You really strike a chord with your presentation of positional patterns in such crisp, digestible, memorable examples (in contrast to the theoretical hifalutin stuff out there that's too hard for us amateurs). I don't think I'll ever forget your previous video's examples of trading your bishop to secure your knight on that outpost, nor the one about closing your queenside to protect your king as Black by playing g6 to make your h6,g6 pawns face off with White's h4,g4 pawns (I call it "pawn duo opposition"). And in this video's second example, I immediately saw the same candidate pattern to shut down White's pawn advance! Coincidentally the same g6 move, but it's the _pattern_ that I recognized, and could apply it to any pawn storm defense situation that fits. You could save us amateurs years of slowly noticing and accumulating patterns by publishing more of these nuggets (perhaps 10,000 more of them for chessable in your copious spare time!😉). I've never seen material that resonates so strongly as yours. While I admit I don't know enough about chess to say this for sure, I feel "in my bones" that your bite-size positional patterns material might be the closest thing to a holy grail in amateur chess training.
I am just speechless to read your beautiful comment, thank you so much 🙏 Really gives me huge motivation to pursue this further. More positional nuggets are along the way, stay tuned!
I love that you are using what you've learned in Cognitive Science in presenting your chess lessons. I find that tremendously fascinatng, and also very helpful indeed because I really do want to learn the concepts and not just memorize things.
this video was just high quality with this theme of "taking a step back" is just so efficient to see good moves. I will definitely consider subscribing
Like or Dislike: Like. This idea has helped me solve puzzles that used to take me hours because I was looking for winning exchanges etc. whereas now I visualize where I want my pieces to be and then calculate how to get there.
4:31 but... then the knight jumps in and is suddenly attacking h6 and d6 simultaneously so... it's not closed. Ok, the bishop protects at the moment but still it leaves a gap.
Thanks for the feedback, the knight on f5 becomes a strong piece but the kingside is closed (the white rooks have no open files and thus they cannot help attack the black king). The knight on f5 does not threaten anything either. Please compare that position with the one I show later, where Black allows opening of the kingside.
@@Dr.CansClinic I'm just watching random vids trying to see what people are saying about how to get better. I mean, you make a good point to try and keep your king closed off and there are better and worse solutions so that's a good tip. Thx for the reply and tips!
The position with the rooks on the open file was interesting. I did spot all the dark squared weaknesses and the fact that we are contesting for the file but I didn't realize that Bb6 forces Black to give up the file. Pretty smart idea, I will remember that for my games if a situation like that comes up
Again, 3rd time commenting, this is good stuff. Just to tell you what I found most interesting - abstracting the theme - was the reference to these pawn formations (pangov/panov I think it was?). I heard this in the first video of yours I saw, and it simplified much of my calculation with these formations. Not certain if you've done a video about these, but will search! Good stuff as usual
Thank you so much! Yes, knowing the typical and important pawn structures help! Like the Isolated Queens Pawn structure, or the Carlsbad structure. Pattern are crucial when it comes to chess calculation.
9:33 what about rook to d4 then rook to f4 which guards pawn while checking king buying one more tempo to push your passed pawn. ? if black rook moves off horizontal, that black pawn is yours. ? doesn't that also work?
It is very similar to the Rd3 line I show in this video. White has no win as the black rook will keep disturbing the white king who supports White's passed pawn.
Very nice content. Reminds me of Silman's "Reassessing your chess". First assess the imbalances in the position, THEN look for good candidate moves, finally use calculation to check their viability. One thing I didn't get: at 5:10 , what if black responds with f6? (Instead of fxe6 which is obviously bad because it opens the queenside)? How does white continue then? Is it Nd7 to open the Queen's attack on the weak h5 pawn, and allow Rg8? But then black can play ... Nf6 defending the h-pawn. So you see, i couldn't really find a way for white to get thru with a three-ply calculation. At 7:10 , i had a similar problem. I saw Bb6, and ofcourse if black replies Qxb6, its not possible to prevent promotion. But what if black realizes this and plays Qc8? Thus creating a new blockade at the promotion square. If white plays c7, black can reply d5 creating a square for either Nxd5 is white captures the pawn or Bd6 if white does not. Both these plans attack the c7 square and prevent the promotion plan. EDIT: Ok, i see you propose Qc6 after ... Nd8, but can't black just capture the pawn then (... Nxc7)? So in both cases, I thought i saw resources which could be used to prevent my plan and wasn't sure of its viability.
Thank you so much for your kind feedback! Yes, we are learning to read the board first! ...f6 fails due to the weak pawn on h5, and the strong attacking influence of the g6-pawn. Please notice that your ...Nf6 does not work as you already proposed pawn to ...f6 earlier :) So yes, the queen simply hits the h5-pawn once the knight is removed from f3 and the game is over. The c7-pawn cannot be captured in that position as it is already guarded by the b6-bishop as well as the queen on c6. Black cannot have 3 attackers on that pawn.
2:42 Funny enough, I did find Bb6 by looking at checks/captures/attacks. The only check or capture is Rxd8+, which loses control of the d file. The only attacks are Bb6 and Bg5, and since Bg5 is easily countered by f6, it's just quick calculation to determine that Bb6 wins the d file. The other 2 positions definitely require analyzing themes to find the best move quickly. The pawn storm position took me too long to find g6, since I was looking for ways to attack faster instead of i defense first. Bb6 in position 3 jumped out immediately, since I always push passed pawns aggressively. For the 4th position I only saw Bxf7+, forcing the king to the f file away from the defense of the bishop, enabling Kxd7, clearing the way for the passed d pawn. Blacks reply of Re2, and the better move of Bb5, escaped my notice entirely, which is a little embarrassing. Thanks for an excellent lesson.
Thank you so much for the feedback! Yes, Bb6 can be found by a blind search for checks captures, and threats as well, especially since you know this is a puzzle :) But that would not be always very efficient in a real-world context.
One possible advantage of applying cognitive science to chess instead of something like language is that people's progress can be measured discretely (mathematically). Whereas a lot of language drills might have to do with phoenetics and meaning that are a far more nuanced.
@Dr.CansClinic and a reason is, we amateur players know to not to look at a whole chess board but only partially. Because of that I've lost and draw many games where I've hold advantages over my challengers. And this 3rd puzzle is an exact example where should (almost) all board be considered.
Padlock Formation? (4:21) Ah... blazing new trails through the linguistic forest. But... I suspect that this too may have a basis in Cognitive Science?
this video was just high quality with this theme of "taking a step back" is just so efficient to see good moves. I will definitely consider subscribing
You really strike a chord with your presentation of positional patterns in such crisp, digestible, memorable examples (in contrast to the theoretical hifalutin stuff out there that's too hard for us amateurs). I don't think I'll ever forget your previous video's examples of trading your bishop to secure your knight on that outpost, nor the one about closing your queenside to protect your king as Black by playing g6 to make your h6,g6 pawns face off with White's h4,g4 pawns (I call it "pawn duo opposition"). And in this video's second example, I immediately saw the same candidate pattern to shut down White's pawn advance! Coincidentally the same g6 move, but it's the _pattern_ that I recognized, and could apply it to any pawn storm defense situation that fits.
You could save us amateurs years of slowly noticing and accumulating patterns by publishing more of these nuggets (perhaps 10,000 more of them for chessable in your copious spare time!😉). I've never seen material that resonates so strongly as yours. While I admit I don't know enough about chess to say this for sure, I feel "in my bones" that your bite-size positional patterns material might be the closest thing to a holy grail in amateur chess training.
I am just speechless to read your beautiful comment, thank you so much 🙏 Really gives me huge motivation to pursue this further. More positional nuggets are along the way, stay tuned!
your way to explain is too intuitif for me ,thanks from Morroco
I am so glad to hear your feedback ❤
I love that you are using what you've learned in Cognitive Science in presenting your chess lessons. I find that tremendously fascinatng, and also very helpful indeed because I really do want to learn the concepts and not just memorize things.
I am very happy to read your motivating comment ☺️ Really gives me great motivation to pursue this further. More is along the way!
Couldn't agree more.
this video was just high quality with this theme of "taking a step back" is just so efficient to see good moves. I will definitely consider subscribing
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for considering subscribing!
Like or Dislike: Like. This idea has helped me solve puzzles that used to take me hours because I was looking for winning exchanges etc. whereas now I visualize where I want my pieces to be and then calculate how to get there.
I love hearing it, thanks!
hey I know you from the kiwichess comment section!
@@survivaloftheidiots6239 Like or Dislike: Like :)
I bought your course a few weeks ago and it helped tremendously!
That is super nice to hear, thank you!
Great teaching
Thank you so much!
4:31 but... then the knight jumps in and is suddenly attacking h6 and d6 simultaneously so... it's not closed. Ok, the bishop protects at the moment but still it leaves a gap.
Thanks for the feedback, the knight on f5 becomes a strong piece but the kingside is closed (the white rooks have no open files and thus they cannot help attack the black king). The knight on f5 does not threaten anything either. Please compare that position with the one I show later, where Black allows opening of the kingside.
@@Dr.CansClinic I'm just watching random vids trying to see what people are saying about how to get better. I mean, you make a good point to try and keep your king closed off and there are better and worse solutions so that's a good tip. Thx for the reply and tips!
The position with the rooks on the open file was interesting. I did spot all the dark squared weaknesses and the fact that we are contesting for the file but I didn't realize that Bb6 forces Black to give up the file. Pretty smart idea, I will remember that for my games if a situation like that comes up
Really great feedback! I am glad that you learned it!
Again, 3rd time commenting, this is good stuff.
Just to tell you what I found most interesting - abstracting the theme - was the reference to these pawn formations (pangov/panov I think it was?). I heard this in the first video of yours I saw, and it simplified much of my calculation with these formations.
Not certain if you've done a video about these, but will search!
Good stuff as usual
Thank you so much! Yes, knowing the typical and important pawn structures help! Like the Isolated Queens Pawn structure, or the Carlsbad structure. Pattern are crucial when it comes to chess calculation.
9:33 what about rook to d4 then rook to f4 which guards pawn while checking king buying one more tempo to push your passed pawn. ? if black rook moves off horizontal, that black pawn is yours. ? doesn't that also work?
It is very similar to the Rd3 line I show in this video. White has no win as the black rook will keep disturbing the white king who supports White's passed pawn.
Thank you
Thank you!
It's always nice watching your videos. 😃
So nice of you 🙏
Love the content!
Love the comment!
Very nice content. Reminds me of Silman's "Reassessing your chess". First assess the imbalances in the position, THEN look for good candidate moves, finally use calculation to check their viability.
One thing I didn't get: at 5:10 , what if black responds with f6? (Instead of fxe6 which is obviously bad because it opens the queenside)? How does white continue then? Is it Nd7 to open the Queen's attack on the weak h5 pawn, and allow Rg8? But then black can play ... Nf6 defending the h-pawn. So you see, i couldn't really find a way for white to get thru with a three-ply calculation.
At 7:10 , i had a similar problem. I saw Bb6, and ofcourse if black replies Qxb6, its not possible to prevent promotion. But what if black realizes this and plays Qc8? Thus creating a new blockade at the promotion square. If white plays c7, black can reply d5 creating a square for either Nxd5 is white captures the pawn or Bd6 if white does not. Both these plans attack the c7 square and prevent the promotion plan.
EDIT: Ok, i see you propose Qc6 after ... Nd8, but can't black just capture the pawn then (... Nxc7)?
So in both cases, I thought i saw resources which could be used to prevent my plan and wasn't sure of its viability.
Thank you so much for your kind feedback! Yes, we are learning to read the board first!
...f6 fails due to the weak pawn on h5, and the strong attacking influence of the g6-pawn. Please notice that your ...Nf6 does not work as you already proposed pawn to ...f6 earlier :) So yes, the queen simply hits the h5-pawn once the knight is removed from f3 and the game is over.
The c7-pawn cannot be captured in that position as it is already guarded by the b6-bishop as well as the queen on c6. Black cannot have 3 attackers on that pawn.
@@Dr.CansClinic thankyou for your reply! I will look at the examples again with your comments in mind.
2:42 Funny enough, I did find Bb6 by looking at checks/captures/attacks. The only check or capture is Rxd8+, which loses control of the d file. The only attacks are Bb6 and Bg5, and since Bg5 is easily countered by f6, it's just quick calculation to determine that Bb6 wins the d file.
The other 2 positions definitely require analyzing themes to find the best move quickly. The pawn storm position took me too long to find g6, since I was looking for ways to attack faster instead of i defense first. Bb6 in position 3 jumped out immediately, since I always push passed pawns aggressively.
For the 4th position I only saw Bxf7+, forcing the king to the f file away from the defense of the bishop, enabling Kxd7, clearing the way for the passed d pawn. Blacks reply of Re2, and the better move of Bb5, escaped my notice entirely, which is a little embarrassing.
Thanks for an excellent lesson.
Thank you so much for the feedback! Yes, Bb6 can be found by a blind search for checks captures, and threats as well, especially since you know this is a puzzle :) But that would not be always very efficient in a real-world context.
One possible advantage of applying cognitive science to chess instead of something like language is that people's progress can be measured discretely (mathematically). Whereas a lot of language drills might have to do with phoenetics and meaning that are a far more nuanced.
That is why they called chess the drosophila of cognitive science ☺️
@@Dr.CansClinic So learning on the fly😊
I've calculated 2 of 3 puzzles, last one I missed by Bxf7+ (drawish line)
Thanks for the feedback, good solutions! Bxf7+ catches the eye directly in that position!
@Dr.CansClinic and a reason is, we amateur players know to not to look at a whole chess board but only partially. Because of that I've lost and draw many games where I've hold advantages over my challengers. And this 3rd puzzle is an exact example where should (almost) all board be considered.
Padlock Formation? (4:21) Ah... blazing new trails through the linguistic forest. But... I suspect that this too may have a basis in Cognitive Science?
It is an established term in the chess literature :) I don't know who came up with it first.
The course is amazing, I totally recommend it.
Thank you so much for your kind feedback! 🙏
this video was just high quality with this theme of "taking a step back" is just so efficient to see good moves. I will definitely consider subscribing
Thank you so much 🙏