Catastrophic Chess Game Analysis: Magnus Carlsen & 300 ELO Player Blunders

Amateur chess blunders nearly ruined Levy Rozman's vacation.

### GothamChess Analyzes a Catastrophic Chess Game
* 🗺️ GothamChess is in Copenhagen, Denmark, for four days before heading to Stockholm for a chess match.
* ✈️ A subscriber sent him a game so bad it almost ruined his vacation.
* 🤝 A collaboration video with Magnus Carlsen will be released on October 25th at 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
* 🇦🇹 The game was sent by an Austrian subscriber named Loren, whose **poor play** is the focus of the video.
* 🤯 The game features **bizarre opening moves** from white, including Queen to F3 on move 3.
*  blunder The analysis highlights several critical errors by both players, including **hanging pieces** and missed opportunities.
* 😱 The video showcases numerous **beginner mistakes**, such as attacking without considering consequences.
*  stalemate Despite the many blunders, the game ends in a **surprising draw**, due to a well-played endgame defense by Loren.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Copenhagen, Denmark. That's where I currently am, and that is where I will be for the next

four days. And then I will be going to Stockholm, Sweden, where I will play against Grandmaster Pia Cramling in the

Battle of Generations. So if you're watching this in October of 2024, that's what's going on in the chess world now.

You might be watching this at some point in the future, in which case you are about to be treated to one of the

most catastrophic games of chess you have ever seen. This game almost ruined my entire vacation. See, I was on the plane and you

were sending me games sometimes; they say, "Hey Levy, here's a game I want you to analyze." This game was so bad I wanted to ask

the pilot to turn the plane around and bring us back to New York City. That's how bad it

was. My vacation has almost been completely ruined by what I am about to show you. So without further ado, let's

get into it. Now, tomorrow, October 25th, a collaboration video will drop on this channel like you have never seen

before. Set your calendars: 9:00 a.m. Eastern, 3:00 p.m. here in

Europe. The one and only Magnus Carlsen will be making an appearance. You've been warned. And again, if you're watching in the future, you can

you know, you know what to do; go check it out. Ah, okay. I can tell you what that video is

going to be called; it's going to be called, "I Played Magnus Carlsen." That's going to be the name. Okay, so the person

that sent me this game is named uh, Loren, and Loren is Austrian. And if that's not how you say it, then I

apologize. Um, Loren single-handedly almost ruined my entire trip, so you're about to see

Why his opponent in this game opened with a move E4? All right, uh, I'm going to turn off feedback

because I don't I don't need chess.com to tell me any feedback in this game. Maybe it'll listen, maybe it won't; we're

going to find out. Uh, Loren responded with D6. Okay, it's not listening; it's going to continue to tell me um the analysis.

That's fine. Black uh plays D6, white plays Knight C3. We have this move E5, perfectly reasonable so far, until the

very third move, which is Queen to F3. Now the engine evaluates this as um a green check

mark. I don't really know why it does that because that's now I suppose white has some nasty intentions: to develop the light

squared bishop and deliver a checkmate to Black, which is—I mean, it does win the game—and then Queen takes F7. Loren plays

C6. I can't really explain this move, but the computer is dealing with 300, so it's

not being too mean. And now, for whatever reason, uh, the person playing with the white pieces, who's named—well, names

are changed slightly so you know we don't reveal everything—um, uh, Puuv or uh PV plays instead of Bishop

C4, Queen H5. So we we we're having a little bit of hesitation here, you know? Queen F3 and then Queen H5.

Oh, Loren plays very nice move, Knight F6, very principled, given a little green star. And white plays Queen

G5. I don't know why this move is given a thumbs up. This entire video could just be kind of laughing at the feedback

function. Black plays D5. Okay, perfectly reasonable move, except for the fact that it loses a pawn with a check, which white proceeds

not to take. So we have D3. Okay, um, now I'm going to try something really quick. Okay.

Magic! Now that we don't have to deal with the feedback anymore, White plays D3. I don't really hate this move, but this

pawn can simply be captured. Uh, we have a trade in the center, and now is where the fun begins. Black plays the move H6; it's a

very common beginner mistake. You attack a piece; you don't think about where the piece is going to go, and the piece can

absolutely take a pawn right now, which it does. The queen takes a pawn with a check, and Black blocks the check with a

bishop. White is enjoying a plus-one advantage because White just won a pawn. The light-squared bishop goes out to C4.

It's a great move. I don't know why the computer hates this move so much. Uh, the computer wants queen to G3, attacking the

pawn. G, you know what? For a beginner, Bishop C4 is an excellent move. Black castles the king. White develops another

bishop, and the computer now thinks that Black is better, but as far as I'm concerned, White is doing exactly what

you should be doing: just developing pieces. Completely developing in the last three moves! Look at this: White has developed a light-squared bishop, a dark-

squared bishop, and a knight. This is very, very, very good play. Queen to A5. Now you may be wondering why did the

evaluation bar jump up that high? Um, it's because the queen is hanging. Queen to A5 just straight up...

I'm going to move this camera around a little bit. Uh, just straight up loses a queen. There's absolutely nothing there; there's nothing stopping

White from playing queen takes queen across the board. Uh, when I saw this move, I physically recoiled. I couldn't

believe myself because Black spent 10 seconds just giving up the queen. I mean, you would think, like, you know, my most

powerful piece, I should probably protect it. Now, none of that really matters because White wins here, so the queens are just having a

staring contest. Um, now I think at this point, Len was like, "Oh my God, what am I doing?" All right, well let me get rid

of my queen for the queen, because without my queen, I can't lose my queen. Actually, pretty wise. Now we have Bishop

takes E5. Now the 300 ELO brain is really interesting because you go Queen A5, you

hang a queen in one move, right? Your opponent plays H3, and you go H... Wow, okay, my Bishop is hanging, but thank God he

didn't take my queen, right? So I'm going to take the queen first, and then I'm going to move my Bishop. Except you just

don't do that, and you lose the Bishop. So somehow you see that the Bishop is targeting the Knight, and you

go, "Me no like that," but "me forget that me Bishop can be taken by the pawn on H3."

So yeah, we we move the Knight out of the way, and White just plays Pawn takes Bishop, because that was White's other

idea. Um, and now Black plays, obviously, you know, simple chess. Look, you got your piece taken, so now I need to take a

piece because I can, and now White takes back because White can, and White is winning, right? White is just a a full

Knight ahead. Uh, the way you win this position with the White pieces is you, you know, you castle your king, uh, you can

try to start an attack; you can try to use these pawns to break through because the king is here. This King can go that

way. Uh, you can also play moves like Rook D1, Knight into D7, make a trade, also

Knight G6 is a cool move; can't be taken because the light-squared Bishop is pinning the pawn to the king. So a lot of

possibilities. Black plays Bishop B4; don't hate it. All right, White goes A3 because White is like, "Are you going to"

Take my knight because I'm... I'm up material, so I actually like trades. Black absolutely trades, so Loren was like 5

seconds on this move. Boom boom! Played 20 moves, you know, 828 on the clock, down a bishop. That's how we do it out here. And

now it gets even worse. Remember how earlier in the game there was this moment, black went H6 attacking a queen,

but just forgetting that the queen could take the pawn. Another very common beginner mistake, which you've got to stop

making. Guys, guys, you've got to stop making these moves. Like, rookie eight, rookie eight in a... in a... in a vacuum is a good

move because the rook just moves and attacks the knight, but every time you make a move in chess, you've got to think,

what was I doing? And the rook was defending a pawn, and right now, bishop takes F7, defended by the same knight

that's being attacked, and the rook just hangs. And Loren is going to go down even more material, but Pichu defends the

knight. A principled man! The knight is hanging; it must be protected. The king runs away, and suddenly Pichu's like, oh,

knight takes F7 check. King H7. Now, the way you win this position with white, you advance, you probably

castle your king, you keep pushing, you probably promote a pawn, you make a queen, you go on and win the game. Instead of

that, Pichu goes here, which is kind of creating an attack on the black king, but you're leaving this to hang,

which is a fork. Now, lucky for you, you can still block with the bishop, right? Your king is hanging, your bishop is hanging, your pawn

is hanging, but you can save two of those pieces at the same time. And this is not how you do it. And Loren has won the

bishop on C4, but luckily for PV, he's still winning because you can take on H6. And after you take on H6 and black

takes back. You can take with a rook; you can probably also take with a knight, but the point is that the black king is

extremely weak, extremely weak. Now you may have, uh, you you might experience a similar level of shock to

me because in this position, after marching all his pawns forward, Puu decided to also lose his

knight. Why? Why did he play knight takes H6? There was no reason. I mean, the pawn can just take the... Why did he play knight

takes? I was like, "What? Why'd he do that?" Seven minutes on the clock, guys, playing a 10-minute game. Knight takes

H6. Okay, black takes... I mean, Lorenzza is, you know, not Magnus Carlsen, but he's close at this point.

Pawn takes it. Guys, what are we doing? We're down material. Two things matter in chess: material and king safety. We at least

have to go for the king. We have to attack the king because also, after you play rook H6 and king G7, you know you're

going to double right. Rook F4 is possible, but then you have rook H7. You might play F5; you might even be winning

just easily because you double the rooks. You play rook F4, F6 check, king G8,

rook here. I mean, this is like a winning position for white. White is just getting to the king, but G takes H6, and now

that's it; there's no more attack. Now black will just hump the pawns. That's exactly what black starts to do. Just

kidding. That that would have been, um, that would have been good, but uh, but no, but no, no, no, no. That's not that's

definitely not what happened. So white plays rook B1, make a move that makes no sense, but in this case, okay, it's a nice

attack on the B7 pawn. Black plays knight C5, good move, defending the pawn on B7. Rook is coming to D8 if the rook goes

goes to D8, the King has to abandon these pawns. White... Black will take, Black will take, Black will probably take this pawn.

Probably White will simply lose because there's no attack on the Black King. The only chance that White had was that...

attack on the Black King. White plays Rook B4, because when you are losing, you should trade more pieces because that

way you have no pieces to defend yourself with, and if you have no pieces to defend yourself with and make legal

moves in the future, you may get a stalemate. Right, stalemate in chess is when you are surrounded but you are not

in any danger, so that is White's game plan. Except it's not, that's not White's game plan whatsoever. Uh, Black takes on

B4, which apparently is a mistake. Black should have started with Rook D8 check and then, like I said, taking these pawns

instead of that. Rook takes B4, and actually PJ is a genius because now the game is back to equal. Why is the game

back to equal? Well, White has three points for the Knight. I mean, if we count the material, both sides have 11 points:

Rook and six pawns is 5 plus 6. Black has Rook, three, and three, so it's even.

Subscriber sent me his game. I'm banning him.

GothamChess

Announces current location in Copenhagen, Denmark for the next four days.

Mentions upcoming trip to Stockholm, Sweden to play against Grandmaster Pia Cramling.

References the 'Battle of Generations' chess event.

Teases an upcoming catastrophic chess game.

Promotes a collaboration video with Magnus Carlsen on October 25th.

Introduces Loren, the Austrian subscriber who sent the game.

Highlights the game's poor quality and its impact on the vacation.

Begins analyzing the game, starting with the opening moves.

Points out questionable moves and the engine's unexpected evaluations.

Continues analysis, focusing on critical mistakes made by both players.

Highlights a significant blunder leading to a queen sacrifice.

Discusses further blunders and missed opportunities.

Analyzes a series of moves leading to further material loss.

Describes White's attempt to achieve a stalemate.

Explains how the game becomes equal in material.

Discusses White's missed opportunities to win the game.

Highlights a crucial mistake by White that leads to a rapid loss.

Summarizes Loren's defensive performance and the game's ending in a draw.