imo puzzles shouldn't have obvious solutions with hard followups, they should have less obvious solutions so everyone doesn't go for the obvious move with no followup (distorting the data)

@joepiazza3756

2 жыл бұрын

Too many situations have people taking a piece for probably the wrong reason.

@sanauj15

2 жыл бұрын

It is better for newer or weaker players to have these kind of puzzles because it teaches them why sometimes the obvious moves are the better moves while also teaches them to calculate moves far ahead into say 2 to 3 moves.

@aClownBaby-

2 жыл бұрын

@@sanauj15 But I think the lower rated players do not actually calculate further than just that one move to solve it. Probably won’t recognise why it’s the best move or what the follow up is

@sanauj15

2 жыл бұрын

@@aClownBaby- That's my point. Having these kind of puzzles will be easier for them to learn how to calculate further, in comparison to the less obvious solutions.

@isaakvandaalen3899

2 жыл бұрын

In general I'd agree but once you've done a lot of tricky puzzles, sometimes you fall into the trap of looking for better moves when there aren't any. These kinds of puzzles teach us that sometimes you should just take what's in front of you.

Choosing the puzzle difficulty so that roughly 50% of participants find the best solution looks like a sound choice for me. Highly rated players have a lot of resources to find more difficult puzzles so I would keep the difficulty as it is so that more viewers stay interested.

@Vakje27

2 жыл бұрын

This is a good option, but since there are three puzzles each week, you can always choose to shift between difficulty.

@emileheskey2754

2 жыл бұрын

@@Vakje27 exactly this. Just get a puzzle that maybe over half of players would get, also a puzzle that is a bit harder. This way we all get challenged and we never know if we are thinking too simply or not

@gimbo2145

2 жыл бұрын

@@emileheskey2754 I agree, he should add a challenge puzzle at the end to satisfy the people that want harder puzzles. Plus like you said, it challenges everybody.

Maybe u can give random positions and ask us "who is better here and why" with some general answers like "position of pieces, attack incoming, connecte rooks, safe king" idk

@raifegeozay687

2 жыл бұрын

or like in this position rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/2BPPB2/2NQ4/PPP2PPP/3RR1K1 w kq - 0 1 some may say white is better because of (i dont even need to tell you can figure it out) but some say black is better because black is up in material. stockfish says +3.

I'd love to see a quiz where there is not just one correct move i.e. a winning tactic, but rather one where there are multiple similarly good ideas that belong to different playing styles: pushing center pawns to gain space, activating a piece, doubling rooks, sacrificing a pawn, sacrificing a whole bishop, etc. I'd be interesting to identify what sort of moves beginners and intermediates often considers in comparison to advanced players.

Love the series, keep it up. Maybe occasionally throw in some positions from the opening or endgame as well? While opening puzzles won't have a clear cut "correct" answer, since there are frequently multiple viable lines, it'd still be interesting to see a rating breakdown of what people like to play at different rating levels.

I almost didn't notice the evaluation bar next to the chessboard, has it been there all the time? I think it's a good addition to see if a move is good or not, currently it is a bit small and blends in to the background but should be an easy fix. Keep it up! :D

Love the set up of different ratings, different approaches. Thanks for the vids

Hmm it's interesting to see how different people at different levels think on a single position. It's instructive with 2001+ and engines. Means it's enjoying and instructive ❤️👍👍

This series is amazing. I wish there were more of these!

Love the challenges! Keep it up

Good stuff, looking forward to more difficult ones.

Thanks for adding the feature to the quizform to save your answers so I can look back next time what solutions I thought of.. If you had put that in previous ones as well, then I it's just me who just found that out. xD

Outstanding puzzles. Love the thematic approach.

One of my favorite series and my favorite chess series on youtube. Highly appreciate your hard work, Nelson ☺️ I hope you will get 100k subs before 2022 :)

At first i was really skeptical of this video(which was recommended randomly). But it made me think!!! Brilliant content.

I need more of this series

Really cool video idea! I had never watched you before but I saw this and thought the idea was pretty interesting. I agree that the puzzles were a bit on the easy side (i’m about 1300) but there are probably some 600-700s watching too so it has to be a balance. maybe an easy, medium and master next time? great video though, keep it up!

Dude your channel is amazing! Would love to hear some about you - where are you from, how’d you start chess, are there any plans for IM and such

I think this is the best episode so far. First one very easy, second one a bit more tricky, with greater explanation, third one strategy. I like strategy more because it's easy to train tactic but very harder to train strategy unless you go to a club. So thanks a lot

cool video and nice follow up! leek the vibes ON! ♥

Really enjoyed this and happy I found 2/3. Will check your others

almost 50k subs you're growing fast

In case you missed my comment from last week (I watched it a bit late, so my comment is only from yesterday, but I'm earlier this time), having viewer submitted positions would be fun (if there's a way to do so). It would create even more audience interaction, and give you more options so you don't have to dig up various positions every week. And--while I'm editing this comment--on a related note, this is one of my favorite series on chess. I'd certainly hate to see it go. I'd love to help figure a way to keep it going going forward if you need help.

The first two positions are easy to find the right moves for, but hard to properly calculate in their entirety. For position 1, I wrote in the correct plan, but didn't actually know if white could survive the Bg2 counterattack... there was just no good way to defend against the fork and the attack at once, so the only thing white could hope for is ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK and hope for the best... and yes, the h7 pawn had to go. Basically, "if this doesn't work, then white is screwed either way, so might try as well and hope white's attack is superior". For position 2, it's a bit tricky to see everything, but white has so many options to block off the queen (f4, g3, Ng3) that after a few honest attempts to calculate I decided to trust my gut telling me "there's no WAY black can get checkmate if white plays well". For position 3, one thing you didn't mention is that white has to be very careful in response to the rook move -- if they move the queen (instead of just trading it for two rooks) to a spot where it doesn't defend the knight on b3... well, the c2 pawn is pinned, so after trading the rooks black might be able to grab the b3 knight for free if white isn't careful enough.

I participated in this one and found them all as a 1270 you should make it more difficult next time

You are officially my favorite Lopez right now!

That was the first video that i got all the best moves. Hopefully i'm getting better. You're 'How not to blunder' video really helped me out

Bro you are dope love your channel simple as that .

I love this!

In the first videos, those who sumbitted answers also had argued their decision and thought process. That is the most important thing, because there are situation when the first move is quite natural or obvious. For example in the first puzzle, there were only 2 moves that stood out and one of them was right. I remember in school when the maths teacher would just not consider the final result even if it was correct, because it was by guess or miscalculation that led to the same result and that is not a way to progress.

To improve this kind of video: place timestamps in the header-description, à la "Gothan Chess". Intro: 0:00 Position 1: 0:42 Position 2: 7:32 Position 3: 12:48 Summary: 17:50 Outro: 19:16

Thank goodness this was a win. Also I contributed!

Position number two i settled with f4 because taking the knight looked super risky.. maybe i would have played it in a classical tournament, but as a blitz player f4 looked more intuitive to me

Position 1, top move (Bxh7+) is known as the "Greek Gift" in honor of the "Trojan Horse". It is a common tactic in London System opening game, especially when black has short castled.

@eel9

2 жыл бұрын

It's not the Greek gift since you're not sacrificing it-you can get a similar position after a Greek gift if black plays horribly though

ayyyyyyyyyyyyy let’s go he’s back

More strategy quizzes!!!

For position 3 I consider the key points to be king safety and square control. Its a very tense position, white obviously has the more flexible piece placement, and it's quite possible that that is white's compensation for giving up an exchange. my first consideration was getting the king to h7, rook to g7 then double on the c file (frustrating, but I missed the g4 idea) the problem being that moving the king over gives white both time, and the squares he wants to cause havoc. The next was Rgd8, and I was satisfied that it improves blacks position nicely. I did also visualise the result incorrectly, which made me overestimate the benefits of the move, but the principle was not far off I think.

I actually found BxRP in position 1, but was worried about the threat from black' s Q and QB on the long diagonals. And I saw KR-K1 in position 3

Congrats on your first sponsor!

In position 3, I would have had a harder time if one option had been "Chase away White's pieces to free your Queen"

first time I got all 3 top moves as a 900. I'll cross that off my bucket list :)

Stopped playing competitive chess in 80's; easily Class-A to Master strength. I enjoy puzzles and this newly-discovered series especially. On puzzle #3, I think I would have commented on leveraging the pinned pawn. You show the accurate defenses for white but not why they are accurate... and I think pointing out checks and forks/pins/skewers/x-rays is useful instruction for developing players.

In the third puzzle, why is Nc4 not a good trade offer. You either trade your knight for the opposing bishop, or white has to run away their queen, giving you Qb2+ and queen can run to safety

Really liked position 3. I sat there and thought for a good 5 minutes. Asking for both the position and the plan meant that I couldn't guess the right move for the wrong reasons.

I attended the quiz. 😁

For option 3, I would have put the knight on a4 because then if they don’t trade it’s late with the queen and the rook on c8 (the queen is protected by the knight)

This is my favorite series, but in position 3, I liked Nh4 to threaten check in next move and free the queen

Eyyy this is the first quiz I got all three questions right! This is progress!

Love this series. The spread sheet only shows 6 games. It has been a game short for a couple weeks. Doesn't matter though learning every week!

@ChessVibesOfficial

2 жыл бұрын

I think I didn't start viewers vs stockfish on week 1

Funnily enough for the second one I said hxg4, and in the follow up stated the knight move. But not even noticing the queen. Was so tunnel visioned on the rook that I ended making a really good move for the wrong reasons.

In third puzzle, I would have moved knight to attack queen (and help queen out). Likely taken by bishop and retaken by rook. Now queen can move...

Is this possible to suggest a position ? (I don't have one but if it is possible I will make one)

On the last question I found it too vague, of course trading and simplifying is good but it didn’t really question in which way

I'm curious about the first puzzle. In the first line shown with Qh5, we could run our king to h3 instead of h1 after the series of checks. Now black has no checks on our king and the winning move would be Bg6. If black plays fxg6 we recapture with the queen with M2. If black doesn't take with the pawn, we can play Bxf7+. If black takes with the rook we can play Nxf7 with the threat to go Rg1 and I see no counterplay to this. If the king tries to run away to f8 we can just bring the knight backwards and take on h6, sacrificing the knight but cutting off the king's escape which makes the looming Rg1 even worse. Might be missing something, maybe not enough tempo and king can run away, but in the quick calculation in a rapid game I'd just go for this first probably. Edit: a more forcing sequence would be to take with Qxf7+ instead of knight takes. Then move the queen to e7 to completely cut off any escape, bring the rook, sacc the knight for style points, and Qxg7#. I'd be really curious what stockfish says on a bigger depth, if you would like to look it up too.

Well, I did not find any move that people suggested. I found Qc1 which is ugly, but it removes the pin bishop and later you can play g3 which blocks the diagonal with support by pawns.

What stockfish version do you use? The latest development version or Stockfish 14?

The best chess series is BAAAACK!!!!!!!

At 6:44, I think Bg6!, Kg7 is a better move since it allows Bxf7!, Rxf7; Qxf7!, Kh8,... If we can get the white colored bishop off the major diagonal, we can skewer the king with our queen and claim his other rook. I would probably try Rf3.

3 for 3 this week ... but last couple days my game has gone to crap and next week's quiz I think I'm gonna donut it! :(

I would have played Na4, but it turns out that after Qd7 which forces Kf6 to avoid losing the rook on the c-file, you lose the knight after Qd4.

@Chess Vibes Third puzzle, rook C4, taken by bishop is not forced but likely, then take bishop with knight, frees the queen and threaten check mate, no?

@matsdevink2858

2 жыл бұрын

Queen C7+ will check the king and pick up the knight on C4, you’ll be a piece down

11:39 I think that's called the _human centipawn_

Position 2 : who didn't take the free knight bcs he thought this was too easy 😂

@qazzaqstan

2 жыл бұрын

For position 2 I had to think it out for a few minutes before actually taking the knight. The obvious move in a chess puzzle which leads to a clear threat from the opponent felt like it had to be wrong but I reluctantly went with it fully expecting there to be some winning followup for black after ng3 that I missed.

@hapainess3636

2 жыл бұрын

i like how i overcomplicated that position, meanwhile the move is right before my eyes

I am new in chess and at the 2. pos I haven't seen the mate, but I just saw, hey, I can take the knight. Lets do it. 😆

@quelqunx7470

2 жыл бұрын

I didn't see the mating threat either. Because I only analyzed the position after taking the knight xd

"Wanted the positions more difficult." What!? Keep it going, Nelson.

Why was Na4 not a good move in the last position? It forces White to trade the bishop and activates the Queen.

0-3 for me 😅 love these positional videos tho

i love this

Okay but what 2000+ rated player for the first puzzle says Qh5? Like did he just sandbag his way or was he drunk

I'm surprised so many people got number three right, that seems like a decoy answer but turns out to be the right one, but it raises the question did they really see the position or just get lucky. I do wish that the most obvious move wasn't often the correct answer. That being said not many people said to sacrifice, another tempting option, so maybe I'm thinking to little of people

These puzzles are about my level but I have no problem if you increase the difficulty. I like a challenge

Third position: Rxc2 followed by Rc8+, King can't move because of checkmate. But didn't think that rook can be blocked by enemy rook.🤦🏻‍♂️

This week's "general plan" position was again very poorly chosen b/c it was a position where black has a single tactical move that wins (Rgd8) and has to play it otherwise white is better despite Black's material advantage (engine says Rgd8 is -3.8 whereas the next best move is +0.8). As I said last week, I like the idea of asking about a general plan but the positions need to be chosen much more carefully to make sure it's not a position with an immediately winning tactic.

for position 3, what about knight to c4, rook to c4, queen to either a4 or a6

On the last one why isnt nc4 a good alternative?

New Quiz it says what should Black play instead of white.

In position 3, how about knight a4? He has to trade his bishop because you can checkmate him pretty quickly or take many pieces. If he doesnt take, then Qxb2 then Qxc2 then you can rook d8 if you want, but you are in a much better position with your queen. If he trades the bishop, your queen will already be out when you move your rook d8. that knight has no impact until the end in the proposed solution, but if you place your queen at the right place already, he loses the queen, the rook and the bishop.

@vladislav_sidorenko

2 жыл бұрын

If white goes Qd7+ (previously defended by the knight now on a4) and only then Bxa4, what would be the response?

Damn, I'm actually really happy that I found that rook d8. Took me a while, but I had a good feeling that trading ends up well.

I must be a noob... but in position 3 i was thinking pushing the pawn to a6 and then Nc4. Threating mate and queen. why this not result? any check white have i am not seeing?

Nelsi really need a help!!!... I am a Scandinavian player, likely always play Scandinavian... But the problem is that my queen usually is always sitting inactivily on A5 (yeah a I don't play any other variations) so, I don't find any way to bring my queen nearly my opponent's king castled games, what should I do so my queen can also join the attack towards my opponent castled king (often his king side) , waiting for response!

@DonFreeq

2 жыл бұрын

DO NOT PLAY Qa5 Scandi! If you want to play Scandi play Modern with 2. Nf6 or play Qd6 Scandi. Qa5 Scandi is suicaidal against somebody well prepared. You make 1 mistake and you lose. And I mean lose not "be worse".

@raghvendrasinghsengar8360

2 жыл бұрын

@@DonFreeq What is your rating buddy though?...thanks for advice, that is why i love chess community always supportive!

@DonFreeq

2 жыл бұрын

@@raghvendrasinghsengar8360 Tbh I don't play recently just watching some content but as far I remember it was 2,2k at lichess. What's yours? Both Qd6 and Nf6 are better objectively. Problem with Qa5 is you have to be extremely precise to survive opening. It's enough you mix up move order or develope bishop to g4 instead of f5 (varies on lines) and you can be almost dead. It's also not fun to play. If white isn't moron he will try to slaughter you starting from move 3 because it's the way you play against Qa5 Scandi. Sure, you can be accurate, defend and eventually not even be worse, but that really isn't a lot of enjoyment. Idk what is your rating but when I was sth like 1700-1800 and sb played against me Qa5 Scandi I was resigning if I wasn't piece up after 30 moves. I almost never had to press the button. Just play literally ANY other opening. To make it simpler: to be equal you need to play 15 moves after Qa5 straight up ONLY move and White has every time 2 moves to search for an advantage. If white stumbles it will be equal, but if you stumble it's gonna be at least +2. for me masochistic xd

@raghvendrasinghsengar8360

2 жыл бұрын

@@DonFreeq Can You suggest me a better opening? as aggressive as danish , as calm as london, as sweet as E4 , as Hot as Scandi,as Addictive as D4, as classic as Caro kan, as simple as kings indian, as deadly as traxler, as tricky as blackmar diemar and everything nice,as lovely queens gambit,as fruity as kings gambit, as visous as Vienna, as cheap as Evan's , as useless as french (no not useless) -Everything everything I want-? (For black?)...Edit: XD I just wrote an opening song haha

Hey love the series just wanted to mention for viewership you may want to make the titles more obviously different, if I didn't notice the time on the video I would have skipped over it because I thought I'd already seen it

@quelqunx7470

2 жыл бұрын

That's true, I think putting "chess quiz #7" first, and then "all my subscribers [...]" after is better, because KZread on mobile cuts the title short and we can't see the last part of the title if it's too long.

if I was in the last position, i'd definitely sack that rook on c2, there should be a mating follow up somewhere

I think position 2 as long as you play a winning move you are correct. I think the quiz will be best if there is only 1 move that wins or draws, at the end of the day the object of the game is to win, doesn’t matter how you do it. Every position in chess is mate in x or drawn, we just don’t have the means to calculate that right now. Clearly stockfish thinks both of the top moves in position 2 are “mate in x” maybe mate in 100, 150, 200 so to me they are equal if they both lead to an eventual forced mate with perfect play. Maybe after a very long time (a millennium) I have charted all the possible moves after playing f4 and realized it’s a forced mate for white way down the line, at that point it would be irrelevant for me to calculate after hxg4 so my answer to the quiz would correctly be f4. Ok ok I only have 1 week to answer the quiz

@grgfrg7

2 жыл бұрын

I’m just saying if you had a quiz where the top 2 moves were “mate in 4” and “mate in 5” is the mate in 5 really wrong? I say no. So in position 2 where I think it’s generally agreed white is mating black eventually after either of the top 2 moves then I say both moves are correct

I got the third one correct and got picked the second “best” for first and second the first wasn’t really the second best cus it’s just losing but yeah

In the category of the 2001+, why there are only 2 moves, but they add up to 92%? Where is the other 8%?

Always feels good to play a better move than 6% of 2000 rated peeps.

4:40 you're wrong there is no threat of a check since we can play a bishop retreat with check on the black king now the queen is hanging but better yet you have mate in 2. Also in the position it doesn't matter even if black didn't have counter play Bxh7 is still the best move by far since it gives white actual threats instead of the Qh5 line that is actually not that impressive when you can play h6.

I like how he says h takesh g4

6:40 why is pawn g6 not a good move?

The quiz link never works for me?

Question. In position 3 why not Knight C4? I'm 800 so I don't fully understand why that wouldn't be a good move. I'd appreciate someone talking about that.

@danielyuan9862

Жыл бұрын

White just takes it and after rook takes. My best guess is that you haven't yet traded the queen, so your exposed king is going to be attacked somehow.

@danielyuan9862

Жыл бұрын

Actually, Qd7+, taking advantage of the square the knight used to defend, seems even more devastating, as I think white can force the black king up the board (Ke8 blunders the rook), away from the defense of the rooks.

@danielyuan9862

Жыл бұрын

This is also what happens when your queen is stuck and out of play.

Nelson : you need to ask yourself, what can my enemy do to stop the execution of my plan? Me : sees bxh7 at first glance

still not getting data sets to check own answers XD

First time I found them all haha

I feel like these would be more interesting if they were more balanced, positional games with multiple different ideas to play so you can really see how people think about the position differently rather than "Lower rated players played the best move less often than the high rated players." When there's just a single move that's completely winning for white and all other moves are equal or losing, it doesn't make for much of an interesting discussion imo.

@mikamoschella3410

2 жыл бұрын

*****SPOILERS FOR QUIZ #8***** In such a vein, I REALLY liked the positions you chose for next week's video. Although the first one was a little obvious, the second two have a lot of different potential ideas that all look viable, but not clearly winning. (Unless I missed some crazy tactic on each of them lol)

Position one was greek gift sacrifice? Right?

@jedrzejkraszpulski442

2 жыл бұрын

They can't take your bishop because of the knight, so not even a sacrifice. Just some mean Greeks beating them up.

I took an elo rating test to participate and it said 1460 so I subtracted 100 to be safe. Gonna be real though, got completely shut out on the first puzzle, think I'll stick to the under 600 elo lol I saw a completely different line for black involving the Knight taking the rook instead of the Bishop check so I prioritized the defence. Had the second option for the second position. And the right choice for position 3 at least.

@DonFreeq

2 жыл бұрын

What test did you take out of curiosity?

@MrSnowmandeath

2 жыл бұрын

@@DonFreeq Chessmaniac Elo Test I just googled and found it, so I'm not sure of the actual legitimacy of it though.

@DonFreeq

2 жыл бұрын

@@MrSnowmandeath I thought so. It's not really viable. Too little samplesize and has some mistakes to say at least. I took some tests recently just to see what's going on with them. Elometer seemed good.

Easy puzzles, plz find much harder puzzles))

3/3, and 3/3 for finding the correct follow-ups. Ez

well if you count f4 as a passing move like he did I finally got all three right. I personally would't though, because it is a significant decrease in advantage.

@ovoj5631

2 жыл бұрын

f4 is a much more human move. In an actual game nobody is gonna be playing the move that opens their king up to a multitude of threats and they would be much more likely to just take the 2 pieces for a rook and a safe king

@ezra7088

2 жыл бұрын

@@ovoj5631 That's true. It's kind of annoying a 600 would get this puzzle right and a 2000 might not. But I suppose it makes it fun for a wider audience. I just want to get all three puzzles right, and I looked at next weeks puzzle, and after analyzing it and deciding on a move looked at stockfishes move. The third puzzle is kinda ridiculous because the move my computer suggested wan't even an option on the google form