I Trained Like A Chess Grandmaster

In this challenge accepted episode I'm going to see how good I can get at

chess

in just 30 days starting from ground zero. I will be

trained

by some of the best

chess

players in the world and at the end of this video I will compete in pog champs 3, a real chess tournament against some of the biggest streamers on the platform. Challenge accepted. Hi Michelle. Hello, my name is Levi Rosman. I am an international teacher and I will be your coach in this challenge. I have played chess since I was five years old. I played my first tournament when I was seven.

I've been in the top five for my age in the United States for basically my entire childhood and I was number two in the country when I was. 12. How much did you just play? I know how the pieces move. I know the knights go on the l and the rooks go like this here and here and then the bishop goes here on the diagonal and then the queen is like a player that goes wherever, why don't you and I just play a game? It's not necessarily a fair fight, so I'll wear a blindfold throughout the game.

Yes, the pawn will be three. Hmm, Larsen's opening, maybe you're not such a beginner after all. go with the pawn to e5, okay, I hope I'm doing this right, okay, it's my turn, how about the knight goes from b1 to c3, I'll play the bishop to the bishop on c5, you're going so fast you have the blindfolded, you know what? How about this farmhand? a4 uh, I'll go with the pawn to d5, okay, the knight goes from g1 to f3, you're attacking my pawn, I'll push that pawn from e5 to e4, knight, e5, queen to f6, pawn f4, queen takes the pawn , bishop b2, okay, so I could take your knight with my queen, but I think a better move is queen f2 checkmate, that's all, I think the real problem is that you didn't push your central pawns, so you couldn't defend you from my pieces in the open field, respectfully, what is my name?

I am a chess

grandmaster

, five-time United States chess champion, and the number one blitz player in the world. The hardest thing for Michelle is probably dealing with failure at first. I think it will be very difficult to enter. chess I hope she loses quite a few games at first. I think the most important thing is for her to concentrate and realize that what is important is the final result, it is not simply about the first two games, the game of chess is divided into three phases. have the opening the middlegame and the endgame how many openings are there uh many hundreds maybe among thousands I'm going to learn a good one we should start with the first move yes I will choose to move the queen's pawn if I also play with my queen's pawn you have the option of playing the queen's gambit like the show oh my god we're already there we're doing the queen's gambit the global netflix hit the queen's gambit follows the rise of fictional chess prodigy elizabeth harmon checkmating her way to victories in the male-dominated sport the on-screen matches that ignite new off-screen interest in the game the queen's gambit completely changed chess forever the opening I wanted to show you is called the London system they all have different names many of them have different names either after people or places, and some have meme names like the bong cloud, so the link cloud is an opening where both players move their pawns to start the game, pawn to e4, pawn to e5 and then the player with white. will move his king one square up do not play it seriously because it violates all the principles not only do you block your development but you also move your king to the center of the board the more memes and chess the better because that way we can urinate everyone who is there at the door keeping it all the way to London begins with the movement of the bishop to f4, bringing the bishop from dark squares to the center of the board, controlling the center and chess is extremely important because from the center your pieces are the most mobile and active .

So your next move could be a pawn on e3, but see if I make the same move you just made, you'll notice that I blocked my bishop, so now my bishop can't go as far into the territory while your bishop develops your knight. king to f3 now finish your pawn pyramid and the reason you do it is so you can park your light square bishop in the little house you built for it oh that's so cute look at it yeah I already feel like I can see. how to move better across the board, so for the next week I spent at least four hours a day playing chess online, doing puzzles, analyzing my games and taking lessons with some of the best online chess players and coaches and then only a week I am already mentally destroyed it is two moves three moves sacrifices your threat is g5 that will kick the horse during the time of Queen Elizabeth actually in Spain go find another place to swim yes and I apologize if I was too fast or sometimes I I get excited.

I'll just destroy you and before you know it you'll be talking about chess. What we will do in this lesson is simply begin to train our tactical vision. This is standard, like the most universal first movement. Black plays e5. In general, what you want to do. If you can, put two pawns in the center and you can recover with the queen, but you don't want this because it's okay, so queen f6, this offers a queen exchange, because if we take the queen, they can recover with the pawn and the knight now bishop here so this is a super important concept if you go to queen here now the bishop comes out to attack the queen is protected yeah by the pawn oh god oh my god by the oh oh so the queen has to just like retreat or go to other side anyway, yes, but it can't because look who's on the same diagonal, oh my god, that's something called a pin, it's the fourth move of the game and we've lost our most powerful piece, fantastic, what would you do? take this with you you would take it with the bishop because then the king has to take that pawn and bye bye because the queen is there yes, however, oh no, however, the queen is better, but why the king, the king could escape If it is a bishop, very good. yes, the queen boxes the king like this, that's what you have to remember, all these squares are occupied and it's checkmate, you win the game, okay, again, g4, bishop c, okay, today I wanted to sit down and practice some of my techniques on a physical board. because I got so tired of using the computer when you play on the computer after every game it tells you move by move what you should have done and while it is an amazing tool it can be very tiring and makes me feel like a checkmate idiot, check me There is a perceived stereotype that people who play chess are very intelligent, therefore if I am bad at chess I am stupid, chess is historically associated with the highest degree of intelligence, yes that is an absolute checkmate, every high school movie would portray the most socially nerdy. awkward people like the chess team and that was the stereotype that everyone who liked chess had to deal with.

I didn't like sharing with people that I was a competitive chess player and that I spent every weekend competing because I felt like they would. Look at me differently, a big benefit of this online medium is that you can see that there really isn't a stereotype about what kind of person a chess player should be. I have no idea how I'm going to do this in a tournament a month from now. now in two weeks in two weeks my name is anna I am an international chess master I have been playing chess since I was four years old and my dream was to be on the Hungarian Olympic team, which I finally achieved at the age of 20.

What We are going to do today is simulate a game that will be at the level of a Pogchamps competition and what I need you to do in each move, you will tell us your thought process and also analyze my moves. uh, so I'll just do the d4 pawn because I've been practicing london. I will copy you and push this pawn. I'm going to bishop f4 just to continue my journey to London. I'm going to do this move. Do you think The knight is okay here uh he probably would have gone to the c6 knight to at least protect the king and also be more focused on the board.

Alright, which means now my horse is stuck on the edge. We have a saying in chess that a knight on the edge is dark if I want to move tonight again what would be a good move for me you just have to fold yeah that's very sad when you need to fold back to the square you came from I don't want to fold I know that you have to think of each turn as a unit of time, you want to make sure you use that time to the benefit of your pieces and if I have to keep moving the same piece, I'm wasting time when you make a forced move. and forced moves are controls, captures and threats, if you give me a control, I have to respond to the control, if you capture a part of me, I will most likely have to retreat, if I can, if you threaten my queen, I will most likely I have to move my queen, so forced moves are a category of moves that are some of the strongest when you make a move or a sequence of moves, your opponent is forced to react to them, you gain a tempo or a move into your opponent's position and improve your position at the same time with rooks there are two things you will often aim for to get them to the 7th or 2nd row depending on the color you play and double them why do you think a rook on the 7th it's strong even if it's catching that king there eventually it's even cooler if you have two rooks on the 7th, something that doesn't even have a separate name, I think it should have a name, a rook on the sevens, that's it Such an unconvincing name, of course, no one cares.

No, how cool are the kids, Castlemania, yes, it's an interesting way to rename an already well-known theme. We normally call it doubling or tripling the seventh rank. The first time I heard the term Castlemania, I thought, huh, but then it's like, you know what? This makes sense if it works, I don't care at all, the tournament is only a few days away and I'm a little embarrassed because I still don't have an opening or a plan to play with the black pieces. I think it's important to remember that. White and black have totally different openings. Generally, when you play black you are reacting to your opponent.

How do you feel everything has gone? I'm really trying to figure out what a good plan is with the black pieces. It's like a completely different game it's very strange I don't like it I play the sicilian game c5 here someone in my chat said they recommended sicilian dragon in a previous broadcast which I'm going to show you oh look that sounds great The sicilian defense is one of the most contentious openings in chess, it is played from the beginner level to the highest

grandmaster

level and the sicilian dragon is one of the main subsets of the sicilian defense, it is certainly not something that opponents are going to do. to prepare at Pogchamp, so they won't be very familiar with it, which is definitely a big plus.

The idea of ​​going to c5 is that you want to take control of the center so when you go to c5 you are protecting the d4 square and they played yes you take with the center you take with the knight and we leave it and this is when you go for the dragon , so you can think of it as a dragon's tail, this whole diagonal with the knight as the head of the dragon, yes, then you place your bishop on g7 and this bishop will be one of your best pieces. This bishop is very strong on this diagonal, no matter what he does if he leads the knight or goes to the e3 bishop.

I'm going to go to d6 and the idea of ​​going to d6 is to prevent White from going to e5 every time you place your knight on f6. Well, I just received the email from pogchamps. Rayne Wilson Rayne Wilson is my first game Rayne Wilson only has one full game on his account against magnus carlson magnus carlson is the best in the world in a sport played by 500 million people you are the number one chess player in the world um I'm practically the number one actor in the world right, how can I disagree? I know I've watched the match against Magnus and he'll probably be a very tough competitor, but I think anything can happen and it's very unusual to have an opponent in a competition that's unknown.

I searched everything I could on Google. To learn more about Rayne Wilson, I found an architectural summary of his house to see if we could find any clues in his lair. Welcome to our home. Hello, does anyone see a chess game in this frame? I can't move, no, on set, but I love animals oh someone see oh there it is I told you what I said what I said we zoomed we improved the whole Twitch chat was going crazy because we thought maybe just maybe Rain Wilson had left the board in a unique position no the art department reset it was just a normal board no opening no information but it was a nice board welcome welcome everyone it's the three pog champions and boy are we excited , in addition to even bigger names than we've had, we also have bigger prizes. it's a hundred thousand dollars in cash now it's hard to even quantify how big this will be for guys like mr beast to jump on xqc you have ludwig you have critical voice you have pokemane and then we have rain wilson making her debut against michelle carrey we went to a architectural summary and we saw the tour of itsAt home we saw the chess games that we expanded, improved and unfortunately we couldn't see the opening or anything.

I played in the cockroach palace that could be real and I would believe it. Mr. Wilson, let me introduce you to Castlemania, I know I'm old, but no, it's not because I'm the oldest because I respect you so much, damn you and your Sicilian, I hate Sicilians, oh my god, he knows the names. right, oh no, michelle michelle, I think she'll figure it out, yeah, it's a good move, actually, this is a very unpleasant opening choice by Rayne Wilson, this is very good, she's not even developing her pieces. he plays e5 and hits the knight and oh no, of course he does.

Oh my god, I don't even know how to recover from this. The worst part is that she has made some preparations here at the dragon and now your game is ready. I just lost control of everything, it wasn't pretty, it wasn't the game I had

trained

to play, okay I know this isn't the right move but I literally have no idea what else I'm supposed to do because I can. I'm not going here, I can't go here, I think I have to take this pawn, oh my God, oh my God, this is so embarrassing, it's already very stressful to play chess in a serious competition and it's even more intense when there are dozens. of thousands of people watching you even just knowing there is an audience makes you feel like your mistakes are amplified brutal first game oh my god tough there are a lot of positive takeaways for Michelle, you made a mistake in your first game of Pogchamps and that's okay because now you have a second okay here we go Castlemania oh oh my god oh I can't believe he just did that not even a moment to breathe okay well I'm going to go uh knight d2 well open my queen yeah god , she's clearly over the match, but she's still finding good moves, yeah, like the b5 bishop is very, very good, yeah, so the first game didn't go the way she wanted, but in the second game something crazy happened, okay, not the best move, but I mean, again, oh, the queen takes what the queen dick is the queen. what she doesn't even see she's just looking at her rook under attack oh oh she think she saw it she took her game oh oh it's not raining she played the old botozz gambit the bow trial gambit is where you drop the queen for free and you don't get nothing in return, but you call it tactics, so it doesn't seem like you're very stupid, it's fun, it's like a meme for more casual games, he has played very, very well, but I feel that the rain in critical moments has made some mistakes .

It also evolves throughout this game, it feels like it, walk the king there. Congratulations, my goodness, I have no feeling in my hands and in honor of the hottest new tactic in chess, you can now purchase your own limited edition Castle Mania. t-shirt and hoodie so be sure to check out the link below. Well, back to the tournament, going into my game against logic, I had something I didn't have against the rain and that was a data tax in the middle of the night before the game sent me a Secret Video that decoded exactly what I needed to do to defeat logic.

They are outside a symmetrical London. It's not unexpected. I mentioned to him that c4 is good against these setups when the bishop is out because then you can play queen b3 queen b7, everything goes well. As a plan, I move that pawn to d4, get that queen on the b-file, don't just go to queen b7, that's the really complicated thing here, I'm still going to do it, it's that crazy because we're creating a bigger threat. Well, this is probably a bad idea, but anyway, we take the pawn and then he moves his night, which we hadn't planned on.

I'm a shell, oh don't take the night the bishop sees it, oh this could be so bad. Michelle is drawing an arrow towards the horse oh but the knee breaks oh she's on it oh sorry impeded wait for michelle now she's looking for a way out to at least get some material for the pain I guess I'll just take the tower i I don't know what else to do you have to look at everything look at everything you can take oh and she took the tower Anna after that I had no idea what to do so I hung up on my queen there are certain types of mistakes that are impossible to correct get you back, for example, If you lose your queen, I would say it is very difficult to come back.

I had a great time and I want you to know that you are a great player. Thank you so much. I learned a lot playing both games, but. so many facepalms during both and in that first game it seemed like you found this a5 knight idea to trap the queen from him. You've never seen the knight a5. You came up with that like over the board, yeah, I just saw it. It was like that was a vibe, you know, I like to have fun, I like that you know a little about freestyle and just have a good time, I don't want to be like this computer scientist Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays chess the way he likes. writing music that's for fun and I don't want it to feel like a chore and I realize that up to this point I've been making chess a chore, so for my next match against Tubo I wanted to have a little more. funny, let me take out my distracting musical instruments, how about this? thinking you're thinking how's your thinking going tobo likes to have a lot of fun when he plays chess plays a lot of music he really puts on a show I'm losing my mind, you're actually pretty good at it.

My main strategy when it comes to chess is to talk as much as possible and distract myself. Well, I might mute you at some point and we have Michelle starting with a London system. I feel like she's learned the elk, she's smiling, she seems very confident with this opening, oh my gosh, I can lock it in, I can lock the horse down to the point, usually when your pieces are exact the first reaction is to just move them , but the bishop to g4 is a very strong move uh-oh no, damn, he should have taken it because he was too trigger happy, he doesn't need to punish himself for that move, it was still perfectly fine, I want to see if he realizes what's done in one was so busy getting angry let's see this has been played oh my god oh no oh my god that was so brutal I'm so sorry no you did amazing oh my god I've lost every game I've ever played so far Now, no matter what group I'm in, it's embarrassing.

I know I have a lower rating than others. The other people have more experience. I get it, but I feel like I'm known online as the girl who will confront you. any challenge you work very hard and somehow you achieve it and here I am failing michelle actually has a much better chance of thriving in the consolation bracket because the players are starting from a more equal position for the first round michelle will play against mr beast I hope Don't destroy me too much. Have you been training a bit? That's an understatement, but okay, oh God, if you pull any tricks, I'll silence you, Jimmy.

We have Mr. B facing off against Michelle Carey. I really do not know. Who will win? I feel like this is a real coin flip mission. Before is a big movement in development. Knight e4 is on the agenda. I already like Michelle's position and she looks at the clock. She's up for more than a minute. Yeah, and of course, I mean, I bet my points on her, so she has to win the match, you bet your channel's points, yeah, I bet I bet there's quite a few of my channels, okay, there you go , I noticed that in Mr Beast's other games in the tournament he struggled. a little bit with time management so I thought maybe if I move faster than him I could end up winning a very very good play so far from Michelle I think she has a great position the speed she is playing with here you show that you have a Now, at this point, you have the intuition that you have an idea of ​​where to place the pieces at the beginning of the game, what should be done?

Every move she's made so far has been perfect and I feel very confident that my butt found a horse. c3 oh man wow i deserve you know i bet hikaru will go oh well there's the fork i was telling you about five seconds ago i guarantee that's what he's saying oh my god let's go uh oh the pawn can't be gentle Jimmy doesn't realize, oh, Jimmy doesn't realize, if I had more time to think, okay, I could have figured this out, but I've been moving too fast the last few laps, so how do I do it?

She knows how to meet the king and the rook is the thing well, she realized you can use the king, she's going to play it, she does it, I think she's going to eat those pawns, oh my god, okay, no there's a stalemate, oh my god, you just quit, she ran. out of time oh no, quit we have our next two players ready pokey mane and michelle carey michelle already made a mistake here she took d4 with the knight instead of taking with the pawn and keeping the pawn structure intact in this game michelle is He is much more confident when he makes a mistake and makes a mistake, he doesn't let himself be defeated by it, but he continues to play and fight for the advantage.

It's not about who makes the first mistake, it's about who makes the last mistake, who makes the last mistake. and she's wondering, "back to the rankings, yeah, game over, oh my god, Jesus, the first game, even when I was awake at night, I still felt very, very close, so yeah, I hope Michelle "Be really, really proud of how well you're playing, oh my God." I reflect the same for you little one, I could tell from the way you were playing, it was very anti-London and I haven't really practiced against it or looked at it that highly for you for preparing, you did so amazing I was sweating a lot . over here, well congratulations, I'm excited to play in the final, I'm very proud of michelle, she has played so well 4-0 in a single day, she will go to the final for the final, michelle will face nico. been playing chess on his streams already months before I knew he was going to be in gyms miko of course he is a ticking sensation he has had great games in terms of over performing his elo niko he is amazing over time he blows me away , honestly, it was like Oh, he's playing that well and that fast?

He's like one of those assassins who just comes in, does the job, and gets out while Nico has been playing chess longer than Michelle. Michelle has proven to be one of the best consolation performers. Group, I think Michelle is the loser, but she certainly has a chance of winning. This nico moves very fast and has a unique opening. However, by watching Castlemania in some of her other games, I learned that she plays the bird opening, so I had a full lesson with Anna. rudolph to prepare black's best response to the bird's opening oh my god I'm nervous I'm not nervous I'm fine it's just another game of chess here we go Niko makes his first move and it's not the bird's opening sometimes it feels like chess like you're studying for a science test, you walk in and it's history and then you panic, you spend the first half hour thinking, oh god, what am I going to do and then you write down the wrong answers for the second half if Michelle can follow her nerves together, that's really the big key for anyone who's played against Nico, being able to pace yourself and not panic and get nervous when he does these moves in two or three seconds, oh wow, okay, yeah, and now, unfortunately , after they exchange now.

I think it's almost certain that Niko will realize that the rook takes the bishop here, oh wow, but again I think the problem for Michelle as well is that I suspect she wasn't expecting to be in this position, so I think now too. is very nervous e7 and it's game over and it's even worse because the pawn on b5 accidentally protects c6, so there's not even a way to stop the attack, yeah the only trick is Richie to Rick takes g3, that's the only way here for Michelle to try to stay in the game. awesome nico game very impressive damn okay definitely not my best game but it was very difficult good job nico michelle is now in win or go home territory what she has to do in the second game is white and make it happen, I think Michelle needs to do it.

Stay calm, just keep your opening and play relatively fast for the first 10 moves. Nico has a great position. I'm referring to Michelle's problem and that's why sometimes I don't like the London opening either if your opponent doesn't play a traditional d5 pawnee pawnee setup the ideas are completely different the black king is very safe here credit michelle finds the bishop e4 which is actually a great move because the only weaknesses black has here are on the queen side that's all nothing more it's a difficult position michelle also three minutes so it's going to take him a long time to keep this consolation alive and his champion pig dreams, yes it will take some time, oh no, oh no, oh my god, oh my god, or Michelle, but also very well played by Nico in multiple ways. dude one pick your flavor oh my gosh wow I just got my ass handed to me holy cow yeah this is just brutal all separated with one move and um you can't even get mad if you're Michelle just take off hat because That was a grandmaster level game Nico, seriously, what a day you just came out, you played fast, you played well, whatyou can say?

Honestly, I was really nervous when I was going to play against Michelle today because you guys told me she played. very methodically so I was very nervous the whole time I was playing against her nico was streaming chess before it was cool to stream chess so I think it's only fitting that queen nico takes her throne michelle thank you so much hi anna Thank you so much for joining me today , so I wanted to talk to you because I have something to tell you. What's up, Michelle? What happens for the first time in the challenge? I accepted.

I will continue my training after finishing the challenge. I know I can do better and I really want to reach that goal of a score of 1000. This is the best news I heard today. Thank you very much for sharing it with me. I came into this challenge really wanting to overcome my fear of not being smart enough. I feel like a lot of this has been doubting my own ability and I just didn't expect so much love and support from this community. I have never experienced it to this point in any challenge I have done and I think I owe it to you, Anna Kremling and Levy to achieve the goal we set for ourselves from the beginning.

If they offer you the second pawn, I wouldn't accept it. I wouldn't accept it, but you can play something like c6 if they pull it off. Your queen gave up the b2 pawn and then they couldn't save it. After six grueling months, I finally reached what chess professionals called the chess plateau at a certain point. At some point after starting, you hit the wall where your ranking leaves to improve, that happens to everyone in chess, everyone stagnates, you could stabilize with 500 800 1200. Personally, I have had that several times, I think the most obvious was that I had 2000 elo at the age of 12 and then I lost it.

I quit for three years because I got to a point where I couldn't beat anyone above me consistently. How are you kidding? I hate chess, you all hate it. I'm so angry right now. I need opportunities. A week ago you tweeted. I love chess and all cats. Every time I lose a game, my score goes down and what I needed was a big win against someone with a higher score than me, this time moving the bishop to defend the knight on d3. Who is this girl and where is everything? this knowledge of the chest comes from a night fork who now gains even more material oh she wasn't expecting that and this is a true sign of Michelle's excellence that she finds a way to get the rook to the second row.

Now he's attacking all of Quaglon's pawns, all of them now freed up a pawn, she was pushing him, he was going up and quaglum can't stop the queen from coming for misha and now, if the crew moves and he has to, she has to move the king to the edge of the board he has to do it it's castlemania it's castlemania if she finds it the rook checks the jack on the roof she did it she did it you had 96.8 accuracy that's crazy she beat an opponent with 1100 rating with way more experience than her and she turned this game from the top to ending so perfectly when I finally beat quaglon my goal of 1000 elo was finally within my reach here we go just another game oh shoot oh my god Anna is here and I'm trying to win this game I'm at 996. here here, take brooke, she's so crazy, ah, I'm going to do it, what could they do?

They have to move the king or the pawn, come on, use your time, oh my god, oh my god, five four, three, two, one, oh my god, I just hit a thousand nothing about this milestone was truly revolutionary except that I didn't think I could do it and we did it oh my god this is so crazy I'm shaking and Gareth had to deal with all my nonsense complaining and he stayed with me Guys that's true love now I need to give a thank you speech. Can I play the national anthem? That copy is written. It has been a battle for the eighth month, a war, if you will, not only against my opponents across the board, but also against the woman I am within.

Could I do it sometimes? The answer was no, but today it was yes. I would like to thank Chess.com, Danny Wrench Levy, Rosman, Gotham Chess, Anna Rudolph, Anna Kramling, for all the hours they sat on my butt teaching me this game. It paid off today when someone quit their game because they were afraid of our tactic baby you know what doesn't count so go home we had a thousand baby what a thousand three you.