Romantic Chess 😍 | New Plans for the Channel 🤩👍
#romanticstyle #channelnews
Recently, I’ve been undertaking some introspection regarding my chess channel and blog.
Three-and-a-half years ago, I published my very first video on my YouTube channel with an accompanying blog. Very fittingly, it was a chaotic and Romantic game of the Vienna Game: Max Lange Defense where I had a mate-in-one on turn 14, missed it (😅), but won anyway a few turns later. From the very beginning, it was my discovery and exploration of the Vienna Game that inspired this entire creative endeavour!
Since then, I’ve published 665 videos on my channel, as many articles, with almost 4,000 subscribers. I’ve written and published two chess books and pleasingly, the little bit of revenue from Adventures of a Chess Noob has meant for the first time, I’ve had a hobby that pays for itself (🤩), though this isn’t my motivation doing it. Rather, it’s been a pleasure to develop technical skills; to indulge in the delightful mix of history, humanity, and technology; and of course, meeting and communicating with all of you — my fellow adventurers on the journey of chess!
However, a practice that I’ve adopted is that I make a major review and potential change in both my professional life and personal projects in roughly three-year cycles. This might be in taking on a new role, investing in learning a new skill, or creating a new substantive project. Often, this also requires some mindful divestment: for instance, stepping down from a long-term committee (for instance, if I’ve been a member already for 6 or 9 years), or reducing the amount of time regularly spent on an activity.
After I started my channel and blog, I was playing several games daily and had settled into a publication schedule of 3 or 4 videos and articles a week. Some of you may have noticed that I’d reduced this substantially towards the end of last year (hitting the three-year mark!) as I was feeling a bit burnt out with chess. So far in 2025, I’ve been very busy at work, but I’ve also noticed that I haven’t had as much patience with playing slower, principled, and sound chess. Increasingly, I found myself playing wild unprincipled chess for kicks — perhaps less a chess assassin, and more a chess pirate! 😅 (see a few of my recent games below!)
So, I’ve been pondering; where do I take my channel and blog to next?
Plan for a new direction
I will be starting a major new series on my channel in 2025, one that takes advantage of my professional life. 😲
Some of you might know that in my day job, I’m an Australian specialist general practitioner (US: “family physician”) and am a senior lecturer (US: “assistant or associate professor”) at the University of New South Wales. I will be creating a relaxed, informal and fun interview series with medical academics and researchers, over a game of chess!
I don’t know if the idea will work, and it might end up being a “clash of worlds”, but it does have the virtue of being unique! I have the first interview scheduled for recording on the 9th of May.
This does mean that I won’t be making new content on some of the existing series on the Adventures of a Chess Noob channel.
- Quick Wins: this series is being retired after 103 videos! The original premise for this series were short, sharp videos of quick wins with limited analysis. Early videos were often less than two minutes in length. The more recent entries have been much more detailed, to the point that they aren’t especially different to my regular content. I’ll still make some videos of quick wins but will not be listing these as a separate category.
- Game Review: this series was originally planned for more detailed study of specific lines, especially in games where I lost. However, like quick wins, the category blurred as I started including more detailed analyses in my regular videos.
I’ll still make some other chess video content, but at a lesser frequency, with a goal of higher quality. I’m intending on keeping up with:
- Noob vs Noob UNPLUGGED: the occasional game of low-stakes casual chess with unexpected tactical fireworks is exactly the sort of chess I love!
- Chess Out and About: playing in-real-life over-the-board chess, especially in a nice location is a joy. Indeed, my planned new interview series is practically an excuse to bring along a nice chess set to use on location! One of my most successful videos on my channel is still Chess on a Summer’s Morning.
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I’d collected many games since the beginning of 2025 as educational material for videos and articles, but ultimately, I think the following four games from the last couple of weeks is the sort of romantic and swashbuckling “pirate chess” that’s worth promoting. Many chess content creators will teach you how to play good, legitimate chess much better than me. However, I hope that I can inspire you to play chess that is fun! Don’t take chess so seriously that you become terrified of losing; on average, you’ll lose roughly half the time!
I have Black and for a long while, I play the Two Knights Defense against White’s Italian Game (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6), baiting White to try the Knight Attack (4. Ng5), which is them attempting the Fried Liver Attack. Recently, I’ve been responding with the risky but splendid Traxler Counterattack (4… Bc5).
Note: my book, “Become a Chess Assassin!” contains a chapter on how to play and refute both the Fried Liver Attack for White, and the Traxler Counterattack for Black.
One of the problems with the Traxler Counterattack is that increasingly, Fried Liver Attack players know the refutation (5. Bxf7+). While this is far from a killer blow, the resulting position is tricky to play for Black, and relatively straightforward for White. For Black, the king is forced to bongcloud (5… Ke7) and the critical understanding for White is that they must evacuate their f7-bishop. It’s done its job sniping the f-pawn, it’s offside, and it’s time to get out (either Bc4 or Bc3).
In the game, White didn’t understand this, castled instead (6. O-O??), which effectively blundered a piece after the simple double-attack with (6… h6!). White will lose either the knight or the bishop.
In the game, my middlegame approach was simple: “manually castle” to bring the king to safety and take advantage of the semi-opened f-file to put massive pressure on White’s f2 square. On turn 10, I play a devious move with (10… Nxe4!?), putting three attackers on f2, and offering a trade-down of material. Stockfish rates this a blunder (if White played accurately, they win back the lost material), but the evaluation was still advantage Black. In essence, it was a risk worth taking in my view, and in fact, this ended up being the winning tactic.
White attempted to counterattack and avoided trading down material, but while logical, it resulted in their demise. I just had the stronger attack. White probably didn’t calculate the entire sequence and missed the final move of the game (14… Nf2+) royal fork! Good game, GG!
I don’t like playing against the Modern Defense (1. e4 g6). Black effectively bunkers down, can avoid an open game, and attempts to undermine White’s more classical approaches. What I usually do is to play explicitly to opening principles (take the centre with pawns, develop minor pieces, knights before bishops), and then look for tactical opportunities to punish any inaccuracies by Black. From an overall strategic perspective, neutralising or trading away Black’s fianchetto g7-bishop, and launching a kingside attack, if permitted, is typically good. These simple ideas are often worthwhile playing, even if the engine doesn’t consider them to be the most accurate, especially at the beginner-intermediate level.
So, I played (6. e5?!) to close Black’s control of the long diagonal with their g7-bishop. Later, (8. Qd2) to form a battery with my g5-bishop, with the goal of forcing Black to trade away that bishop.
On turn 8, Black made a serious mistake with castling kingside (8… O-O?) as I was prepared to launch a quick attack on that side. I’d seen that putting my knight on g5, and then queen on h6 was now a completely winning attack. Black would be forced to trade their queen for my knight to avoid checkmate. Black seemed to have been overly relying on their king’s knight, so I played (11. Bd3), perhaps a slightly obscure move. It looked like a normal developing move, but the goal was to defend the f5 square, so that Black’s knight couldn’t go there to defend h6 from my queen.
Just like in the last game, knight moves can be tricky to fully see in calculations and my tactic worked. I played (12. Qh6) and Black responded with (12… Nf5?) to kick my queen. But the bishop was ready, and Black probably thought it was just an equal trade (13. Bxf5! exf5). But no, (14. Ng5) and as before, Black can only avoid checkmate by trading their queen for the knight. They resigned, good game, GG!
In this game, Black attempted to decline the Vienna Gambit with Nc6 (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 Nc6), one of the most common mistakes that literally results in a losing position on turn 3! Playing the two knights is rarely bad in an e4-e5 game, but the Vienna Gambit is an exception!
Note the very natural evolution of the position by turn 9! White has full control of the centre, is almost fully developed, and poised to attack Black’s weak f7 square. Black has almost no development, with their queen’s knight in an odd position on g6!
Two turns later, I played (11. Bxf7+!!) the very thematic brilliant sacrifice of the bishop. Black seeing the impending crushing attack down the f-file, opted to try to run their king rather than take the sacrificial bishop. However, this doesn’t work. In fact, (11… Kd7?) and then (12… Kc6??) were serious mistakes. You see, one of the motifs in the Vienna Game/Gambit when the f-file attacks work is that White corrals and isolates the black king onto the field of battle on the queenside and ultimately delivers checkmate against the edge of the board. Black’s voluntary king march only expedited his demise. Turn 14, Black’s king was trapped on the a-file (14. Rb1+ Ka6?!), and Black resigned one move away from checkmate with (15. Qd3+). GG!
One of the most delicious experiences in Romantic chess, is to swindle your way out of a dead lost position, equalise, capture the lead, and then win! This is especially so when that reversal is not due to a serendipitous or egregious blunder on the opponent’s part. But rather, it is through a deliberate and risky bluff, a swashbuckling manoeuvre, laughing at the spectre of imminent defeat and punching it in the face! For today we shall not resign even if we must lose in ignominy! 🤪
I usually play the Steiner Variation against the annoyingly civilised French Defense (1. e4 e6 2. c4) as after (2… d5 3. cxd5 exd5), there is the audacious (4. Qa4+!?). The Steiner Variation drags the French player out of their safe harbour of a nice, closed and predictable position, for a chaotic naval battle on treacherous seas!
However, the pirate’s life is a dangerous one and I misplayed the opening terribly. By the early middlegame on turn 13, I knew that I was in serious trouble: I had hardly any development, I’d lost the right to castle, and my king was stuck on d2 behind an isolated d-pawn! Although I was a point of material up, StockFISH, the great oracle of the sea has already declared my doom with an evaluation of roughly [-5]! 😱
Black marshalled their forces and with (15… Rfd8) signalled their intent to strike the d-file to attack my hapless king with a combination of knight, bishop and rook. And on turn 16, I played a deliberate pirate move with (16. b3!?). The great FISH labels it an egregious blunder, and so it is! Stepping the b-pawn forward opens the dark square diagonal for Black’s queen on f6; the follow up moves of Qb2+ or Qxa1 taking the free rook is obviously winning. I saw this in game. The prescient gaze of the FISH can see that checkmate is inevitable in no more than 12 moves!
However, does my opponent see it? You see, I was losing anyway, and Black had constructed an attack plan that didn’t involve their queen. I banked on the possibility that Black was so invested in their winning tactic that they wouldn’t see the gaping hole I had created. Instead, the bluff of (16. b3!?) was that it seemed like I was desperately trying to defend the c4 square to delay their attack plan for a turn…
And it worked! 🦜🤪🏴☠️
Black, fully invested in their plan, played the expected (16… Rac8?), piling pressure on the c-file a major mistake! Black was still completely winning, but suddenly, I had (17. Qe5) asking for a trade of queens, something that they were not expecting. Disoriented, they blundered by throwing in a check (17… Qh6+) rather than pulling their queen back with (17… Qe7) to reposition for another attack line. Why was this a blunder? With (18. Qg5!), the queen trade was forced (18… Qxg5+ 19. Nxg5) and suddenly the evaluation was equal, and we were playing a queenless middlegame! 🤩👍
It is likely that at this point Black realised that something just went very wrong, but that it wasn’t obvious what that was. In fact, they immediately made another inaccuracy by doubling down and pushed their a-pawn, with the goal of destabilising my pirate b3-pawn, and its defence of c4. This gave me the opportunity to make an advantageous trade of my knight for Black’s light square bishop (20. Nxe6 fxe6), resulting in Black too, having an isolated pawn. However, moving towards the late-middlegame, I managed to retain that extra point of material, a pawn, and it was going to be increasingly felt!
Rook pairs can be difficult to coordinate and on turn 28, Black made a blunder that hung a mate-in-three with (28… R3d4??). I’ve written previously that bishops tend to synergise especially well with rooks in the endgame, and this was a great example. Black’s move itself had a certain logic, Black was putting pressure on my light square bishop, and they’d probably miscalculated that I wouldn’t be able to defend the bishop. They were wrong. 😏
A lovely mating net had been woven and unfortunately for Black, their remaining pieces were in the wrong position and could not defend their king. Check with one rook, then the other, and the coup de grâce (31. g3#), glorious pawn checkmate! Romantic chess, for the win.
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I’ve some upcoming travel. Next week, I’m visiting Busan, South Korea for a conference, and in mid-May, I’ll be in Melbourne for work. These will be an opportunity to create some chess “out and about” content, potentially with my Chessnut GO electronic chess board!
Learn how to play the best chess opening attacks in the Romantic style with my new book, “Become a Chess Assassin!”, and read more stories about interesting historical chess masters from the past! Available now on your local Amazon store:
