city hence the name gotham and in this video  i want to give you all the tools you'll need  

to learn chess and navigate it as a beginner i'm  covering five major concepts that i've picked out  

they're right here we'll talk about the board  and the setup and obviously all of the pieces  

how they move and how many points they're worth  then we'll talk about their interactions that  

means what pieces have what vision attacking  capturing creating threats and defending them  

that will flow into number three which is checks  and checkmate that's talking specifically about  

the king because checkmate is the goal of the game  in the fourth category i will show you some basic  

opening ideas how to start a game with white and  with black certain traps to avoid falling into  

the middle game will be tactics and strategy  the two major branches and talk a little bit  

about end games as well what are the most  important end games for beginners to know  

and last but not least we'll just talk a  little bit about a study plan all right  

sounds good let's go first things first a  chessboard is an 8x8 square which has files  

which are the a file the b file the c file and so  on and ranks the first rank the second rank etc  

boards with coordinates as you see here have a1  b1 and so on white starts on one and two and if  

you don't have those coordinates the bottom  right hand corner should be a light square  

okay each side has eight pawns they go on  the second and seventh rank respectively  

then the back rank of pieces you can put the  rooks or the castle-like structures in the corners  

followed by the knights or the horses however you  want to call them the bishops go next the ones  

with the pointed hats and in the middle you've got  the royalty the king and the queen the easiest way  

to remember how to put the king in the queen is  that the white queen likes to uh have a white  

dress with white shoes she likes to stand on the  same color square the black queen likes a black  

dress with black shoes so the black queen will  stand under the dark square and the light screen  

a light queen white queen will stand on a light  square the kings will obviously stand adjacent now  

kings you can also remember are on the e file and  the queens are on the d file that's one more way  

to remember it now this is a lot of pieces so  what i'm gonna do when i'm teaching you about  

peace movements is i'm gonna cut back a lot  now hopefully all of the games that you play  

look like this well you will be playing with the  white pieces hopefully in this position you're up  

35 points of material let's start with the pawns  pawns are worth one point they only move forward  

they do not move backwards on their first move  pawns can go up two in one go like this however  

after that they can only move forward one  square if a pawn makes it all the way to the end  

of the board you can promote it to a queen a  rook a bishop or a knight even if you already  

have the two you know the two knights for example  that you start with you can have a third one  

one thing about pawns the way they capture is not  forward it's diagonally one square so for example  

in this position the white pawn would oh sorry  wrong arrow the white pawn would capture the  

black pawn like this that would be the capture of  a pawn okay um now there's one other bonus rule  

of pawns that i'll include here just for the sake  of including it it will confuse you and you might  

be tempted to leave this video but that rule is  called on passant there is this special rule i did  

not invent it so please don't hate me which looks  something like a software glitch and it goes like  

this if an enemy pawn moves two squares okay two  squares and stands side by side with your pawn  

you can take that pawn via something called on  poissant in passing only on this move if you  

wait one turn you can't do it and it looks like  this you say levy i'm only like five minutes into  

this video you're already confusing me i don't  feel safe i listen it's just my rule it's just  

my job to report the rules okay that's the only  special rule about pawns okay all good terrific  

now let's move to knights and bishops together  because those are called the minor pieces and  

they're worth three points okay bishops are  very simple they can go forward and backward  

diagonally on their own color so a  light squared bishop that's how it moves  

a dark square bishop in this case would go all  the way down here if it could but it can go to  

any of these squares you can go one square three  squares whatever nice knights are the most unique  

they move in little l's so that would mean up two  over one okay or up one over two so what does that  

look like well that looks like this one two turn  or one two turn or one two turn or one two turn  

knights can also go backwards and the cool thing  about knights is they can jump over other pieces  

so this knight doesn't have to ask permission  it can just directly move to this square  

with no issues now of course you can't take your  own pieces so don't try to do that but it could go  

two and one now obviously knights are a little bit  slower right it would take a very different amount  

of time for these two pieces to get to the other  side of the board uh they're each worth three  

rooks and queens are actually quite simple no more  fancy l's rooks go up down left right and they're  

worth five points in any direction that they want  so like this like this like this sorry not in any  

direction that they want i should say however  much distance that they want to cover queens  

are like a rook and a bishop combined queens are  worth nine points and they can go all the way here  

here here here here all the way this way and this  way whatever one of those squares that that queen  

chooses to go to it can go to it is super powered  you want to keep the queen it's your most powerful  

attacking piece but it shouldn't do damage early  you will be fighting against the fully loaded  

position last but not least we have the kings  kings are like queens except they're kind of  

not at all uh they can go in any direction that  they want but only one square so queen can go as  

much as it wants a king can only move one one more  bonus rule for you which is castling okay i said  

i might confuse you a little bit uh castling  is a is a move in chess is when you move two  

pieces at the same time it's your king and your  rook okay and what that looks like is let's say  

in this kind of a position so it's white's move  the king will go two and the rook will hop right  

over next to the king you can obviously only do  that when the king and rook can see each other  

and one more thing about that you can only play  the move castles as long as you haven't moved  

the king or the rook that you're trying to use for  castling you'll learn later in the opening section  

why castling is important it's an important move  because it gets the king out of the middle hiding  

it in a little vacation home on the side for now  don't be confused if you're confused it's okay  

all things will be explained later let's  talk a little bit about how the pieces  

interact on the chessboard the way i want you  to think about this okay is vision of a piece  

what does that mean well let's start with the  queen this queen sees all the way down here but  

it's all empty squares the board is split into  emptiness empty squares and physical pieces  

a piece that is there that is that we can see it  okay so first things first the queen sees the pawn  

who else is the pawn for black not for white but  for black you look around the rook sees the pawn  

so taking this pawn would be a terrible move  because the rook would respond with a capture  

that's a capture of a pawn that's what that's  called taking upon capturing a pawn the rook  

would take back we lose nine points in that trade  that's how i want you to think about it we get one  

one for nine is not a good trade what else can  we see our bishop can see this night who else  

this bishop sees this knight the bishops don't  see each other because the knight is in the way  

so if white in this position play the move  bishop takes knight and bishop takes bishop  

that's a fair trade that's three  for three that's not a bad deal  

okay that's how i want you to think about it when  you're first starting out three for three that's  

fine that's more than okay now what does this  bishop see bonus question uh-oh uh oh losing five  

would not be good unless we got more than that in  return or close like four four points now our rook  

here defends that that's what that's called  that's called defense same way that rook is  

protecting that pawn or defending that pawn  we're defending but that's not a fair trade  

so in this position let's move this rook here  for example on this square look who we see oh  

and the queen cannot come down and  take us that's a very important thing  

because the rook is protecting the rook  right now here how about this what if  

let's say black plays a move queen f6 the queen  sees the knight is it attacking the knight

no it's not because we're protecting it that would  not be a good decision for black to take and one  

more thing let's say in this position black plays  this move can we capture that bishop that bishop  

is trying to win our queen and many beginners  go oh god oh oh god oh my queen's in danger  

but hold on a second can't we just take is that  protected by anything no that's how i want you  

to start thinking about the game as you play it  is anything protecting that am i attacking it  

the point value system okay because this queen is  not attacking this pawn because it's protected but  

if no one was protecting that pawn then it would  be hopefully that kind of begins to cultivate the  

thought process of how pieces interact in a chess  game one thing hidden in all this is the fact that  

white can play a move queen c4 and that hits the  king that's called a check this next part will  

cover just checks and checkmate so we'll move  ahead to this position here it's white to move  

white has a million ways to attack this  king a check is an attack on the king  

it threatens to capture the king and chess there  is no capturing of the king the king has to escape  

danger so for example let's say the white queen  goes here check well the king would slide out of  

danger otherwise we would take the king and so on  but what if we put the queen here that's a check  

the king anywhere it moves remains in check which  means that we have put the enemy king in a check  

that is unavoidable nothing that black  can do that is check mate and we would win  

the game checkmate happens at the beginning  of the game sometimes sometimes all the way  

at the end okay sometimes in the middle but  checkmate will ultimately decide the game  

one little more i've got to include a little bonus  here this position is a little bit different let's  

say it's black's move here black's move not  white's move it's white's move we give a check  

but if it's black's move can black move legally no  because black cannot put the king in danger that's  

not allowed you can't give up your your king but  is black in check is the queen threatening the  

king right now to take it no because the queen  doesn't actually see the king it just doesn't  

there the queen does not see the king this is  called stalemate stalemate is when one side has  

no legal moves but is not in check the king is not  in danger that is a draw not a win for one side  

but a draw a tie you say levy that's stupid what  if i'm up 37 000 points of material i accidentally  

stalemate tough luck it's a draw we're working  on it it's december 1st 2 2020. if the rules  

change in the future i'll make an update  video but as far as it goes this is still it  

i'm very sorry now as i said checkmate  can happen at the beginning of the game  

right so the fastest checkmate known to  well chess is called the two move checkmate  

and essentially it's it's it's this i mean i'm  just going to show it to you so you know it  

but on the second move black can play  queen here if white starts out with  

pawn to f3 and pawn to g4 and now you're in  check and check is unavoidable you don't always  

have to move your king when you are in check okay  you can also block the check if it's possible  

you can also capture whatever is attacking  your king but in this particular case you can't  

now i promised you that we would look at openings  and we're going to do that now how do you start  

the game of chess here you are you're sitting  there you studied this video all right levy  

let's do something let's go in the beginning of  the game you want to take control of the center  

of the board this area for advanced  beginners maybe a little rectangle  

best way to do that is to put pawns in the  center so that might mean something like e4  

or d4 both are okay all right now just for  instructive purposes i'm going to do nothing  

with black i'm going to move the knight back and  forth to give us the most perfect setup possible  

if you can put a second pawn in the center you  should do that without it getting captured if  

you can do it make sure you can do it okay i'm  gonna continue to do these things over here  

next come the knights again to the center of the  board better because from there they control more  

squares knights on the side they don't really  do that okay no i'm still doing my thing over  

here two nights that's usually the best way  to go if you can the bishops will go next  

all right and one thing that you have to remember  bishop can go to c4 or to d3 or even to e2  

as long as you're getting out the bishop you want  to give everybody a turn in the opening before you  

start repeating moves you don't want to move the  same piece four or five times that's not how chess  

works you don't need to reinvent the wheel at  the beginning of a chess game because we already  

kind of know how to do that i'm these are the  secrets so again black is just doing goofy stuff