Townes vs Harmon | The Queen's Gambit |

[@windy2610]

It’s a shame that she never get the chance to get closer to him. Their sceen chemistry is bomb.

[@asing7876]

That’s cause he was gay. Did you not see the part in the hotel room in Vegas? The gay “roommate?

[@davidnaish1389]

Agreed. This is my favourite bit of my favourite series ever. I love her look of disappointment when he takes the pawn with his rook which turns out to be fatal. And the coy way she lightly touches her hair when he looks at her as she's chasing his rook. Love it.

[@justynawojcicka5056]

Even if they havechence to be close he was still gay

[@waynemcshane4731]

DONT FORGOT HE WAS GAY.

[@Heavenisabedroom]

he's gay

[@Carrinthe]

It's a really beautiful position, I love that they put so much effort in making sure the chess was good.

[@Truxxxor]

For every game seen in the series, they used IRL games from GM's. They even had several Chess GMs helping them out making sure the games were solid

[@matthewbrown8679]

I love how Townes circled Harmon's name without even looking to see what her move had been. Nice little detail. The overview was also nice. It was hard to see how all his options after rxp were bad from that side view.

[@wyethwalker3088]

I think he was just moving over to notate his moves, but yes a nice gesture :)

[@AlexHernandez-yj6qe]

Because he was gonna lose his rook no matter where he moved his king to. After that, his loss would be inevitable

[@razaninaufal]

he will lose his rook no matter what. an endgame with no rook against knight+rook is significantly losing, even if you have 3 pawns and your opponents doesnt have any, its still losing since you don't have any piece defending/supporting them

[@woolyimage]

I watched Magnus Carlsen's review of the game and it took me as a low level player several minutes to see what he did in about 1 second, in that after Townes took the pawn(not sure if thats shown here) he was going to be pushed back into this position where the rook had nowhere to go.

[@CribNotes]

The music scoring for this scene supports the action we're seeing brilliantly. Wish you uploaded the whole thing.

[@ElijahSinclair1220]

What an interesting point of view of the scene. I’m only just now learning the basics of the game, so this is rather helpful And of course the show is spectacular

[@Carrinthe]

You could put the position in a chess engine and you will see that after Beth plays Kg7 Townes would lose the rook wherever he places it. By direct capturing or with a knight fork. It's a really amazing position.

[@Freezient]

Thank you for sharing this. I couldn’t really see what’s going on much, i was curious when he says “you’re humiliating my Rook”

[@thatsawrap5235]

A rook is a fairly powerful attacking piece in chess, and Harmon keeps forcing Townes to retreat with it one move at a time.

[@Freezient]

@@thatsawrap5235 I see. Just wondering, What if he moved his rook to E5?

[@thatsawrap5235]

@@Freezient It's hard to see without a bird eye's view, but Harmon would fork the rook on E5 by moving the knight to F3. The rook is completely trapped on the 5th rank, which can either be forked by the enemy knight or captured outright by the enemy rook or knight.

[@Freezient]

@@thatsawrap5235 Black Knight to F3? how many moves will that take, isn’t that too far away?

[@thatsawrap5235]

@@Freezient Just a single move. The white king is on D2, and the black knight is on D4. If Townes put his rook on E5, Harmon's knight to F3 would fork the king and rook, and the rook is lost.

[@grrrlbreaker]

Enjoy the play by play on the side screen.

[@cesareltraviezo9882]

And if twones instead of eating with the rook had made king to e3 or c3, what would Beth have done?

[@arrowghost]

"Townes unfortunately what he played to save the rook actually LOSES and Blunders the game by playing Rook A5. And after Harmon played Knight B3, forking the Rook & checks the King, and it was in this position on move ?? that Townes resigned the game as there's nothing more to be done here." -- Agadmator.

[@LucianDevine]

Not a blunder. The rook literally had no safe move. Every square was either directly threatened or a forkable check with the knight. So Beth wasn't lying when she said that it wouldn't have to suffer much longer.

[@pashi47]

It’s hard to see, but after KG6 the rook is literally trapped. Every square is covered by either a knight fork or just a capture. Insane

[@LucianDevine]

If he resigns, does the rook end up spending an eternity in suffering and embarrassment, because it was never captured?

[@danielstewart8106]

Why couldn't he have gone to E5?

[@LucianDevine]

@@danielstewart8106 Knight to F3 fork.

[@danielstewart8106]

@@LucianDevine Aha! Thanks. I'm obviously not that good at chess.

[@LucianDevine]

@@danielstewart8106 No worries. It takes a bit to see that the second he takes the pawn on H6, his rook is dead.

[@CribNotes]

Dramatically this scene is a fantastic pivot point in the tournament cause all the chess geeks there probably know each other and suddenly out of nowhere comes this weird unknown red headed girl who starts smoking all the best players. The men watching Beth vs Townes having discussions like: "Hey, have any of you guys ever seen this chick before? Who the hell is she? Does anybody know? She's a fuckin monster!!" Such a great series.

[@WillyTheGreatTheReal]

The white rook is not going anywhere.

[@phen-themoogle7651]

What game is this based on?

[@inesblancogonzalez1852]

Pac-Man

[@kaimiakid4496]

checkers

[@f4llenleaves]

Uno

[@charcolatier]

Genshin

[@phen-themoogle7651]

@@inesblancogonzalez1852 ah, cuz you eat the pieces? Like munch munch , makes sense! Thanks 🙏

[@samkochel6990]

Why not rook to b5? What am I missing?

[@benkochess]

The Knight is on d4, just take your rook on b5 😉

[@samkochel6990]

@@benkochess OMG...just the opposite of Townes I was so looking at the forks on C and E, I forgot the easy take. Why not take on H6?

[@LucianDevine]

@@samkochel6990 He did take on H6. That's the problem. It led him down this road. Once he took on H6, his rook was dead. He just didn't know it yet.

[@blackiestevenroblessantos3345]

0:12 Rook d6 win the game

[@LucianDevine]

How do you figure? Black's rook captures your rook. If you move your king to threaten the knight, black moves it. If you move your pawn to threaten queening, black moves it's rook back to cover and pick it off. This is an easy win for black.

[@rsdr7558]

The king is in G8

[@LucianDevine]

True, but it doesn't matter either way. As long as the king can get to G7, the result is the same.

[@davidnaish1389]

I'm only a novice compared to this level but I don't understand why white moves his rook over to an obvious fork. If he saves his rook does he not have some advantage with his remaining pawns?

[@benkochess]

His move 1.Rh6? was mistake and after 1...Kg7 2.Rh5 Kg6 he doesnt have where to go with rook, because of on 3.Rh4 or 3.Re5 is a fork 3...Nf3 and win, or on 3.Rc5 or like in the game 3.Ra5 is fork with 3...Nb3,.... yes, instead of 1.Rh6? he could play some other move and it would be ok. But chess is like this, if your opponent doesn't make mistake you can not win the game :-)

[@davidnaish1389]

@@benkochess Thank you very much for your reply. I see it now - every single move of the rook and it is captured. Wow. This, by the way, is my favourite series ever.

[@Pebbe496]

@@benkochess The knight on d4 is massive! It's totally not obvious (to me) that it alone takes away 7 spaces for white's rook either directly or by threatening the fork. This is a brilliant position.

[@alexandruprocopovici4653]

@@benkochess that is your opinion! Even if your opponent doensn't make any mistakes you still can win if played properly!!!

[@alexandruprocopovici4653]

@@benkochess and Rh6 isnt a mistake!

[@Saif-ms1dp]

Why would he put the rook there, i mean the fork was obvious

[@woolyimage]

Study the position and you'll find that there was nowhere he could go. It took me a little while to figure out.

[@hummingfrog]

How does black win this? I see a rook against three pawns, but two of the pawns are queening threats and the remaining one could be. So how does the rook stop them all? I assume this must be some long endgame dance that's over my head.

[@gspaulsson]

Without any pieces to defend them, white's pawns are easy picking. Rb8 picks up the b pawn, then the rook over to the h file and that pawn is helpless. The third pawn isn't worth bothering with: a N-R combination is an easy mate with the K moseying along to help out.

[@hummingfrog]

@@gspaulsson Oops, I had the board upside down, so I thought white had two pawns in queening position on the sixth rank, and that the black knight would be taken after it took the white rook. In my defense, the three pawns weren't moved during the video -- if they had been I would have noticed they were going the wrong way. (I'm not a strong player, but I'm not *that* bad!)

[@SheepzWhiTeX]

so usually rook and knight cant win against just a rook with good defense so he should be playing towards a draw, but basically his pawns block all the squares leading to beth being able to trap his rook with her king; he carelessly took her last pawn and then there was no tile for him to go to

[@EtzEchad]

That last move of his was idiotic. There wasn't any reason for it. He should've resigned two moves earlier.

[@Carrinthe]

Sometimes you need the time to compose yourself and come to terms you are loosing.

[@woolyimage]

Some people just can't resist taking pieces and often regret it after . Guilty as charged here lol