific bishop trade. I never offer the trade because of the exact three things that you mention. Now John says that offering the trade is a good idea. Wtf? This for me is one of the reasons why chess improvement is such a frustrating process at times. There are general rules (good/bad bishops, avoid doubled pawns, etc), but these rules have exceptions (like here, apparently), but often it's not clear why a particular case is an exception. It would have been really good to get John's explanation on why getting the open file is worth the good bishop, potential king exposure and doubled pawns here, but alas it wasn't to be :(
Very nice series. This is my rating range. As you mentioned a chess fundamental on time management would be great! Thanks for the games! I'm STRENGTHENING my play!
I meant the strategy he talked about how to get out of the pin if White plays Bg5. Hence the "53:03-53:12" time interval that I mentioned. I didn't ask "Why he castled at ~"53:02?". I love how you tried to answer me, thank you for that.
Bro could you use the yellow arrows to guide us as you're calculating many moves ahead? That way we can visualize your train of thoughts easily? Thanks man and keep it up
Hey, John thank you so much for the content, i've watched this video a couple times now! I am wondering, have you ever thought about doing a video where you sac a piece and show how to recover? Just a quick thought. Anycase love the videos, you're a dominant reason my understanding in chess is far better than my friends with hundreds of more of games under their belt.
By developing the bishop instead of putting his knight on f6, it left the queen diagonal open so that he could take the knight if it goes to g5. If you move your knight first, then his knight is safe to come attack f7 with the bishop potentially setting you up for the Fried Liver Attack.
Hi John, thanks for doing these, love the stream of thought. I know you are seeing, faster than you can be saying what you are seeing. Your collected confidence is to be admired, and aspired to.
Sir, as always thank you. At 55:40 you setup a trap if his White Queen takes on b2. It's great, but I don't see why you had to move your Queen to d2 to set this up as the trap seems to rely only on the f rook moving to b8. If you see this and have time I'd love to understand. If you don't have time, thank you again for your knowledge, kindness and coolness!!!!
9:53 Never relax until the clocks stop is indeed valuable advice! I’m 1900 and was playing against 1100 in a 30min match, i lost a winning game because I didnt see a simple 2 move checkmate because i thought he didn’t have any threats worth analyzing
@16:10 "Now last video we didn't get much of these (mistakes)".. That's because, in my opinion, players on the 1200-1400 range payed more attention of what happened on the board. 1400-1600 players play more instinctively, remembering patterns and moves orders without looking at the board so much, especially during the opening.
Hi can someone please help me? @25:05 John says that Garazda could have played Nf6 instead of Bc5, but if then whites next move is Ng5, how can black defend whites next move Nxf7, forking the queen and rook?
When John plays a 1500 they blunder all their pawns in the opening. When I play a 1500 they invent a brilliancy in the taimanov, take all my dark and light squares and blitz out 10 move deep tactics
I am currently slowly climbing in the 1200's on chess dot com and i think i face players who, like me, have played a lot of games and don't care much about the rating and keep playing on their 1200 account but from what i see in these videos, man... those 1200, most of them at least, play MUCH better than the 1500's i see here! (but i play rapid 2x30 mins games tho)
You've gotta keep in mind that players were alot worse 4 years ago online for their rating
@@XAlpt Really? How so?
@@anvb5a1 no. of people on chess.com has greatly increased, so 1500 of 4 years ago is probably 1200 now
@@aashaykulkarni6733 I'm a 1000 rating in blitz and apparently this places me near the 60th percentile, but several years ago the 60th percentile was a higher rating, closer to 1200. www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/8dpj12/what_rating_do_you_consider_beginner_in_chess/ This example has a lot of hearsay but there were other older posts I've read that compare ratings to percentiles from years ago. This leads me to think that while the number of players has increased, the quality of players entering, playing and maybe even leaving their accounts unattended (likely after realising how stressful the game is) has pulled the mean ratings down, to inflate the "higher" percentiles. Sorry to be a devil's advocate here but please let me know what you think lad
It's beyond me how you can maintain calm coherent commentary while playing under single-digit time pressure. Just phenomenal.
Entertaining and enlightening. The best chess channel on TH-cam. Well done.
By far.
I'm now committed to watching this whole series just to find out when he starts to worry he might lose.
haha!!!
He's not much of a worrier.
He wont lose
@@kg_1720 He lost in the next video to GM stockfish
Cole’s chemistry channel yeah I’ve seen it 😂 a computer cheater
Legend says Garazda is still blundering material to this day
TheSpikeCanada haha I have no room to laugh tho
MrSpeedweasel thank you, chess weasel
Pretty funny! I only laugh through my own pain though. Looked like my own play, only I am lower rated.
It's weird because I'm 1503 now and I don't realize I play that shitty lol...... I probably blunder left and right, luckily my opponents are just as bad as me.
@@mrcallofdutyman1 Nah, Garazda played a poor game.
John I think this is fantastic :) Perhaps you can cycle this every 2 weeks? I've already become a better player from your commentary.
His ability to vocalize his thought process checking various lines instead of just mentioning the best one really sets him apart.
It's insane how much your channel helps. When I started watching at summer, I was about 800 rated. Now I'm in this section, having just hit 1500 recently.
+Dmitry Ivanov Awesome, Dmitry!! Are these online ratings? Do you play tournaments as well?
+John Bartholomew It's chess.com Standard. I haven't played in a tournament yet. I guess my FIDE would be lower than 1500.
+Dmitry Ivanov Cool! Keep up the good work :)
Nice work man
I watched this whole series about 3 years ago, when I was rated maybe 750 or so. Now I'm over 1500; if I make it to grandmaster in another 7 years, I'll let you know. Thanks John!
That's great! What were your biggest sources and what was your method to become a better player? :-)
@@ThePathOfEudaimonia As for me i got from 700 elo to 1300 elo on chess.com in 3 months but i practiced a lot i played a big amount of games and learned from this channel educational series and by practicing tactics in chess.com + studied opening theories in youtube and lichess it might help u
@@grizius4123 haha same but I went from 600 to 1100
What's your rating now man?
@@NusquamTamenVerum I peaked at 1850 in chess and then switched to playing Go :)
Excellent series! Highly recommended! Common players will pick up tons of useful tips through this well commented games! Thank you IM Bartholomew!
+Bent Hestad Thank you for your kind words, Bent! Glad you learned some things :)
Your videos are the best John, I've watched your for about a year and a half and improved my rating from 550 starting out to around 1250 now. This series alone make a big difference
That was a really helpful comment at around 30 minutes in when you mentioned that the classical response to an attack on the wings of the board is to launch your own counterplay in the center. That gives me yet another tool to consider when planning out my games. Thanks, John!
Thanks for the positive feedback, Jay. Glad to be of help!
At around 29:40 to be exact.
These Climbing Videos are really good John.
It is amazing how good and fast you are.
It's so impressive how you can break down every move while under 5 minute time pressure.
You are really helping my game with these videos so just wanted to say thank you!
"As soon as you involve emotions in you decisions you're going to make mistakes" true story :)
When i lose a piece i start to blunder .. cuz i get upset after being down in material
Ahmed ManGaL do you cry like a baby?
if he’s good he cries like a grandmaster and checkmates his opponent :P
it helps when u just let the expletives fly
I think you mean truth hurts
That bullet chess part was insane. I watched some bullet chess the other day and i honestly cant keep up. What these guys achieve is out of this world!
This is the epitome of what all instructional videos should be but sadly no one does. Thank you very much for the brief thought-line during game, and then the expanded reasoning after the game. This was absolutely what I needed. I wish more people would follow this format.
This is my range and where I'm stuck - This is the one I was waiting for. Thanks +John Bartholomew !!
+David Champagne same, i seem to gravitate around 1500. (currently 1507) ugh... what a pain getting up
So are you still stuck?
Jordan Nexhip Nope, 1700 now lol
zepeterinma Far out nice, what time control?
I play 5 minute blitz no increment most often :). Standard I got higher but that doesn't say much :/
I feel like I’m learning a lot more than just chess from this series. A lot of self improvement in general. Thanks John, this is great content.
Great series John but please stick to 5/5. The quality of the game and your analysis decreases significantly with 3/2 and below. My 2 cents.
+Christopher Taffard Definitely agreed! Although as you saw it was kinda hard to find an opponent.
+Dmitry Ivanov I'm sure that if John lets us know when he's going to be doing this, he won't have much trouble getting opponents.
+Jacob Tarallo here here, i would gladly volunteer to have my face bashed in by him lol
JOHN!! I love your videos!! Since I have began watching, I have won 14 of my last 18 games, and I have so any more videos of yours yet to see. THANK YOU , you have changed my style. I have been stuck at 1200-1280 for the last 5 years since I joined Chess.com. Thank you so Much. I hear your words sometimes when I play and you are such a good coach.
I can't believe players of almost 1600 ratings are blundering left and right when I'm over here getting schooled by 1400s
Chess ratings were inflated a long time ago, now the popularity of the game has exploded. 1600’s when he made the video are now 1300’s when you made your comment.
@@timothydelacy9571 This is correct. Standards seem to have increased a lot. I’m losing to players rated 1300 who are far stronger than this.
@@BlitzMaul I watched the whole video. I saw all the tactics. All the moves were very natural to me except one move that John also didn't see it immediately. He didn't need to show his IM skills really because most of his opponent played very poorly. Players at that rating now play way better than that.
@@timothydelacy9571 interesting!
@@BlitzMaul I don't struggle against 1400. I am rewatching the series. What's your rating?
It is great to have someone explaining chess in such a clear manner, very articulate with so many helpful tips guiding the way.
+poochpoints Thanks, poochpoints!
These videos are the number one chess guides on youtube. Absolutely fantastic.
Glad you think so!
John, your ability to trade at the right time and to refuse to trade at the wrong time is something that I've definitely been able to take into my games. Just wanted to say thanks.
A+ series, some of the best chess content on youtube
I've been fluctuating between 1350 to 1400 for an annoying amount of time, so this was incredibly helpful! Hope you continue doing these every now and then
the fact that he kept matching with the same person over and over again shows you how dead chess was back then
Thank you for your series "Climbing the Rating Ladder", very instructive to me. You're really an excellent and pleasant teacher! Greetings from Germany!
Please do more of this series. :) maybe even like a separate series just for playing 1,400-1,600 rated players.
That’s a large portion of your audience because every 100 points it’s like exponential with how much people get cut off.
I’d love to see more games of you playing ~1,400-2,000 rated players and pointing out their mistakes. These vids where you play lower rated players are popular on your channel but you haven’t done much of them since this series.
+John Bartholomew I must say THANK YOU for all your videos series, including this one and chess fundamentals. Simply the best. You, sir, answered a lot of questions that I had, in a very easy way to understand. You got the gift of teaching! I'm learning chess all by myself, so, sometimes I get stuck and struggle to find a lesson that covers some points that sometimes I don't even know how to adress. My thought process changed completely since I started watching some of your videos. Thanks again!
these videos have been a huge help. I have been watching for hours. I am about a 950 player, but after watching these videos im sure i will be going up. thanks John!
This is incredibly helpful, the whole series is great!
Thank you, thank you, thank you +John Bartholomew!
I have become an addict to your channel and you got yourself another stalker! ;O)
I have instinctively strived for your style of play: Simple, logic, "correct" ... Yes: of course some fancy stuff when there is an opportunity, but actually some of my superheroes are Capablanca and Botvinnik. STINKING solid for their time!
+Stefan Holbek Happy to hear it, Stefan!! Simple and logical chess is the way to go - doubly so if you're just getting your feet wet in chess. Thanks for watching!
'as soon as you involve emotions in your decisions, you're going to make mistakes'
ne'er a truer word spoken, and something I struggle with. you exemplify it brilliantly in all your videos
Super instructional... gained a LOT of insight. Now I gotta watch the 1200 rated games. Good stuff!!! ✊👍🏼✅💥
Awsome job. Best teacher for my taste. You do mention the obvious stuff that others youtuber doesnt. For a lot of us, this stuff isnt obvious yet. Also, from what I see, I just need to get my simple tactics in good shape and ill get past 1000 easily. No super complicated opening line, just solid chess. Thank you sir, see ypu on chessable
Finding this series really useful. However I am baffled at the apparent worsening of opponents in this episode from the 1200-1400 group. 1500+ players making shocking blunders. Thanks.
I've come back to this video after a few years, trying to refresh. I'm still really irritated by losing to good players in 1100-1400. Then seeing people like this who are 1550+. The random nature of -1450 kills me.
These climbing the ladder videos are my favourite. Great job, John. Big fan.
Your videos are superb...You overestimated us by saying within 10 years we will be GMs. Thanks for the push to hope something high.
thanks for the videos, John. I've recently climbed from 800 to 1400 in standard chess on chess.com, and now I'm going to join my local club and play over the board! You're a great teacher
Against garazda in the second game, when John made a check with Queen and discovered attack on white Queen with his rook, garazda shud have blocked the check with his queen right? He shud have exchanged the queens. How did John missed this step in the analysis?? @JohnBartholomew pls explain this. I am confused. You can go to 38:42
If white blocks the check with his queen, black can just take because white's queen because it is undeffended. Qc7+ Qf4 Qxf4+ Now you're up a queen :)
still some of the best educational content for beginner and intermediate players
Thank you so much!
Re: Garazda game. You consider the move Nxe5 a number of different times in the game. The best time to play it would have been at 18:00, after he plays ...Qg6. If he accepts the sacrifice with ...dxe5 then you can play Ba3. This puts your queen and bishop on adjacent diagonals and forces his king to the 8th rank. It also opens him up to Rf8, forcing him to give up his queen!
+Chong Li Good point! It's been awhile, but I don't think I saw the Ba3+ resource.
What's your rating ?
loving these vids john, it's really interesting to see your thoughts on lower rated players.
Looking forward to seeing 1600 to 1800 (im around 1700) hopefully then I will gain some knowledge and get even higher:))
great content.
"As soon as you involve emotions in your decisions you are gonna make mistakes" -Chess giving life lessons
John, it is such a pleasure to watch your videos. You are very instructive, clear and a great communicator. Many thanks for sharing your knowledge with your distinctive calm approach.
Great Work! The 3min games were a bit fast for my 400 raiting point brain :)
But I see me running out of Videos. I think 1year later would be a great time to start the "climbing the Rating Ladder on Lichess" with perhaps 2 Videos below 1000 :P
I really enjoy to see you pointing out the weeknesses of the position and show where to break open the position.
Do you plan about doing some opening Videos? If so please point out the "plan" of the opening. On which pieces we should focus, what should we attack, what trades are in our favour, what are the strong squares. I know, no openings below 1200, but I like to prepare at least a little bit :)
awesome series, thanks a lot John!
You are very good at thinking out loud. It's very helpful especially when you are explaining the moves you make and the consequences of your opponents moves. Thank you, very informative!
I like your style of telling us to pause and see the best move. Very fun.
holy shit i've come from league of legends to this game and this competitive stuff seems lit
Daniel Torres XCOM is what got me into chess 😂
@@BonkLoud How so?
League is so frustrating to play im a high platinum player but all games are so bad
@@dert159 its a shit game
Go back to lol and main jgl after mastering chess you will become challenger ez
at 1:02:06 John talks about how Black will attack on the queenside, and White will attack on the kingside. John starts his attack, and seems to be one step ahead of White as far as the attacks go for each side. My question is, where/how in the opening did Black obtain the advantage to be ahead as far as the attacks go? They have both just castled (and John/Black castled first), so White made a move in the first 8 that he shouldn't have (or that put him behind). My guess is that move was 6.h3. Can anyone comment on this?
@14:45 what would the result of white Knight to B3 be like as a line? if taken, you retake with the pawn behind (getting your dark square bishop out) but if not taken you are definding the white square bishop on C4. From there you then are attacking the pawn on E5. Thoughts?
I am giving a late response to a comment 2 years ago.
However, I just wanted to answer the question for future players.
At 14:45, White doesn’t want to play the move Nb3 because it would lose a piece for white.
If Nb3 defending the Bishop on c4, Black will use his Bishop on c5 to eliminate the Knight on b3.
Than when white recaptures the Bishop on b3 with his pawn.
Black will use his Knight on a5 to take the white Bishop on c4 who is no longer defended.
The conclusion is the Knight move to b3 is simply a bad move because Black can do a combo attack.
If white wanted to defend the Bishop on C4, the best way to defend it would be to move it to e2 out of danger.
All the other defending moves also seem bad.
White could play pawn moves like b3 or d3 to defend Bishop on c4, but if black takes on c4 with his knight. White will get damaged pawn structure.
Normally, Bishop’s are regarded as the better minor piece in comparison to Knights.
Strong Players don’t like giving up their Bishop for a Knight for no reason.
Usually, A strong player might give up his Bishop for a Knight + inflect Pawn damage on enemy structure.
Openings like French Winameir
Or Rosalino Attack
Or Dinzi Indian
Or Nimzo Indian
The above are few opening examples of players giving up Bishop for a Knight + giving their enemy Long term pawn structure damage.
In this situation at 14:45, if White played a pawn move b3 or d3 to defend his Bishop, it would most likely be inaccuracy or error because he would be giving up a Bishop for Enemy Knight + his pawn structure would be damaged.
If Black side player was able to do such a thing, He would be smiling from ear to ear.
He would be so happy.
He would make out like a Bandit.
This isn’t what the White side player wants to happen.
I like your games and commentaries. I now focus, double and triple-check before moving a piece. Giving free pieces is becoming a thing of the past!
I've literally progressed out of the 900's to the mid 1500's in 1 week of watching and practicing these videos. Thank you John!
Damn!!! 1 week????
How often did u have to play
Highly instructive channel, an amazing teacher! So eloquent and knowledgeable. It's amusing how easily you find great, sensible moves against a range that I greatly struggle. Can't wait to learn more.
Thank you so much for these videos, John. All of your content has been helpful and much appreciated!
(37:34) I'm back after 8 years. And no, I haven't made it to GrandMaster yet 🤣 But hey, you said 10 years, so who knows!?
Play some d4 openings too. Maybe the Queen's Gambit.
Fascinating.... I remember a friendly game against a 2100, myself at 1500. I felt having more trouble with every move, and being totally out of my league, but I managed to hold out for quite a bit. I thought. Hearing John's thoughts on many vid's, I now know that I was indeed totally out of my league and probably did not consider 90% of what was going on. He was just being friendly🤣
This series is brilliant. Thanks for doing this, and I look forward to more in the series!
You're amazing, I've been following this series and the part I like the most is that many games won't reach an endgame with similar material, you'll always have pawn or a piece odds...if you capitalize on the opponent :-)
Thank you for being a good instructor and not just a flashy player. New sub🤙🏻
John these are great videos packed with great advice even though I have years of experience of playing chess, I notice my games improve when I watch your vids. I have a friend whose written some great books explaining deja vu and basically the hypothesis is that we are living in a simulation, when you have a deja vu you are remembering both your future and your past run in the simulation.
When I was younger the universe conspired to keep chess from me so I never played any competitive chess instead I became a pro sportsman. However, for the last 17 years I have been coaching junior players because I feel its good for children on many levels and the skills they learn through chess are transferable into academia. If I do have to return next time I would like to be exposed to chess as early as possible and see if I could be a GM! ;)
God I love your videos, you give so much great advice. Thank you so much for sharing. Awesome analysis and chess play. You definitely earned another subscriber and fan
This is very useful. Thanks. Revealing this thought process is very helpful. I will follow all of the videos. I am 1300 right now. I regress back to it every time I reach 1400 which I have reached three times.
Hey John! Thanks so much for these videos. Your commentary explaining your thought process and how you arrive at good moves/lines is awesome! It is really helping me develop better overall positional play.
@33:59. White is in trouble. However, moving the king away makes the material loss worse. The best move for white (I think) is blocking the check with e5. Then, black takes the queen. Next, white's pawn e5 takes black's Nf6 with check. After black captures the white pawn, white captures the black rook. This way, white has a rook and a knight for a queen and could have put up more resistance. (rook and pawn vs queen is almost always hopeless.)
This is amazing! after all these years of playing chess randomly. This gives me some structure! Thank you so much, this is so valuable!!
10:17.I think thats a good tip for real life too.I smashed studies in high school but relaxed in college and that did hamper my progress quite significantly
Thank you so much for this valuable share and eloquent comments
"Relax" yeah right. I never relax during a chess game. Apparently I am putting all of my energy into the wrong purposes. This series has taught me how to refocus my energy, thanks John!!
Great videos. Im around 1200 and just had a 99% game after watching this video. It could have been 100 but I misclicked once:) very helpfull and I appreciate you explaining stuff for us begginers. Keep it up
First watched this series rated 800, am now 1450 and improving. I get way more out of it now, some of the best chess vids out there for beginners
bloody, your 1500 opponents play like 1000, and my 1400 opponents play like 2000 :D
Well clearly thats not true but John does make it look so straight-forward and simple. Something about it creates the illusion that its just them sucking rather than John being really good.
Hikaru does the opposite, lol.
yes 1400 opponent's I play are not that sloppy I get alot of draws , some are hard to beat ..
@@jeremystone3723 Because you don't play as good as an IM. You're spectator of someone way better than yourself so obviously it seems easy and sloppy...
@@jeremystone3723 If John were to play against the 1400s that you draw against, he would win against all of them while making it as easy as it looks in the video. You probably put your pieces on suboptimal squares without even noticing so you wont have as many good tactical opportunities as John, or you just miss out on many tactiacal opportunities. You might not even notice as white that black blundered a pawn in the first moves, and just play on normally, or only play main line openings that your opponent knows how to not blunder against.
“I never relax” lol i love you John
46:47 Although the capture of the rook on a8 caused a resignation from the opponent, was there not a way to instead lure the Queen or the Rook off of the f file? I'm thinking Bd4 would be a solid move because we still protect the f2 pawn while placing black's queen under attack and...unless I'm mistaken...the only move that white could make that would not result in an imminent mate (within 3 moves) would be Qf8 and even that move allows for Qxc7 which gobbles up another pawn and creates a double attack on g7 leading to an eventual mate. Is it not reasonable to take the moves that lead to a guaranteed mate or should we simple take the largest material advantage we can get right now? Can somebody check my work on this? I've checked and re-checked but I'm still a novice so I want to see if somebody wouldn't mind examining my line.
If you can find a guarenteed mate (check it with stockfish), that is always the best move. As a novice (I am too), you will rarely be able to find actually forcing non-obvious mating combinations. Taking the material almost always works out better for me in my games, and I never feel bad dropping a mate in 4+ for a good evaluation (+5).
Thank you for making these videos John, they are very helpful. Great explanation from you on what's going on while playing live.
These videos are great. I desperately need more of this stuff.
Excellent! Maybe TH-cams most instructive chess video!
21:48 you could do bishop from C and checking with protection from the knight then move the knight too protect the other knight
ERRRRR! at 53:32 that's the kind of thing that gives a beginner like me heartburn. In this case the correct plan is to trade your good bishop for his bad bishop, open up the position near your king, and give yourself doubled pawns. I need a drink LOL!
Exactly. It's a pity he doesn't elaborate on this, and address the fact that his advice here is contradicting other advice that beginners receive. I often play the Italian/Giuoco Piano/Pianissimo, and this exact thing comes up, with this specific bishop trade. I never offer the trade because of the exact three things that you mention. Now John says that offering the trade is a good idea. Wtf?
This for me is one of the reasons why chess improvement is such a frustrating process at times. There are general rules (good/bad bishops, avoid doubled pawns, etc), but these rules have exceptions (like here, apparently), but often it's not clear why a particular case is an exception. It would have been really good to get John's explanation on why getting the open file is worth the good bishop, potential king exposure and doubled pawns here, but alas it wasn't to be :(
You are both creating an open file as well as increasing your strength in the center. (possibilities of d5) But I get your point indeed.
Very nice series. This is my rating range. As you mentioned a chess fundamental on time management would be great! Thanks for the games! I'm STRENGTHENING my play!
I WILL comeback in 10 years to say to you that I'm a grandmaster. :D
Do it :D
Believe it, DATTEBAYO!! (naruto)
53:03-53:12 What was that strategy? :O. I really really do need a strategy to get out of those nasty pins.
edmis90 He castled to prevent the knight or bishop to get to f7.
I meant the strategy he talked about how to get out of the pin if White plays Bg5. Hence the "53:03-53:12" time interval that I mentioned. I didn't ask "Why he castled at ~"53:02?".
I love how you tried to answer me, thank you for that.
1:04:40 did you take with the queen precisely because it would induce a trade, and you were going to be up material?
Bro could you use the yellow arrows to guide us as you're calculating many moves ahead? That way we can visualize your train of thoughts easily? Thanks man and keep it up
I've learned so much by watching these informative video's, thanks John! Please keep continuing them :)
Liked that: "As soon as you will involve emotions in your decisions you're gonna make a mistake" :)
Advice taken. I will never relax ever agian.
Hey, John thank you so much for the content, i've watched this video a couple times now! I am wondering, have you ever thought about doing a video where you sac a piece and show how to recover? Just a quick thought. Anycase love the videos, you're a dominant reason my understanding in chess is far better than my friends with hundreds of more of games under their belt.
Garazda's Gambit Declined
watching your videos instantly made me better!!!! keep doing these!!!! you explain it so well and I have to stop your videos just to go play some more
@52:10, I didn't catch why moving the bishop to c5 rules out him moving his knight to g5 - Would anyone mind explaining?
By developing the bishop instead of putting his knight on f6, it left the queen diagonal open so that he could take the knight if it goes to g5. If you move your knight first, then his knight is safe to come attack f7 with the bishop potentially setting you up for the Fried Liver Attack.
Hi John, thanks for doing these, love the stream of thought. I know you are seeing, faster than you can be saying what you are seeing. Your collected confidence is to be admired, and aspired to.
46:13 After white's bishop captures c5, why can't black's rook take back? Can't see why that's not good
Sir, as always thank you. At 55:40 you setup a trap if his White Queen takes on b2. It's great, but I don't see why you had to move your Queen to d2 to set this up as the trap seems to rely only on the f rook moving to b8. If you see this and have time I'd love to understand. If you don't have time, thank you again for your knowledge, kindness and coolness!!!!
9:53 Never relax until the clocks stop is indeed valuable advice! I’m 1900 and was playing against 1100 in a 30min match, i lost a winning game because I didnt see a simple 2 move checkmate because i thought he didn’t have any threats worth analyzing
Was so anxious for you in the last game because a lot of rating points were on the line
@16:10 "Now last video we didn't get much of these (mistakes)".. That's because, in my opinion, players on the 1200-1400 range payed more attention of what happened on the board. 1400-1600 players play more instinctively, remembering patterns and moves orders without looking at the board so much, especially during the opening.
Hi can someone please help me? @25:05 John says that Garazda could have played Nf6 instead of Bc5, but if then whites next move is Ng5, how can black defend whites next move Nxf7, forking the queen and rook?
That Qd7 at 55:52 was neat! At least as seen from my low rating :)