Chess Grandmasters vs. Cheaters
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00 Ladies and gentlemen, who is the best chess player in the world?
00:05 Now, it's not Magnus Carlsen.
00:08 Not Dingley Wren, who just recently won the World Championship.
00:11 It's not Mittens, the chess bot.
00:14 It's not Frank.
00:16 The best player in the world is the person who is cheating.
00:21 And cheaters ruin the game of chess.
00:25 I mean, they tremendously enhanced this YouTube channel because I'm able to farm them for
00:30 content for all of you.
00:32 But there's a lot of chess cheaters.
00:34 There's a lot of people playing the game of chess now, which means evidently by correlation
00:38 there will also be more cheaters.
00:40 Cheaters come in all shapes and sizes.
00:42 Some of them have brand new accounts and they play perfectly every single move.
00:45 Some of them like to mix up their moves.
00:48 Most of them harvest rating points off of individuals like yourself and myself.
00:53 But in today's video, I wanted to deep dive into what happens when a cheater plays a grandmaster.
01:01 And in many cases, not just any grandmaster, what happens when a cheater plays some of
01:06 the best grandmasters in the world.
01:09 And that's what we will be looking at today.
01:11 I've got a few examples for you.
01:12 A couple of games of Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura.
01:16 And we will start actually with an appetizer game from none other than Daniel Narodzki
01:24 aka Sensei Dania.
01:25 Now Daniel and then we have a couple of games by Hikaru and then we will end with Magnus.
01:32 All right.
01:33 Sit back, relax and enjoy your short 20 to 25 minute flight to Cheatlandia.
01:40 Narodzki likes to play instructive speedrun games.
01:45 He calls them speedrun games.
01:47 They are nothing of the sort.
01:49 Those videos are like 50 minutes long.
01:51 They're slow run games, if you will.
01:55 And Narodzki was playing with the black pieces against somebody who at the time he didn't
02:01 know was cheating.
02:02 Now this cheater gave us one type of flavor of cheating, which is intermittent cheating.
02:07 Like right now, intermittent fasting.
02:08 This person was intermittent cheating.
02:11 Night F3, Night F6 and the way that this guy played in the opening was like this.
02:18 So this was a cheater who was rated 2400 and this person beat Narodzki and then closed
02:23 their own account that day.
02:26 This person in the beginning of the game, as you can see, is basically just wasting
02:31 time.
02:32 So this person is deliberately throwing the advantage in the early stage of the game.
02:37 All right.
02:38 So nobody at 2400, not a single person on the planet makes this many knight moves in
02:43 the opening.
02:44 This is not losing, but it's clearly worse for white.
02:48 You're not supposed to move the knight like six times, right?
02:51 And the knight keeps going, right?
02:52 The knight just keeps moving.
02:53 Narodzki, meanwhile, is making improving moves while also creating threats.
02:59 The opponent is still doing this.
03:01 So the opponent has made nine moves and has only developed a queen and a knight.
03:07 Now, at the Grandmaster level, you, by the way, by the way, by the way, by the way, I
03:10 suppose I should have clarified Daniel Narodzki in this game is rated 2077 because he is making
03:17 instructional speedrun content.
03:19 That wasn't clear, probably probably sitting there going, isn't he a Grandmaster?
03:22 In fact, on this account, he was not labeled as a Grandmaster, but we will give him the
03:26 Grandmaster title.
03:27 So but he's right.
03:29 He's the lowest rated Grandmaster of all time.
03:31 There you go.
03:32 2077.
03:33 It's an authorized account.
03:34 It's not a smurf.
03:35 Chess.com allows it. People who lose to him do get their rating points refunded.
03:39 Just like when they play cheaters.
03:41 In this case, though, it's, you know, we call it legal cheating, if you will.
03:47 Jokes aside, nine moves have been made.
03:50 White has nothing.
03:51 And at the Grandmaster level, this is a fatal disadvantage.
03:54 Black will simply go here and advance these pawns forward and seize the center, right?
03:59 Queen a4, bishop d7.
04:01 White aligns this up and clearly e3, you know, rook c8, queen rotates to h4.
04:08 White was doing his best to basically get as bad of a position as possible before turning
04:14 on the engine.
04:15 OK, and in this game in particular, he moved his queen and his knight in the first 15 moves
04:20 of the game only.
04:22 So what did Narodzky do?
04:25 Activated his bishop, brought forward his knight with two dominant knights, strong bishop,
04:29 open file, castled king.
04:32 It's now time for White to begin winning this game.
04:34 Now here White starts cheating a little bit.
04:37 He plays knight b5, top engine move.
04:40 What?
04:41 All right, narrow place, queen b6.
04:43 Now knight 5, d4.
04:44 All right, centralizing the knight.
04:46 And now kicking out this knight.
04:49 So White is now cheating.
04:50 Right now, White is playing all top computer moves.
04:53 All right, Narodzky also, however, being a very strong Grandmaster, is playing top computer
04:58 moves.
04:59 Now White plays h4, looking to try to, I don't know, create some counterplay on that side
05:03 of the board.
05:05 And a5 by Danya, trying to go here, is an inaccuracy.
05:08 As you can see, it's giving some life to the White position.
05:13 Takes takes.
05:14 And now White plays the second move of the engine, not the first move.
05:18 Cheaters, like I said, they like to throw advantages early.
05:21 Sometimes they like to play the best move and the second best move and the third best
05:24 move.
05:25 And now White plays knight b5 again, which just looks ridiculous because c4 cuts the
05:30 circulation here.
05:31 Now most humans here would simply return home.
05:33 Nope, not the cheater.
05:35 Planning that knight on b5, disallowing the knight any progress.
05:39 And now Narodzky plays knight d3 check.
05:41 And in this position, he can play the move rook c2, which is the best move.
05:46 Rook c2 sacrifices the rook to open up an attack on the queen.
05:51 And trust me, if the roles were reversed, that is what would have been played.
05:54 But Danya, being a human, plays e5, trying to remove the knight.
05:59 And that is the last opportunity that he gave to his opponent, as here his opponent sacrificed
06:04 the knight completely.
06:05 Just gave up the knight, took the pawn, removed the opportunity of rook c2, and now he squeezes
06:12 the life out of Narodzky.
06:14 Pawn takes d4.
06:16 Best move by White, shutting down the center.
06:19 The center is now locked.
06:20 Black is only a touch better.
06:22 Rook c5 defends the pawn on g5.
06:25 One of the top engine moves, queen e2.
06:27 Rook c8 looking to infiltrate.
06:29 Bishop d2.
06:30 That was the idea of sliding the queen out of the way.
06:32 Now Black is unable to infiltrate.
06:34 But isn't that a free pawn?
06:36 Yes.
06:37 Now, rook b1.
06:38 Queen slides over.
06:39 King walks out to f2.
06:41 Queen takes another pawn.
06:43 White plays the best move.
06:45 Rook c7 is an inaccuracy.
06:46 And now for the first time, White has an advantage, which he calmly converts by taking the pawn
06:52 on g5.
06:53 Material is equal, but Black is worse because Black's king is weaker.
06:57 Rook b7.
06:58 Now White plays f4.
07:00 And now White plays f5.
07:02 And basically, from this point forward, White cheats every move.
07:07 White simply could not resist.
07:10 Rook b2.
07:11 Okay, you don't have to be very strong to block this.
07:14 But now in this position, it looks like everything is stable.
07:17 It's not.
07:19 Best move.
07:21 Sacrificing the pawn.
07:22 Now best move.
07:24 Sacrificing the rook.
07:27 And if takes, there's e5 and you just get butchered.
07:30 So Danya goes here, trying to set up bishop g5, rook e2.
07:34 Now best move.
07:36 Coming back with the rook, hitting the bishop.
07:38 And if rook d2, there is rook g5 check.
07:41 So check.
07:42 King g3.
07:43 And now in spectacular fashion, not just queen h5, but bishop f2 check.
07:48 And the White king doesn't hide here, but rather walks forward, which is the top move
07:55 of the engine.
07:56 And the Black king is mercilessly hunted.
07:58 And in this position, rook b8 check is one of the best moves.
08:05 Just giving up the rook, but it's still mate.
08:07 You can lose the rook, but it's still mate, which is so ridiculous.
08:12 And Danya gets mated.
08:15 And his opponent was promptly banned.
08:18 Now sometimes the game can be even for a while.
08:23 Like in this case, the person with White very clearly early on tried to mess it up for themselves
08:30 in as big of a fashion as they could.
08:32 They tried to get a losing position.
08:34 Now sometimes when people play-- like this is a game that Hikaru played.
08:37 Hikaru had the Black pieces in this game.
08:39 And he was playing on a speedrun account, an actual speedrun account.
08:45 Like there it is, and he's playing like a slow run.
08:48 Hikaru's actually trying to play as fast as possible.
08:51 And from an early going, Hikaru was down a rook.
08:55 All right, he was down a rook.
08:58 Now for that rook, he got monstrous control of the center, and he actually won back the
09:03 bishop.
09:04 All right, and as you can see here, Hikaru also had an advantage.
09:08 All right, he had an advantage.
09:10 Now pawn to a4, queen b4, c3, and Hikaru actually for the majority of this game was doing a
09:19 really nice job.
09:20 He won back one of his pieces, and he was going to win the knight in the corner.
09:24 Knight takes g6, queen takes g6, and it looked like, you know, Hikaru was simply going to
09:31 pick this up.
09:32 He's got knight and bishop for a rook, and life is good.
09:37 However, cheaters come in all shapes and sizes, right?
09:42 In this particular game, white just survived for a very long time.
09:47 He played rook a2 defending against mate, or she played rook a2 defending against mate.
09:52 Bishop d6, now white plays b5, and trades the bishops, and plays knight a3 preventing
09:58 this.
09:59 The thing is, if you start cheating from a dead loss position, it's very tough to tell.
10:03 It's very tough to tell, like only certain moves become clear, all right?
10:08 Knight c4, Hikaru just planting the rook on c4.
10:12 If Hikaru for the rest of this game wants to do nothing, he will not lose, because white
10:17 just has no play.
10:18 White cannot get any of these pawns forward, any of these pawns, which means he can't get
10:22 any of his pieces forward, right?
10:23 So Hikaru plays king d7, and white tries to do this.
10:27 There's absolutely nothing there.
10:30 Hikaru now plays h4 going for the win.
10:32 But white still is fighting, plays the move c4.
10:35 I don't know if it does anything, because black gets a rock solid position, but at least
10:39 now, you know, there are some things to worry about here.
10:42 Queen e7, Hikaru looking for a queen trade, plays c3.
10:45 Now white still playing the best moves, trying to stabilize.
10:49 Hikaru plays h3 looking up to open up the king.
10:52 Now every human being will make an inaccuracy at some point, all right?
10:56 Rook e3, h2 check, king h1.
11:00 And wait a minute, wait, some stuff could happen.
11:06 Maybe you're going to take on c3, so Hikaru plays this.
11:08 All of a sudden, some of his advantage is gone, but okay, white gives it back.
11:12 Queen b4, queen e5, check on b1.
11:15 So the person with white allows the queen to come down to b1.
11:22 King h2, and now rook h8, king g3, and there is nothing.
11:27 Knight h5, the guy walks the king.
11:29 One game in a row, by the way, there's a king on g4.
11:32 Walks the king forward all the way, all the way, and the king escapes danger.
11:38 This cheater played a legendary king run.
11:42 Oh my goodness.
11:44 And the king for black can hardly claim safety as the game is simply over.
11:50 Queen e5 check, the king goes to the corner, and rook c8 is just game over.
11:54 So a totally ludicrous game where Hikaru was obviously playing, it seemed like, against
12:02 a legitimate opponent for a majority of the game.
12:06 And if not, then maybe it was a person who was a really, really smart cheater.
12:11 Hikaru just got this absolutely dominant clamp, and the person with white just played every
12:19 move between two and four seconds.
12:21 Like literally every move.
12:23 Like look at white's time usage.
12:26 Four seconds, two seconds, one second, three seconds, two seconds, six, six seconds.
12:36 Rook ce2 here is the best move, but why save?
12:40 And if anybody's confused, by the way, why after queen b1, king h2, Hikaru did not do
12:47 this.
12:48 There's queen e6, and queen here, and you kind of get beaten up here.
12:53 However, there are also games when cheaters just absolutely stomp grandmasters.
12:59 This is an example of a game where a cheater completely obliterated Hikaru.
13:04 Like it wasn't, he just did cheater things.
13:07 And the craziest thing is, in the early going, it was a deadly, it was a deadly symmetrical
13:13 position.
13:14 Hikaru played c4, person took, played c6, and then played b5, just hanging onto his
13:19 pawn.
13:20 Now, there's a lot of ways for white to play here.
13:21 White can play a4, white can play b3, which is what Hikaru did in the game.
13:25 White can play knight e5 with ideas to take on c6.
13:28 Hikaru chose to play b3, and the idea is to be down a pawn, but have like long-term pressure
13:36 on these pawns in the position.
13:40 Bishop f5, and the guy just takes the pawn and plays a5.
13:45 And basically says, "All right, show me what you got."
13:48 And remember, Hikaru doesn't know he's playing a cheater.
13:50 He just thinks he's playing some 3000 rated player.
13:52 So in Hikaru's eyes, he's like, "Well, I'm going to be down a pawn, but I'm going to
13:55 do Hikaru things."
13:56 He plays knight e5, attacking the pawn on c6.
14:00 Now, most people here would want to stop that.
14:02 They would want to block the attack.
14:04 Maybe they would play rook a6, like I would play rook a6.
14:07 I don't see anything wrong with that move.
14:08 And it gets this out of the way.
14:09 No, black just castles.
14:13 Just gives the pawn up completely.
14:15 So what does Hikaru do?
14:18 He takes the pawn, right?
14:19 Now that's apparently a losing mistake.
14:21 Knight c6, bishop c6, and now rook c8.
14:28 Okay, again, rook pawn, most people probably rook b8, rook c8.
14:37 What's the point?
14:38 Well, bishop b5.
14:42 Now rook immediately infiltrates the c2.
14:46 And the only move that white has is queen a3.
14:48 But what is the point?
14:49 I mean, you can't even take this.
14:51 Queen takes d4 here is a very human move.
14:54 But it's not the best move.
14:55 The best move here for black is to play bishop h3, which attacks this.
15:05 And now Hikaru plays bishop d3, counterattacking the rook.
15:13 If the rook goes back, white just moves the rook and it's probably fine.
15:18 But black in this position disregards the attack on the rook and plays queen d5, threatening
15:23 mate.
15:24 All right?
15:27 Now Hikaru plays e4, okay?
15:31 The idea is that queen takes d4 is not a mate, so you can take the rook.
15:37 Black plays knight takes e4, and then plays knight takes g3.
15:44 And there is nothing you can do to prevent queen g2.
15:47 The only way you can prevent queen g2 is to play f3, which leads to bishop takes d4, which
15:54 is also mate.
15:56 Rook f2, queen f3, look at this!
16:01 Have we ever seen Hikaru and his position reduced to something like this?
16:05 This is crazy, right?
16:07 Queen h1, queen g2, queen f2, bishop f2, there's knight e2.
16:12 How many mates are there in this position?
16:14 Everything is mate.
16:16 And yeah, Hikaru, I think resigned after this, and person played like three more games and
16:23 then was banned.
16:24 Yeah, this person played a perfect game, completely perfect game, said, "You want to sack a pawn
16:30 in the opening against me?
16:31 Yeah, why not?
16:32 Take two back and then bang, bang, bang!"
16:34 Knight g3 is just...
16:36 Yeah, sometimes the cheater leaves the person with no chance.
16:40 Now, you know what's rare?
16:43 What's really rare in the chess world is to watch Magnus Carlsen play a cheater.
16:49 The reason is Magnus Carlsen is not down here in the dumps with the rest of us.
16:55 All right, Magnus doesn't just boot up games on his phone against nobodies, okay?
17:02 Magnus is playing the best players in the world, the best players in the world, like
17:06 title players.
17:07 They're not going to cheat because you're going to know it's them, right?
17:12 It's a game.
17:14 But sometimes Magnus is paid to play, you know, like little events where he plays against
17:20 viewers and so on.
17:23 So this was a game that Magnus played against the 2100.
17:33 And this person was cheating, and this person was banned.
17:36 But what might surprise you is how this game went.
17:40 Magnus started with a ready, f5, and he played this gambit e4.
17:45 This is called a deferred Le Sitzen.
17:47 You can play e4 like this, and then after d3, you have take-take, right?
17:53 This is a tricky little gambit.
17:57 But Magnus does it this way so that he doesn't actually have to move his knight up to g5.
18:02 And this gambit is quite good, bishop d3, black plays d5.
18:07 Magnus now decides I'm going to capture, I'm going to trade queens, and I'm going to play
18:11 knight g5, looking to get to f7 and to e4.
18:14 Now is it better to lose a pawn or a rook?
18:17 It's better to lose a pawn.
18:19 Magnus plays knight c3 and actually refuses to capture the pawn on e4 because it's not
18:24 going anywhere.
18:26 Instead he is focusing on his development.
18:28 And if black plays h6, it's actually a complete waste of time because white was going to go
18:33 here anyway in the future.
18:34 So you're only helping white.
18:36 So knight c3, black plays bishop f5, Magnus develops and castles long, and is very happy
18:42 to see this.
18:43 Now, a couple of things.
18:45 Queens already got traded, minor piece already got traded, so even if black cheats every
18:51 move, it's going to be very difficult to win the same way that Heikaru lost.
18:58 It's just going to be more difficult because it's not a sharp position.
19:02 So this person with black just developed his pieces and brought his rook to the center,
19:09 which is the best move.
19:10 And Magnus played f3, just a nice little stabilizing move for the center of the board.
19:15 Black now played knight d4 with the intention of course to remove his isolated pawn to join
19:23 that cluster and remove white's knight from the center.
19:26 Magnus, strong endgame player, brings his other rook and now let the fun begin.
19:30 King f7, best move, top computer move by 2100.
19:34 Magnus plays rook d2.
19:35 Now h6, another top computer move, disallowing white any access to the g5 square.
19:41 Magnus plays knight f2, maybe trying to put this knight here, and then play c3.
19:46 Black now plays bishop before completely preventing that.
19:49 Now Magnus plays the top engine move, which is knight d3, and black trades.
19:54 So the computer wanted to trade the light squared bishop for that knight.
19:58 Now black plays knight c.
20:02 The knight is so comfortable on that square.
20:05 Of course any human here would like bring the rook or something.
20:09 No, because if you brought the rook, white would play bishop takes, pawn takes, rook
20:13 takes, king takes, knight b5 hitting a couple of pawns, and if c5 you can actually gobble
20:19 and come back.
20:20 And if you don't play c5, like you play, I don't know, bishop d6 to counterattack, then
20:26 g3, bishop e5, and you know, white is slightly better according to the computer.
20:32 Very slightly.
20:33 Yeah, so instead of that, black completely removes the knight from the center of the
20:36 board, which is the top engine move.
20:39 Magnus trades the rooks, and now black trades the bishop for the knight.
20:42 What?
20:43 Why would you trade the bishop for the knight?
20:45 Well, because you don't want the knight to go to e4.
20:47 See if you just play king e6, the knight is very strong on e4, it's probably the best
20:51 piece.
20:52 So the engine says, nope, we're going to play a knight versus bishop position.
20:57 Now I'm going to play a5, taking some space.
21:01 Now I'm going to play rook b8, a very ugly move, but it does the job.
21:05 Now I'm going to bring my king to the center.
21:08 Magnus also brings his king, now black plays g5.
21:12 Magnus slides his king over, pawn to b6, stabilizing the queen side.
21:17 Active king, completely unafraid, no respect for Magnus.
21:21 And pawn to b3, rook e8, and now black is going to try to use his e-pawn as a weapon.
21:28 He's going to try to either push it forward, or play a move like knight d4 check, like
21:32 this.
21:33 So that if bishop d4, ed4, this rook is completely sealed off from the game, and after a move
21:38 like c5, white is just lost, because the rook is trapped, which is really funny.
21:42 The rook is just completely trapped.
21:44 You can do this, rook e3 check, king d2, I will just play something like h5, because
21:48 after cd4, rook b3.
21:52 So Magnus is on the verge of actually losing a game to a 2100, but he doesn't.
21:56 In fact, because he's Magnus, he's able to actually get the knight out of the way with
22:00 a trick, because of h4, and the knight is trapped.
22:04 The knight has actually galloped too far into the white position.
22:08 Yeah, the cheater does not take a free pawn, but confidently backs out of the position.
22:13 Magnus plays bishop f2, and then the cheater goes back.
22:17 Rook d8, setting up a discovered attack on the king, and after the move king e2, black
22:22 lost on time.
22:23 So black lost on time in a 35 move strategic technical battle against Magnus, and was promptly
22:32 banned.
22:35 Pretty incredible that Magnus managed to hold even for so long, but what really helped in
22:45 this game, I think, is the fact that there was a stability to the position.
22:50 So it was a position where even if you cheat every move, it's not a sharp game, and Magnus
22:57 was actually able to stay calm and play a very stable structure.
23:03 And the problem is, when you're Stockfish, like black was Stockfish in this game, you're
23:09 basically playing the human equivalent.
23:12 You're playing the human race's answer to Stockfish, which is Magnus in a strategic technical
23:18 game, which, yeah, he managed to play maybe even better than an engine in a positional
23:25 game.
23:26 Now, if this was sharp, it would have been over, but it wasn't.
23:28 So hopefully you enjoyed this video.
23:31 We never get to see a lot of cheaters playing a lot of Grandmasters.
23:34 Again, they're usually beating up 1500s, or me, and then they get banned.
23:39 But they very rarely make it to that level.
23:41 So that's all I have for you today.
23:45 I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you in the next video.
23:49 Get out of here.
23:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]