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In this live chess coaching session, I teach a simple black opening repertoire to David Pakman. David is a political commentator (host of the @thedavidpakmanshow) and has recently been invited to the second edition of Chess.com’s PogChamps (a chess tournament for popular streamers and online personalities). To prepare for the event, I showed him the basics of the Sicilian Dragon (against 1.e4) and the King’s Indian Defense (against 1.d4).
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Eric Rosen
4579 Laclede Ave #205
St. Louis, MO 63108
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Chess book recommendations:
London Opening 8-hour video course:
00:01–22:15 Learning
22:16 Test
Hi Eric! I'm back watching this video after watching it the first time around 4 months ago! Ever since, I started just playing Sicilian Dragon with black. Just that. I'm up from 600-ish rating to late 800s and sometimes venturing into 900s. Thanks for this. Watching now, I realise that half what you said didn't stick the first time, but the more I played it, the right moves presented themselves. It was interesting watching this now, and I've picked up few more tips! I'll come and watch it again when I hit 1000!
Edit: hit 1,000 (2 months later) ✌️
26:58 This is the most upset I’ve ever seen Eric.
33:00 “opposition research.” Eric is making fun of him. Hahaha
Is that… David Pakman? Oh shit, it sure is. Well I'll be damned!
At 17:00 couldn't white move knight f7 to win a pawn back?
I really like how calmly you explain
Is there a name for the Pirc "trap" where white pressures the knight before developing their own and black trades queens while taking castling rights, and then black forks the king and the rook? If he likes that modern setup I bet a decent amount of pogchamps would walk into that one. Plus even if white defends it properly it just ends up in a normal and playable pirc game.
Karo kann is best
I love this content!.
29:20 Originally, the reason it is called a Dragon is because from the black perspective, the position of the pawns resembles the star constellation of Dragon.
I thought it was the dragon because of Black's pawn structure g6 and d6, which is the dragon constellation shape
The absolute randomest colab I could have imagined
who else got brain shortcut seeing and hearing David?
19:38 maybe not with knight, or g4 is a nasty fork
Omg the crossover we didn't ask for
David looks so wholesome and ready to learn
Excellent teaching – thank you
Good chess players: only play Sicilian after 2000
Me at 500 elo: hahahaha dragon go bruh
Wow now I have some decent opening with black against 1d4 and 1e4…with white I have settled with playing the catalan. Very helpful video.
20:00 isn't E4 winning?
The way he often says "okay" with a kind of clipped ending is not his natural speech pattern. He's forcing himself to try to sound like a rather famous podcaster.
It’s also called the dragon because it resembles the draco constellation
I need my hand held, drawn in crayon and words a 3 year old will understand. My style of mentoring.
I often get hit with Bg5 attacking the knight, Any tips?
Trump won and you know it David, btw Trump would destroy you in chess.
Eric please make a similar opening content for white also.. This is awesome !
Its ,its beautiful
I'm only 650 and I'm dying for playing scillion Defence
5:08 Dragon 🐉
This guy is an awesome chess coach.
whats the best way to defend the knight when the dark squared bishop attacks on g6?
Bruh I though yay was talking about pawg champs
Hi Eric,
Am I right that this was a more than an hour long video? What happened to the other half when David played against other opponents?
Thanks 🙂
Is memorizing/studying opening pointless if your rank is less than 1000?
I like how this guy asks for a review. So helpful, and oftentimes, it results in exploring the alternatives white can play.
I didn't know who David Pakman was before watching this. What a horrible little man
Eric’s explanation is so smooth and understandable compared to Levy’s rushed and yelled explaining then discourages you in the end by saying this is mostly for 1500 – 2000s
Pakman! Cool
Very useful thank u
This is BY FAR one of the best videos I’ve seen on chess in general. The most infuriating thing we see in chess “tutorial” videos is the complete and total lack of context. The GothamChess channel is the absolute and total worst for this- unless you discuss why a defence should be used in relation to white’s openings there’s no point making a video about it. Simply listing the moves to establish something like King’s Indian WITHOUT talking about why you do it is, frankly, a waste of everyone’s time. Context is absolutely vital in chess- listing the moves of an opening or defence in isolation is of no use to a learner whatsoever.
those anoying ads i try to learn something
We need Ben Shapiro and Eric
Wow two of my fav content guys that do unrelated stuff doing a collab??!
Brilliant video, Eric.
Filthy heebs
22:21 28:41
22:29
I know this video is 2 years old and it's highly unlikely you'll even see this but I'd really love it if you could make more videos like these, this is one of the only videos I've been able to easily digest and learn a specific opening, it's the best video I have watched for this purpose. I think it helped you had someone else who was a relative beginner to explain it to also who could ask questions like "What if his pawn takes here…" for example. Some other IMs/GMs will just tell you specific lines that never get played at my level with little explanation behind the moves themselves and will say something like "every other move is bad" but then not explain exactly how to punish those "bad" moves because to them it's just obvious but in some cases is a complicated (or at least non-intuitive) set of moves.
For the sicilian dragon, what if they go pawn to e5? do you commit to kings indian with pawn g6 or do you have to ditch and pawn d6