these videos are simply revelatory. i can't believe these are free tbh, and I don't think there is a paid coach or Masterclass that's nearly as insightful or effective. (thank you Aman for getting these uploaded pretty fast!) I can't express enough gratitude for Yasser. but I can say "thank you Yaz!": this is making me appreciate chess in ways that break through my frustration with my progress in chess. I can totally see the game in a brand new light after watching these videos - such starkly beautiful concepts, clearly and lovingly explained. this completely affects my thinking in longer time control games and i'm feeling a completely different mindset when i look at a chessboard simply from these videos. i have a few correspondence games where I have absolutely found new lines to calculate, and new plans, that I would never have had the spark to even imagine before these elementals were explained in such elegant detail. so even if i lose them all, i've already gained a few hours of beautiful appreciation of my own games from the ideas that I've gotten here. just wanted to shout out on that. cheers
I don’t always comment on lessons but Yasser has given some of the absolute most insightful lessons I’ve ever seen. This one for example teaching a way to count development is something I didn’t think about. I did it without any reference of numbers to help and I’m sure this will help a lot in games
Out of the countless hours of chess content on RU-vid this has to be one of the most important lessons I have come across on this platform. When I first started playing I read a two volume series called Secrets of the Russian Chess Masters. Those books teach there are three elements to chess: position, pieces, and time. This video really drills home the elements and importance of time. Counting the pieces is an excellent tool, that's something I wish I'd known about years ago. I don't have the opening theory knowledge a lot of my opponents do, counting the pieces has helped me navigate the openings a bit better.
Yasser is a beast! I bought his book Winning chess openings and literally gained 200 rating points in a month and I've not really studied the D4 openings yet properly.
Yeah i feel you I plan on buying a chess book. Essentially I've been playing casually 2 year and got from 1100 to 1700 without studying. Only through losing certain openings alot do you learn from experience what's good and what isn't. Also watching chessbrah and agadmator from time to time certainly has a (subconscious) effect on your opening knowledge. Opening losses suck though cuz usually its the lack of knowledge that kills you there which feels annoying. Yesterday i lost to d4, e5 dxe5, nc6, ng3, qe7, bf4 and then he played qb4 check and i was like FUCK.
I would like to thank G.M Yasser for these wonderful lectures! It has been enlightening and I have learnt a great deal from his series. Also my gratitude for the this channel. Greetings from Brazil
I played a match after learning the main lesson in this video and I absolutely crushed my enemy in the game throughout the entire game and broke my peak rating because of this video. Thank you so much Yasser
These are great lessons and I can't be grateful enough to learn the insights of a grandmaster from the comforts of my home. Thank you Yasser and Chessbrah for this. Could you please do a video on visualisation? How do you improve the mind's eye? I struggle with this because I cant even visualise a blank chessboard and cant point the sqaures or tell their colour instantly. Let alone following real-time notations like a language. How does one train this? I have never been to a chess school, but I've heard they have exercises for this. Like move around a knight in the mind, or visualise the board as 4 sub-sqaures/quadrants and so forth. Also, what are some ways to teach oneself, without going to chess schools? Hobbyists like me often struggle with this and there is a plateau in the playing style and rating because of this. I am currently rated 1900 on lichess and its all because of channels like this one. I started playing around 4 years ago, off and on. I also never "studied" the game because I never knew how to.
You could try to use the magnus trainer app. I personally like the exercises there and there are 3 different for just such board exercises. One where you have to name the squares, one where pieces move and you have to imagine where they are and where they can go and one, where you have to move pieces to a certain place as fast as possible. But it's pretty expensive (~6€ an month, I think)
Yasser, have you ever done any videos discussing the 'other' time element: actual clock time? It may sound strange, since chess is 'supposed' to be a game where clock-time has no role, but in modern chess clock-time is actually an enforced part of the rules. Run out of time, and you literally lose the game. This is not only important for fast-paced games -- such as blitz and whatnot -- but in many cases in longer games, live commentators will refer to things like 'time trouble', and there are even strategies and tactics (some frowned upon, but they still exist) which try to force one's opponent into complicated positions which take a lot of time to think about, relatively speaking, and which may lead to poor moves later in the game due to accumulated clock-time pressure. Just curious! 😊
I thought "why is this so slow, I thought I had put in on 1.5 speed", but actually I had put in on 1.5 speed, he just talks 50% slower than a regular slow-talking person.
Yasser 3 years ago “…bishop G3, the cure is worse than…. eh…. ah…. Heh….” 😂 But honestly how the hell did he do that? My brain would not have caught that one at all.
@8:58 isn’t qxb7 the best move here? Why do we need to sacrifice the bishop and kick the queen to the f file for this to work? As long the queen is on the 7th rank qxb7 followed up qxa8 just wins the rook right?? What am I missing?
Hey Yasser! How do you know Morphy didn’t see it? I mean if you had a choice between winning the exchange and an immortal game which would you choose? 🤨
