How to CRUSH with the Caro-Kann!

ladies and gentlemen welcome back to another chess opening video this one is on my favorite the caroon defense it's a very easy opening to learn to play with the black pieces it's against E4 the Kings Pond which I will show you uh and it's an opening that actually holds a deer place in my heart because when I quit chess between the ages of 12 and 15 uh the thing that brought me back was a book by Lars scorf uh called Grandmaster repertoire 7 the caroan and my first win over a master player rated 2200 was

in the caroon so this video is split into this portion which is the theory it's going to be about 15 minutes all the moves are in the description for you to play around with and then I have two training games against my subscribers and I have a Caro con course on my website link is in the description E4 C6 if you want something besides E4 got to go to a different video here we are learning E4 C6 this is the carocon defense this is not the caroon defense it's not just that you go here E4

C6 and standard play looks like this you build for the center with your C Pawn because if they take you you want to take back like this in the center of the board so first we're going to look at the very standard two Pawns in the center approach then we are going to take a look at everything besides that and then you know the other nonsense so D4 D5 at this point the way I want you to think about this is what does white due to the pawn in the middle do they take push or

protect it we're going to begin with pushing because this is what's played the most because people don't want to take they see that they can push and Advance like this and you can't play this traditional move Knight to F6 so against this Pawn wedge Theory says that Bishop to F5 is the most successful move and the most common to develop the bishop outside of the pawn chain and then play E6 like this and then attack the center with C5 now this variation is great but in my opinion I think the more advanced folks should explore

this I think that there is a far simpler approach for intermediate and beginner players and I'm going to show it to you it's my main recommendation in my course and I I recommend it for a reason the reason I don't like this is because if you wait too long you will be subjected to a bit of a space space disadvantage and if you don't know how to handle these positions you'll get suffocated so I recommend that against the Advanced variation you fight with this move right away and the whole point is you're trying to actually

get them to take you why because then you're going to develop your knight to C6 so the C pawn moves a second time to dislodge the wedge in the center you bring the Knight out and the second this Knight gets to F3 to defend this Pawn you throw the bishop out there to pin it sometimes the bishop will go to F5 but most times s you're going to wait for this move and then play this this is how I like to play this position with black and let me just show you what this can look

like you will slowly maximize the pressure on these two pawns and then try to take both of them so your next move once you get the bishop out of this area is going to be to play something like E6 because now your Bishop is not locked in anymore okay then you're going to take this Pawn back if it gets defended your knight loves to go to F5 it cannot go to F6 so it likes to go to E7 and then after something like this to F5 now if you're confused what's going on with this bishop

if this bishop ever gets attacked that's a waste of time because you're going to take and then this has no defense anymore you just wait a little bit the the the most tricky thing in this opening is when to take that E5 Pawn because I don't want you to weaken your so much there can be like worst case scenarios uh where you accidentally let me just show you just a really funny example leave this whole diagonal open and get hit with this and lose because now you have to block with the queen and that's bye-bye

so that can happen you need to stay patient against with C5 and when they take you right stay patient jump the Knight out get this bishop to pin now if they play something like Bishop to F4 you might need to go back to plan B of Bishop Bishop F5 and E6 or because if you block in your Bishop that will just be a little bit tragic although it's actually not that bad believe it or not in this position you actually can play this move your Bishop will just need to deal with problems later now I

only looked at captures by the way if they go here same game plan that's the beauty same game plan Knight C6 you wait for the Knight you pin it and then at some point you're ready right see Knight E7 or you can take take take take and you go for that pawn after you take the Knight and you take the pawn this Knight pressures the center you need to go move by move obviously whether they've taken you or not whether they've defended their Pawn in the center but that this move C5 in my opinion forces

the issue so quickly and really fights on the pawn structure makes white really really have to defend these pawns which intermediate players are not very good at they're not very good at making controlling opening moves they're going to lose both pawns you're going to have a lot of games you win both those pawns just be careful of that diagonal check and try to follow those rules obviously there is more in-depth Theory here I don't go into that in excruciating detail because I want to show you a brief 15-minute summary you the more advanced players can

go take a look at opening databases use the engine not during the games anyway that's a little bit about the advanced variation other variation exchange variation exchange variation can happen after D4 or whenever like this is also the exchange variation the point is they play e takes D5 they take your Pawn great you take back let me me just we can look at it with both Pawns in the center you have multiple game plans here the simplest game plan by far get your Knights out and actually move them first CU you know they're going to

go there night night easy and then move the bishop out before you block it in with your E Pawn and then move your dark squ Bishop super simple game plan Knight F3 Knight C6 Knight F6 Bishop oh sorry two moves in a row by by by me by accident E6 Bishop D6 super simple however you have multiple approaches um The Exchange variation for white when they take on D5 is only considered according to Theory The Exchange variation when they put the bishop to D3 there is a little subv variation here when they actually attack your

Pawn with this Pawn cuz they're actually trying to you know dislodge you this is known as the panoff it's not known as The Exchange although they have taken your Pawn they have exchanged your Pawn there is this panoff variation and by the way you can employ much of the similar game plan here but because this is very demanding on your Center what you can do is actually develop and defend it first and because you don't want to help white develop you don't need to help white develop here you want to try to solidify your Center

as much as possible so you're always taking with a pawn you controlling the center with a pawn but there's actually Alternatives one of my favorite things to do in the exchange variation and and in the pan off is to actually Fe and Kettle my Bishop to G7 there's actually some variations where white gets to take this Pawn for free but because you get such quick development again just like in the advanced variation these pawns kind of suck they they don't do anything and besides the fact that we're playing a main line that Grandmasters play which

you're probably not going to get all the time um these pawns can be won very quickly you can use flank Pawn pushes to deflect your opponent's Queen and Knight but more than anything else what I want you to think about here is you have options you can play this in a fan ketto style like this The Exchange variation and then develop your pieces accordingly and your pressure on the queen side might pay off in the future by taking and then having an isolated Pawn but remember this is the panoff The Exchange variation does not have

C4 so you can get a very similar looking position and here either develop standard or as Gotham said fan ketto right you have you have two options here but then there's even some more but this is the very easy thing to do is when they exchange your your your pawn and the last thing that you need to worry about in the caroon defense is what if they leave this here now if they leave it here and it's free like this I don't know take it develop your pieces don't block in your Bishop play normal chess

there are two ways that they can defend this normally number one is with this Knight number two is the fantasy variation with the F Pawn the fantasy variation scores very well against the caroan the Knight D2 or Knight C3 doesn't really matter you're going to take I do not recommend taking against the fantasy because this will allow white to have a big fat Center but there's no need to allow white to get everything they want you should be confrontational you shouldn't you know you shouldn't be a pushover in this case it doesn't matter that the

Knight is here cuz it's not really scaring anybody so you both have lost the center Pawn there are two approaches as far as I'm concerned in the classical variation when they defend the pawn with the Knight it's known as the classical uh in this position Knight F6 or Bishop to F5 immediately challenging that Knight makes sense there is also something known as the carpa variation which intends to attack the Knight with the Knight but defend with the Knight as well so essentially what what this looks like is you want to do this whereas if you

just attack with a knight right away you need to double your pawns I actually think this variation immediately attacking with the Knight is super simple to play and what I'm about to show you I guarantee will happen in one of your games of course if they don't take you you have to develop normally there's really not too much we can do here you're going to have to develop Bishop Knight maybe here utilize a e or C Pawn break to open your position in the future develop develop Castle but if they take you I like to

take with the E Pawn and now the game plan's very simple Bishop out Castle okay so Bishop out now in this position maybe don't Castle cuz you'll hang mate like Magnus Carlson did in a bullet game uh um but obviously if they do that you'll attack their Queen and then Castle but after you get this these pieces will move as follows slide The Rook over to fight for the E file okay the Knight slides where the Rook was you actually transfer the Knight over to the king side and you're very solid plus when the Knight

is on f8 it will constantly defend H7 from where you will never be checkmated and then I have had students get games that look like this so let's say you develop your Bishops right let's say like something like this and white just plays this very lazy move you can set up a bishop Queen Cannon to H3 and actually sacrifice I've had students win games like this over the years you know because they get their Queen here now with this bishop oh hello hello hello the knight's under attack say something like Bishop to E2 and now

the killer move because you've put this Rook here slide it forward the king is completely cut off by the queen and Rook G for is made I guarantee you I guarantee you you're going to win a game like this guarantee you I don't know if it's going to take 10 games or 100 you will win a game like this in the future cuz people don't know what to do that's the thing you have a game plan if they don't play H3 okay trade a piece or two right try to expand on the queen side and

take some space your doubled pawns are actually not that bad because they repel the enemy Knight and the tarda coward truthfully is a little bit of a difficult one to play it's also not super common um but you're going to have to deal with it every now and then your alternative is to play the classical variation with Bishop to F5 after Bishop to F5 there is some Theory you need to get your Bishop out of the way if the opponent does this you need to not get your Bishop trapped this is all in the description

by the way and um Theory looks like this it's a super theoretical position but the thing is if you're about 1,700 or below no one knows what they're doing and like 95% of my audience is there I checked so the truth is if you want to learn the theory of the carocon you got to got to probably like buy a course or study some three-hour video which might be somewhere in the deep dark alley of YouTube chess I don't know but if you just want a very easy variation to play against the classical I think

the taric C is a good way to go we haven't looked at the fantasy the fantasy in my opinion I think you should play it like this I think G6 is a very practical weapon against the fantasy uh and you just don't let them bully you so you'll Play Bishop to G7 and if the bishop develops early you will slide your queen out to B6 and actually just go for B2 there is a tricky line here with Queen D2 but you're completely safe you can take an escape not a problem and the second white does

something with this Pawn you immediately pounce so for example you can actually develop you don't even need to take back because you already won a pawn right this is all in the description for you this is actually all kind of Cutting Edge Theory it's been played many times and if white shoves this Pawn forward well that's fantastic we can attack it with F6 a move like F6 get a our Knight out and if they defend it and you can even Slide the Knight out to F5 you have experience moving to Knight to F5 because you've

done it in the advanc variation the fantasy is tricky it's probably the trickiest it scores the best at intermediate level uh against the F against the caroan but but by the way there's also like very tricky lines like E5 which can be very aggressive the point of E5 is that if they take you bishop and queen can swarm this diagonal very tricky line not the best by Theory but um you can play like this and this is pretty terrifying for white for example game can end with knight2 check here mate congratulations you've won a game

in seven moves I don't know how much better of an opening video I can give you so the fantasy's tricky but if you find a way to attack them and create an attack on their King cuz they weaken it a little bit early with this F Pawn push be my guest beyond that there's a few other variations that are not super popular um there is the two knights if you want to play the two kns like you play a tarow you would take and do this pretty simple kind of overlaps right you can also pin

the Knight and then very simply like if they attack you you trade it just like in the advance and regroup on the light squares I really like to do it like this light Square regrouping a little bit passive but very solid you can even do this and now you have seven pawns on light squares and now you've unlocked like a Hidden Gem You' have all eight pawns on light squares cuz you traded your light Square Bishop two knights caroan not super popular you can always just like I said play the tarte C but it's seen

a decent amount at the high levels and everything else is a major sideline um for example you might experience this in the wild okay go review with an opening database go review with you know some sort of uh engine after the game is done try to play reasonable logical chess and don't just go completely insane I can't give you every single iteration of White's first two or three moves but I'm doing my best and now um let's try to play a couple of games the first person who we're going to play against is believe 12200

uh and I believe uh they are not online so let me quickly ping them I would edit this out but uh it's fine I can kind of keep you entertained ugab Booga look I'm making noises uh I don't really want to edit this out so let's see if we can get a game okay fantastic there it is 1100 thought they were 12200 overshot it by a little bit I think this individual plays the advanced carocon so C6 there it is and D5 and E5 I was right let's do this let's do this I'm going to

play my I'm going to play the variation I recommended and that's in my course and see how how it goes practically so the critical line is dc5 all GMS play dc5 because it's an attempt to refute Black's opening then black has a couple of methods to equalize uh and try to do their best uh anyone below the level of like 2400 I'm not even kidding doesn't know the theory correctly I'm not joking I have played a few 21 2200s in my life that kind of know the theory up to like move seven or eight that's

it but it's actually pretty unexplored territory at the high level so even C5 is still being discovered my water's gone okay okay this is actually very good that we're analyzing this C4 is a very aggressive move uh and it actually leads to some pretty fascinating variations if we try to develop just in the standard way what's going to happen here is they're going to take and force Our Queen into the middle so believe it or not this is actually very tricky if you take on C4 D5 gets Shu for forward be happy you watched uh

all the way all the way until now so the best move here according to theory is this move C takes D4 you actually have to fight immediately in the center if the opponent defended you can wait but because they have a bit of a lead in development because they do go first you got to be like immed you got to be super accurate so we take on D4 cuz they're not able to restructure the center with a pawn their Center is going to be very weak this is going to be very delicate right now in

fact after Knight D4 I think we can even just take this uh but maybe not maybe it we'll just take on C4 then cuz they can't shove the pawn forward cd5 is the best move so actually taking the corresponding Pawn uh but it's the best move for one reason in particular which my opponent might not know uh because I'm going to have to move my queen out and then the Knight can come here that's very tough to see if you've never seen this before so C okay well yeah that obviously is a is an inaccuracy

because they've just lost the pawn I could take but again I have taught you about this move so I'm going to play this move now um if they play H3 I might take and then regroup I'm yeah actually that looks pretty good here's a really good example of the fact that you we it actually looks like we can make this trade right now and we just have to make sure that our King is completely safe it looks like it in fact I want to take take and then take this yeah I kind of like that

but I'm going to also show you the dangers associated with trying to cash in on these pawns too quickly okay so look I'm cashing in right there's no check I'm pretty safe I hope this doesn't happen cuz they're going to hang this bishop so like Queen E2 is a good move Queen D1 is a good move uh at which point I'm probably yeah so I'm trying to think uh I could take the bishop and then take or I could just take on C4 yeah I I guess I'll just take on C4 and by the way

we are up three pawns on move nine I understand there's a bit of a rating imbalance here but these are the kinds of positions that you can also get if you know your stuff see our opponent played C4 not actually a move that we covered but we know what to do against it you see how this check is not so scary cuz we can trade Queens if that was a bishop that would be terrifying but because it's a queen we're fine and we're totally okay with a queen trade because we have three extra pawns so

right so C4s I don't even think I looked at C4 it's actually a very rare move so credit to my opponent for playing it that's hanging uh I can get my knight in the way I can slide my king over I can move my Rook I can also give the pawn away and just try to get developed as quickly as possible um th this is what I meant so I'm going to play a move that I think around this level would occur uh even though it's probably not the best move I'm going to I got

to I got to find the the move I want to play so King C7 runs into this you see this is actually the danger of grabbing these pawns so early is that you you you fall behind in development so King C7 runs into that King C8 is just a little bit passive and ugly my Rook gets blocked in Rook B8 also runs into this pin which I understand that oh my God it took me like 10 attempts to draw that uh which I understand I can defend but just looks a little bit unpleasant so the

best move here for sure is probably just giving up this B7 Pawn just and then just trying to like get some quick development uh I'm going to play this it's not a good move at all and after Bishop F4 Knight A3 and putting both Rooks on D1 C1 my opponent will have a big Advantage like in development not according to the computer but in development and actually it it's okay we'll we'll very quickly analyze afterward with the engine which is why I always recommend that before you go cashing in like at the arcade you actually

finish your development you you you get everybody settled uh this is under attack so I'm just going to push it it's not too complicated yeah Knight A3 Bishop F4 attacks everything in my position these Bishops are super strong there it is uh if I go Knight G6 I gain a little time let me I'm going to attack this bishop back so of course I welcome this trade oh my God I would welcome this trade but um yeah okay now we're going to go here see we're winning time now we're winning time I lost my train

of thought I apologize did I I sometimes I feel like when I talk I like end sentences halfway through uh okay so again this is going to be under attack very soon I I'm going to go E5 to try to play E4 so I'm very close to getting developed I've now blocked out that Bishop but I'm going to lose some pawns here this is not a good move CU I can take it I think Knight D2 is required and then I can't oh see that's too slow that's what's going to allow me to Now quickly

develop the rest of my pieces and get back into the game I'll close the center I'm going to take this probably don't even have to actually cuz it's pinned I'll go here and uh now everything is beginning to get defended I'm blocking out the Bishops the right way but it was dangerous and that's totally a position that you can lose I guess I'll go here and then take the Rook it's totally a position that you can lose and now I'm safe now my opponent does not have the Firepower does not have the necessary pieces and

I'm going to you know I'm going to get my king to safety that Bishop was super strong and now that we got rid of it we're going to be able to uh we're going to be able to survive probably the the worst of it okay so let's play uh Rook E8 we're going to get the win C4 is an interesting move for sure you're not going to face it a lot I keep talking about it you're not going to face this move a lot but now you know how to deal with it cuz it can

explode your Center it can be very tricky to uh to play that position definitely one of those games where the opening works and you lose and you go what the hell I thought I watched that video I bought the course what's going on well that's a good move Knight D6 is coming I got to make sure that's not a check so now if Knight D6 comes I just take the Rook but never too late to lose a game of chess you and you know it and I know it okay now we're going to trade Rooks

and the good thing is that right after we trade The Rook this bishop is stuck with our Knight and our Pawn F4 comes in we're going to trap that uh and we're going to we're going to get the win yep here here and now this is stuck that's stuck and we get the win but obviously we're at this point we are in uh we're kind of in the middle game end game territory like this could have come from any opening this we didn't we didn't get this position because of the Carlon but it definitely helps

so let's uh let's let's go here and the couple of ways to win this easiest simplifly now we have Knights and pawns uh and opponent resigns that was a nice game so let's just quickly analyze C4 uh C takes D4 and here if Knight D4 this is already a bit dangerous for black so I'm just trying to draw your attention to this diagonal over and over again if you play this wrong you can just get straight up a losing position like Bishop B5 this is this could be terrifying for black uh you have to be

very very certain that you have to you know you got to defend your Center and sometimes you will need to block in this bishop you'll see it the engine will point it out more often than not you're going to try to pin but here if we did this like I said we would have run into just a bad position after Knight C3 uh and after C4 and this yeah the engine likes this but it's not it's not super clean uh and right here yeah King C8 is now almost white is just completely back in the

game so for example Bishop F4 you know it even like something like this how quickly things can go wrong you know if you're not careful and then this comes and then you you don't def you like go Knight A3 Comes This everything falls apart and all of a sudden you're just getting blasted by all the pieces so now you know how to play that position uh and for the last game I am going to take on a slightly stronger player like 15,600 I think he's ready here we go yeah tree Eric is a resident memer

on my subreddit and um I told him not to play the same variation okay please exchange variation so which one do we do uh we don't know if they're going to play the panov yet okay Bishop D3 uh we can play this version or G6 Bishop G7 I don't know I mean I'm gonna I'm going to decide after I move my knight I can still decide I can still Fen ketto uh and I'll show you maybe how to play the fian ketto because this this one's really easy I'll show you how to play the fian

ketto it's a very interesting way to play this position trading your light squared Bishop on F5 uh and doubling your pawns and then attacking so for example like I'm going to Castle and then I'm going to play Bishop F5 this is one of my favorite ways to play this variation Knight E5 is a good move uh although maybe a little premature cuz this bishop can get hit with this Knight to H5 maybe is that a thing uh very common idea when the bishop is out here I I did want to show you about this plan

but I I kind of like this so now the bishop is hit they have to go Knight C6 the thing is if they go like over yeah so there you go now the bishop can move freely my my queen was hanging now that we've strengthened this we can use the open B file to create some Play Bishop F5 is now no longer our plan because after this Exchange the Knight would hang okay so he's giving me the bishop now I will show you the secret power of the fieno bishop on G7 F6 I know Ben

fold says not to do it but E5 is about to show up and that's going to be a serious problem in these fian ketto setups in the exchange variation you can always play E5 with a boost of F6 and sometimes it just wins you the game because you get a massive Center like right now it's bad for white but in maybe three four moves it will it will just be completely lost so let's see if we can get it to that point so we don't need to take we have good restructuring here we play E5

take take E4 and we would actually just straight up be winning so if takes takes we go here H interesting so I want to push and push again yeah that actually just looks great uh our Pawn structure stays completely together F5 F4 is coming and we are overwhelming our opponent here with our pawns so something like this this now we will have a weakness absolutely we're going to have a D5 weakness so take take he can line up a few attacks now DC4 all of a sudden actually is possible because this hangs but we can

also just keep marching I really want to keep marching I think that it's a very simple game plan just push the pawn it's very it's very thematic you know our Bishop on G7 super super strong uh attacking that pawn on D4 but also okay that's going for this we can just take uh it it would also be extremely useful to play King h8 to just get out of the way but I really do like F3 I mean F3 just looks so natural here we actually might need to think here for a moment so if we

go here take take Knight C3 attacks the pawn a move like Bishop E6 is decent but we're sort of pinned like our Queen is our their Queen and our Bishop are on the same diagonal so we got to be forceful here I mean I could just take on D4 obviously uh but uh and then just try to break through if I play F3 take take and there's some Bishop E4 trick it is not that simple here Queen B3 was a very good move I also have Queen A5 which attacks a rook and can win me

sometime but I'm I'm not I'm not really convinced that that's a very good move let's play King h8 we got to play a move so uh that's the move I'm going to play I'm actually not that happy about it I I think our opponent has just found enough time here to try to consolidate the position with Knight C3 was a variant what that that was the whole I that's why I played King h8 was to was to avoid okay well that was just a blunder uh that's not good now I will play F3 because the

the options are to take and open up your own king or play G3 and just box in your position um actually after Knight C3 the position was was not over definitely was not over let's go here attack The Rook we'll take next move we can take this we can go here but anyway that that's a little bit about the power of the bishop in the exchange variation you have always have this F6 E5 stuff uh I guess I'll take I mean it's about time oh Bishop H6 by the way wow was there actually just Bishop

H6 there yes sometimes there's some weird tactics Bishop H6 yeah let's ATT the queen I've been really wanting to play this move cuz this queen is so awkward so there it is have done it Rook I mean queen queen A3 I said Rook A3 Queen A3 three so I have a ve oh my God I have something so beautiful here wow I have Bishop to C2 Bishop to C2 attacks the rook and opens the Rooks and now I have this and now the queen is hanging and The Rook that is so nice wow man if

you made it 32 minutes into this video that is an incredible tactic the backwards bishop move to attack the queen and The Rook still hangs and there's moves like that to give some checks but what that is so and now there's paralysis and yeah wow this was a nice game but I do want to analyze may maybe I got a little bit overconfident pushing my F Pawn so much maybe I should have played Bishop E6 so it's interesting still stuff to learn even at my 2684 rating anyway I'll start summarizing the video I appreciate you

for making it this far uh and uh hopefully you get um some interesting lessons in the caroon you can obviously always check my course out I said that a few times already and there's other longer videos on YouTube and there's many many me there's a lot of content on the caroon it wins about 55 to 60% of games at the intermediate level the caroon uh the fantasy does very well against it but in like the advance 60% of the games are won with black so you learn this against the kingsp you can really put some

serious hurting on people uh it's a great opening and people use it from 800 to 1700 and uh really have some serious success as my opponent deeply p uh their next piece simply falling unfortunately come on Eric make a move okay I guess we will be swapping some pieces here I guess Eric is going to be playing until Checkmate I've already summarized the video so I don't really know what to do next uh thanks for watching sub to Gotham chess on YouTube all that good stuff and I'll go here and then I'll go here and

I guess Eric's playing till Checkmate which we will promptly deliver via ladder let's rotate over and let's deliver a confident mate on A1 GG to Eric uh I already signed everything off so I hope you enjoy the caroon peace out get out of here