Yeah. It's so funny watching an IM smurf against 1000 rated players. Especially cool that he spends extra time so he can make content without any consideration of his opponent. Smurfing is a violation of tos. It is inconsiderate and disrespectful. Sometimes we only have time for one or two games in a day... to have that time wasted by a smurf is gross.
Playing London and Caro-Kann for two months and went up from 750 to 1100 in rapid. Thank you for your videos, they are really helpfull. I got many suggested videos from youtube after getting into chess. After randomly picking some I saw your channel and just after few mintues I knew that this is the guy I want to learn from. I feel i improved so much just by watching your videos.
I too only play the London and Caro-Kann in the last two weeks i went up from 400 to 550 but feel like I’m not moving up. Do you have any study suggestions or videos that helped you improve with the two openings?
I play the same two openings. Check out his other rating climb with the Caro-Kann and I would also suggest watching every London video from this channel and Gotham chess. I just got back into chess after a few years and went from 500 to 900 within 2 months. You might want to try to learn some queens gambit or catalan strategies as well. I find myself in crazy positions playing the London all the time and other D4 openings help fill in the gaps
It is always hilarious watching the opponents move quickly thinking they are winning based on time alone, only to get slowly dismantled, or completely blitzed out by Alex in the end. Great stuff Alex, I learn a whole lot from your videos!
I’m always on the edge of my seat utterly fascinated by how he takes his time to explain these concepts, just knowing the game is in the bag, ignoring the clock while I’m scared he’s gonna flag
Great teacher! You are also very entertaining. I can't count the number of times i have laughed out loud while listening to your commentary. I've already watched several hours of you teaching Karo-Kann, the London and the Jobava London. Wonderful content! Thank you!
My favorite way to win a game is just to win material and then trade into a winning endgame and then pre move ladder mate. Or a knight opposition queen and king checkmate. Your teaching style is so good for me personally!
I’m a beginner but I think trading for the sake of trading is not really a good idea unless you end up with a better position where you pieces are better connected or you’ll play very accurately right after
Not just your videos you did the work too SO YEAH !!! CHEERS ALL THJE BEST CHEERS AT 700 right now for a while so youe comment had me like nah bro ou did the work too so yeah Cheers all the best!Q!!!!
@@AlexBanzea You're welcome, by the way you have taught me quite a bit and I'm a very much a beginner, before watching your videos I could not even beat a bot that was a 200 to 400 and now I'm beating ones that are 700 to 800 so that makes me feel really good. I know I'm still a beginner and I've only started a couple weeks ago so this makes me good and confident that when I started playing people, I have only played three games, but I have defeated all of them. By the way I'm not even rated so I would probably be like a negative 10, LOL anyways thanks for the confidence that I get from watching your videos.
Thanks, Alex. Just started playing Jobava London and this really helps put the theory into practice. If it’s OK with you, I’ll probably not waste the first 4 minutes 50 seconds talking and crack on! 😂
I would share my personal chessable course but its against terms of service. Instead, I hope that it is ok I share some pgns of most of the opening moves of the games in Alex's jobava playlist. 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bf4 Nc6 4.Nb5 a6 5.Nxc7+ Kd7 6.Nxa8 b5 7.Nf3 e5 * This is the most trivial line, when black plays 4. Nb5. Obviously this is the dream line as you get to take the rook. Keep in mind that the knight is now cornered and is likely dead in the water. So as alex says, you just stop trying to save the knight and instead development (since you are ahead +2 material even if they capture the knight as you are winning the exchange.) 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bf4 Nc6 4.Nb5 e6 5.Nxc7+ Kd7 6.Nxa8 Bd6 7.Bxd6 Kxd6 8.c3 Bd7 9.e3 Qxa8 10.Nf3 a5 11.Be2 Ne4 12.O-O * Very similar to the line above, but shows e6 as the response to Nb5. make note that you are already up material so you can make a few exchanges but, immediately after, Alex is already building out the pawn pyramid to prevent pressure from the black knights and then start development. I went ahead and played it out as it was in one of the example games in the playlist. 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bf4 Nc6 4.Nb5 e5 5.dxe5 Ne4 6.Qxd5 Qxd5 7.Nxc7+ Kd8 8.Nxd5 Bc5 9.e3 Re8 10.Rd1 * This is a slightly more challenging response to 4. Nb5. It allows for the easy queen sac and then fork motif. 1.d4 d6 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bf4 g6 4.e4 Bg7 5.e5 dxe5 6.dxe5 Qxd1+ 7.Rxd1 Nh5 8.Nd5 Nxf4 9.Nxc7+ Kf8 10.Rd8# * This one features a setup against the king's indian where you can get the quick checkmate should your opponent fall for the pawn break. I've played it out a few lines to show what alex played in this particular game. 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bf4 a6 4.e3 Bf5 5.f3 e6 6.g4 Bg6 7.h4 h6 8.Bd3 Bxd3 9.Qxd3 Bb4 10.Ne2 Nc6 11.O-O-O Qd7 12.g5 hxg5 13.hxg5 Rxh1 14.Rxh1 Ng8 15.Rh8 O-O-O 16.Qh7 Nge7 17.Qxg7 Ng6 18.Rxd8+ Nxd8 19.Bg3 * This line shows two things. a6 and then 4. e3 as a response to open up the bishop. It's kind of a waiting move to force black into potentially making another mistake. The other thing it shows is Bf5 which Alex always meets with f3... regardless of when this is played. I'm not a good player but let me preface this by saying I like the f3 response simply because the next few moves feel very forcing. That said, Daniel Naroditsky recommends something else which seems slower but is just as effective. I won't mention the line since its a paid course. In my opinion, i prefer alex's line. It is just much easier to remember imo. The line above plays that out to a strong position where Alex had to make some pretty smart moves at the very end to keep the bishop So while forcing, do realize that it isn't a free win. 1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bf4 c6 4. e3 Bf5 5. f3 e6 6. g4 Bg6 7. h4 h5 8. g5 Nfd7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 Qb6 11. O-O-O This kind of represents the slav but you can see that the f3 response to the bishop remains the same. The difference here is pawn to h5 instead of pawn to h4. Against h5 alex pushes his pawn to attack the knight and prevent opening up the h file for the black rook. He then develops with tempo and then gets castled. In the h4 lines he maintains the tension and looks for castling before opening the h file 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bf4 Bf5 4.f3 Nc6 5.g4 Bg6 6.h4 h5 7.g5 Nd7 8.Nxd5 * Very similar to the above line and Alex in the game actually played it the same, however, he did mention the principled thing would be to take the free pawn. So keep an eye out for hanging material. 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Bf5 3.Bf4 e6 4.f3 Bb4 5.a3 Ba5 6.b4 Bb6 7.Na4 * I didn't put the entire line because in this game Alex had mentioned that he may have timed the moves incorrectly. That said, instead of the immediate follow up to f3 he answered the Bb4 with a3 to break the pin and he chased down the bishop, which regardless, he will win. Of course the issue here, is that by pushing both king side and queen side, you don't leave your king with good options to castle and stay safe. With my own lack of skill, I decided to not pursue the line further. 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 e6 3.Bf4 Bd6 4.e3 Bxf4 5.exf4 Nf6 6.Nf3 Qd7 7.Bd3 h6 8.O-O * Early bishop d6 where alex defends our bishop with e3, defends the exchange, and then develops normally. 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.Bf4 d5 4.Nb5 Na6 5.e3 c5 6.Nf3 cxd4 7.exd4 Qa5+ 8.c3 Bd7 9.a4 * An early e6 which allows Nb5 again. If they choose to defend correctly with Na6, it is important to play e3. This prevents you from losing your knight to queen check double attack. When looking for the Nb5 motif, you should keep this counter play in mind. That said, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Jobava. I did not cover non jobava lines like the englud or things that dont end up with the first 3 moves of jobava but obviously they all exist. It seems like there are 7 or 8 main responses to the jobava on move 3 and you need to eventually understand the attacking motifs for each of those directions. Also remember that variations change quickly even after move 4 or 5. you could play the right response to their move 3 on move 4 but you still need to be aware of strategic positional plans should you fall out of book early. The jobava is incredibly fun. I've been playing the scotch gambit for the past 10 months and I'm heavily booked up in it imo. However, the positional placements in the middle game feel like I'm on the back foot (maybe im just a shitty beginner). That said, the jobava just feels way more nuanced. It feels like you have so many positional threats and clear motifs right from the jump, and that you can switch from threats on both sides of the board. Which, seems strange to me. Anyway, hope this helps anyone as I wish it was around when I was transcribing it. I hope Alex creates a jobava course just as deep as his london course, or adds a jobava supplement as a purchase since it is so fun. For those new to chess tho, there's little that the jobava shares with the london. The only difference in the structure might be the knight on c3 instead of d2, but the play style of these two openings are vastly different.
I love this type of openings. They score pretty well against unprepared opponents. I've been using the vienna for the last couple of mounths and I'm getting a ruthless amount of wins each day. Even 1600s get crushed badly whenever I use one of its common traps against them. I'm 900, and playing against stronger players in unrated (1500, 1700, 2000..) made me learn alot about the game and helped me get better pretty quicky. Thanks alex!
I think you'll find the vast majority of people know how to play against Vienna above about 1200. maybe because it's unrated they just try new things but 9/10 I play Vienna (1500 rated) it just turns into four knights and gets incredibly dull.
From my experience in the regular London lower rated players love to check with that bishop and waste a move, so in game 1 I'd say that is very likely to happen, in game 2 the low rated player probably does not see the danger and still goes for the check.
I have browsed through three chessable courses for the joabava London and I’m sure they have some merit. However, I sincerely Hope you make a course on it. In your games (1000-1200) you are playing around competition at my level and I’m seeing the direct lines I face. Not some computer lines. I’ve gone ahead and transcribed the first 15 or so relevant moves of every jobava game you have in your jobava playlist and studying that has been more helpful to me than buying a course from Hans neiman or the ginger gm. I understand at this low level that the moves may not be optimal by my opponent but you show how to punish them and, even if some of your moves might be inaccurate to the comouter, I like the positions that arise from them. I’ve been playing the scotch gambit for a year and really like it but I’m converted. I love how the joabava has similar aggression but is way more positional
@@adami8114 I wish!! Haha.. no, it was 535 at the time I wrote that, however my current blitz rating is 531 so I dropped a few points in the last month, but I'm sure I will recover soon and my goal is to reach 550 before 2025. This channel has helped me a lot to improve in the past 3 years
Been playing Jobava and got a 10 win chess streak then started getting wrecked on a bunch. Quickly realized I need to fully understand all variations. Study time. Like the Jobova
I have been playing on and off for 30 years. Your Caro Kann and London lessons have improved my style of play greatly. Being more of a positional player, the Caro Kann helps simplify my plans. And it's been real easy for me to remember how to deal with a few lines with out remembering a bunch of theory. Thank you so much.
Hi Alex, recently bought your London and Caro-Kann on chessable, any tips on how to study. Hitting a begginer slump. Also are you updating your London to include jobava? Thanks.
Today I'm 1500 exactly. I think I might have taken the pawn as well. The problem is I never played into London. Whenever I see anything apart from e4 play king's Indian defense. I always play the same openings against anything if I see e4, nf3, I play my favorite gambit dragging white Into something they see every 7,5% of the time and I see all the time I play again e4
Great instructional play. may i digest playing a few where your very low time will not influence the opponent to play poorly thinking that that they got the game in the bag.. Good Job though you da man
I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS!! I play Jobava London! I have Ginger GM chessable course, this was of course before I knew about you. I want to learn more from you on JL and Caro-Kann. Do you have a twitch channel or other channel I can join to get all your vidoes on these openings.
man im stuck in this elo of 600, its hell, people just replicate, throw everything out in 1 mins and just goes for pawn race, all my games finish in pawn races, i do all these nice openings get stuff here and there but no matter what 75% of my games is pawn races, how do i get out of this crap, i know i need to get better but its like never ending im sutck in limbo
