Noob vs Noob UNPLUGGED #12 | Scandinavian Valencian Variation 🤩♟️🎵
#noobvsnoob #unplugged #jazz #casual #scandinavian
CHESS UNPLUGGED | Sometimes, I just like to unwind by not thinking too hard, play a couple of quick casual unrated games, while listening to some slow jazz! 😌♟️🎵
I’ve not made one of these Noob vs Noob UNPLUGGED videos for around six months, and my channel has undergone some massive changes. Firstly, it’s grown from 4,000 to 16,000 subscribers (yay!), I started the Blitz Chess Chats interview series and have mostly transitioned from rapid to blitz. The last month has also been quite busy workwise, and I haven’t had much time for chess. I had today as a day off, so this morning, I decided to spend a few moments to record a game of unrated 10-min rapid with a coffee!
Channel news!
This might be the year of chess robots 🤖♟️ A couple of months ago, I received and reviewed the Chessnut Move robotic chess board, which moved the chess pieces by making every piece a microrobot — super cool and amazing that it works (and works well!). Yesterday, the postman dropped off another chess robot for review, the SenseRobot Chess which moves the pieces with a robotic arm with a gripper!
I’ll be unboxing and reviewing this second chess robot in the coming days and weeks!
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I had the White pieces, and Random Noob played the Scandinavian Defense: Valencian variation, where they pulled their queen back to d8 against my queen’s knight. A curious historical fact is that this opening is the oldest known recorded opening in modern chess for Black, and a deeply Romantic line. It was first described in 1475 in a poem in the Valencian language, Scachs d’amor, by Francesc de Castellví i de Vic (-1506), Bernat Fenollar (1438-1516), and Narcís Vinyoles (1442-1517). The English translation for the title is Chess of Love, and in the poem, Mars and Venus meet to play a game of chess, with Mercury acting as an arbiter. Venus plays the Valencian line.
As I was in a bit of a relaxed mood, I opted to play in a mostly principled manner in the opening, developing, castling, and not necessarily angling for an immediate opening attack. This was a bit inaccurate as I had a powerful attack with d5 on turn 7, a move I didn’t play until a couple of turns later.
Nonetheless, I was completely fine out of the opening, but kind of derailed in the early middlegame by being too impatient, which led to a trading down of material with Black a pawn up. This then resulted in a simplification towards an endgame where Black retained an extra pawn with opposite-colour bishops; this advantages the player with attacking chances and initiative as the opposing bishop is limited in its defence.
By turn 27, I knew that I was in a lot of trouble having lost another two pawns, and Black having three connected passed pawns on the queenside. Here, I knew that the only possibility of a reversal was to attack and potentially provoke Black into making a mistake. So, I played (27. Rf6): come at me bro!
Simply, this move was a bluff. At a very superficial level, I’m asking Black to trade rooks (Rxf6 exf6), which seems to bring my passed e-pawn one step closer to promotion. However, a careful look would identify that promotion should be impossible (Black’s dark square bishop guards the promotion square) and thus, Black should accept the trade and simplification.
However, one of the strong cognitive biases that can be at play at beginner-level chess is loss aversion. For many players, this bias causes them to refrain from trading material even when they are ahead, especially when they are ahead and it is advantageous to do so! The recognition of this bias in the opponent is what makes moves like (27. Rf6) possible — my pieces can have access to squares they shouldn’t.
The bluff worked! Black refused to capture and opted to simply hold the tension and push their a-pawn instead. It does make sense for Black to exploit their connected passed pawns. However, this single step of tempo gave me (28. Rxg6), diminishing Black’s king’s defenses. Black pushed the a-pawn again (28… a4), which wasn’t a mistake, but after (29. Bc2), Black made a game-ending blunder with (29… Kh7??). Stockfish finds a forced checkmate. Black’s logic was once again about loss aversion, trying to avoid the loss of their h6-pawn, but this single careless move gave me just enough tempo to make my kingside attack devastating.
I knew that Black had made a mistake and could see a forced draw by threefold repetition. I couldn’t initially see whether I had a win as well but eventually found it! It was a very lovely “windmill” pattern that allowed me to capture one rook, and then the other. As I had the attack, Black’s opposite coloured bishop stood helplessly in the distance! And then finally on turn 39, a ladder checkmate. Good game, GG!
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Learn how to play the best chess opening attacks in the Romantic style with my new book, “Become a Chess Assassin!” available now on your local Amazon store!
