So today I was put in touch with a local news organization who wants to interview me about The Queen's Gambit, since there are like zero women in chess, so I guess I have to actually watch this now.

Reaction thread? Reaction thread.

Episode 1:

GIRL ITS THE FIRST MOVE, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GONNA PLAY.

There's no decision to be made here. You can make your first move and then do the whole "relax into your chair" thing.

Why is the teacher shocked that she knows how to do simple math? I mean I get the rest of the orphans haven't had a good education but her file probably says her mom was some bigshot math person, and probably taught her a lot

The position on the board looks like a pretty standard Queen's Gambit Declined. But I have no idea why Black has a B on F6 and why white's dark bishop is gone. Maybe it was traded for Nf6?

Either way, this is the chess version of "they said the name of the movie in the movie".

I'm not sure what's going on here. Black is down a pawn, and I'm not sure why. Also weird that White has Qf3- usually this happens when Black trades Bg4-f3 for the Nf3, but the knight is still on the board.

This is a weird way of describing how the Knight moves. Usually its taught as "an L shape". In Chinese chess and Japanese chess, where the Knight can't jump over pieces (AFAIK), its taught as "one square straight and then one diagonal".

I fucking knew this was going to happen.

This is the "Scholar's Mate", or the "four move checkmate". Its commonly used by lower level players and children. Its easily countered, but I commonly open this way if I don't respect my opponent and really want them to know that.

Clearly the reason why I was only a statewide-known chess player instead of an internationally renowned chess player was because I didn't imagine a chess board on my ceiling

This scene is weird because Black plays QxB and White plays NxQ, and the dramatic effect implies that she blundered by dropping her queen by taking the Bishop.

But the blunder was actually Bg7 the previous turn. Bg5 traps the Queen, so the Queen is already lost here.

To be fair, I would also say this if one of my opponents said that I have to resign

Nobody should learn the Sicilian Defense. People should stop playing it. Its boring because all the lines are mapped out to like move 30 or some shit.

This is a very old-school way of notating moves, and not what I'm using here. (I use algebraic notation with a little bit of shorthand.) This style of notation was popular up until the 60s-70s. This series takes place in the 30s-40s, so this notation would have been common.

In general, I'm not a fan of teaching chess by making the student memorize opening lines. Its much better to teach abstract principles and geometric patterns. You can get to a fairly high level without learning any opening theory, just by knowing how not to drop your pieces.

1. d4 does not signify the Queen's Gambit; its a very broad category of openings. The Queen's Gambit is 1.d4 d5 2. c4 So black has to respond a certain way, and white has to respond by sacrificing, or "gambiting", their c-pawn.

This board is completely nonsense. Why the fuck is Black's King so far out? At this point they've both played a fair bit and should be more advanced than this.

Hey, I had a copy of the MCO as a kid!

But once again, please don't teach chess by teaching openings. What this person has done is basically the same as teaching MTG by telling the student to go to Scryfall and read what every single card does.

Yes, people do actually do this, with one pawn of each color in each fist. This is pretty common in club play.

Of course, in tournament play, the person who goes first is assigned by the tournament software. (WOTC, are you listening?)

A lot of people can do this, but its considered to be very rude.

I mean, people get up from the table during games sometimes (tournament games are like six hours, of course you do) but you do have to go back to your board to make your move.

Simuls are great. Its one of my favorite party tricks.

This looks like a pretty small group though. Only about 15 or so. I've done simuls with around 40 people, and I've been in simuls against grandmaster-level players of upwards of 100 players.

Generally, the simul player takes white, and they open differently at each board (or they alternate), so that their opponents can't copy the person sitting next to them.

She has white at each board, which is right, but it looks like she's opening 1.e4 everywhere, which is weird.

This is especially weird because we've seen her open differently with White on different occasions (1.e4, 1.d4, and 1.Nf3), so she's definitely comfortable with mixing it up. She just didn't choose to do that here for whatever reason.

Ah yes, the high school students who are clearly at least 25

This is not realistic. Not that you have to be obscenely good to do this, but whenever I've done a simul I've had players who haven't decided on a move by the time I've gotten back to them, and they insist that I skip over them and it takes forever to play just a few moves.

EPISODE 2

"Learning the Sicilian Defense. There's 57 pages about it in the book, with 170 lines stemming from c4"

SEE AND THAT'S WHY THE SICILIAN SUCKS ITS ALL MEMORIZATION

also why would you play c4, it seems like you're leaving the d-pawn behind unless I'm missing something

This is not chess but damn it is impressive that she can talk and play the piano at the same time.

Is it weird that I recoiled at the idea of people not wearing masks in a store?

Capablanca was World Champion in the 1920s. If this was set in the 30s or 40s, I don't think it would have been that old.

"Classical" time control is 2 hours on your clock, then 1 more added at move 40, then 1 more added at move 60. Modern time control (with digital clocks) is 90 minutes, with 30 seconds added for each move.

I'm not sure where this time control comes from. Its really weird.

So I know I already talked about this, but what Beth is doing is the equivalent of showing up to a weekly Legacy tournament with an unsleeved cards-I-own deck and no DCI number, and being annoyed that the tournament organizers are trying to convince her not to waste her money.

lol

This is... not what it said in the bulletin earlier.

Its actually pretty common for the "under" section to have a shorter time control. but there actually wasn't even an "under" section described in the bulletin either.

Seems like a detail that should have been caught.

This is pretty common in tournament chess. Its an etiquette thing, as in don't touch the pieces when you're thinking. If you accidently knock a piece over you can fix it. ("touch with intent to move")

Players will sometimes whisper "I adjust" or "j'adoube" for clarity.

This happens so often, especially with less experienced players.

Tournament organizers would never allow this sort of congregating at top tables, and certainly would not be okay with players whispering within earshot.

The TOs earlier were speaking of an 1800 rating as if that's obscenely high. Grandmasters are typically rated 2500 or above.

So Beltik almost certainly has a *long* way to go.

There's other games going on, you can't just start clapping in the tournament hall.

Okay, so Beltik is 2150. That's quite a bit away from Grandmaster.

White has mate in two here (there's a rook on g1) and even if she misses it, she's absurdly far ahead. Offering a draw in this position is considered to be *extremely* rude and Black should be sanctioned for this.

There's a big chess event in Vegas every year, that the US Open is a part of. Its great if you're an adult because if you scrub out then you get to just go play the slots, but if you're like me, when I was like 14 and not understanding what was happening, it was pretty medium

I think the least realistic part of this series so far is that chess players are attractive

I want him to fucking destroy me holy shit

YOU'RE ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE BOARD YOU KNOW

Beltik opens with the Caro-Kann Defense, which is stereotyped as being highly positional and strategic without much room for sharp, tactical play.

My gut is to push d4 in this position, but Beltik's Bg4 is actually the "book" line.

I can excuse players talking during games, since I get they have to create drama that way, but one thing that bothers me about this tournament is how quickly the players play. They're playing as if they have 10 minutes on the clock, but they're playing standard time control.

Anyway, gonna take a break before watching more. Hope you enjoyed this so far!

Gonna try to knock out Episode 3 before bed.

To answer some questions: I was state champion in Missouri (in my age division) from fifth grade through end of HS. I was rated ~1900 and was very well known before I transitioned.

With that out of the way, time to boot up Netflix!

This is the "classical" time control I mentioned. Two hours to make 40 moves, then more time added after that. Its been phased out recently in favor of increments (generally 90 minutes, plus 30 seconds added per move) but digital clocks definitely didn't exist in the 60s.

Confused about this.

The Caro-Kann is an opening defined by Black's first move (1. e4 c6) (the opening that Beltik played, but I don't think that connection is intentional). But this player makes it seem like its a strategy that you can pivot to. That's not how this works

So I dug up the game.

In this position, Beth and the other kibitzer both suggest Qxc4, which loses to Re1, forking the rook. This is a very basic tactic and I find it hard to believe that a player of her caliber would miss it.

I love seeing this reaction from my opponents.

Usually it happens at the pairings board, not at the table. Chess tournaments function the same way as Magic- the pairings boards have your opponent's name on them, and people crowd around them so the judge can't get through.

This is pretty common at large events, yeah. Of course, nowadays it involves computers. I've heard stories of Grandmasters spending thousands on AWS to analyze their games, though I have of course never experienced that myself.

This is going to be one of my major issues with this show. Beth immediately plays Qe6 here. Even if its correct, she doesn't spend any time thinking and doesn't double-check herself. And her opponent just immediately resigns without thinking if there's a way to get out of this.

Also worth noting that her clock has *plenty* of time on it. Generally, clocks are set to time out, or "flag", at 6:00. So she has a bit under an hour and a half. Plenty of time to double check herself.

Wait, weren't these two the asshole TOs from the last episode? Are you friends now? I mean, I'm sure they apologized, but it should have happened on-screen.

Once again, there's no way this many people would be allowed to crowd around a board!

What will *sometimes* happen, if its a high level enough event, is that there will be another room where the moves are relayed, and a GM will analyze them on a display board for spectators.

I can't believe I got to episode 3 before getting the scene where experts kibitz around a board and explain what's going on to a layperson (and also the audience)

Okay wait, so this position is nonsense.

The line here is Nxe2 Kxe2 Rd2#. My question is, how did this board state happen? White should have captured the Knight last turn instead of whatever they did. Even if it was g3, it would have been much better to trade BN for R.

My parents just took all the money I got from chess tournaments. They said they would put it in a fund for me but I mean, I never saw it. :(

"Do you imagine that you, as an orphan, saw the king as a father figure?"

This reminds me of all the girls in chess who are coached to say their favorite piece is the queen because of some centrist feminist nonsense

See but that's not how ratings work.

If she's been crushing it as much as is described, and she's been beating Grandmasters, she should be well into the 2200s, at the very least.

There's a tactic in chess called a "fork", and you went with "trade rooks" as your euphemism?

I'm very disappointed in the writers of this show.

She's like 17 by this scene, right?

This cannot be appropriate.

Why are the straights

NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO

Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down

That's not how chess openings work. The Slav (defined by 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6) is a variant of the Queen's Gambit Declined. Its not something you play "versus" it.

There's a 0% chance that she actually remembers a game she played two years ago.

Well, that's not true. If its an iconic game of hers that's been printed a bunch, she might have it memorized. But I would definitely want to set this up instead of playing it in my head.

I've heard of this, but never experienced it!

Back in the day, if games took too long (7+ hours) they would be "adjourned" for later. The player to play would "seal" their move. Obviously with computers this became impossible, so time controls were shortened to prevent this.

This scene where she plays out a bunch of openings as soon as she looks at the starting position is pretty realistic.

But I mean, its the first move. You're white. You know what you're going to play. Come on.

I would love to parse this position for you guys but I am literally incapable of reading this stupid fucking 60s space age looking board

no jk I did the work because of course I did

Beth is White here, and she looks... fine? The computer puts the position at even. And sure Black has a scary looking attack but I don't think it amounts to anything, and White can just do Rd8 and trade Rooks to relieve the pressure

This dialogue does not at all match up with what's going on on the board. (Except for the "bishop on the open diagonal" part)

So yeah, when Beth goes Rg4, the computer instantly says its a blunder. But she could have just traded Rooks!

HONEY YOU DEFINITELY COULD HAVE

Anyway, there was less actual chess in this episode than I thought there would be.

More tomorrow!

something something subscribe, something something smash that bell icon, am I doing it right

About to start Episode 4. Before I do so, I would like to explain to the lay what the Queen's Gambit actually *is*.

White starts by moving their d-pawn two spaces, in a bid for control of the center. Black responds in kind. White pushes the c-pawn, offering it as a sacrifice.

Such a sacrifice- offering a pawn in exchange for an early positional advantage- is called a "gambit".

If Black accepts, then its going to be pretty tricky to hold on to that pawn (you'd have to play pawn to b5 which is ugly) and white has center control, which is crucial early.

More commonly, however, Black will decline this gambit, by refusing to accept the sacrifice. They will play pawn to e6, leading to the "traditional" Queen's Gambit Declined, or pawn to c6, leading to the Slav variation.

I prefer e6.

ALRIGHT EPISODE 4

I wouldn't know for sure, but I'm fairly certain that anybody learning Russian in the 60s in the American South would be constantly monitored by the FBI

I will fucking lose it if "being bored during sex" turns into "imagining chess pieces on the ceiling during sex"

Things are beginning to happen? She has a fucking US Open title and things are JUST NOW beginning to happen?

I should have pointed this out last episode but tournaments do not take place in an open space. Generally, for a large event, the TO will rent out multiple ballrooms. One is for the playing area, and separate ones for players to socially gather, for vendors, etc.

Why are they... lining up to check in? if its an invitational?

Premier-level chess tournaments are generally handled with a proverbial white glove.

The way that these two stand makes me really uncomfortable. They're standing side-by-side, very close, as if they are threatened by her. But at this point, aren't they really good friends?

...chess tournaments are with the Swiss system, often with over 10 rounds. A loss in round 1 will not knock you out.

I wish they would stop saying things like this. It doesn't matter how quickly you beat your opponent; you don't get extra points for it.

-signed, someone who prefers to play positional chess where I win a pawn and convert the endgame

I'm sure the fact that her mom only cares about her chess because its funding her wanderlust will never become a relevant plot point /s

Beth calmly has a real obvious mate in two (Kh8 QxB#), and THIS is the time they have the actor playing Black calmly notate his move and start thinking?

Also, her Bg2 is hanging, implying that she's been making a lot of forcing moves and he hasn't had the window to capture.

(A "hanging" piece is a piece that can be captured freely by the opponent. In this case, the Bishop can be captured freely by the Rook. The fact that it hasn't been done already means that he's been forced to react to her attack instead of capturing the bishop.)

Beth is clearly ahead here (Rook for Bishop). But I'm confused about how we got to this position. It looks like White blundered this pawn earlier by pushing it to d3. If he left it on d4, it would be protected by the Bishop and he could probably force an exchange.

Its also worth noting that both players have *much* more time on their clocks than this position implies. This position is probably move 30 at the earliest.

As a reminder, players start their clocks at 4:00 and have to get to move 40 by 6:00.

As has been said, choice of opening is something that *both* players contribute to. Her declining the gambit is contingent on White playing the Queens' Gambit in the first place.

More accurate reporting would be "she played the Queen's Gambit Declined with her opponent".

THEY DID IT AGAIN

And this time its not even believable. The Queens Gambit Declined is not an opening that is known for quickly punishing either player.

If you're dead on move 23, you most certainly blundered somewhere.

Also, I love this facial expression.

"White retreats his knight, but he's really attacking the black knight." Looks like the move was Nf3-e1, and there's a Q on d1 attacking the black Nh5.

"Its dangerous for both sides", the commentator says, as the players move without thinking.

WOAH HOLD UP

so from the previous position Black goes Nd7-f6, then white's next move is hxg3?

There was a pair of moves missed in there. White did something else, and then Black took the Bishop on g3 with the Knight.

I tried to follow this game in the openings database, but they lost me at this point. In this position it looks like Black plays Ng4, which just straight-up drops the Knight.

(On e5 after QxN, White has Nxc6 as an intermezzo before retreating the Queen, which keeps the piece.)

(An intermezzo is a move that you play before the "expected" move. In this case with White's Queen and Knight both threatened, instead of saving the Queen and losing the Knight, White can trade off the Knight before moving the Queen.

A lot of chess terms are Italian or French.)

I will note that this is one of the few cases where it *is* actually realistic that the players are moving quickly! Beth is playing against another kid, and they're both just playing opening moves from memory. I have noticed that children tend to not have patience to play slowly.

That position leads to a Rook + opposite color bishop endgame, which are notoriously dangerous and open to counterattacks. It looks like Beth has the initiative, with pawns on b7 and h6 hanging, but if she takes them then she's vulnerable to Re2 and a subsequent windmill on b2.

Black makes his move from the previous position (Kh8) and requests adjournment. I have talked about adjournment earlier in the thread, but this is not the correct process. What he *should* have done is to seal his own move, since he's requesting adjournment. 1/2

But since his move was forced, having her seal her move gives him a massive advantage; her move is not forced. This means that she's effectively forced to make an extra move before being able to take the game to her hotel room for overnight analysis. 2/2

IS HE ASKING HER ON A DATE

WHILE THEY HAVE AN ADJOURNMENT FLOATING

WHAT.

Wait, why is she analyzing... not her adjournment?

(I can't really tell what's going on here but there's Queens on the board and there are no Queens on the board in her match)

In this position (same position as earlier) Beth sealed... h5? What?

Not only is it not a good move, its not one of the obvious moves. I can understand punting under pressure, but this isn't even a thing that you would think to do.

White went from way ahead to even with this.

After the resumption, Beth tries to distract her opponent by walking around the hall and being sexy. She doesn't even sit down to play her moves.

I don't have much experience with the first part, but the second part is considered to be extremely rude.

The music starting as soon as the clock is pressed is just another sign that this is basically a sports anime

You didn't want to play him in the Sicilian, so you played 1. ...c5, which uh... is the Sicilian?

...what?

The Russian plays Nf3, and its "obvious" that Harmon plays Nc6, even though according to the opening book, the most common response in her position is something different?

I will give props for this analysis. In this position, the most common line for White is to play d4, which opens up the board (hence, the "Open Sicilian"). Borgov doing something else means he wants to play the Closed Sicilian.

The announcer says "the Rossolimo" after Beth plays Qb6 on her next move, but the Rossolimo is actually signaled by White's previous move, Bg5.

Most modern-day computers give White about 40 centipawn advantage in the opening position. Usually it ends in a draw. But this has been debated for centuries and will probably not be solved for another few decades.

I wasn't going to say this but now that you mention it...

Qb6 on her part was not a great move in response to the somewhat unexpected Bb5. It was only a minor mistake, but at high levels that definitely would have mattered.

AND THIS IS WHY YOU SLOW DOWN WHEN YOU PLAY

OH SHIT THAT WAS A PLOT TWIST I DID NOT EXPECT

...wow.

Episode 5 later today.

Centipawn is a term used in the context of computers. Computers evaluate moves measured in how many pawns a player is advantaged, and display to two decimal places. In the analysis boards in my screenshots, the number on the left indicates the advantage. https://twitter.com/DialMforMara/status/1329572038638333953

EPISODE FIVE

"Closed Sicilian" does not imply "Rossolimo". There's a bunch of "Closed Sicilian" lines, and the Rossolimo is not anywhere close to the most common.

I will bet anything that there are zero players above club level who own cars like this.

Beltik hands Beth a bunch of chess books, most of which she's read.

There are a fair number of "classic" chess books that are considered required reading. Of course, I've read barely any of them because ADHD, but it makes sense that Beth would be familiar.

She analyses... what happened, and not what could have happened?

But so much of chess is about things that don't actually play out on the board. There's no fundamental difference between "what happened" and "what could have happened".

I don't think... Capablanca was known for having good intuition? If they were going to go down this character trait, they should have picked Alekhine, or Morphy, who were known for playing sharp, tactical games. Capablanca was known for slowly grinding his opponents out.

ooh there is a chess in frame! time to break out the engine

Okay, I double- and triple-checked this, but I'm pretty sure this position is just nonsense and Kasparov fell asleep at his desk here.

The right position is after they make a bunch of moves, none of which make any logical sense. AND BLACK IS STILL LOSING HERE

Oh, Beth originally had *white* here. Sure. That makes more sense, ish?

The idea here is that White is sacrificing stuff on the queenside to promote her pawn. But even so, Black can just play Nc6, which attacks the Pawn and also lets the Rook cover the promotion square.

Should also note that this game looks *nothing* like the game that Beltik was supposed to be analysing. For reference, here is the position we have from Harmon-Watts in Episode 3. https://twitter.com/Oritart/status/1329307740221566977

Here we get another look at this board, which confirms my setup earlier.

Beth and Beltik play a game and... they get into literally the same position as the analysis board last night, with just a few pieces randomly moved around.

Set design really fell asleep in this episode.

I'm having so much trouble parsing this dialogue. It doesn't really... mean anything.

In this position Beth plays e5, but I've been staring at this board for a few minutes and can't make out what the hell is going on :/

My experience as a lesbian indicates that this is exactly how relationships work

Ah yes, the "smoking after sex" scene where the woman is very careful about covering herself up even though they just fucked

YOU'RE ON NETFLIX. THERE ARE NO TV RATINGS. YOU CAN SHOW SOME TIDDY ITS OKAY

Ignoring the rest of this scene, which is *INCREDIBLY* awkward... I don't think its that unusual to be able to play blindfolded? I can certainly do it, though I'd obviously be at a disadvantage.

I've been trying to figure this position out but haven't seen anything that justifies what Beth is saying.

Beth plays Nh5, which loses to Rxb2, overloading the white Queen. This, I *think* is what Beltik is trying to point out by saying her Knight is hanging. 1/2

But Beth has Black play Nxh5 so White can play c4, opening the diagonal + leaving Be5 open. But that move still loses to Rxb2 as previously mentioned. White could have just led on c4 and it would have worked. No reason to move the Knight first. 2/2

(A "hanging" piece is a piece that can be captured freely with little compensation. In this case, Nh5 does drop the Bishop and Knight in exchange for a Rook, which is not a good exchange, but it would not be accurate to say that the Knight is hanging.)

I think what this is trying to reference is that the other Bishop can capture on h7 to draw out the King and start an attack? BUT THAT DOESN'T EVEN WORK AND YOU'VE GIVEN WHITE LIKE THREE MOVES IN A ROW AT THIS POINT

ALSO THIS ALL STILL LOSES TO THE ROOK JUST CAPURING THE BISHOP

The irony of her saying this when she's missing the obvious move is really painful

I choose to believe that Beltik saw the line I'm describing and is just not pointing it out because he wants to have sex tonight

Hey I mentioned that she's similar to Morphy!

I will note though that Morphy's style would not work nowadays. In the 1860s, theory was much less developed, and he could get away with nonsense. What he did, and what Beth does in the show, couldn't actually happen anymore.

Morphy's style is what I would call "street chess". Its defined by aggressive moves that make for exciting speed games, but don't really hold up if the opponent slows down and takes their time. Those kinds of players really fascinate me; I could never play like that.

Ah, the "chess genius burnout" stereotype. I definitely don't know anyone like that...

[sports anime intensifying]

I've seen some other players say that this is accurate, but it really isn't. I've played tournament chess in some strange places, sure- mostly a lot of churches- but usually premier-level events are in actual nice places.

Standard tournament sets are plastic pieces and vinyl boards, actually. The fancy wooden boards are actually not preferred by competitive players; the detailing can be distracting.

An aside: Quality pieces are actually "weighted" at the bottom with bits of metal, which prevents them from falling over.

There's something really satisfying about the weight of a heavy chess piece in your hand. Its like flicking cards to a Magic player.

By the way, the US Chess Championships are played as a "double round robin" event, where each player plays each other player twice- once with each set of pieces.

Obviously there is a 0% chance this show will use that format because its not good for drama.

Here, on the left, Benny uses a "discovered attack" pattern, moving Nf4-h3, checking the King and simultaneously attacking the Queen.

This is the kind of thing I would give to beginners as a puzzle and I don't buy that someone in this tournament would walk into it.

I know I have a bunch of new followers from this thread, so I want to let everyone know that I am one (1) entire lesbian.

I mean, really, I'm bisexual, which means I'm also attracted to guys who wear leather

In this scene Beth answers this question by just making the move on the board, without really thinking about it. Usually, this sort of question is meant to spark discussion. There's a cultural expectation that you think through your lines out loud, but she doesn't do that here.

I see a chess so I have to analyze it, but this is gonna be tricky. I don't think the entire board is displayed at any point so I'll have to extrapolate.

I *think* I got it.

Beth wants to play Nd5, which makes sense. White's pieces are cramped, which means trading is good. (On Nxd5 white has exd5 and Nxe5)

She says "the pawn move is too weak", which I assume is b3. My engine prefers b3, but only by a bit. I could go either way.

Benny just used three names for the same thing.

"Speed chess": fast time controls, generally under 10 minutes per side.

"Skittles": casual games played at a tournament but outside the tournament itself.

"Blitz": a specific form of speed chess where each player has 5 minutes.

Bughouse is fucking sweet though. I'll let Wikipedia explain what it is.

Though I have been told that high level players don't like bughouse because it leads to bad decision patterns. I say fuck it, bughouse is fun.

So Beth sits down to play blitz. Or at least I assume that's what this is.

I immediately notice that the players start to move before the opponent is done. In blitz its generally agreed that you can't touch pieces until after the opponent hits the clock.

Benny has just moved Ke2, forking the King and Queen. Beth plays Kh1, and Benny takes her Queen. The dramatic effect here implies that the King move was the blunder.

But, as with the scene in episode 1, the Queen is already lost here, regardless of what she does.

I'm looking more at this game.

The key move was actually Nd3, shown here. It *looks* like Black just dropped a pawn, but upon further inspection, after Nxd3 exd3 Rxd3 Rxd3 Qxd3, the Knight is hanging by way of Qc1+. And it defends f8 so Qd8 isn't checkmate.

Its worth noting that this move, Nc3, already wins an Exchange (a Rook for a minor piece, in this case a Knight. Rooks are considered better than Knights or Bishops, so trading up is a major advantage.)

Anyway, here's the full analysis from the position mentioned.

My point with getting deep into this is that its real unfortunate that the lay audience only really understands "she lost her Queen so now she's probably dead" when there were a lot of really interesting contributing factors. The Nd3 move I mentioned earlier was really smart.

Ah yes, two high level players playing blitz draws a crowd of a million people. This is such a familiar scene to me.

YOU'RE NOT GOING TO PLAY BETTER WHEN YOU'RE ON TILT FRIEND

Yep! This is an actual thing. New York is known to have a very active street chess scene. I've heard a lot of stories about hustlers in Central Park.

A "second" is basically a testing partner. They research your opponents and help you prepare for rounds. Since premier level events are one round per day, and even some rest days, there's plenty of time to prepare between rounds.

I exhaled air through my nostrils at a slightly faster speed than I normally do

Episode 6 tomorrow, probably around the afternoon.

Fuck, this is exhausting. Powering through!