More Than 60 Million Chess Players Make This DUMB Opening Mistake

📈 A Complete Guide to Your Chess Progress

Get The Crystal-Clear Guide To Reach 2000+ ELO Rating Faster

Take Your Chess Skills To The Next Level With High-Quality Courses

In this video lesson, GM Igor Smirnov reveals the most common chess opening mistake ever—a blunder that has been played in over 60 million chess games. Yes, you heard that right!

This mistake is so widespread that it’s crucial for you to be aware of it, both to avoid making it yourself and to exploit it when your opponents do.

What’s more, you can apply this same tactical pattern to punish this mistake across various chess openings, whether you're playing as White or Black. For instance, it frequently appears in the Italian Variation of the Four Knights Game, the Two Knights Defense in the Italian Game, and the Three Knights Opening.

▬▬▬▬▬▬
► Chapters

00:00 More Than 60 Million Players Made This Opening Mistake
00:10 Most Common Opening Mistake (Four Knights Game)
03:54 If White plays Qe2 to defend the knight
05:06 If White plays d3 to defend the knight
07:07 Same Tactical Pattern, Different Openings
08:42 White's correct defense, 6.Bd3
12:57 Avoiding TRAPS using LOGIC (positional chess)

► Follow RCA on social media

#IgorNation #ChessMistakes #ChessTraps #OpeningTraps #ChessOpenings

[AndyL]

I have to admit, maybe calling players dumb is a little harsh

[MIDGETARELOW]

Make a complete guide on najdorf sicilian

[charcal_tv]

Love all these opening videos, great work Igor

[reidflemingworldstoughestm]

Don't take dumb moves away from me. It 's all I got.

[Rearmostbean]

This is super useful

I get this all the time because I go for the Stafford Gambit, and the petrov defense freaks people out at my level.

[jatinverma]

It would be better to call the move dumb instead of calling the players dumb.

[abraxasnl]

Come on, Igor. You’re more classy than calling people dumb.

[GMIgorSmirnov]

► Chapters

00:00 More Than 60 Million Players Made This Opening Mistake
00:10 Most Common Opening Mistake (Four Knights Game)
03:54 If White plays Qe2 to defend the knight
05:06 If White plays d3 to defend the knight
07:07 Same Tactical Pattern, Different Openings
08:42 White's correct defense, 6.Bd3
12:57 Avoiding TRAPS using LOGIC (positional chess)

[Mallor]

Did you just call 60 million people DUMB?

[Zywl]

a bit aggressive calling people dumb in the title

[ricardopinto]

I know that to take is a mistake. But sometimes we are forced to release the tension. Could you tell me in what situations we can release the tension without problems and also what are the situations that we can play a3/a6 or h3/h6 to avoid pins or other kind of attacks without problems or being passive or weakening our castling? Thanks.

[billyedgar]

At 5:40, White can play c4 to attack the Black Queen.

[storyguyshorts]

Igor, you forgot a variation where the opponent Sacrifices the bishop on H7 to expose the king then take

[cosvit]

Disrespectful title to say the least.
Clickbait for views is fine but you need to make sure you are maintaining proper manners and level of class.
More important than views and money from ads in the long run

[mattw]

Love your content, hate when you cover tricks that I play. Now my opponents will know what to look out for. Keep up the good work!

[ras]

I like queens pawn D4 myself which still allows the kings bishop to get out you could also do Ruy Lopez as well bishop C5. Pawn D4 allows 3 against 2 you also help keep the center

[terrordude]

People in the comments saying "Its harsh to call 60 million people dumb, " is basically arguing with a more knowledgeable person and the data backing him up.

Another example: If someone goes for a run, doesnt tie their shoes/laces beforehand, and falls down/gets hurt, then who is at fault?

Is it the laces for being untied, or is it the person for making a literal dumb mistake leading to a blunder? Its the human making the blunder/mistake and would/should be rightly called out on it.

Also realize it the mistake is dumb not the people. (Though out of 60 million people there could be "dumb" people based on IQ but no way to verify that across all of them.)

[viru]

Hey can please make a video about the catalan opening it would be amazing

[nayonchess]

This channel of yours will very quickly become the number one chess YouTube channel in the world❤

[spodule]

The centre fork trick features very often in my repertoire, so this video is a goldmine.