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► Chapters 00:00 Find Your Chess Rating Level With This Puzzle 00:24 Your Rating Level is 800 IF... 00:53 Your Rating Level is 1200 IF... 01:38 Your Rating Level is 1600 IF... 03:14 Your Level is Hikaru Nakamura IF... 03:37 Your Rating Level is 1800 IF... 05:33 Your Rating Level is 1900 IF... 06:41 Your Rating Level is 2200 IF... 07:17 Your Rating Level is 2500 IF... 08:53 Your Rating Level is 2700 IF... 10:18 Comment your solution & rating below
I'm a 1530 rapid and I saw Bb4. It has a similar idea as Ba3, but it's more forcing. I saw Nd2(But I simply have Bxd2 because I don't want his knight to come defend the king and also to give up the bishop for the most I can and then I saw Rg2 and stuff) and axb4 Rg2 Bxg2 Rg8(Bxb7+ Qxb7#) Ng3 (Nh5 I thought was winning on the spot but missed that the queen is attacking too so they don't have to take with the knight) and calculated a lot in Rxg3 but stopped when I found no way. Edit: I just saw Qc6 after Bxg2 and it's completely winning
This pegged me perfectly. Only been playing seriously for a few months and I am around 1000. I saw almost exactly what you said i would at that level. Rook takes, bishop takes, etc. expose king, check with the queen. I stopped there. I have such a hard time visualizing beyond that many moves and my brain stops, makes the move and then hopes for the best. Keep up the test puzzles like this. Great stuff!
I saw upto what 1600 level saw, but actually got a bit deeper into that calculating various king responses. Never saw Qc3 before the light sqaure bishop exchange.Iam 1600-1625 rated, and that pretty much tells where I belong to.
I m around 2100 but I have seen the variations until fxg2. But I have missed Ng3 as defensive resource in the earlier variation. So I m 2500 and 1600 at the same time. It feels like a GM playing like a patzer.
Qc6 after Bxg2 (that long range bishop checkmate) is a beautiful line, missed that one (within a minute) unfortunately. But in your Kh3 line (2:26), Qf3+ is not the only option. I also looked at stuff like Ne4 (to then jump to Ng5 if Ng3 if played). The king can't just go back to g2 yet (then a move like Nc3 wins the white queen), nor g3, which is blocked by the knight. If white plays Ng3, blacks responds with Ng5, drawing the white king even further out, without an easy and immediate way back. If white plays slow, black gets some time to activate more pieces (the other rook, the other knight) against the king. I did not evaluate to the end here, but I think that this line maybe deserves a bit more attention.
Thanks Igor. I did pursue a number of the options you mentioned and some others which would've failed in light of your explanations. I would rate myself on this puzzle somewhere between 1200 & 1600. I very much enjoyed the attempts and your way of analysing the problem. Yes, I think these videos are very helpful in training me to think more broadly.
I enjoyed the puzzle and your explanation. I don't think I could identify and analyse all the lines that you did but came to think that this was the solution 1. ..... Qc6 2. Nc4 dxc4 3. Qc3 Qxc3 4. bxc3 Bxc3 5. Bb2 Bxb2
I enjoyed your video very much. I didn’t know if I even qualified for any rating unless I was competing. That aside, I do like chess puzzles and wondered if that would at least give me some idea where I might stand. Based on this video, I am surprised to learn I could be as high as 1500 but probably closer to 1300. Fun to know this, thanks!
Thanks for the video! I really enjoy these videos that include a puzzle and/or a way to gauge how we are progressing in our chess, and hope you will include them every so often in your lessons! Thanks again!
I could clearly determine my rating is between 1255 and 1911 with a side of stockfish, and this correlates to my bullet and rapid ratings and explains my correspondence performance too.
lol. I saw the sacrifice but I didn't think it led anywhere concrete (evidently didn't calculate far enough). I then evaluated that I had an extra pawn, and that White didn't seem to have any immedate threats, so I just decided to play h5 with the intention of breaking through with a pawn storm. (I'm not claiming that I saw the "Magnus variation" or anything close - merely that it seemed to me that I was already winning, and that I didn't need to wager a rook on breaking through).
I'm not going to spend a lot of time. I am eyeing qc6, then sacking my rook on g2. If bishop takes its mate. If not, then push the rook to g1 and force king to recapture. Then qh1 mate. Obviously there could be some counter play, but I looked for less then a min!
Bb4 threatening rook on e1 as a distraction to open up my rooks on back rank. he has to deal with bishop otherwise he loess the rook on e1. he can take bishop with pawn or block with pawn onc2 to c3, or ignore the threat, either way rooks are now connected. that was my first initial thought.
I stopped analysed after ...f3 as that line is clearly best. Saw Rxg2 and Qc6 Nf4 and f3 etc. in a few seconds, though surprising given years of tactics practice.
I found 1. ...Rxg2 and 2 ...Qc6 rather quickly, which, according to your scale, would give me 2200, however in practice I can't get above 1200-1300 in a chess training app :)
I made the mistake of ruling out Na5 permanently instead of just for one move. So I analysed 1...Qc6 2. Ng3 h5 3. c3 h4 4. cxd4 hxg3 5. Rc1 Nc5 6. Rxe5
I’m around 1200 elo online, I did consider Qc6 by instinct knowing Na5 couldn’t stop it, but I knew that there were knight sac thoughts in the way. Getting the white king out and about usually isn’t the right way to checkmate with only a queen as the king’s pieces can help defend or block (like opening up space for the white queen to move). Honestly I missed Ng3 but found the Nf4 blocking tech. I guess my instincts are good but not refined so I’ll put myself at 1600 because I would likely see the boogeyman and end up missing Ng3 in a real match.
My move wasn't Ba3 but Bb4 so it threats to win the exchange and it's more forcing, funny thing is that I saw Ng3 to avoid the sacs, but didn't see it when Kxg2
This one I stopped at 2500 level 😅, after f3 and I saw rook e2 to defend the bishop g2 and I stopped, I didn't See stockfish defensive moves BIshop take d4 or even the h3 move. By the way still I am a FM with elo rating at 2300 / 2250 +
I saw Queen C6, but i did not see Knight to A5, but did see Knight to G3 so i suppose i am somewhat below 1800. My club rating is ~1300. I did take around 6 minutes to calculate though, and came across all the lower rated solutions as well
I was able to solve the whole sequence, but, it is complex enough and took me a long enough time that the reality is I would have not been able to work it out in a real game and not made the rook sacrifice. It was only because I knew black had a winning line that I continued to work through the line. I did immediately look at the winning line, so my guess is the rating given for me is correct. I have a uscf rating of 1750, no idea how that translates to an online rating.
I am much better in a puzzle setting when I know there is a "right" answer. I regularly get the 1800-2200 answer on these videos, but my rating is like 1300 lol. In-game not so much. Should I start playing slower time formats so I can sit and look at the position I guess?
~1800, though IRL I'm ~1600. I was quite happy with the Qc6 idea. Went through all those low level ideas as candidates but refuted them the way you described. Didn't see how whit could survive the Qc6 idea and not be worse and thought that was sufficient lol
Damn, Igor, i moved from 1600 on your last puzzle to 1800 on this one. Even saw the 1900 idea of connecting the rooks. Your puzzles do me well, since my lichess rating ist about 1000. To be fair, last time i actually played a stranger and not my amateur friends is more than a year ago. My tactics rating base on lichess is 2000 though, because thats what i mainly do. A few puzzles here and there.
1300. I saw the potential setups with Rxg2 or Bxg2 or Qc6, I didnt really like Rxg2 because white doesnt have to take the rook straight away, so I was looking at lines like Rxg2, h3 etc. Curious to know if anyone else looked at this and knows why its bad for white given Bxg2 was best.
Not so good rating in general (around 1400-1600ish? I don't recall) and the last time I played was ages ago, but I somehow shot _way_ above my regular skill level on this one. Fairly quickly realized that just sac'ing everything on g2 is not likely to work out, and tried to search for something more forcing, after which I found the Qc6 move. Gave it some thought, didn't see any good response and started watching... and a few minutes later, before you even got there, I suddenly realized white has the Nf4/Qe2 combo. I did _not_ see f3 in advance, at all. It did look obvious when the position was on the board, but I didn't consider how impactful f3 and f2 would actually be.
It's a Lil bothersome for me , as I ended up with a completely different result, however it was not very efficient, and I definetly did not see that "bishop alone" checkmate at all , so I'll just go with my rating that I received before which was 1200.
I saw the queen battery and analyzed 4 variations all end with me knocking the brother out but did not see the knight to g3 block so i will give myself 1400 for the good try (am 1300) in reality😊
Well, an interesting puzzle, but not clear-cut. I don't see that the final position at 10:27 is an obvious win for Black. He just has B+N for a R. The attack has almost ground to a halt and White could play Qc3 next forcing the Queen exchange and stopping it altogether. Black's King is also quite exposed and White's minor pieces are well placed. After the promising looking Ne4 White can simply play Qg2 maintaining the guard on c2. Other moves like Nc5 and Bd6 seem to be met by Qc3. Yes, Black stands better, but it looks as if it could be a long grind. Come on, Igor, show me a clear winning line!
Im not sure if this is accurate because my max rating in blitz is just 1700 but I was able to see the solution within 5 mins. Does this mean I have a potential to improve more like a GM? Haha
3 times i got 1800 i am 1400 and i still dont know how to improve calculations although i should focus on my openings and endgames since i never ever studied them
White is not forced to take rook on G2 . White should move pawn on H 2 instead and move the king when rook moves to deliver a check with the bishop. My first move as black I would move queen to c3 and sac the queen on h2 after
Dear Mr. Smirnov, I think that your test is not true. My ELO is 1400. I have solved this puzzle in 1-2 minutes. Unfortunately I have not seen the time. To tell more correctly I have stopped at the level 2200 and afterwards I didn´t analysed the situation.
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