Chess Pro Answers Questions From Twitter

Levy Rozman answers the internet's burning questions about the game of chess. What's the best opening? How do you become a grandmaster? Was the Queen's Gambit an accurate show? What's the worst move you can make in chess? Is it harder to play with black pieces than white? Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey Director of Photography: Charlie Jordan Editor: Chris Davies Expert: Levy Rozman Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi Associate Producer: Brandon White Production Manager: Eric Martinez Production Coordinator: Fernando Davila Camera Operator: Corey Eisenstein Audio: Brett Van Deusen Production Assistant: Patrick Sargent Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen Assistant Editor: Andy Morell

Video Transcript

- I'm Levy Rozman, chess educator and YouTuber.

Today I'll be answering your questions from Twitter.

This is "Chess Support."

[heavy drum beat] @RevealersApp asks, "What is the origin of the word checkmate, and what does it mean?

#question #doyouknow?"

Wow, they asked this question in 2013.

I really hope they've gotten it answered.

As far as I know, the word "checkmate" is a direct translation from Persian, the word "shah mat."

"Shah" would probably refer to the king, like the Shah, and "mat" would supposedly mean "trapped," "frozen," or something like that.

@Urch_mann asks, "How do you become a chess Grandmaster?"

The Grandmaster title is the highest one that you can achieve according to the International Chess Federation.

And basically, it means that you've achieved mastery at the game of chess.

I'm not even a Grandmaster.

I'm an International Master, which is the title right underneath that.

Basically, to achieve the Grandmaster title, you have to have a series of tournaments that are officially recognized.

You also need to have a minimum Elo, which is a rating that quantifies your skill level, of 2,500.

If you want to become a Grandmaster and you're watching this and you're young, you still have plenty of time.

You should study as much chess as you can.

You should play as much chess as you can.

Analyze your games over and over.

It will take time, but it is definitely possible.

@MattSenter asks, "Dear hardcore chess players, was the jargon in 'Queen's Gambit' accurate?

Were the games authentically staged?

Did you examine the boards for flaws in the narrative?"

"The Queen's Gambit" was single-handedly the biggest thing to ever happen to chess.

It was viewed by hundreds of millions of people and that is why they had to make sure the show was super accurate.

Apparently, they even had one of the best chess players of all time, Garry Kasparov, fact-check so many details of the show.

And I'll tell you, as a person that has been to chess tournaments, sat around tables analyzing positions, they did a really good job.

There's not quite as much substance abuse in the world of chess.

But yeah, people do party.

@JapanTutorChess asks... Oh wait, what's up Charlie?

"Why is Magnus Carlsen so good at chess?

I always feel inspired when I look at his games."

Magnus Carlsen is the best chess player right now and there's an argument to be made that he's the best chess player of all time.

Magnus has an incredible stamina.

He will go on for 5, 6, 7 hours and squeeze water out of stone in many of his positions.

He has extremely good instincts and end game technique, and that is what makes him the best chess player and that's what makes people inspired by his games 'cause sometimes he makes it look so easy.

@BuccoCapital asks, "Okay, serious question.

How do you cheat in chess?"

The simplest answer to this is that you receive external assistance during a game that you play.

If you're playing online, you might just toggle your tab.

You put all the moves in the game that you're playing into some sort of analysis board where a computer will give an evaluation of what the best moves are.

But if you happen to be playing live, face-to-face, you'll have to come up with a better mechanism, otherwise you're gonna be caught much faster.

So people have had accomplices in the past or vibrating devices in their shoe or elsewhere.

But that is the way you would win a chess game by cheating.

@ChessifyMe asks, "What's the worst possible move in chess in general?"

If you wanna ask what's the worst first move that white can play from a starting position, I think it's the move F3 with the pawn.

Because you weaken your king on the dark squares and you disallow the natural movement of your knight.

Your knight wanted to move there, but now you got in your own way.

So you sabotage your own development and you weakened your own king.

Of all the options that you had on move one, which was 20, congrats, you chose the wrong one.

@ChessDump asks, "What's the best opening?

#Chess" For me personally, the best opening is the Caro-Kann Defense.

Begins with the move E4, so this has to be played.

And black now responds with the move C6.

This is the Caro-Kann Defense, and the objective of black's move is to try to put the pawn in the center, but not only be supported by the queen, also be supported by this pawn.

This opening holds a dear place in my heart because when I was like 12 years old, I quit chess basically.

I said, "Oh, this is too difficult.

It's not cool.

I don't have any friends playing chess."

And I came back to chess after two or three years, and the first opening that I picked up was the Caro-Kann.

And I won a lot of games.

I had a lot of success with this opening.

I beat a lot of very decent players and I play it to this day.

@ContraPoints asks "I wanna get better at chess, what's the best way to improve?

Just play a million games, or do you have to read like chess...theory?"

The best way, in my opinion, to improve at chess is to get the fundamentals down.

And when you talk about chess theory, what theory means is the best way to begin a game.

But it's kind of necessary because if you're just starting a game of chess on your own, it's sort of like going to a boxing gym without any proper instruction.

Like one punch and you're gonna go down.

So you've gotta learn to keep your hands up, you've gotta learn to move your feet the right way.

And if you're not doing that in the chess equivalent, then it's gonna go really poorly.

@BrizChessTimes asks, "Chess myths.

Are there really three phases to a chess game?"

There absolutely are three phases to a game of chess.

They are the opening phase, the middle game phase, and the end game phase.

The opening is something like the first five, 10, or 15 moves of a chess game played between white and black that has already been explored before.

What that means is maybe somebody played it some years ago at a tournament.

At some point, you enter new territory, a position that has never been reached.

Which might surprise you, but that happens as early as move five or six in some games.

A chess game that has never happened before.

That's called the middle game.

And that's kind of that stage of the game where one side goes to battle against the other and you try to overtake your opponent.

And the end game is basically when like half of these pieces have been traded off.

Or all the pieces are gone and it's just kings and pawns.

That's called a king and pawn end game.

So those are the phases of the game.

You can debate whether a position is middle or end game, but there absolutely are three phases.

That's not a myth.

@Levine_Maxwell asks "Chess enthusiasts, is there a name for every possible move in chess?

After following the world championship, the amount of names they have for different moves is infinitely fascinating.

Like the Sicilian Defense, wing gambit, Rossolimo Variation."

Yes.

So the way I would describe this is chess openings are named after people or they are named after places.

Any given chess opening, like the Sicilian Defense, obviously Sicily.

Rossolimo Variation is named after Rossolimo.

Chess openings are the first five, six, seven, 10 moves of a game.

Also in chess, a lot of different tactical patterns have fun nicknames like fork, pin, deflection, and so on.

But those are just descriptive, conceptual terms and they're not actually named after people or locations.

@ByBrandonWhite asks, "Is it harder to play with black pieces than white?

#chess" Basically what Brandon is asking here is that white goes first in chess, is that an advantage?

It really doesn't matter.

The truth is you're gonna play half the games of your life with white and half of them with black.

You've gotta be ready to play with either color.

Now with black, especially early on, white can bring out their queen.

They can try to checkmate you in four moves, which is called the Scholar's Mate.

But as long as you learn to deal with early aggression and kind of nonsense openings, you'll be fine.

In fact, some people like playing black more because they can respond to what their opponent does.

So their opponent shows their hand and now you get to respond with black.

@PatrickBetDavid asks, "Who's the greatest chess player of all time?"

This list basically comes down to three people.

Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov, and Bobby Fischer.

There are some people out there that will argue for somebody else.

They are objectively incorrect and I will be the first one to tell you.

All these three players dominated in different ways.

Bobby Fischer was a transcended talent and hard worker.

He was better than everybody that he played and it wasn't even close.

But he was only world champion once and then he sort of stepped away from chess.

Garry Kasparov dominated for decades, and Magnus Carlsen is currently in the midst of his reign.

If Magnus can go another 6, 7, 8 years as the world ranked number one, there is a legitimate case to be made that he will overtake Garry.

It's very close.

If I have to give you an answer right now, I will say Garry Kasparov.

If we recorded this three years into the future, I probably would tell you Magnus.

@KMarzantowicz says, "What can we learn from a game Deep Blue versus Kasparov?"

The match was basically the turning point where humans could no longer defeat computers at chess.

Garry Kasparov, one of the greatest chess players of all time, in the late 1990s, played two matches against Deep Blue from IBM.

Deep Blue was a revolutionary chess computer and it was the pioneer of chess engines.

And in the first match, Garry won.

So Garry was still at his prime and was stronger than his chest opponent, the counterpart, the AI.

But in their rematch, Garry was defeated.

And since then, computers have only gotten better and better and now they can fit on something as small as a smartphone.

@OfficialFBMA asks, "Random question.

While playing chess, how does your queen's movements align with your overall strategy?"

Well, the queen is the most powerful piece.

It can move up, down, left, right.

And on an empty board, it would control something like nearly half the squares.

It goes to show you its power, its foresight, its ability to jump into the enemy position on the other side of the board and then come right back.

But since this is your most powerful piece, it's also your most valuable one.

You don't wanna lose it just for no reason.

And I would compare a queen to something like the dragons in "Game of Thrones" where they can be world-enders.

They could burn fire all over the place.

But since both sides have one and any of the pawns can also promote to a queen, it can get really chaotic really fast.

Both sides have eight pawns and one of the rules of the pawn is that if it makes it all the way to the end of the board, it can promote.

It can promote to a knight, a bishop, a queen, or a rook.

@TvPreds asks "Knights or bishops?"

So this is a knight.

Shockingly resembles a horse and I don't know why it's not called a horse.

Basically, a knight can move in L shapes and goes 1, 1, 2.

Gallop, gallop, turn.

And it's extremely elusive.

And a lot of players at 99% of chess strength will miss the key defensive or offensive resources that a knight can provide.

But top level players will say that a bishop is better.

Because a bishop, theoretically, could travel the entire distance of the board in one move.

But personally, I would say that a knight is better.

It's extremely difficult to pinpoint exactly what a knight wants to do.

They're super tricky pieces.

Top level, this is better.

But for most of you, this is the better piece.

@ComputerChess asks, "Explain like I'm five.

How do chess computers work?"

Which is ironic 'cause that Twitter account is literally named Computer Chess, but I digress.

Basically, a chess computer can see the future in 2, 3, 4, 10, 15 moves ahead, come all the way back with all of the different possibilities and all the different combinations and permutations of moves, which could be in the thousands or the tens of thousands or even the millions.

Come all the way back to where we are right now.

But essentially, the computer evaluates its probability of victory.

That might mean the king is weak and I can tell that the king is weak.

And I can tell the king is weak over the next 20 moves, I'm gonna be able to attack it.

Just things that humans absolutely are not able to come up with.

All the best chess engines in the world are around the same strength.

The best one, which is Stockfish, will do this process that I just described better, more efficiently, and more accurately over time than all the others.

@BritneyMagic1 asks "In chess, what's castling?"

Castling involves your king and one of your rooks.

And basically, when the king and the rook have a totally empty line between them, the king would move two spaces like this.

King would go two and the rook would come right next to the king.

That action gets the king away from the center, over to safety, like a vacation house if you will.

But black can also, in this position, castle long.

This is the longer side.

It required three pieces to get out of the way.

And how does black do this?

Black moves the king two squares, just the same way, and the rook comes right next to it.

Now there is enough defense over here for the king not to worry long term.

@SPWise747 asks "How would you describe the playing styles of Magnus Carlsen and GM Hikaru in terms of a particular animal?"

This is a fascinating question and I am very bad at drawing analogies, but I'm going to do my best.

I think that Magnus Carlsen's suffocating playing style, killing you slowly over time, is best compared to a python.

And GM Hikaru, also known as Hikaru Nakamura, Grandmaster, one of the most accomplished speed chess players of all time.

I would probably compare him to a jaguar.

Like the elevated form of his species.

Fast.

Very, very resourceful.

Multi-talented.

And also very elusive.

@ChessifyMe asks, "Quick tactic from Adams versus Fabrego, 1988.

How fast can you find checkmate in two?

White to move" I found it.

Checkmate in two means you make a move, your opponent responds, and on that second move, you deliver a checkmate.

In this position in particular, white is actually really in trouble because white is down a bishop and the knight.

Materially speaking, white has a lot less.

But look at this powerful control over this king.

The king is completely stranded.

White doesn't have any options, right?

Because if white tries to get in with the rook, one of these pieces will capture.

But white does have this move.

This is called a sacrifice.

So the first move here is Rook F7, check.

Black has no legal move here, except capturing the rook for free with the king.

You're able to do that because the rook has no protection here.

So black just want a rook.

But our queen now drives into where our rook used to stand and this is check, once again.

But this time, the king is unable to run anywhere around the queen, because obviously the queen would get the king.

But if the king takes the queen the same way the king took the rook, our rook would now capture that king.

Checkmate in two.

@Unlimited_Chess asks "r/chess, what is the rarest move ever played?"

Rarest move is a tough one.

But it basically means just an absolutely breathtaking move, something that you cannot find anywhere else.

And if I've gotta give one, I would say the Gold Coins Game that Frank Marshall played in the early 20th century where he sacrificed basically three pieces at the same time.

His last move, queen to G3, was just exceptional and people apparently showered the board with gold coins after the move was played.

@Chessmate_app asks, "Can you solve this puzzle by Paul Morphy?

White mates in two moves."

Yeah, I solved it.

Paul Morphy is one of the most accomplished chess players of all time and one of the most famous ones.

He's the protagonist of the Opera Game, which was a legendary game where a bunch of pieces were sacrificed to deliver a checkmate.

And he was around about 170 years ago.

That was when he was in the prime of his chess career.

One of the things that he did though, besides dominate at chess was compositions.

Not musical ones, but chess ones.

And compositions are basically fake positions that have never happened in a real game with certain goals and objectives that make you think totally outside the box of what you would normally be thinking of during a real chess game.

And this is an example of one.

The right move here is the absolutely fascinating rook to H6.

That move puts black in what's called a zwischenzug or a German word for basically having no moves except self-sabotage.

Anything that you do will result in the loss of something.

Essentially, if the bishop moves to any square, we play rook takes pawn.

Checkmate.

That's the move that we wanted to play anyway.

But the bishop was standing there defending.

Well, what if black takes our rook?

Well, then we use the cleared out G7 square to push our pawn and black has checkmated.

Boxed in by his own pieces.

So those are all the questions for today.

I really appreciate all of you who submitted them.

And if I have to give you any parting advice before I go, it would be to absolutely give chess a try.

It's a lot less intimidating than you think and there's never been a better time to pick up chess with all the resources out there.

Thanks for watching "Chess Support."