The Amateur's Mind - The secrets of evaluating

[@lukastux3024]

Yay! Amateur's mind continued! (Pressed like immediately, not regretting it)

[@zenarrow3356]

Can't express my appreciation for your channel.

[@Greenport824]

Love the content Andras. Keep it up!

[@FunnyAnimatorJimTV]

I feel that the constant calculation of variations during the game, guaranteeing the most accurate play, is going to be the next big breakthrough for me and lots of others around my level around/above/below 2000. I saw it in the book "chess middlegame planning" by peter romanovsky where pretty much the main points he made throughout the entire book were that you MUST create CONCRETE plans (not hazy ones) and calculate VARIATIONS that prove your plan is concrete. "The assessment of a position on the basis of an examination of variations, i.e. analysis, will always be more correct and make easier the finding of a right way to achieve the planned objective." p.79 "Thus, again and again, we are convinced of the great significance a concrete approach to positions has in the creative process, i.e. the detailed thinking out of variations, realistic aims and a clear idea of the ways leading to them. Every chess player wishing to cultivate creative thinking must turn his attention to precisely this." p.103 I was so happy to hear those ideas reinforced during this video and your last one

[@daytonagreg8765]

Quotations were VERY helpful. Thanks Jim!

[@felbas4224]

I knew for a while that the Twitter chess community had a good reputation, but seeing those grandmasters give insight like that just convinced me to join. Very good video as always

[@tyrelljeffries2527]

Our favourite series is back! Sooo glad!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Happy to serve!

[@neville-mladen9393]

Fantastic lecture, thank you Andras

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Glad you liked it!

[@budwin5815]

Your conte t has helped me to break the 1700 rating plateau that I’ve been stuck at for over a year now. Your channel is a gold mine of free content, wish I’d had it when I started playing chess.

[@maestro___]

Couldn't have said it any better! I wish you the best in your chess journey!

[@AlexBanzea]

Love the thumbnail coach!

[@julek94]

I love chess because it's a game that humbles you again and again, no matter how good you are.

[@Arthas30000]

I'm SO HAPPY I calculated that bishop trade accurately in the center!!! Your content (and forcing myself to calculate, no line drawing) has definitely helped me improve a lot :) Ty Andras!!! Keep up the great content!!!

[@tomas-wi8dy]

thank you! instructive video!

[@nickburggraaf3977]

I think the lack of calculation with most players (including myself) is playing to much

[@Lord7979]

How did it go? I've never played OTB primarily since the US is so massive I'd have to travel a ways to get to anywhere hosting one that includes unrated players. So too much money and time to really be worth it atm

[@acsu96]

The discussion about engines refuting our great ideas with all these small tricks in each of the lines reminds me of the story from Judit about how she was allowed into her sister's training sessions by always finding some creative resource for an attack during some particular opening prep they were working on where the position should have been strategically worse. Glad i got the first position right with trading the knight and holding with trading the dark squared bishop! The second one was way over my head though.

[@scoobot81]

Big thanks 🤗😁

[@wellutopia2237]

I cant get enough of your vids. I calculate so dang good now. I had this crazy postion today and i calculated the next 3-4 moves but there was this crazy computer line. I was laughing hard cause it was literally mind blowing and it started right after the moves i calculated. So crazy the opponent just resigned as he was a piece down but turned out he could keep the game going and it was only .34 in favor of me as he was able to pin the piece back and win it. Its was crazy fun. The whole thing. The calculations and game.

[@tommonk7651]

I like Danny Gormally response. "I no longer evaluate. I just move and hope for the best." LOL

[@stevewild374]

Absolutely superb. So much too learn. Calculation. Dynamics. Not relying on chess knowledge and understanding. Blockading knight v bishop. Looking forward to more in this series. Potentially best chess KZbin video I have seen.

[@stevewild374]

I am fide rating 2020 and this makes clear so many areas for improvement. Even at 55!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks so much, appreciate the kind feedback!

[@StygianStyle]

I have the Silman book and started reading it recently. This video kind of opened my eyes though.

[@hosiahjones]

Excellent stuff

[@easymoney1226]

Very Nice Video, found the second example very instructive, the Engine is just so good its unbelievable

[@michaels4255]

Because the engine calculates every variation very accurately and quickly for some number of moves deep.

[@easymoney1226]

@@michaels4255 thank you bro i didnt know that

[@sukitha001]

Thank you for the video! And specially explaining it in a way understandable for the layman!

[@lorecmvii1212]

I actually came to the same scenario and agreed with your evaluation. I was feeling like I must have missed something with what everyone was saying but it’s quickly calculated out that black was ahead in all reasonable lines sooo… hey, good way of explaining it, good stuff.

[@Midnight890]

Thank you for this video. After watching a few of your videos I have decided I will play and practice in slower times formats in an attempt to calculate much deeper than I used to and play far better

[@chessloversonly]

Very interesting topic and bringing in the ideas of top GMs too!! I feel like your recent videos have helped me a lot too!! The whole part of calculation of lines to reach a point where you can evaluate whether one side is winning, losing or unclear is helpful.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Glad you like them!

[@shanastroskyphazer8172]

Basically tough positions, good exercise Thanks Andras ! I thought I played an Immortal king game with my king in the center of the board dancing between 2 enemy Queens. I had 2 rooks and 2 knights and pawns vs 2 Queens etc and pawns but stockfish reminded me it was always winning and had a Houdini like escape wow ! Lucky for me my human opponent could not find the saving line !

[@chessbynabri]

i recall the naka game from a video on the saintlouis chess club. This very instructive game was commented by GM Akhobian. You can check for yourself his excellent comments.

[@witcher-86]

Nice first game, reminded me of dark square control game of Rapport from Kalashnikov opening, Quparadze - Rapport 2017, also this sac is so relevant in some KID variations

[@fionnodonovan1637]

Fantastic content again. My only question, Andras, is about how the need for calculation relates to time management. Evaluating in words is a bit "lazy" and imprecise, but if you try to calculate everything out (especially in murky positions), how do you avoid burning all of your clock? I definitely can and should do more calculation, but not sure how to balance this with the practical necessity to avoid time trouble.

[@kenkur27]

I once attended a lecture about the concept of 'critical positions' that typically only occur one to maybe three times in a game. At these moments you need to hunker down and do the deep concrete analysis. I'm thinking that one of the things that separates us club players from the titled guys is recognizing when these critical positions occur.

[@fionnodonovan1637]

@@kenkur27 I'm sure that's true, and I think everyone agrees that precise calculation in critical positions is crucial. However, Andras seems to be advising that even in non-critical positions, you need to calculate as much as possible to avoid generic, verbal assessments. But the one advantage of generic, verbal assessments is that they take a lot less time to make, at least for me!

[@josephmerritt1411]

Thank you for the video. My speculation as an amateur is that "speed chess" seems to weight positional plans and tactics more highly than over the board games where you perception may be that you have time to calculate.

[@shmockette7158]

When you said white to move, I thought that white was slightly worse, but about equal. You could do Nxe2+ forcing the rook to capture, and then Qxd4. Since you're threatening mate, black will prevent it with Ne5. The Knight is incredibly strong but White has quite a lot of chances to draw. Not sure though.

[@johannessteger1809]

Thx Andras, as a member of the chesspunks community I unfortunately missed your tweets on twitter due to a heavy work load. So here are my thoughts after seeing the video: As a Kings Indian player I‘m pretty sure that I would have evaluted your first example correctly. I would have chosen the black side every day of the week. But I‘m also sure that I would have been on the wrong side in your second example. So calculation is the key. Like Bobby said: „All that matters on the chess board are good moves“ Liked the video very much!

[@matesomos342]

I'm personally not on twitter, but I was very happy with myself when pausing the video at the first position and finding out the good strategic idea for black with taking on d5, exchanging dark square bishops and blockading- winning on the dark squares :) very instructive as always, András, greetings from Hungary!

[@b.1565]

Great one more time, Andras! Looking for a strategy/middlegame course of you at chessable.

[@theunlearnedmind7374]

Great stuff

[@sayan64]

1st example i completely understand and can relate. 2nd one. I am not so sure. I saw the video but i will misevaluate it if it comes in my game. For the 2nd one can you put the c5 pawn on d6 with White's move. See what the eval. is.

[@christmackey]

Thanks Coach

[@nicoterradas]

Amazing video, Andras! I have only one question: In the second example, why are we trying to reroute the Knight to d6 as the only good plan. I understand the value of the general idea, and the unfortunate one-tempo-behind paradox you raised, however, I was thinking (much in line with your first example!) couldn't Black establish a blockade with f6 and Knight on e5 instead?

[@chessaccount8738]

It seems that to evaluate the position you should first calculate concrete moves, and only then you can talk about features of the position. (good knight vs bad bishop, pawn structure, king safety etc...).

[@battlescard213]

Coach, I could really use more videos on Evaluating Positions. Please?

[@Evilanious]

Sampling bias against lines could be a problem on twitter. Hard to give too many lines in 140 characters. The platform encourages stopping short with thoughts by design. The overall point is well taken though.

[@felbas4224]

I would argue the contrary. A line is shorter than a bunch of words giving an analytic explanation

[@pakchu2]

How did you determine so concretely in both positions that in the endgames the knight was going to be much more powerful than the bishop?

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Because White has pawns fixed on the colour of the Bishop.

[@simonhinkel4086]

Are we really going to ignore the 100% best Twitter comment: "I dont evaluate anymore. I just guess and hope for the best" 😄😄

[@qqqmyes4509]

These two types of evaluation-‘story evaluation’ and actual lines evaluation-seem like they can come up in real life. Sometimes we overestimate our ability to evaluate our circumstance in terms of what the ‘general picture’ of our circumstance is like, pointing out some salient facts (I don’t enjoy my job, my family doesn’t support me, I’m too embarrassed about my weight). But we don’t know what actually is going to happen if we try various things; we don’t know which events will lead to what in our lives. Our lives are more intricate and shaped by numerous ‘lines’ that you cannot evaluate in an easy, hand-waivy, rule of thumb way. I don’t know if this is all true, maybe it’s more true for some people rather than others (some people’s lives might be carved in stone, others’ lives might be written by a finger in mud-which is easy to wipe clear and rewrite afresh), but it’s a poetic idea. Maybe there is wisdom in recognizing that we cannot know the outcome of our pursuits and lives so easily, but unlike in chess, the proper response might be to stop trying to calculate how well our efforts and lives will turn out.

[@ТестТест-в3б]

Amateurs mind is best!!

[@BMWE-hm7uz]

In game 2: There is conflict between the engine and human thinking. When white has only moves to gain an advantage, practically it is fine for black, as you say, who is looking at h4 h5 and Rf6 ideas. I mean you missed that and youre an IM. Practically speaking black is better, his play is a lot easier, plans are easier found. Its easy to say white is better because the engine says so, but id rather take black. I would even say that if you gave that position to any of your viewers between 1800 and 2300, black would score a lot higher i think

[@yakinimoseley6792]

Well wouldn’t it be difficult to implement evaluation if there is constant calculation? I think when I evaluated the initial position, White was better without calculating further. But evaluating would show that the knight is strong and so exchange was necessary and further calculation.

[@atzucatatzucat9615]

Thanks for all this impressive stuff. You don't know me, but you are my chess teacher. If I may, I'd like to ask you a question: ¿what are your thoughts on adopting the scandi with 2.Nf6 for learning chess?

[@ChessCoachAndras]

As always I strongly disapprove of anything that has scandi in it for Black

[@atzucatatzucat9615]

@@ChessCoachAndras Thanks professor, then I need to do some drastic changes on my repertoire.

[@ishanr8697]

Take up 1...e5 or 1...c5. These are rich openings that will help your chess understanding immensely.

[@atzucatatzucat9615]

@@ishanr8697 Thanks mate, I'm beggining with the Najdorf just as Andras suggested.

[@simonhinkel4086]

@@atzucatatzucat9615 jumping in late fornan answer. If the najdord ist too Tricky to learn at the Moment, you night also try the Scheveningen Sicilian. Opponents are pretty unfamiliar with it, you can Develop very quickly und Attack the Center pretty early :) awesome opening for anyone below Grandmaster Level 😁

[@zoe7696]

i saw bxd5 exd5 bf6 in the first position but i somehow miscounted the pawns and thought white had an extra pawn, but probably still would've misevaluated the position anyways

[@hellopleychess3190]

This is a similar system to what I came up with recently

[@Soulcella]

Super-Like!!!

[@nickburggraaf3977]

I couldn't find the super like button, but here it is.

[@ozn8985]

Great content, just don't understand the need to read tweets that are already on the screen word by word.

[@grimlips6596]

"I'm interested in exceptions, not in rules" Richard Reti

[@heathGREsham]

I was thinking black plays Bf8 and claims that if they can open things up white has the more vulnerable king.

[@kugelblitzingularity304]

engines always like to troll lol

[@paulvater3793]

at 24:30 - Rg1+ first actually doesn't work because blacks king is in time

[@ТестТест-в3б]

Spasibo

[@hellopleychess3190]

There is a strange saying that I heard in my mind Let the statics guide you to moves and let the moves guide you to an evaluation

[@JohnSmith-pn1vv]

So.. kings gambit IS unbeatable

[@nomoreblitz]

So, You WERE right that Black is good against all HUMAN Players < 2750 ELO 18:15

[@Filipios35376]

I was there thinking Bf8 was a good move 😂

[@gaalhunor9726]

Ki az a Kata és mit akar?

[@chessforfunonly1586]

I like words better than variations

[@vivalakid]

[@ТестТест-в3б]

Twitter is banned in Russia((

[@ТестТест-в3б]

Andras, am i the only one from Russia here in comments???

[@johnspivack]

Nope. Some of Andras' videos are good for intermediate players. This one is a miss. Too hard, relies on long lines of calculation that you would have to be 2000 or so to see. He could have illustrated his point with less complex, more accessible examples and that would have been far better.

[@joeldick6871]

I wouldn't call this video 'Amateur's Mind', but 'IM's Mind and Why He's No GM'