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!
GM Well hello everyone uh we're back with The speed runs and I'm just gonna play Two games we're going to keep it a bit Shorter now because the games are Getting a bit tougher Um we're looking at the 1800 to 2000 Range What typical mistakes we're gonna see What we should be trying to think and What we shouldn't be trying to think Um I'm playing with the black pieces in This first game and we're going for a a French defense and my opponent playing The advanced French I think at this Level you have to study the exchange in The advance the most in the French you Need to play this move you need to hit The center because White's got this very Strong formation so we develop and we Keep hitting that pawn And then on the next move we have to Decide what our next strategy is so Again like any opening you need to know The plans behind the moves you're Playing what what should you be trying To achieve why are you playing these Moves Now there's two ways to play this you Can keep the pressure on that pawn Or the move that I tend to prefer Is this move here just putting the Bishop on this square and now this is Quite a flexible move we still may go
For this Pawn but another idea that I Quite enjoy playing Is this one here And we're using a secondary Pawn break Ready to try and open up the center of The board But that can be a bit dangerous because Our King is quite open our opponent's Kings castled But now we're going to start opening This up this is all theoretical we we Take here And again my opponent shiny knows the Theory I'm going to take that one off And here I've got to do something with My king so I'm going to facilitate Queenside castling still Theory here My opponent defends that one and now I'm Going to Castle queenside And this is a very interesting opening I Don't know if it's entirely sound for Black but that doesn't always matter as Long as you get positions you like Now I'm not sure about that move what is That move actually doing is my opponent Really going to do this well I can play A6 I need to start creating counter play And again I I like trying to develop all My pieces and because I know the middle Game things I'm trying to achieve I kind Of know where these pieces should go and This Knight sits very nicely on F7 In these positions so I know that my
Knight should go for this square but First of all let's have a look what my Opponent's trying to play I'm going to Stop that one well it might be able to Sacrifice the piece here But do I really believe that I I don't Think so he's only got one Rook Attacking me and I don't believe that One Rook attacking me is is gonna be Scary this is this is a very good move He's trying to Now open up my king Because if I take there he opens up the C file and I don't really want to allow That I want to keep this side closed so Let me just have a think how we're going To do that Well if he goes here I want to play A5 And then he might get a sack of Pawn With B6 that would be very interesting But at least it's quite closed then so I'm going to continue with my plan let's Move this one backwards And I want to now start pushing my pawns And Target this this one here so he has Gone here and now I'm gonna keep it as Close as I can and he must play B6 here B6 is what I think play around is Standard will play and he has because he Needs to open up a line Now do I take that pawn and allow his Rooking Um I think we do and the opening again My opponents played very well here I'm Gonna drop my queen back because he's
Got this Square to work on and he seems To have the first attack but I noticed Like this this opening is quite Dangerous for me okay so did he really Need to play that one he's trying to Maybe open up the bishop but he could Have played I feel with this Square Anyway Okay anyway let's have a think now what To do so Um he's attacking this Pawn now if I Move forwards this bishop comes here my Bishop will block but then his Knight Comes in so maybe this is a very clever Move So first of all do I does it help play This I need to keep defending a bit here Not my not my forte Uh by any means so I'd like to keep it Closed but this move here Knight here Does scare me Have to admit Because I don't want to take and allow All this pressure here So what about if I go Bishop here but Then the Knight comes in anyway so this Is a very dangerous position I have to Say Opponent's played this very well Actually this move is good and my time's Going down bloody hell this is getting Dangerous okay I'm gonna go here I think I now I'm scared of the Knight Coming in
So let's see let's see if that Knight Comes in yep And I feel like I should be taking this one Very strong attacking piece but okay I'm Surprised by that because now I can go B6 and I can keep some files closed He's still he still captures here if he Wants to okay he's going for this Pawn And again this is another excellent move From my opponent how do I defend this Pawn Maybe I can't defend this Pawn I'm gonna have to move my king and I'm Down to a minute Everything's gone a bit wrong here my Opponent has played much higher than his Rating okay he could have maybe taken There but he didn't bother do I defend This Pawn okay I'm trying to keep the Lines closed where my king is he should Certainly be taking here and opening up The lines he has again another great Move and I think he's pretty much Winning now as long he finds the right Continuation So we have to have a look at this Afterwards and see where I went wrong Because clearly this game has not gone My way at all if I well I'm still not Gonna I'm obviously gonna try to keep Fighting Okay so let's go here and try to create Some counter play on this side of the
Board when you've got a bad position Anyway okay he's just simply taking it I was hoping that the open H file might Help me but Honestly can't see how it does too much And the problem is again this Rook I'm Gonna actually allow you to take that One because I don't want his Queen to Come in I've got 39 seconds A material down if I'm allowed to play This move I'm okay so of course you Should push his Pawn forwards another Excellent move he's playing all the good Moves I'm relying on these pawns to give Me some play and another good move He's just trying to get rid of this good Bishop I'm trying to keep a blockade on his Pawn here so I'm trying to keep it as Closed as I can But now something like this he continues Playing excellent move And again I've got two defensive Strategies I'm trying to keep the Position as closed as I can and he plays This he's calculated brilliantly And this is just gonna win the game I Think what great play for my opponent Okay we're playing on to the end but This was this was a a fantastic a Fantastically played game well I might Have to just resign as there's no real Hope here uh in this position these two Pawns are not really going anywhere so
This is actually the first loss that I've had so far Um but sometimes you know if your Opponent plays excellent chess What can you do what can you actually do Uh we'll have a little look at this game Afterwards on the computer See how well my opponent played why is He slowing down now I I'm very unclear Okay I'm going to resign this one No hope And let's just have a look at the Computer now when someone plays that Well Uh It does raise my suspicions Unfortunately So let me just get the whole screen grab And let's see bear with me one second Please and let's just see you can try to Guess what his accuracy level was there Uh I've got a feeling it might be pretty Damn high so let's have a review At the game and it's 90 percent What do we think about that what Mistakes did he make he made one blunder Apparently rookie one Well I'm not gonna say anything Um But that was a lot higher I mean it Happens I mean my opponent was always Doing okay Uh and I just feel the speed he played There and and the moves that he played
Well they're very very good all I'm Going to say is that you know a grand Masters haven't played I had this Opening against Peter's Fiddler and I Didn't get crushed like that in in such A short time span so this guy was Playing well above his rating there well Above his rating So well uh well done well done to my Opponent okay well let's see if we can Win a game now I I will play the other French line in future well you know I Should review that game but because I'm Trying to help you guys uh you know There wasn't really any mistakes in my Opponent's part I mean it was really What did I do wrong and if we if we have A look I mean I I'm I wonder let's have A look what the computer says about this A4 because A4 Um is quite a rare move in actual fact So let's let's just see Here But it is one of the computer's top Choices That raises my suspicion a bit more I Mean how many humans would play A4 here I have to ask myself is that a natural Move or is that something that they Might know that you know that moose is Very very strange to me Okay anyway I'll be honest I've got my suspicions About that one but what can we do
Um let's play another game and see if we Can do somewhat better we've got black Again And luckily I've got a Dutch this time Which I'm much more comfortable in Now I like playing these two moves first Because uh my opponent going for a London system now I find it in more flexible way to stop a Lot of Gambit lines at the white place I'm going to bring my knight out control To Central squares and then my opponent Playing the London system so a lot of You might be intrigued to know trying to Know what to do against the London System well the good thing for black Against the London is I can at least get My Bishop to this diagonal so I'm going To do that first Because in the Dutch you don't often get Your Bishop to this diagonal now what I Recommend in my chessable course is Bishop D6 here and I feel that this is a Good way to equalize to keep things Relatively simple yes I've got double Pawns but those double pawns can be used In the center very nicely for example Here And remember my Bishop is a very nice Piece here I'm going to Simply Castle And if this is captured my knight comes To the center and here well this night Again we've got to try and develop our
Pieces it's actually pretty much best Placed over here we don't want to leave It on the queen side Um and this move is something I'm going To rely on so I know from again working On this opening that these two nights Work very well here This Knight can now capture the center I Can go D6 here I don't see what the problem is this is You know double Pawns in the center is Often a good positive thing because you Control more squares so I like these Double pawns and now this is maybe my Natural next move After Pawn takes I have to think what I'm going to play am I going to play Pawn takes there Or or something else I mean we can do Other things here but this is the Natural follow-up I'm also thinking that I'd like to play This kind of idea I can't play there now Because it would lose a pawn so I need To support this Square I could play I don't want to put my Queen on the same file as The Rook but I Could play something very tricky like Queen ba if my opponent castles as E5 Going to be very annoying there I think It is let's have a look at this weird Move So here my opponent played this without Thinking mistake
Clearly he should have been thinking why Did why did I play this move and what Was I trying to achieve because I think Now that I get this in my idea or long Is defend this Pawn he's got to be very Careful about this square and I've now Gained what I expect is an opening Advantage because this is a big threat And my pawns look very nice I don't know If my opponent could have stopped that Plan but he didn't even consider it so Remember really to get into the mind of Your opponent Okay still a position I mean my Center Looks very nice but that's all it is This Knight is very bad I'm looking at His pieces if I go and I want to go for His King what about something like this Quite risky Um I could try to centralize my Queen but Then he takes and he has this Square for His Knight looks okay for him So I could even try some Pawn sack here Here but then he has this Square for his Knight So I'm gonna I'm gonna just push this One blocking his Bishop off it does Block mine off as well and I really want To centralize now but after takes Bishop Takes I quite I think this is okay I don't Mind swapping this bishop for this Knight
Because this bishop is now blocked by The pawn So I'm thinking about exchanges I'm Happy to play I don't think his Bishop Is particularly fantastic here Now I'm gonna Continue by With this move but as soon as I played That I'm not so sure I'm happy with that one Okay now this Square should definitely Be used by a night right but I want okay If I take as this check annoying let's Do it let's do it let's just shuffle my King away Could go for an ending but let's just Shuffle this and I want to try to get This moving next ideally take over the Open file And I'm sort of relying on my little bit Extra space with this Pawn Uh on on e4 And I'm also thinking maybe I can play This move so okay so he's going for Exchanges And this makes again I think this is a Good move I have to really take that one And this queen is quite annoying so this Bishop is still bad is it now time to Try and do something on this area of the Board Okay it's not really achieving a great Deal but I do have pressure against F2
Let's play Let's play this one he must Capture I feel because this Pawn is Going to be too dangerous my opponent's Playing so well today they are really Playing excellent the level of Chess has Really shot up around this Mark now I Was hoping I'd have something here but Do I not have anything here what about Knight here If he captures I capture and take the Rook this one seems like a safe move to Me Because I'm taking on F2 I mean this is My whole point All along he's got to be very careful my Threat is to take care this loses Immediately to a back ranker my Opponent's only been let down by this Little tactic and I had to see this in Advance the queen F1 is going to be Check mate And this one coming in Pretty good game I think my opponent Played pretty well around most of that One we did a little little check Um on the review oh no we can't because I'm not a premium member great I bet I better upgrade this account and I can't I'm not going to do it today so I can't be bothered but we'll do it Another time but um where did my Opponent go wrong there I mean generally Um This all seemed fairly normal I'm very
Comfortable here I'm at least equal I Think this is a nice setup for me And my parent loses time here maybe I Should even be coming in straight away With this night maybe this is the the Way I should play Queen B8 looked very Interesting though my opponent didn't Really look at my plan And this is all very normal I could Probably play it better around here but I'm just playing it simple and I'm Relying on my Pawn structure to at least Mean I'm not worse I don't want to allow This Knight here without being able to Capture it because it's too strong and Now I'm just trying to swap off his Active pieces so I'm actually playing Quite defensively We're trying to get rid of his active Pieces my fret here mini positional Threat is maybe to take over the file so He makes more exchanges And now I'm at least equal Probably white is okay but this move Really this can populate to my opponent You know when your opponent starts Coming at your king you should slow down He played the right move I don't think He can allow this Pawn to do anything More And now he really I think hats Keepers Rook on this Pawn what should he play Here well actually if I was white I Might be thinking of things like Queen
C1 because the queen exchange might be Okay for him because this Pawn could be Weak and I don't want to allow anything With E3 at the wrong moment so I want to Cover this Square so my queen looks very Nice on E3 I'm just trying to reposition And I'm trying to stop all my opponents Counter play but I think the two Mistakes my opponent played here he Didn't really look at Queen B8 and see What I'm trying to do and in this Position he didn't really realize that My whole point is that I'm going for F2 And after this move he only took like 10 Seconds to fall into a Checkmate so he Was he was playing some of his own moves Very well but he wasn't considering mine Moves enough remember to do that that Could be one of your key takeaways for Today remember to consider your Opponents moves really as as much as you Can try to work out what they're doing That's one thing that can help you win Games but two very interesting games Both played very well and please like And subscribe to this channel And try and keep videos coming when I Can
