It took me 3 seconds to realize how STRONG this kid is at chess

Ladies and gentlemen, something absolutely insane happened to me, and I'm going to share it with you in this video. You see, recently I was in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a massive three-day chess festival with over 500 kids. And at the end, for fun, I set up a chess board with a clock and played a bunch of kids in a row. They would have one or one and a half minutes, and I would only have 30 seconds. And I played a kid who trash-talked me so viciously that I knew I had to win at all costs. But there was just one problem. It took me less than three seconds to realize this kid was terrifying. I'm going to show you the live footage of this game, and then I'm going to analyze this game step by step. Oh, and if you manage to catch this video the first three days it comes out, I'm currently having a St. Patrick's Day sale on all of my courses. They're 20% off. Link will be in the description. And if you miss the sale, there will probably be another one in the future. Now let's get into this game. Oh, you're not even shaking hands? You're just... All right, go ahead. It's like an earthquake. Every piece, basically. Oh, that would have been really nice. Why didn't you play that move? Would you like a drop? You sure? Yeah. Oh my... You could have won. How strong are you? He's only 1,000. He should play these kids. No way he's 1,000. Oh my goodness. Well, you know what? You've earned the right to trash-talk. Okay, that was really fast. So I'm going to analyze the game because there were some pretty instructive moments, all in all. But before I do that, I would just like to tell you, it is extremely difficult to play a game of chess with 30 seconds on the clock. And it is even harder to do that physically over the board. You have to play at a ridiculous speed because you don't have a mouse. You have to physically hit the clock. And so I told all these kids I was going to try my hardest. I played over 50 kids that day. I won every single game except this game. One kid I offered to draw like a move before checkmating him. I won every single game except this game. All these kids were pretty good. But 1,000? There is no way that young man is 1,000. Now, funny story before I show you our first couple of moves here. The day before, this kid read up to me. We had an interaction. And he said, And they're not good. And you think you're funnier than you are. And I was like, whoa, excuse me. And we had a little back and forth. Obviously, it was all in good fun. But when I sat down to play him in a game, I was like, I got to beat this kid. Did you see how fast he busted out the first move? I knew immediately he was out to get me. A lot of these kids played slowly, slowly, got their piece. They were nervous. Did you see how fast that young man rattled off three moves like it was nothing? He was out to kill me because he knew I only had 30 seconds. And I was kind of easing into it. Now, he already made a mistake in the opening. But of course, we're playing every move in half a second. We're basically pre-moving IRL. Knight c6 is not a good move. In the beginning of the game, this is a Sicilian defense. It actually started out as a French. But we go here. This is a Sicilian defense. He should be taking my pawn. But he's kind of in pre-move mode. Now I punish him right away. I play this move d5. And in general, you really shouldn't allow yourself to get overrun by pawns in the beginning of the game. In particular, when your knights could be targeted. He took, took. And he was sort of on autopilot. He played knight d4. I did not expect the move knight d4. And I'm sort of like mentally just programming moves. Of course, knight d4 is a mistake because knight takes, pawn takes, queen takes. But if I tell you, you have half a second to make a move and hit the clock. And at the same time, I'm like, oh, my God, this kid is actually really fast. Like, I got to, you know, I got to. I played c3, right? And I traded knights rather than taking on d4. Now, I'm still better, right? And my plan was develop my pieces, castle quickly, and go for an attack. Because again, I need to win fast. I'm showing these kids no mercy. And this young man said I'm not funny. And that hurt my ego because I'm nearly a 30-year-old man who needs constant validation. So I took with the queen. He played d6. And now I was like, look, I can, of course, develop some pieces here. And I have a slight advantage here because his bishop is a little bit passive. I have a bit more space. And space, that's not a legal move. And my queen is, you know, kind of pressuring stuff. So I gave him a check. And my plan was I'm going to trade, I'm going to castle. And I'm going to make a couple of quick moves. And then, of course, I'm going to win because I'm probably a lot better than he is. I don't know what his playing strength is, but I imagine that I'm better than him. Bishop d7. We trade. And I castle. But dude was giving me nothing. Like, I was ready for him to, like, blunder something, put a knight. He just developed his knight. I gave him a check because, I mean, I might as well improve the position of my rook, right? And then he played bishop e7. Now, I will remind you, based on the video that you just saw, literally every move is being made within half a second. So there's no real time to sit and think. But what's funny about my whole plan, I had a plan from this position that I executed that I realized doesn't work. My plan from here had been make this trade, castle. And in this position, stop him from castling. Because I have pressure on the bishop, and wherever he castles, the king will no longer protect the bishop. So I was going to go something like queen e2. But that doesn't work. Primarily because, first of all, he could take. But primarily because he can castle. If I'm playing a move that prevents somebody from castling, and they're not castling, but then they do castle, like, that's really, really bad. And the point is, he would pin my queen to my rook, and it's back rank checkmate. If I take the queen, he takes my rook. It's crazy. So I was like, uh-oh, that's not good. So I develop my knight, and now he castled. And you will understand, with very little time on the clock, I need any advantage I can get. If I have about 22 seconds from this position to win the game, the only way to do that, clearly, because he's playing really fast. Credit to this young dude. He was playing super quick. And that's really important. And the thing is, playing fast and really strong, really impressive. Because he was like 8, okay? Literally, like, I have no idea how old he was. He was like an 8-year-old kid. So I need to go for an attack, right? So right away, I'm noticing my knight is going to get to f5. And from f5, I'm going to pressure the bishop. I'm going to pressure here. I'm going to go queen g3. I'm going to mate him, right? I'm going to get my bishop out. I'm going to put my knight on f5. I've got my rook active. Like, kid's going to completely fall apart. He goes here. It's a great move, right? He wants to move the bishop, maybe. He wants to trade rooks with me. I played knight e3. At this point, I got the sense, like, I'm going to take over the game now. Like, he can't trade queens with me. I'm going to put my knight on f5. He plays a move here that was kind of like a lazy, you know, just sliding. But even, you'll watch the footage back. He played this move fast. He played every move close and fast. He didn't do anything drastic. He didn't tank for 10 seconds. Like, I'm playing Gotham. No, he was like, really? And that actually got me rattled. The fact that he was keeping a pace with me for this far in the game. And he's not worse, you know? Now, at this point, I don't know why I didn't go knight f5. Again, I don't have a lot of time to make these moves. So I can't really. So before I played knight f5, I decided I'm going to play h3. Because I'm actually going to go attack him with this pawn. And then that way, you know, he doesn't have a knight protecting his king. But of course, I should bring my pieces. And I, you know, I criticize y'all sometimes for executing a plan and then forgetting about it. Like, this is the way you play this position with white. You try to damage his structure. You try to open up the king. Like, this is a winning position for white because this knight is so strong. Now I would go here and try to get a mate in the future. And that's the way I would play the position. So knight f5 is definitely the best move. h3 and g4 is not the best move. And again, he's playing every move very fast, right? At this point, it dawns on me. This plan that I'm going for in half a second is not particularly good. Because in fact, he's going to go here. And I'm actually bringing his knight to an even better position, right? But I'm all in and I'm going for it, right? I just got to win the game, right? And again, mentally, I'm thinking at some point, this kid is going to collapse. Like, he's young and he's probably like 1400, 1300. Like, at this point, the elo in my head that I'm guessing is the kid is like 1700. Because it's equal after like 15 moves against me. And I'm actually kind of trying. If I wasn't trying, you know, but like I told you in the beginning, I got 30 seconds. I told all the kids, I'm going to play as hard as possible. This is not going to be like a play Gotham, have fun. Maybe I'll let you win. No, y'all all going down. I need YouTube content, all right? I got to feed my wife and dog. g5, he goes here. And I realized here, like, I'm not winning. And so I went queen g3 with the intention, you know, this is sidestepping for my f-pawn. I'm ready to meet this move with f4. That was my idea. And I thought, okay, queen g3. My next move is going to be knight f5. And then I'm going to bring my bishop. And then I'm going to go here. And here, this young man played this move, g6. Play g6. He stopped me from playing knight f5. So now I don't have an attack anymore. This whole time I thought, well, this is going to be easy. I'm just going to march into the position. And then I'm going to play knight f5. No, he played g6. Now I have to readjust my strategy. I don't exactly know what the timestamp was here. I don't know exactly how much time I had on the clock. But I have to adjust on the fly. So I said, okay, h4. I have to go for it. I mean, I got to rush the pawns forward. I got to open up his king. I got to make sure he gets nervous. And he's going to go here. And I'm thinking he's going to go knight e5. And then I'm going to go f4, f5, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, he just plays bishop f8. Do you understand how good you have to be at chess to play such a calm move? Like this kid has a future. He's bringing the bishop to protect the king as a follow-up to his previous move. He played g6 because the bishop has no forward mobility. And now he's going to zip backwards, protect his king, and open up his rook. I was flabbergasted. Completely flabbergasted. Like, and again, he's playing on my time too. He sees I don't have a lot of time. So he's playing really quickly, right? So h4, h5. He just goes bishop g7. I don't have anything. And I have to continue to make risky decisions. Like, of course, I should bring my bishop out. And I need to protect my rook. And I need to go here and here. In a regular game, if this was just a regular game between grandmasters, that's probably what white would do. But this is a game with 15 seconds on the clock. And he's got, you know, 30, 40, whatever he's got. And so here I'm thinking I can take. But then I lose all of my, where's my attack? I don't have an attack anymore. So what I decided to do against this is shove this pawn forward so that his king has a little bit less breathing room. And I sort of thought, okay, my pawn is really far advanced. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to find a way to just get to his king. I'm going to play maybe, you know, some of these moves. And so that way here I played bishop d2. And bishop d2 was very simply designed to play something like knight c4. I'm going to play knight c4. I'm going to play f4, f5. Maybe f6. Mummify him. My game plan is really simple. He can't really move a whole lot. Let's go. This is kind of my second win. And then he played another great move. Definitely for what the time situation determined. As far as I'm concerned, this is a fantastic move. Now, f6 again keeps the game in the balance. It might have been even better to play f5. Just create this wedge. Not let me get any pieces forward. F6 is just like, yo, Gotham, what are you doing with this pawn? Get out of my territory. And it's another really good move. It's a very, very well-timed move. At this point in the game, I'm thinking, like, do I just get completely desperate? Like, do I just sacrifice and play like g6? I got news for you. I'm not even sure any of this works, okay? Apparently, taking works. But if, like, if he doesn't take, if he just puts, like, I just lose. So taking works, but otherwise it doesn't. f6 is a fantastic move. And you'll notice I was really, like, nervous. I was, like, knocking the pawn down. I took the pawn. Now, it would have been really bad for him to take with the bishop. Because if he takes with the bishop, I have a target. I'm looking to just get an imbalance. I'm looking for anything, okay? If I can trade the knight for the bishop and then get my bishop here, I'm winning again. I'm winning. I mean, I'm getting into the position. I have a great— He took with the knight. He did not take with the bishop. 23 moves we have played. I am trying to beat this kid at all costs. Admittedly, I am not playing maybe the top engine moves, because I'm playing them extremely fast. He has stayed equal with me for 23 moves. That is extremely impressive. He has not collapsed. He has played solidly. And right here, I realized, oh, I've messed up. Because I'm no longer attacking. He's attacking me. I'm thinking now, I'm gonna lose. I'm gonna lose this game. That's a crazy thought. I was not prepared to lose. I came there, I was gonna win every game. So I went f4. And the idea of f4 is, like I said, to play f5. But I'm realizing, I'm fighting him, and I'm a wounded man. I don't have the artillery. He has the rook. He has the knight that's gonna come in and beat me up. He has a bishop protecting his king, but it's ready to be an attacking piece at any moment. And he played here. Every move this kid played was a good move. And I don't have any time. I gotta keep fighting. I get my queen out of danger. I protect my bishop. Now, he was just very clever. Like, the best move for him is not to take. The knight is a god. It's an incredible piece. And just to let you know, like, I mean, if he gets this position, it's over. If this bishop comes alive as well, the game is over. So he's very close to being winning already. He takes. Because, you know, again, like he just played one knight move, a second knight move, and he's just trying to play simple moves. He's trying to play simple chess, because neither one of us has a lot of time on the clock. And now, again, he played the top engine move. For the last, like, six moves, he has played the top engine move of the computer. Bishop f8. Undeveloping the bishop and defending the king is the top line of the engine. This is a kid that literally said he's a thousand. He better have lied to me. He better have lied to me, because he had the foresight to know that I'm gonna make a video about this game. And when I talk about him being a 1000, there ain't no way in hell he's a 1000. Because a bunch of you are a 1000, and you don't play like this. By now, you would have lost all your pieces. This kid might be a 1000 over the board, which means he's like 1700 on line. He has a better position against me after 25 moves. He just goes queen f7. I'm busted. He's targeting my pawn. He's got a rook here. He's gonna play rook up and double. I'm just losing. Like, and again, I'm not in a mindset here where I'm thinking, oh, like, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna make some trades, and we're gonna do, like, no, no, I'm losing the game. And I panic here. I mean, the best move, of course, is to protect the pawn. I should move my knight. I should play here. But I'm just, I just thought he's gonna go here and here. So I panic. And I play rook e2. And my idea with rook e2 is he's gonna take my pawn, and then I'm gonna bring my second rook, and then I'm gonna go mate him. Because again, I'm thinking, he's gonna mess up. He's gotta mess up at some point. He's a tiny child. He took my pawn, rook f1, and then here, I couldn't tell if he got my hopes up. Like, you know, in poker, there's a thing called a slow roll. When you know you have the winning hand, or you're very confident you have the winning hand, you play it slowly. I think he had no intention. In the game, he played this move. He, he put his queen there. He kept his hand on it. And then he brought it back. And that's when I said, oh, it would have been great if you played this move. And instead, he gave me this check. And I just want you to understand how clever this kid is. He just took one of my pawns, right? He just took one of my pawns. I went here. Do you know how many people would have just taken the second pawn? Because mentally, me eat pawn, me eat second pawn. He checked me. He checked me to make me move my king into another check. I am telling you, this young man has a future in this game. The fact that he held his nerves all the way to this point is absurd. And now he fell apart. Now I went here. He went here. And I went here. And I was just, I mean, I was ready for him to plop the rook down and go for a mate. I mean, straight up, that just wins the game. And he repeated moves. And I went here. And he repeated. And so I was like, are you trying to make a draw? Like, do you want to draw? Because you keep shuffling back and forth, right? He knows the rule. In chess, if you shuffle back and forth. And listen, I'm not in a position to bargain. I'm past bargaining. I was like, you sure you want to draw? He was like, yeah. And I was like, he spared me. It's like a movie. It's like a movie when the villain is just right there. He's just one move away. And then he's like, I'm good. And he kept me alive. This young man kept me alive to think about this game for the rest of my life. That's why I was like, what's your rating? I didn't know his rating. He said 1,000. There is no way this dude is 1,000. There is no way. It's not possible. He outplayed me for 30 moves. Yeah, I had 0.3 seconds to make. The game review of this game is probably, he had a 77% accuracy, and mine was 74. I don't know who this kid is. And frankly, I never want to see this kid again in my life. But I will say that was a ridiculous effort by him. He should be extremely proud of that game. I really wish he would have went for the win instead of repeating the moves, but that's life. And this young man better become a title player. Because he's really good. And it took me less than three seconds to realize that. So, congratulations to you, bud. Now get out of here.