I tried to master chess in 30 Days 

So in an attempt to re-explain information I learned a day earlier, I wound up giving the worst example for calculating a pawn exchanges at 2:01. Moral of the story don't take advice from someone with 1 day of experience.

at least you didn't challenge magnus carlsen like that other guy

Every chess player must have laughed after reading the title.

1st day - lose 30th day - lose The truth hurts -Ben Finegold

This guy is humble and he improved after 30 days. Not like that guy who challenged magnus carlsen and blamed the algorithm.(Of course! The algorithm, it is.)

Master chess in 30 days... Only someone who has never play chess could say that

Trying is the first step to failure---- Ben Finegold

Him: “to start out, I’m going to try to memorize the Ruy Lopez.” Me: “oh... oh no. Don’t do that...”

Magnus Carlsen Age 8: 1200 Elo Player Age 13: 2500 Elo Player (Grand Master) Age 19: 2800 Elo Player (Number #1) Age 22: +2850 Elo Player (World Champion)

Still a better attempt than that other lame "obsessive learner"

"I tried to master chess in 30 days" - Loses horribly to 1500 on day 1. - Loses horribly to 1500 on day 30. Chess is hard ^^

I’ve improved from 0 to 1600 elo after playing chess for a year. I think what helped me the most was solving tactics and numerous puzzles every day

Idk where all the hate coming from, I find it cool to see someone really get into chess and study it

Best way to learn chess is to play it more and more. - Alpha zero

Great video! And good job improving over this 30 day period!

"The first thing I gotta do I come up with an opening strategy" Ahh there's the first common beginner mistake

You couldn’t master chess in 30 days even with Gary Kasparov coaching you.

“Nobody has ever mastered the art of chess. You could be the world champion for 50 years and still not scratch the surface of what chess can really do” - Bobby Fischer

Here's why "en passant" exists. In earlier versions of chess, pawns could not jump 2 spaces on their first move. So it was always an option to capture a pawn on its first move. Then around the 15th century, the double jump for a pawn's first move was introduced to accelerate the opening stage of the game. Since this now allowed a pawn to jump over the capture square of another pawn, "en passant" was introduced to maintain the integrity of the earlier version of chess. In other words, if a pawn jumps over the capture square of another pawn, this pawn can choose to capture it as if it was a pre-15th-century game and that pawn would have moved only a single square. Remembering this little story usually helps in not forgetting that you can play the "en passant" move when you have the opportunity.

*starting game* Me: Brilliant chess openings *end game* Me: Sacrificing queen to a pawn

i like this guy, he actually tried to learn and actually improved himself. He didnt brag about "scaring anyone" or bs like that, he was humble and confronted his mistakes. Unlike the other obsessive learner, who was super cocky, didnt do shit, piss poor planning, relied on his computer's unsuccessful algorithm which is not learning chess, and played magnus only to claim he "scared" him a for a couple moves and loss horribly.

You learned openings when you should've been learning chess

1500 is no joke. It can take a year or longer of pretty serious study and practice to get to 1500. Very rarely will you see it happen in 30 days. Chess is frustratingly complex and is a game very subject to plateaus.

When I was a child, my best friend was very good at chess and he taught me how to play. We were around 10y/o at the time. He had a rough childhood, losing both his parents and grandmother in car accident he survived when he was a few months old. He was an extremely violent child too so he didn't have a lot of friends besides me. We played together for a few months so that I had about 6 months worth of experience. We went on to finish 1-2 at a regional event in France against child prodigies ( my friend was very talented, but I was lucky, the tournament structure made me avoid the real second strongest opponent who really would have destroyed me). We went on to the national competition, my friends finished 9 and I finished 18. I had however a "trick" : my ELO was the lowest possible for my age since I didn't take part in enough competitions, so my opponents always tried to get me through basic fast scheme and I knew enough at the time to counter it. I did not enter competition since then, I'm 23 now and seeing this video reminds me that I want to become good at chess ...Thanks !

Next try to master the electric guitar and play Hendrix solos in 30 days.

2:01 if u trade u lose in 1 move

If it helps I’ve been playing over 20 years and these are my tips: Don’t base the importance of a piece on its value, but on its position Never check for the sake of it, check doesn’t win you the game, checkmate does Don’t take a piece unless it gives you more control of the board Try to get pieces in positions so they control as many squares as possible Never underestimate the strength of two pawns side by side going for promotion Don’t be afraid to sacrifice a piece for the sake of winning the game

If you’re starting with only knowing how the pieces move I doubt you’d beat a 1500 after 30 days. An under dog’s chance is maybe vs 1100.

TL;DR: Chess is hard. Long version: Chess is an incredibly deep game where everything starts with principles and slowly becomes crazier and crazier until barely anything is ever as it seems. I don't think any first time player ever understands the amount of knowledge that goes into getting better. I'll be honest. I'm talentless, but I've worked on chess on and off for about 2 years. In that time I've gone from about 600 to 1250. I've done tactics, endgame problems, familiarized myself with a solid response for both e4 and d4, watched dozens of videos and informational streams, done interactive lessons, self-analysis, and training games. My point isn't at all to brag; there are people who take to the game like a fish to water and I've taken to the game like a fish to land. My point is that I don't think I even have an outside chance of beating a 1500 who decides to play seriously. It would take a whole heck of a lot more than one month to beat that guy, but that's not indicative of the Goal Guys. It says a lot more about the hard work the tournament player has put in. I think all of the negative comments come from the same place. These are folks that have probably worked very, very hard for years to get where they are. The idea that one month of dedicated training could stack up to that is probably a notion they find insulting. But I hope this dude sticks with chess and comes to appreciate why so many of us love chess. Maybe in a few years he can look back on this video and laugh about it. :)

Kind of reminds me of that one amateur who tried to beat Magnus Carlsen after only a month of training.

The reason for en passant: in the beginnings of chess, pawns were only allowed to move one square even with their first move. Later chess openings were sped up and a rule was made to allow pawn to move twice. Shortly thereafter en passant was added as a rule, because technically the pawn is moving twice, the first square and then the second square. This allows an existing pawn to capture at both points: en passant. Hope this is helpful.

2:00 "Trading pawns might be to black's advantage"... No, trading pawns leads to mate in one Qh5# lmao

"Up next: Master American football in 30 days! Will I be able to bullrush a 320 lbs offensive lineman with only a month of training? Let's find out!!"

Continue this challenge!! Mastering chess takes way longer than 30 days. Episode 2!!

Some random thoughts of mine: 2:01 while yes in general it would be strategically disadvantageous to trade center pawns for wing pawns, here it's entirely justified. If white plays exf, black cannot recapture with gxf because of Qh5#! I nitpick because this illustrates the difficulty and the beauty of chess: there are multiple ideas in every position, and we have to decide as players which idea is most important in our current position. 4:06 : "I went back to the club to see if what I have learned had any effect" ... It won't. Getting bogged down in opening study as a beginner is a mistake. Stick to basic principles: develop, control the center, move every piece once before you move any piece twice, castle early. Instead, a beginner should focus on tactics. It's a cliche, but it's really true. The entire game revolves around the concrete features of the position. If you cannot calculate and you are not equipped well enough to spot and utilize tactical elements, strategic opening and endgame knowledge will do you little good. It's like this: you can know all the Spanish grammar rules in the world, but if you don't have the vocabulary, you can't even begin to speak the language. 4:14 : YES! Good to learn that early. But your justification is wrong. Opening study as a beginner isn't low value because your opponents play weird openings. It's low value because your opponents are better at the game than you, and they can get away with playing dubious openings because of that. This goes back to tactics. Get better at the game's basics before you start trying to iron out the finer details of your approach. 5:48: it appears you're writing out the first 8 or so moves of main line openings, and as mentioned above, this is more or less a waste of time. Chess is just as much about building SKILL as it is having the correct KNOWLEDGE. 6:20: reviewing your games is an excellent way to improve, good that you're doing it. 7:45: this game looks better, but you really didn't need to know any opening theory beyond "move each piece once before I move any piece twice, control the center, develop." You lost because your opponent spotted a tactical resource that you missed. You played Qxb5 missing that Ba6 skewers the rook at f1. While it's incorrect, I actually like that you tried Bb6 because it's aggressive. Of course after BxQ BxQ BxR you've still lost material (we call it losing "the exchange" when you lose a rook for a minor piece), and the inclusion of Bb6 has only ensured that you're getting the queens off the board (something you want to avoid when you're behind). That all being said, it shows a good mentality. Unfortunately it also shows a lack of calculative ability and tactical awareness, which simply put, has cost you the game. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, that's the problem with studying openings first. If you play 15 moves perfectly only to blunder horribly on 16, of what good did those first 15 ultra precise moves do you? 8:00 same as above. Nf6+ is a blunder most likely because you didn't have the visualization to see the squares the enemy N was controlling (and by the way we've all made similar blunders). Same point as in my previous note. If you are blundering for tactical/visualization reasons, why spend time studying opening moves? Instead, study tactics and work on visualization. 8:30: You got mated but you played far better than someone who has been going at it for only 30 days. I imagine your opponent has been playing for years. 8:38: "you started by following opening theory" this is bad b/c you're being reinforced for studying openings at this stage, which is not helpful If you continue playing chess and would like some free pointers, I'd be happy to help. I'm a meager USCF class A, but I started playing at the age of 20 and recall what it was like progressing from learning how the pieces move all the way up to where I am now. I'm grateful for your making an episode on chess. It's a beautiful game, and I'm certain this video will encourage more people to learn it.

That's why Capablanca said.. "Study the endgame first!"

Next 30 day challenge •How much strength can you gain/1rep max in 30 days (power lifting) •Learn to play the Piano in 30 days. • Learn to draw in 30 days. •Learn Chinese in 30 days.

Really cool, well done. Seriously. You made tremendous progress for the 30 days you had. Keep playing, it's fun!

3:49 While some openings transpose into others, you can't just go on with your Italian Game while your computer opponent plays the Nimzowitsch Defence. For beginners, it's usually better to play tactically and focus more on just one or two specific openings.

The book I recommend above everything for a beginner is Lasker's Manual of Chess. Lasker brings a philosophy into it and makes it interesting. The Lasker method makes you a very a different kind of opponent and one who is very difficult to beat.

Chess players be laughing really hard at this! XD

Master chess in 30 days, try 30 years. That's a bit more like it.

First mistake I made as an amateur was studying the opening first; I didn't progress nearly as quickly as I could have if I focused on the endgame. Then, as a 1400, I abandoned the game for a couple years when I did really badly in a tournament. I'm trying to get back into it by studying tactics daily and analyzing my games rather than just watching youtube videos and learning passively like I used to. This video is really encouraging

I was honestly very impressed by your final game. Lots of progress in a month!

You're an honest to God inspiration. You take on every challenge with a mindset like no one I've ever seen and a smile and tenacity to just learn and dive in! You never give up and I along with so many others admire you for it. You inspire me to challenge myself everyday and in new ways!

The only way to get better at chess is to lose a lot. It’s a sport just like any other one

Wants to learn Chess: Starts with Openings and the Ruy freakin Lopez

great job! i admire your dedication. some of us will never be grandmasters, but it is at least enlightening to dive into something as profound as chess to appreciate its grandiose perplexity

The keyword is "tried".

What a cool 30 day challenge! I get so happy when I see a notification that you guys have a new video. Keep up the quality, good work!

I love how at 2:08 he says that trading pawns is in black's favor but after exf5 gxf5 its Qh5#

Impressive improvement for 30 days! Welcome to our game. Be careful. Play much more and it may never let you go. Red pill or blue pill?

This is such a unique twist on these 30 day challenges *_edit:_* Goal Guys will one day be a trend setter

I haven’t watched this yet but this isn’t humanly possible so I’m going to go with he failed

The worst part about this year of college is I've been too busy to go play chess, and it genuinely hurts me at an emotional level. I feel like I'm missing a defining part of me. Seeing nice chess videos like these really make me want to play again. Damn.

Says this was four days old. Watched it and I enjoyed it a lot. Great mini documentary. I subscribed. I am a first time watcher to your channel. Keep up the good work.

LOL he doesn't even have the board set up right in the scenes where he is at his kitchen table 1:30. (that is one of the several times it appears lol) the bishop and knight on our left are switched.

This was a really cool thing to learn! I feel like Chess is one of those staple games where everyone knows how to play but not many are actually good.

Originally chess rules only allowed the pawn to move forward one space. When they changed the rule so that pawns could advance 2 spaces, they compromised by implementing en passant so that you could still capture the pawn the same way you would before the rule change.

I saw a couple of things I thought I'd point out. One, is to know the value of the pieces--not saying you don't, but there was the example where it seemed you willingly gave up a rook for a bishop. There's no point system in chess but each piece is given points based on their worth compared to other pieces. This is: Queen=9 points, Rook=5 points, bishop/knight=3 points, pawn=1 point. So, as you can see, with everything being equal, a rook is more valuable than a bishop or knight. You shouldn't give up your rook for a knight or bishop unless it leads to a decisive attack. Two, when you're down material, as you were in the second game, you willingly exchanged your knight for a bishop when the knight was your only piece left. This left you with just pawns vs. your opponent's rook. When your down material this way do not enter into an exchange--it will quickly lose. Hold out as long as you can, obtaining the best position you can. Don't exchange your last piece when your opponent has more pieces! Hope this helps someone in some way.

2:00 "trading pawns might be slightly to blacks advantage" ... yeah except he gets mated in one lol

The sad fact is that its like any other sport although it does't feel or seem that way at first sight. You can't say "i'll be top football player in 30 days" and there are no challenges like this because it takes years of practice for the muscles to be build in order to be good football player. but in fact that's not true because any athlete who's muscles are in shape for football can't be good at it in 30 days because the most important muscle in football is brain and muscle memory and the ability to measure action in your head and translate it into muscles action instinctively. chess is the same. you're doing mistakes and your brain remembers so you will improve next game. the only difference is that the brain doesn't do it on muscle movement but rather on field complexity.

Love the content! Yea you need at least 300 days of training to be a decent match for a 1500. You did well

Really strong effort. I hope you keep it up. Well done.

You made excellent progress in 30 days! I would highly suggest making this a long-term project, maybe "I tried reaching 1600 rating in 1 year" or something :)

My friends and I have started to play chess in between classes and it's suddenly getting to be pretty popular at my school. Perfect timing for a goal guys video!

Thanks for this, you set yourself an ambitious target whilst respecting the game of chess. I watched one where someone set out to beat Magnus Carlsen after like a week which I thought was hubristic in the extreme. You capture some of what I love about chess in this. I've been playing properly (i.e. learning the theory rather than just the moves) for around 10 years and I remain a solid beginner. I'm pretty bad at the game but I still love it and do my chess puzzles every day.

I've been playing chess for about two weeks now. Swore an oath to myself that I wouldn't study any theory as it just feels more pure to improve independently by just playing playing playing. I watch SOME videos about it but this one is by FAR the most helpful one I've ever watched. Thank you so so much for this... I think I'm gonna have to change my mind on my "no studying" technique

Chess is the game of Kings!! It ruined video games for me.

studyin openings since day 2: t e r r i b l e

Really motivating indeed. I hope you reach a lot of people to try and take the challenge

@Goal Guys Respect and love for this! really imressive how much effort and discipline you have put in this. I love it. keep on doing your stuff.

Love the balance of fitness and intellectual challenges!

I would recommend agadmator's Chess Channel on RU-vid to see some beautiful games and to learn. Also focus on end games because you will learn a lot that will help you win.

Great job and good luck with your improvement!

30 days, huh? I've been playing for 30 years and still haven't mastered it.

The author wasn’t demonstrating any ability to make simple 2 and 3 move calculations. I couldn’t believe the trades he forced that ended up costing a piece. A great way for him to improve would be doing chess puzzles

Good for you, Chess is such a great game, I love it, and wish more people had an appreciation for it instead of being intimidated by it. I hope that you stick with it and and continue to play regularly.

"I tried to master Chess in 30 days" It sounds to me like the old greeks challenging the Gods, what can go wrong?

Good job! You did well and chess is so much fun to learn!

You were able to realize many things that took me much longer in my chess journey :)

You should watch John Bartholomews series ‘Chess Fundamentals’ they are the best!

DAMN! not bad! you improved a lot, only a few blunders, that was a good improvement at the end

what chess set is this the first one please someone give me info

Day 1: I'll memorize multiple openings and many lines from them. Yep, you're going far kid

It's been a year since i learn how to play chess and even though it's been 1 year i did not study many opening because memorizing openings isn't a good idea for your improvements. So if you want to get improved in chess you should study endgame and tactics and puzzle and also try to calculate the moves played by the grandmaster or other strong player

Well done for the improvements you made. I guess an analogous challenge would be learning to become a concert pianist in 30 days. There is so much complexity in chess!

Hey, thanks for the video. I enjoyed watching your story play out.

I love that you did this. Chess is an amazing game. However, I would add to anyone trying to imitate your goal to completely ignore openings until you have a 1600+ rating...maybe higher. Start with the basic chess principles, learning the value of the pieces and which squares the pieces are most valuable, and study the endgame. If you follow basic chess principles and place your pieces on good squares, you will often find yourself in an equal-ish endgame if you face opponents around your skill level. If you studied the endgame then you will have an edge, because most likely your opponent only cared about openings...which come naturally by following the basic chess principles and knowing which squares are best for your pieces. Anyways, a fun video. I really enjoyed it.

Alternative title:Johny sins tried to master chess in 30 days

Really cool video! I just started and need to learn the theory.

Bobby Fisher one day said I learned Russian by reading Russian chess books.

well made video man, looks like that you have spent a lot of time on it but please don't make moves like 2:00 by saying "trading pawns might actually be slightly to Black's advantage rather than White"

I read the title and couldn't stop laughing ....

This is a great video. It's very hard to explain chess and you do it so well in this video! I would know, I've tried to explain in a speech to a bunch of high schoolers. Not easy.

I just discovered your channel! Must say that I like your content:)

4:10 well, you're ahead of 50% of chess players already

Well, if there is such a thing as "mastering" chess, it cannot be achieved in 30 days for sure.(for a human)

30 days and now you know the basics, that's super cool

Great effort, you gained a few 100 ranking points. Keep going, keep learning. Miracles happen over time