Pirc Defence | The Sensei Speedrun | GM Naroditsky 

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Lol wait bro you won 1 game

@@jaeometryjones5000 4 points? He probably drew

@@matymasaryk There are no draws at that level

Ahahaha 👍

I feel like Danny, Ben and Stjepan have single-handedly increased my Elo by 600 points 😂

How many chess instructors do you know?

Agreed. Although I don't laugh as much as when I watch Ben Finegold.

@@andrew_owens7680 Ben is a treasure

@@SahnigReingeloetet My favorite Finegold quote: "Remember, when you move a piece, it isn't where it was before you moved it." LOL When calculating combinations, remember where all the pieces are after every move!

Welcome to the chess community.

Good choice and welcome

Hobby*

I wish I had a local chess club closest one to me is an hour drive away :(

@@LordSoviet damn i feel for you. It’s a completely different atmosphere to play someone over a board vs online. Maybe start your own club? My friends did that with music club and anime club

He annihilates them with FACTS and LOGIC

@@sirrys that’s right

exactly what i was thinking

Ha! I was just thinking about RobRam! He’s an excellent teacher. But there are levels… and Danya takes the cake.

@@thejames666 absolutely!

Wait, Robert Ramirez is the Pirc guy (and Czech Pirc) isn't he? Let's show him this video :-D

Wow same

Yeah the Austrian is a very solid weapon, although I prefer the 150 Attack against weaker Pirc player because of how straightforward it is

Look up the Bg5 trap, they'll probably fall for it :p

@@Hsel-lc1wt my opponent like the Czech variation so the Bg5 trap won’t work sadly

Very true! The more accurate approach by Black is actually to castle queenside in order to calm the position down, 0-0 was probably the losing mistake

Congrats!

Hanging Pawns has a very instructive video on it with the topic of Petrosian, if you‘d like to explore the concept further I‘d recommend you check it out!

Yes and no. I wouldn‘t necessarily compare the Pirc and the Modern, in general they‘re quite different from each other

@@SahnigReingeloetet Yes not no.

@@subschool5 The modern is awesome, and a lot of times you have more flexibility and can fare a bit better in some of the main lines. But white *also* has more flexibility. There are also some tricky moves that white can get away with against the modern but not the Pirc that can be really challenging for lower ELO players to deal with, and even if you respond to them correctly if white is fairly competent you will probably have a slight advantage at best and usually just manage to equalize.

No way

I do not think it is much worse. You can find games played by Kasparov an other greats. Why would they play bad opening?

I feel like white has an easier time attacking against the Pirc than against the KID (however even the King's Indian has been pushed out of the GM level lately)

The only difference is that White has pawn on c4 and d4 in the King's Indian (and virtually always plays e4) while in the Pirc they're on d4 and e4 (with the possibility of f4 later, but only in some lines). Ofc that small changes leads to completely different games, but thematically they're about as similar as it gets. And I'm not sure it is much worse. The King's Indian is perhaps better known and has a...bigger reputation (I hesitate to say "better" because of all the people who claim incorrectly that it's been refuted) but it doesn't get played any more at the top level whereas it's not that uncommon to see GMs choosing a Pirc. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean it's better - openings go in and out of fashion for all sorts of reasons - but it can't be objectively much worse. I imagine it's more a matter of taste. Hard to play =/= bad.

lmao, Pirc played by Magnus as well against GMs. Pirc is bad only if you're playing against Super GM.

Closed center

Correct me if I'm wrong, but white seemed to have an overwhelming centre within the first 7-8 moves. This was not a game won through increasing subtleties in the position that only a GM would know about lol. I fail to see where white had little to no advantage.

@@Altair584 Dude the joke went through the roof, over your head and the whole entire universe.

Perfect Harmony

This as just my opinion so take this with a grain of salt. The goal of the Pirc is to prevent white from playing e5 (literally the entire point of d6), and preparing pawn breaks on either e5 yourself or c5, attempting to control the center. If white develops the queen side, you often push queen side pawns (c6 b6 Nd7 Nb6 Nc4 is a common plan) in order to dissuade queen side castle. The KID, however, is ok with a queen side castle. Often times if white is unprepared for the Pirc, you do end up with a similar line of attack as the KID with the eventual f5 break etc. The Pirc is very flexible in terms of not necessarily committing to castling either side right away. This flexibility may sound like a benefit, but the drawback is obviously that there's more opportunity for the player to make a mistake. This also means there's a lot of theory for the Pirc, as Danya said there are a million ways to play for white, and if you play the Pirc you have to know how to respond to every white attack. The KID is about fast development and attacking the king, usually in a race. The games are a bit more straightforward in game plans, whereas you have to be very flexible as a Pirc player. Playing the Pirc as black is like a worse Ruy Lopez as white - tons of theory you have to study and the opponent only has to know a more narrow way to play against it - but unlike the Ruy Lopez with white, black can't equalize with the Pirc as easily if the opponent plays well.

Im by no means a strong player but I would assume it's because in the KID White plays c4 early (either first or second move), which improves the centre but makes Queenside castling dangerous so Black can go for his same-side castling attack which the KID is known for. In the Pirc, the c pawn is back on c7, protecting the king and making queenside castling a very strong move. In essence, the KID is focused on Kingside counterplay while the Pirc is focused on Queenside counterplay.

KID is also horrible until a very high level.

Just have a plan against white's most common choices at the very least. This would be like playing the French but not knowing what to do against the advance variation. The Austrian attack is one of white's best/most common replies, if you are already caught off guard at this point then you definitely need some more studying. The Pirc is a fun opening, but due to its nature you will need to accept that you may have to memorize some lines/ideas, as Danya said it's a fine opening but often making a single opening mistake can cost you the game. If you really want to play the c6 variations of the Pirc like this, then I would recommend watching NM Robert Ramirez's videos on it, he does quite a good job of covering the basic ideas and making it digestible. However, I (and many players stronger than I) would recommend you play lines without the early c6 (in a few lines you might need to play c6 but most of the time it is avoided). There is a free Pirc course on Chessable that teaches you some solid lines against most of white's replies and gives good explanations of the moves and the underlying ideas.

The setups involving c6 (in particular the Czech Defense) often work with moves such as an early Qa5 pinning the c3 Knight and cross-pinning with the Bishop in order to make e5 more powerful

@@SahnigReingeloetet yes this is what I meant with pressuring the center. I like playing these setups and that's actually why I wanted to learn where did he missed his last chance

@@SahnigReingeloetet And you have to play e5 with black very quickly after Qa5 or you will get a very bad position. e5 by black is, as you say, the key move in the Czech Pirc and cannot be delayed.

@@yunusemrekarabyk8390 I think once Black played g6, e5 ceases to be an option in that position with the pawn in f4, it's very easy for white to prevent it tactically and if black plays it they will lose material. And Bg7 followed by Bg4 seems to me the wrong plan in the position. I have played the Czech Pirc quite a bit (with very little success!) and I always play d6 Nf6 c6 Qa5 e5 (but you obviously know this, from your comment). Just an illustration of the importance of knowing how each move choice closes down some avenues and opens up others. One needs to know how one';s move choice and often one;'s move order affect which plans are viable in the resulting positions. Then one can feel comfortable surviving the opening and getting crushed in the middlegame! :-D

@@brunilda yes I think you're right thank you. I wanted to check with the engine but analysing this way comes more natural. The fish always have some weird tactics which my brain can not comprehend :D

I think the point would be that a3 is not a helpful move there and you would be hoping the b2 pawn is taken, otherwise you have just wasted a tempo and given a hook to black if they decide to push pawns. That may be enough to tilt the balance ever so slightly in black's favor. You may go from +1 to 0 with a3

I just checked it with Stockfish 14 and it's actually a +1.5 to +0.3 if you play a3. I suspect the reason is that from that position, best play is what Danya did which is castling long and attacking on the queenside. After a3, Stockfish says OK, now white's best plan is to attack on the queenside with b4, but it's not very strong at all.

@@brunilda true well, i was just going for the traps i suppose

Did you mean to play King's Indian Defense?

@@Kokurorokuko I don't know.

They're very similiar. In the Pirc White has pawns on d4 and e4 (and often plays f4 later). In the K.I.D the pawns are on d4 and c4 (and virtually always White plays e4 later).

I don’t see why you would play the Pirc at all. It’s a bit shit

Pirc is a respectable opening, and pretty useful at the lower levels as nobody knows how to play against it, and even if they know some of the basic opening moves even fewer really understand the ideas about what the opening is going for. Watch NM Robert Ramirez's videos on the Pirc.

@@jonathanhenderson9422 also watch Chessbrah kings Indian speedrun

@@RaptureReady2025 Why? Not sure why you're referencing that...

@@jonathanhenderson9422 pirc and KID basically similar setup for black. If white plays c4 , it’s called the KID… otw it’s the Pirc

@@RaptureReady2025 I gotcha. I understand they're similar openings but didn't know why you were recommending Chessbrah's KID vids, but I understand now. No worries. :)

Technically yes, but really who in the internet gives a shit lol 😂 more people say “pirK” so if ya can’t beat them, join ‘em!

@@RaptureReady2025 Normally I wouldn't care, but since the opening is named after an actual guy it seems a bit rude to just continually mispronounce his name.

@@jonathanhenderson9422 well first off u can stop crying over words, second, he said he already knows how to pronounce it, but he says it in a way that people understand what hes talking about. Get a life

@@fredwalter923 First off there was no "crying" involved, I simply noted the correct pronunciation and that was it. If anything you're the one crying over it. Second, maybe Danya has said this before, but it wasn't in this video, and if that was the reason he gave then I can respond with the old "if everyone was jumping off a bridge" cliche. You're the one who clearly needs to get a life if my innocuous comment has upset you this much.

@@jonathanhenderson9422 Maybe the guy should have learned how to pronounce his own name correctly.