The Art of Finding the Strongest Chess Moves 

Lovely examples of multi purpose positional play, great tactic that I don't utilise enough... Homework Rc3, it pins the knight so indirectly defends our pawn on h5, it prevents the white kings movement as it defends h4, we still keep the pressure on c2 and control over the c file with our rooks and we keep the white bishop buried on a2 as we pin the white pawn on b3 to the rook on a3, thank you for the explanation and continually improving my game, superb video again 👍

A superb lesson. Rc3. Took me a while. The old adage: If you see a good move, look for a better one. Now I know what a better move looks like. Thank you.

In the homework position i am definitely considering Rc3 and not taking the pawn. Why? well because first of all it stops whites plan of going c4 and getting a tempo on the bishop, and destroying the activity of all our pieces. But also it pins the knight on g3 to the king, and that knight would like to get activated to e4. Thereby Rc3 kills two birds with one stone. I white then unpins with Kh2 we could consider taking the h4 pawn with our bishop, activating it and getting a tempo on the knight (this is our worst placed piece). Then later we might consider taking the c2 pawn.

homework spoiler - no engine In an endgame with equal material, white has a protected passed b-pawn, but it is not yet threatening much. And black must use the initiative to prevent white from activating its pieces. Rc3 is a multi-purpose move. It pins white's knight to the king. It prevents white from advancing the b-pawn to activate the white bishop because the rook on a3 will hang. It reinforces the c2 pawn as a target and weakness. In the future, it also allows black the long-term strategy to lift the other rook onto the sixth rank. Rc3 Ra5 Bd7 Kh2 Bxh4 Nxh5 Bxf5 Bb1 g7 and white's knight is trapped. Rc3 Ra5 Bd7 b4 Bxf5+ Kh2 Bxc2 and the game is winning for black. Rc3 Rf2 e4 preventing Rf3 and also planning Bf6 to Be5. Rc3 Ra7 e4 Rb7 e3 Rd1 e2 Re1 Bf6 Rxb5 Be5 Rxe2 Rxg3+ Kh2 Re4+ Kh1 Rxe2 and black wins. White has no counter-play and black will win with proper moves.

Excellent lesson. I really benefit from your very focused lessons with a clear takeaway idea. I thought Rc3, but wasn't completely convinced as it wasn't an obvious killer move, but I couldn't find a better move. I often find that I am not sure that I have the best move, but that seems to be how it is! Love your lessons and your style, many thanks.

Thanks again Dr. Can as always! Re: Homework - this one is not too bad because we already know we do _not_ want to take the pawn on c2 😀 I would play Rc3 because it 1) lines up against white king and creates pins on both the knight AND the b3 pawn, 2) blocks the pawn on c2 from advancing (which would threaten black bishop on b5) and thereby 3) buries the bishop on a2 and keeps the other white rook stuck on the a-file in a weird spot. What great value for one single move!

Hi Can, thanks for the great video. In the homework exercise I see the white bishop on a2 is crying, and taking on c2 would be a chess crime as after Rxc2 Rxc2 Rxc2 Bb1 we made the opponents bishop happy. White would like to play c4 to improve the bishop and the pawn structure, so Rc3 immediately comes to mind to block the c2 pawn. This also pins the b3 pawn to the rook and the knight to the king creating threats like Bd7-Bxf5+. White can't move the king out of the pin as that would give up the h pawn

Rc3!

In the third position I would have played Qe7 with the fork, it's not obvious the black queen checks on first rank matter at all.

Great video,multi purpose moves are always tricky for the opponent, cause them to lose a lot of time🎉 great Karpov example 👏💯

Rc3 is what comes to mind immediately for reasons explained by many fellow followers, what if we start by: g6 if fxg6 , fxg6 if Rf2+Kg7. black c an continue with Bxh4 Skewering white'sN&R, then black Rc3 can be very. powerful

Thanks

Rc3 has many purposes: 1) preventing White to advance c4 thus White’s bishop stays out of the game 2) pins White’s knight thus he cannot play f5 and sacrificing a pawn to get his knight to f5 (although black has Bd7 but White can prepare this move) 3) creates threats of Bd7-Bxf5 4) ties White’s pieces to passive defense! Greetings from Beirut, Lebanon!

Rc3 is obvious in that it attempts to trap the bishop, pins the knight, and freezes the backwards pawn. So it's good obviously good but I wouldn't be able to eval the position correctly as "winning" after something like Ra5 unpinning, bishop d7 going after the pawn on f5, and rook f2 defending and bishop d8 trying to improve the black bishop with tempo. It looked like white was holding everything. Computer finds ways to trap the rook on a file or win knight or similar but it's not easy to correctly understand black is winning even if Rc3 appears to be obvious try for an advantage in that it attempts to neutralize various white pieces. So I would play Rc3 but not understand how good the black position is.

Whites king is trapped to the side of the board an if it were to move the whole potision would fall apart. If we could move the rook to the h4 square it would be check mate. In other hand it would also good idea to make the bishop move to the g4 square. The knight on g3 is proteckting both the ways for the bishop to go to its target e2 square and pawn on f5. So in this potision the white has a pawn more but worse peaces. Bishop on a2 is locked by its pawns. Hence, it is not wise to take the free pawn back and awake the whites pieces. If black was to take the pawn on d2 the whites rook must move to d1 and there is ways for try to be better whit going to Rd8c3 pinning the knight to the King. At the same time eying to play Be2 forking the rook and the bishop check. But white can strike back by playing Bb1 and the if Be2 and and attacking our rook. So instaed of complicating things we shall play a better move, that is as flexible as possible and creates multiple threats. Therefore Rc3 may come to mind. It pins the knigs to the King creates a treath of Rc4 followed by Rxh4# if white don't do anything and if white takes the rook we take the free Rook on a3 and if cxb3 we take the bishop on a2. But because it is not particularly good we can insead of Rc4 move the bishop to d7 threathering bxf5+ followed by bxh4 and the whites potision is falling apart and by moving the pishop to the d7 we keep the treath of Rc4 with the twist that we don't lose our bishop in the proses but have all the windows open for destrying our opponent.

Rc3 1. Blocks c4 2. Pins the knight 3. Blocks the bishop and make it useless Also I wanted to ask you a question, can you pls make a video about comparing moves as I do many mistakes in it I would love it if you make a video on it

Great examples as always, but I felt uncertain about the first one. My intuition said to first force the trade of queens with Qb5+ and then play Nc4. My reasoning was all about the stated theme, but I needed the engine to show me why this was probably not correct. My thinking was that Qb5+ prevents black from castling, reduces the risk associated with black's queenside attack, and allows Nc4 on the next move. In that case, Nc4 also threatens to win an exchange by forking the black K and R or to win the d6 pawn. For example: 1. Qb5+ Qd7 2. Qxd7+ Kxd7 3. Nc4 f6 4. Nb6+ Kd6 5. gxf6 Bxf6 6. Nxc8+ Rxc8 7. c4 bxc3 8. bxc3 +1.7 (Of course, if we go to an endgame, I'm actually centralizing the black king, not "preventing castling." I have more space so maybe don't want to trade in general, and at this moment I'm more active so maybe want to keep the queens. Maybe this is also a case of a well posted N being worth more than a R?) Stockfish says this is inferior to the direct Nc4, but it seems to be because white can sacrifice the f4 pawn to open the e file before checking with the d rook and forcing the black king to walk, probably to f8. This blocks in the h8 rook and leaves white with a superior position a pawn down. 1. Nc4 Bd6 2. f4 exf4 3. Rde1+ Kf8 4. h5 +3.3 As a human, going directly into an endgame up an exchange and likely with a protected passed pawn is hard to resist. Maybe that endgame would be harder than it looks from 10 moves away, but evaluating that is tough. The alternative of Nc4 first maintains the opposite-sides-castling position and should be followed up with the sacrifice of a pawn, but the positional superiority will apparently give even better chances than the endgame line. That's also kind of hard to evaluate from afar. It's a great lesson, but Qb5+ is multipurpose, and it makes Nc4 even more multipurpose, so it made me feel a little confused. If the black Q had been on d7 or the black R on b8 instead of c8, maybe the theme would have been even more clearly demonstrated because these sidelines would have been eliminated. Or was my intuition just clearly wrong? It would be a great lesson for me if that were the case.

I thougt the best move in position 3 is 1. Qe7 , Qd1+ 2. Rg2 , Be8 black has to save the bishop or the pawn 3. Ng5+,Kh8 4. Nxf7+ ,Bxf7 5.Qxf7 Etc and white get his pawn back ,and the black position is ruin Sir

Thanks Can, White bishop on a2 is blocked. By far the worst piece. b4 would release the bishop, add a defender to d5, and increase the scope of the rook on a3. Also, the White knight on g3 does not hit anything. It would be happier on e4. Rc3 stops both of white's plans. If the white king tries to move to h2 to unpin the knight, Bxh4.

Just hit 1000 elo. Thanks to your videos, I gained +600 rating points in less than a month. So exciting for me! 🎉 Thanks Dr. Can!

rc3: 1 blocks c2; 2 pins n, now useless to attack; 3 prepares double r to 6th rank, for high pressure mating possibilities.

I just realised I like your videos because you sound like mosh hamedani

Would you be interested in analyzing and giving me advice on my games? I study chess and watch chess and only play chess i can beat bots with 800 elo but cant seem to play against real ppl as well and thus my elo is very low.

5:57 Qe7 maybe?

Rc3!!!

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Nice videos😂