Grandmaster Speed Runs Chess – Making a Plan
Simon continues his now-famous speedrun series, tackling more tricky games on chess.com. Inspired by Hikaru, Eric Hansen (Chessbrah) and Daniel Naroditsky. Online chess speedrunning blitz chess on chess.com, video lectures, how to get better at chess and win with checkmate, attack tips and tricks!
In this video, we look at some typical mistakes that players make around the 1800-2000 level on Chess.com.
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Grandmaster Simon Williams is on chess.com, improving and learning chess openings with a world record masterclass blitz speed chess speed run!
Foreign Hi everyone uh straight into the action And more of this uh Speed Run uh more of A snail run but I'm going through uh the Rating boundary from 1200 or hopefully Up to like you know 2500 we're looking At mistakes that our opponents make and Things that you should be trying to do To improve your rating we're at the 1800 Bracket we're playing a strong player Here nearly 2000 and rather than playing The bar for London I'm going to try Different opening I'm going to try the Trompofsky Um this is an opening which I very much Like it it's it was made by Julian Hodgson the idea is to double these Pawns but you do give up your Bishop Pair And again when you play any opening You've got to know how to develop your Pieces and what plans you're doing and Here I know that the main idea is to get The bishop on this diagonal Move the Knight here so the C Pawn can Move And bring the queen here so my opponent Has put the bishop here to offer an Exchange of Bishops if that goes there And I don't really want to exchange your Things now this is a peculiar move so When your opponent plays A peculiar move You should be thinking why is that not a Main line and I'm thinking that Bishop
Can now be a Target and rather than Moving my knight to this Square which Doesn't do anything I'm going to try to Bring it around to Target that Bishop Which seems like a way to take advantage Of the placement of my opponent's bishop And I'm really thinking okay he's done Something unorthodox how why why is it On Orthodox not because it's not the Best move Now I'll continue with my plan I don't Mind if my opponent takes this because I Open up the H far My Rook so now my opponent goes back and Here a couple of ideas spring to mind First of all this Square Can I do anything with this square like Try to slowly take control of it maybe Even with this very long maneuver But I like that maneuver actually Because I'm gonna I'm gonna go for this Maneuver I'm also thinking F4 F5 but That does weaken my E3 Pawn And you can see that things are getting A bit more technical now in these games If my opponent tries to break I've got This very solid like London system Formation Worst case scenario but my main idea Is to control this Square And I'm going for this plan because both My Knights are quite nicely placed there And the point is when I get my knight to This Square which I might do now or I
Might even bring now my Bishop out I Think I'll bring my knight into the Square I'm hoping that I might be able to get a Bit of pressure against my opponent's King but my opponent has played Everything very sensibly at the moment He's developed his pieces he's playing Very logical moves put his Rook on a Half open file so my opponent is playing Excellently so far okay now this is a Little bit passive Let's see is he trying to come here and Come in like this Potentially Now which way do I want to Castle I'm Thinking I want a castle Queen side So I'm going to bring my queen out to Allow that And I'm gonna use Harry later on so this Square looks like the best Square it Points towards G7 And it allows me to Castle okay my Opponent another good move he's got to Open up an attack on that area of the Board Now do I simply Castle I think I'm going To take this one because now he has an Isolated Pawn But I have to say my opponent playing Excellently at this moment in time And I might now change plans because I've got a new Target this poor and I'm A little bit worried about this coming
Forwards Or do I just Castle queenside okay I'm Going to continue by castle and queen Side let's be brave I was thinking that My king is now a little bit more exposed Because he has things like this but it Does bring my Rook into the center Quicker And I'm hoping my knight blocks this Strong Bishop I've got H4 H5 getting rid Of this bishop and I can also Consolidate my beautiful Knight on that Square by simple developing moves so Okay I've got to defend A2 let's do that Move the king I don't think he's got Anything at the moment that can cause my King any problems these two pieces not So scary Maybe now I'm threatening to win a pawn So this this castling looks okay and Like I say I just want to finish my Development All forces Bishop to move away because That Bishop is blocking a potential Attack Towards my opponent's king So you can see much higher quality gain From my opponent here than I think what We've seen so far but I'm still playing Logical moves I'm developing I've created a pawn weakness where my Opponent creates counter play I'm Looking at plans of attack okay and now I don't think moving the bishop is as
Useful as moving my H Pawn because when You're castled on opposite sides it's More about every little Tempo is so Important and in this position the tempo Of trying to get to his King Is more important than actually Developing uh because I've got to try And open up a line towards his King I Mean moving the bishop here can't be a Bad move but now at least we get my Knight into the square and you can see We've already got a threat And now my H Pawn can play he can't take My knight because it's pinned so I'm Just going to try to weaken his King and Open up another Avenue to attack and you Can see I saved the tempo by not playing A developing move obviously the bishop Is very nice here but it's also not as Important as this attack Tempo is so Important okay is my opponent planning Anything down here well I think he wants To bring his Bishop there Very sensible I'm going to open his King Up a little bit more Now Bishop here I could move my king Again to stop that plan is this okay I'm Gonna do that because when we're We have to attack and defend in chess I Don't really want to play the move B3 Because it weakens all my dance squares So now I've gained myself a little bit More time So how do we get to his King though
So he's gonna push I got A3 I can defend Against that I'd love to bring my Bishop Here but he just takes it it doesn't Achieve anything I could try to do this And bring my Bishop in very interesting His Knight is a great defender I'm gonna try this one this looks quite Interesting to me but a very Double-edged position I'm getting Shorter time anyone's game at the moment I want to do this because I'm trying to Get my last piece into an ideal Square Here if he goes A3 A4 I can go A3 so I'm Keeping an idea on my defensive plans Here He'd love to get his Bishop here but I'm Covering that square and I've got C3 if He's ever able to do that so I'm Thinking defensively as well as Attacking now if he takes it I'm just Going to fly my Bishop in and I'm Thinking I've got another piece Attacking probably useful for me maybe He can take there okay so let's fly this One in Now He's going to try to exchange Rooks my Knight is now no my knight is not on pre Because I've got Checkmate down here How do we increase the pressure this Square or do I come this Square so I'm Thinking Now if I take here he then takes my Knight I can't see a good move there
I think If here okay let's go here Because we create a threat in creating Threats is important Pawn I've given up I'm not so worried About because I'm just trying to get to His King Knight takes Pawn the threat Okay he's defending but now I can come Back because I have this idea of Queen G8 Check mate So I realized this in the last position A little tactic these positions this Position is still very unclear is still Very tactical it's only Equal material still I think he's okay So what's he doing here anything I need To worry about nothing at the moment This is defended let's try to think Where my knight is best placed now I Think I'm gonna aim for this Pawn And I feel I always had this C3 move if You remember earlier I had this up my Sleeve as a way to defend on the dark Squares I was thinking about defensive Ideas as well as attacking ideas earlier On and now this Pawn is what I want to Take so his Knight there is a saying Knight on f8 it can't be mate and this Is what my opponent is relying on but He's going for a queen exchange I'm a Pawn up I'm very happy to exchange off So we can now Be happy with this position because we
Have an extra Pawn but as always when I'm playing it's on the clock now maybe I shouldn't have opened up some files But it's all on the clock In this position and my opponent's Centralizing his Knight very sensible Move here And I'm Well Taking things off quickly but I think it Will come down to the clock in a lot of Positions I'm moving forwards trying to Dislocate his piece and now this is Checkmate Very very tough game there and you can See that my opponent is another level of Chess compared to a lot of players I Played he played very well Uh we always had I feel a little bit More pressure there Where'd my opponent go wrong well it's Not particularly clear first of all his Opening idea this is a theoretical Position now this move is a little bit Odd and I'm not sure if I played this Correctly what I'd always recommend you Do Is if you come across an opening where You're not sure about a move you know That you're unsure about then I would Say you should uh look up that move on How before you move and play another Blitz game make sure you know what to do
So you can even have a look on a Computer I can use that on chess.com I Would personally use the website I've Created G chess because that will give Me some human games maybe some analysis On this move I kind of like what I Played I'm not going to analyze this Move now because it might bore you we're Going to get to another game but I think This is quite sensible but maybe this F4 Move was the right way to play not Worrying about weakening my Pawn but I'm Trying to make him play F5 when he's Killed his bishop and then I can go for This Pawn so I'd probably play F4 in Future My opponent I think played an excellent Game but around later on Where did he go wrong well even here the Knight on f8 great defensive piece Remember that if you're getting attacked Knight on f8 you can't be mate it seems To me that After E4 maybe things started to go Wrong here Can he get to my king well it's very Hard to attack these two pieces maybe he Should have Played what he did but after this move Now start bringing my Pieces away from The h file so something like this Because now this is not threat and here We can even just try to play against the Back rank so make exchanges with a very
Interesting double position let's try to Play another game Okay so we are again playing someone uh Around the 1800 to 2000 rating okay my Opponent doesn't want to face me I Should recall that anyone who plays me And loses gets their rating points back Anyway so even if they lose they get Their rating points back but if they win They certainly get more rating points so It's a good chance to learn I feel okay Now after D5 let's again play some Different openings I've been playing the Jabar for London all the time let's play The Queen's Gambit now Now this move is a very tricky move it's Called the shigorian variation and There's many moves you can play here but I like continuing developing Um when I'm playing with white I always Like to try and have the maximum Development so I'm not gonna mix things Up too much I'm just going to stick to Principles bringing my pieces out if my Opponent takes it well then I can go E4 And now I think it is time to do Something in the center and this is Still Theory I have actually done a DVD On the sugaring I played it myself and The point now is that I can play E4 and I can gain a very big Center and this is The downside of having a knight here and Not a pawn had my opponent had a Pawn on C6 he better keep his Center and already
He's wasting a lot of time and I don't Fully believe what my opponent is doing Here and I think I should be trying to Punish him now So I'm going to use my pawns immediately Rather than playing good developing Moves I feel that as my opponent has Wasted two Tempo that night giving me a Center I feel I should be punishing him Here so I'm looking for more aggressive Moves of course developing a piece is Not bad but this seems very interesting To me again trying to take use of that Shigorian Knight now can I take on E5 And blooming heck I think I'm gonna play It Bishop takes Queen and then this Common idea of a check here but we have To calculate if he moves his Knight There I will take on D7 winning material Remember calculation is key so takes Takes check C6 and now Pawn takes there And I'm threatening a poor move Releasing my Bishop this is a very Common idea when your opponent has a Weakened diagonal I've done some basic Calculations not even that deep I know The patterns from experience and I Realize that this move is probably just Very strong my opponent should have Thought more about that but he's got Himself in a terrible situation from the Opening you know if you're gonna play The shigorian If You're Gonna Play a Little abstract not so well known
Opening you need to know it much better Because they are trickier for both sides And you can get yourself into trouble And the point now is that his light Squares and his King is is horribly weak If he moves his Knight to this Square Well I should be be a piece up after Bishop takes D7 I've got loads of pieces This one I'm just going to go Pawn takes I know I'm a queen down but Um I'm hoping that a big idea with my Pawn giving a check and then I also have This bishop on pre will win all the Material back so at the moment I've only Got one Knight for the bishop it's a Good thing I'm not very good at counting Because it might have put me off this Idea but I've noticed that my Frets of This Pawn either coming here winning the Queen or this Pawn coming here queening Are so bloody scary I mean talk about Scary ideas and we can calculate Something like A6 C7 check Pawn takes Bishop Pawn takes Queen and very good But this is now a beautiful way to check Mate I can go C7 Knight here Bishop Takes D7 we're gonna Checkmate our Opponent in 11 moves and he's 1872. Bishop team 7 is Checkmate next move And you can see just how simple chess is Sometimes if you know certain patterns And you play with basic principles the Pattern I knew and again this is a very Nice check mate nice of my opponent to
Allow it 12 move check mate we can run Over that game again The problem my opponent had is this is a Fine opening but you must know what to Do in every situation he probably only This this Knight C3 is not even a main Line but it's a it's a very decent line And the point being if he takes on C4 I Can move my pawn and I'm trying to cause This Knight trouble I'm trying to say You play this weird opening I want to Punish you After Knight to S6 I think this is still Theory but now what black must do is Take on C4 here And the point being if I play E4 he can Now go Bishop to G4 And the position is different because if We compare this to the game He has an extra Tempo so ideas like this Work for him because I my Bishop can't Get here there's a pawn in the way His big mistake was again in the opening Tempo is so important this seemingly Natural move actually gets in a lot of Trouble because after E4 he's now going To make a decision if he takes here I've Got a beautiful Center he should take Here and he should play something like This when it's still game on but you Can't lose multiple Tempo in a sharp Position in the opening and moving this Piece one Two three times is really bad and when
Your opponent does something strange Like the first game you've got to think How can I punish them I've noticed that This diagonal is a prime Juicy Target and we go for that diagonal And of course my opponent makes the Final blunder by moving here and I think He's in a hopeless situation when I play Knight takes Knight then Okay let's let's get one more game in Um and we'll see if our rating now 1855 So with black I think we will stick well Let's play totally dim opening I'm going To try to Sicilian I haven't tried this In the speed run yet Now the Sicilian again you might notice I'm playing lots of different openings This is because I'm a bloody Grandmaster I've I've played many different openings I've researched some very very deeply Over this over the period of my life I Wouldn't recommend you do this until you Master one opening at time don't try to Play so many different openings because You won't Master any of them now this One I play the dragon Sicilian he can Now play D4 which is the open Sicilian Instead he's gone for a more closed Position now what's he trying to do he's Trying to play D4 and get a maroxy bind And I don't like those positions as Black so I'm going to try to take Control of this Square I'm going to do That by giving my knight up the position
Seems to be closing in the center of the Board so I don't mind giving my Bishop For a night because Knights are better On closed positions but I can see the Fight now is for these squares and the Problem that my opponent has created by Playing this move is that this square is A permanent out post meaning that if I Get a night there at some point he can Never kick it away with a pawn so my This is now going to be a positional Game but the whole idea of my play now Is going to be about controlling this Square whilst developing whilst getting Castled so let's think where these Pieces should go well this one is Obviously correct because my Bishop Wants to control that square now if he Plays D4 I've worked out I can take the Knight and then take that one so I'm Going to continue by controlling this Square Now I'm not going to play E5 because That creates a weakness here I am going To take the Knight as I said I really Don't mind doing this because it's about This Square This I feel would be a mistake because I Give my opponent an outpost I want to Put this Knight somewhere I don't want To get it in the way of the bishop so I'm thinking the Knight coming here is Best so I'm going to move my Pawn here And my Knights are heading towards this
Square so let's continue now my opponent Is clearly going to go here and here so I'm also now thinking should I be even Considering this idea to to no let's Keep it simple let's just control the Center And my knight will live here forever now That's Castle I've con I've completed my Development I've done the first stage of My game now you normally need to look at Pawn breaks here but let's now show you Why this plan is so important I love my Night on this Square now this May look like the right option because My knight is so strong but this is Actually a positional mistake because Now my Bishop forevermore becomes so Strong ever more Um I'll Poe I've forgotten his first Name Poe it reminds me of a story by Pope forevermore it is Halloween after All now what do we do here well again This is a bit like my iron English Course but the colors reversed First of all I could be trying to play B5 I'm looking at Pawn breaks to Increase the pressure now I can think About F5 but I don't really want to open His Bishop yet so let's just prepare the Move B5 Rook B8 and B5 don't want to Give this bishop up I'm going to retreat It look at that beautiful Bishop I've Also got my other Knight coming into This weak Square that's why I put my
Knight here so let's see he's obviously Trying to push that pawn let's stop his Idea and we're controlling this Square This Outpost the whole game has been About a positional battle for this Square this is what it's all about Now I'm gonna continue by trying to do This Advance because I gained space he's Gonna probably try to come here which Looks very sensible actually I don't Really want to allow this which might Give him counter play I want to meet That with a move F5 but then I might Lose my knight so let's just connect my Rooks play a very simple move and defend My knight so if he plays F4 I can play F5 stopping any King side play that my Opponent has now the reason I understand These middle game positions so well is Because I play as white the English Opening one C4 and these positions are Very similar to that and that you get This position But you get it the other way around it's Like I said my my chest will cause the Eye in English I I've got a lot of Experience this I would say black is Slightly better because I have a square I can aim to control And my Bishop is more powerful than his Bishop because it has better range his Bishop has obstacles in the way okay Let's continue by making our advance I Don't want to get in as much time
Trouble as I did in the first game it Makes makes life a lot trickier Um I'm probably going to move my king Off a light square there's no rush in These positions so let's just move it Off a light Square my opponent I'm Noticing my opponent's not threatening Anything because my knight covers any Breaks I'm just going to move my king so Later on you know slightly improve my Position okay he wants to go here now so Let's stop that I don't mind if he takes it because my Rook gets some action on this file so I Just want to stop his counter play I'm Looking at the movie place thinking What's he trying to do and stopping Those ideas because half the way to Winning a chess is just stopping your Opponent here I might not even have to do anything to Win this game you might be thinking what Are you talking about Simon I might Better win this game by stopping my Opponent for example let's think I mean Even now I got B4 Because I've noticed that if my opponent Try if if the a file opens it's going to Be hard for him to get control of the Open file because my Bishop is so Annoying Um okay so I'm very tempted just to play This move there might be a better move But let's just keep it very very simple
I'm controlling both of these squares Okay he's closing it down obviously now My rook's not really doing anything over Here so I'm going to re-centralize it Why am I doing that because in order to Win this game I need to have a pawn Break and I'm thinking I'm going to need To use this pawnbray but first of all I'm going to play H5 because I can see I've got a dark Square bishop and I Might want to angle against his Dart Squares so a move like Pawn here tries To move the G3 Square just leave her Apart his dance squares I've noticed That I do weaken a square that's my only Concern but if he tries to come round With the Knight I would have had Bishop Here now that he's moved his Rook away From this open file I think it must be Getting their time to play moves such as E5 But does that work takes takes takes Takes his Queen can come in here Now do I swap off the knights first keep It really simple uh I'm gonna you know What I'm not sure what to do I'm gonna Move my king I'm getting shorter time He's not doing anything okay now this Move puts his okay now I must play this Surely because his Queen is on the same File as my Rook there can't be a better Chance to play this move I haven't worked out all the Possibilities but it just seems so
Natural to now do this okay so he takes Here now do I I think I take with the Rook here I have allowed this one But I can move my Rook back his Bishop Does look quite good but I'm gonna maybe You know he's playing this pretty well But I am going to rely on the fact That my Pawn structure is better he does Have a weakness of B3 later on my knight Can get to that his Bishop is good but My Bishop is going to become good as Well okay now why can't I just take that One I don't understand I have two pieces defending it he has Two attacking it I feel my opponent has Just blundered which is a little bit Annoying because it was such an Interesting position now he might be the Okay this is his idea okay but it's only One Pawn I'm gonna I don't want this Pawn to drop so let's just defend that One I don't I think my King's very safe His Knight can't get it okay he can't Get in my position this way maybe his Idea is quite interesting but I still Feel my Pawn structure is so so nice and Solid here if his Knight comes here Trying to get into this lovely Square Okay now he didn't do that I'm going to Try to exchange Queens Because my only danger is my slightly Weakened King I don't think he should Have exchanged Queens
And now I'm gonna try and open up my Bishop I'm playing again I've allowed This Knight here Um okay I'm gonna take with my Rook the Open file what is this slide though I'm Not sure if I'm better here I'm in this position because this Pawn Is weak and his pawns he's played this Quite clearly my Bishop can't attack These pawns so it's very very unclear But I'm gonna try and try and use this Pawn And I need to get my bishop and my king Into the position this okay this looks Like a good Square for my Bishop it Controls the advance of his King and as It's an ending I need to get my king in Okay so I'm gonna go this way Um somehow trying to get my king to this Square okay he's helped me this looks Like an ideal Square for my king because My king can help my pawn and try to get Towards his we can be three Square so in We go Now my Rook is not ideal so let's get my Rook to a better Square And in we go I found a very good Square For my Rook I'm slowly outplaying him we Can grab that pawn Now I do have to be careful about his H Pawn let's move my Rook back to defend Against his H Pawn because I do now have A pass B Pawn which I'm gonna use okay I Didn't really consider that one I've got
To stop this Pawn get into G6 so I'm Going to use my king to come round to Stop that one and okay my opponent just Lost on time there Actually a very tough game there uh uh Well played from my opponent I have to Say he he held his own he only got in Trouble because he lost on time I Certainly misplayed the middle game if We go actually I think I was a little Bit impatient With my E5 move there was no reason to To rush this this idea if we look here I Definitely got a better position this Poem was actually his Achilles heel in The end this is what lost him the game It's a weak Pawn I don't have any weak Pawns but you can't really do anything So what I should be doing I'm not even sure about H5 I mean I know Pushing the H ponzer was good but maybe In hindsight I should just stop his Queen ever having access here but really To sum up here I was a little bit Impatient Always think what you did wrong in the Game so you don't do it again chess is a Constant improving Mission and here I Think I should play this and probably What I should do is actually just double My Rooks here my break is going to be E5 But I figure that I don't rush this move Because there's nothing that my opponent Can do maybe I do exchange nights to get
My Bishop to this powerful square and I Just play it a lot more slowly than I Did in the game I definitely rushed this One Um which I shouldn't have done and my Opponent must have been fine a bit later On there remember like And subscribe Thank you very much I'll try to do more Videos bye for now Thank you
