1:20 "Self-diagnosis fails" 10000% true. If you knew what was going wrong, in 90% of cases it wouldn't still be going wrong. This is the best argument for taking coaching vs self-studying, and to say this upfront is a sign of a practical and honest coach.
Wow. Brilliantly brutal!! It is so hard for us little guys, as we pick up from IM's and GM's things like "doubled pawns are a weakness", "keep the tension", and "get the king to safety early", and try to incorporate this into our games, only have you smash this to pieces! We are trying man, we are trying!! Thanks as always.
I always have a panic attack when there's central pawn tension early in the game. It makes me feel like I'm walking into an opening trap, and so I go into the exact type of submissive "developing" moves shown in all 3 examples here. Thanks for drawing my attention to this!
Man... that was difficult to hear, but needed to be said. Andras is a straight shooter, no argument there. Will try to put your words of wisdom to practical use! Thanks Coach!
I love how Andras doesn't hold back and is brutally honest. I think that emotional gut punch actually helps the lesson sink in. When that (or a similar) position is on the board again we feel it in our gut first and then remember the lesson.
What is happening is that an online site cannot substitute for what used to be universally regarded as the best way for a beginner to become decent: Join a GOOD local chess club or frequent a GOOD local chess cafe. That's where you find the experienced players who over a number of chess sessions can help mentor beginning players with some talent and ambition to attack the chess board in the right way. That's how it used to be done.
You nailed it with your comment. I researched 10 players who had rapid chess improvement. Every single one joined a chess club and stressed how important that was. After that, the runner up (further behind) was tactics and games/analysis, which are no-brainers.
I don't see it as "crapping all over the students thought process", nor do I see it as "tough love". I see it as a top notch chess player / coach, who knows EXACTLY what should happen when, and why; who it telling the truth. So many people want to dance around the edges and not tell you what you need to hear, without fear or favour. Andras tells it how it is, without sugar coating it. He isn't out to hurt ones feelings, he's out to help you the best way he can. He should have 1,000,000 subscribers, and all of them hanging out for him to post his next video, like I do.
Like or Dislike: Like. I can relate to the guy offering a bish trade. 1. I learned that doubled pawns are a positional weakness, and 2. I'm offering to trade a passive bish for Black's active one, and if Black takes I get to recapture with development.
There are two other obvious paths to learning aggressive chess which are often skipped today. The first is working through any book written by someone credible for beginners. Roman Pelts and Lev Alburt's Comprehensive Chess Course Volume 2 has 100, 100! annotated chess miniature games that will teach how to finish chess games quickly against overmatched opponents. It also advises absolute beginners to consider learning dynamic play from the start by playing say a Danish Gambit. That is the old school Soviet chess approach. Maizelis's Soviet Chess Primer also begins with many chess miniatures as illustration for how beginners should play, or not play. The second approach to learning aggression is to simply study the games of Paul Morphy, including Morphy's games offering chess odds.
My first openings were the Evans and Scotch gambit and boy have they taught me so much about development, initiative, king safety and sharpened my tactical awareness. Now, I'm learning new lessons with the Greco attack (non gambit line with e5) and the Knight Attack (the Polerio lines, especially). It is taking my brain some time to adjust to a more patient, positional approach. The Polerio line, for example, is actually playing against black's "gambit" so to speak, as he's down a pawn and white's behind in development. I find these polarities in styles to be where the learning happens. What's great about the non-gambit lines is that when the opponent plays suboptimal moves, there are often amazing fireworks that happen, and that a gambiteer like me is primed for already--all without the risk of a gambit!
The third game hits too close to home. I would have castled too and my reasoning would have been "I know coach andras would perhaps ask me to go e5 but I don't know if I can make it work at the moment. So if I castle I can perhaps bring my rook to the e file and have more pressure" The difficult thing for me and I guess a lot of amateurs is that castling in position like these still feels like we're behind ahead in development. The precise moment of when to strike, and the general sense of feeling about it is hugely lacking.
I think that's partially true. But more correctly I think the problem of many players is they lack a desire to calculate. As you said, it's too easy to explain away the moment, but really the forcing e5 move has to be calculated! Before Bd3 it doesn't hit with much oomph. Why? Andras shows a precise line where the queens get traded. After Bg4 though, you have to actually calculate the ramifications and see that you're moving forwards and black is getting hit with tempo after tempo. If you're too afraid to calculate, you'll never assess the moments correctly.
"Translate Dvoretsky into Latin." I recognize myself in the game against the French defence. Thank you so much. As wrote Nietzsche "Alle verschwiegenen Wahrheiten werden giftig."
Great content as always man! You are in my opinion the most underrated chess figure on RU-vid. No doubt about it. Are you considering maybe of a speedrun (based on your chessable repertoires as well) ? Apart from providing us with more insights on your style of play and teaching (which are awesome) it will definitely help with the views which are criminally low considering the content you put out there... Cheers! Keep them coming!
Hello coach. Congrats for your channel, its one of the best. I dont know if its any interesting at all but would you mind make a video on how to improve for players that dont make elementary mistakes? For example around 2200 lichess? There are some people that have some knowledge, they are responsible in their playing and do their best but again, the sky is the limit as we all know. Somehow it seems to me that the tips for improving for middle-strength players may not be the same as the tips for beginners
Dear Coach Andras, this is one of the greatest videos you've made in my opinion and belongs in Amateur's Mind category. Please pay heed people: you need to find not only the mistaken moves but more importantly THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THINKING WEAKNESS that led to those mistakes. You do this by analysing your games, in particular your THINKING PATTERNS during those games. Example from the video: you must calculate all captures or forced sequences, especially when your opponent does something weird / surprising / out of book or if there's a lot of tension on the board.
Will do my best to put this into practice! In that initial position where the student missed c3, I think I might have missed c3 too but simply because of poor calculation skills, not because I care about doubled pawns at all. My initial thought process after Bb4+ goes something like: Either I block the check with a pawn or a piece. If Nd2 it blocks in my bishop, don't do that. If Bd2 we trade bishops and I retake with the knight, which leaves me with two pieces and two pawns developed against his one pawn developed. That sounds like it should be good for me and the d4 pawn will probably be hard for him to hold onto later on. Okay, so unless c3 is winning material I think we go with Bd2 so I end up somewhere easy to understand and ahead in development, let's see. If c3 dxc3 bxc3 obviously he has to retreat the bishop, which I assume he can do safely somehow. If c3 and he retreats right away instead of exchanging pawns first I'm not really sure what to do with that, I guess continue developing normally. Eh, that seems complicated, let's stop wasting so much time on move 6 and just exchange the bishops... Now that I actually type that out while making the moves on an analysis board in another tab, I can see that basically right after the points where I stopped thinking through the follow-up to c3, there's very promising attacking options. But I can't see the board that many moves ahead when I'm actually playing, so I've been sticking to calculations that I know are far too shallow. I know the biggest thing I have to do to improve is to calculate, calculate, and calculate some more, but it's hard to feel like I'm making any meaningful progress on my ability to do so by doing puzzles or whatever. High level strategic principles don't help if I don't know when to keep making safe moves that follow them and when it's time to strike. I'm not going to get very far on the "look for obvious 1-2 move tactics and otherwise do something that feels relatively safe" plan.
Watching this video was like looking in the mirror. Is Andras secretly spying on my games? 😜 I watch HOURS of videos, do puzzles, play bots, read books, and still, I'm not getting any better. I get beaten all the time against a pawn pusher who doesn't develop or castle. I'm a new player who knows he doesn't have a CLUE, what he's doing, but wants to learn off a great coach. I'm just hoping Andras can have some availability sooner or later. I desperately need help.
I stopped watching him on twitch when I typed that I don't play a line because I always thought it was shit in chat and he told me if I swore again I would be blocked. I was like...Okay.
Hey Andras, do you still coach. I still need a coach. I already got your opening courses so it would be a Great experience i think. I started playing chess in the Summer of 2022 and trying to become a Chess Master 2200 FIDE.
