"Let Switch It Up and Play D4!!" | Catalan Opening | The Sensei Speedrun | GM Naroditsky 

The opponent: wow that was so nice of my opponent let me blunder my Knight back as thanks

@@xx-cj6ew *pushes pawn*

@@brockpiano lmao

lmfao i hate this game

@@brockpiano Opponent: Blunders mate

Not true…..I got crushed for 2 weeks before giving up.

Man, I wasnt ready for that amount of truth this morning.

Catalan is a very good opening, and that is not the right approach. If you get crushed, you gotta take steps to make it better

@biharek as a 900 player I tried learning the Catalan as something different to use and it's more theory heavy than other openings I've tried learning Edit: 8:08 even Danya says it's conceptually complicated and he doesn't understand 90% of the main ideas. Almost any opening can be good if you study it well enough but the Catalan seems to require more study than others. Fine for GMs, not good for beginners/intermediates

@@mastod0n1 it's hard, yes, but I think it just makes it more interesting. I myself am still studying it rn (hence I watched this video) so I can't yet say whether it will do me good or not, but I'll try it. Because, is not being 2000+ ELO any reason not to learn this opening? I think not, there's also the fact that even if you're not good at chess, your opponents will be neither - that's how ELO works! My point is that even if you don't understand all the aspects of the catalan, your opponent might neither, thus liquidating the disadvantage from not understanding it well. I will at least try to understand it though, as it only takes a lot of studying, a lot of practice, but surely in the end it will be worthwile, as catalan can lead to great positions for white with very good practical chances and low risk.

Same here! Seeing the "last video" for the night and then this video uploaded, so of course here I am instead :)

It really be like that

How much time do you guys spend on RU-vid? For me it’s way too much but still I can always fit in a Danya video

@@PaperTigerLive A couple hours, usually. Depends on the day. The main problem is that I don't watch the childish variety creators or rage streamers that a lot of people do, so I end up catching up on all the content I actually care about and just browse random stuff until I'm bored. Comes with having been on the platform for half your life, you stop being so amazed at how much stuff there is since it's so repetitive.

@@PaperTigerLive Some (maybe 1 or 2 hours a day), but admittingly I'm pretty new to YT. I only created a YT account (I watched some before creating an account, but barely watched much) when I needed it to try chess streaming a while ago. A lot of my YT watching is on a second tab when I'm working on something else (especially when the YT video is review for me). p.s. most of my subscribed channels are non-chess related. Danya is worth subscribing to though :)

Well you could try ;)

Danya has helped me so much too! Definitely go with his services to get any chess investment advice.

I must completely agree on that one. Choosing to commit to the Queen's Gambit did the exact same thing for me. Many players say openings don't matter for beginners but that isn't necessarily true. I think that the satisfaction of taking a slightly more active position or one with a slight lead in development to creating a weakness for my opponent, to pressuring and exploiting my positional advantages, to grinding that weakness to an advantage of material, to converting it. I also recently learned the Caro, at 2200 you need to know too much Sicilian theory. With a tournament coming up, I decided to drop it and learn tons of theory in the past few days. I've come to like the opening and my first Caro-Kann game in a year was simple and beautiful.

May I ask, what is your current rating? I'm curious if this approach can possibly be the strongest.

What resources did you use to get better at the Caro-Kann? Did you just google around etc, or was there anything specific that really helped?

@@Alex_Deam Assuming the question is directed towards me, don't bother trying to do what I did unless you're 2000+. I explored white's choices and chose my responses. I looked into the lines as well as they games with these lines to get a hold of the ideas. The free Caro-Kann chess course also helped establish a basis for my deep preperation.

cool! if you don't mind, what's your rating? (I'm asking @Lukas Tux btw)

You might try King's Indian Attack. It doesn't usually lead to White advantage but it's solid. Gets a little boring though which is why I try Catalan against an early ...Nc6 blocking Black's c-pawn. And sometimes just for the heck of it. As in this game it's really, really subtle. Gotta be patient unless the opponent makes a mistake.

Also, how do you remember all these opening position names?

Same here what's your rating?

Mine is mid 1800 rapid

@@growwithsomangshu1463 1400 blitz and bullet, 1300 rapid but i often play with players 1800-2000. I’ve only ever won against a 2000 rated player with the Catalan

Oh ok

hey man, im a 1450 and i cant succeed with the catalan. any tips?

But only when they are strong enough to understand the ideas nearly by themselves because other way it's not that useful

Ooooh, I love your idea!

I feel like a video series like a few he's been doing will be better than a book, more accessible, easier to follow, more engaging

Why not just read a book

Well, there's a whole buncha theory after ...dxc4. Among other things.

@zux good luck bro! Wish us all the best

Don't learn this meme and play e4

Even Danya says you should play qg or london if d4

@zux Then give it a try, you are good enough 😄

Very cool games but sometimes it's hard to find a way to win, and it's hard to find plans when you are under 2300 I guess

Go for it! There's a perception in the chess community about the Catalan being heavily theoretical, but unless you're over 2200, you won't encounter much of it (you can pretty much neglect 4.dxc4 for instance, and that's like 50% of theory). Familiarize yourself with the main ideas + structures which arises and Black's main sources of counterplay (e.g. ...c5 and ...e5 pawn breaks, queenside expansion trying to hang onto the pawn, and so on), and with some experience you'll feel confident in the opening after a bit I reckon. I changed from the English (1.c4 2.Nc3 3.g3 with a slow d4) to the 1.d4 2.c4 3.g3, and the difference in my results is certainly there. I began the Catalan in early 2023 at 1950 Elo, and now a bit over 2100. I credit the Catalan for a significant part of this jump since my main focus in chess was playing and studying this opening (plus learning how to play positionally and solid, rather than tactically). My stats highlight the difference: with 1.c4, I have a 51% win rate and a performance rating of 1854, while with 1.d4, it's a 64% win rate (with 4% draws) and a performance of 2101, and that's with 413 15+10 games with c4 and 187 15+10 games with d4.

@@wholemilky your comment isn't going unnoticed. Thank you.

Lol same

Nice find

Agree there's so few videos about catalan Its literally one of the most unbreakable opening in gm level