My FAVORITE Chess Openings by Rating

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I get many questions about chess openings for beginners, intermediate, and advanced level players. In this video I share what openings I think work best across the rating ladder. London, Stonewall, Sicilian, Caro Kann, and many others are featured.

0:00 Intro
0:35 FOR BEGINNERS (LIKE 1100)
7:16 FOR INTERMEDIATE (LIKE 1800)
13:29 FOR ADVANCED (LIKE 1800+)

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900 Comments

  1. Kings india you can play anything against me
    Hikaru 🤨

  2. kings Indian was the best bcz I have face that checkmate shit several times

  3. what about the pirc defence for beginners pretty similar to the kings indian

  4. I'm 700 and people often get very confused when they want to fried liver me and I play polerio defence.

  5. your 1000 people has turned into 2.4 million

  6. i think that beginner is 1000 and intermediate 1500 and advanced 1500+

  7. “You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win. You will have to lose hundreds of games before becoming a good player.” – José Raúl Capablanca

  8. You know, Levy is absolutely right about the middle game in King's Indian, I've played a lot of games after learning the opening and most of the time I got checkmated, few moves after castling.

  9. Is it weird for me as a beginner to play the bishops opening that then usually devolves into the fried liver/e3 e4 thing you mentioned?

  10. Levy here: If you are beginner, try the sicilian.
    Levy in his Sicilian video: DO NOT PLAY IT UNTIL YOU ARE 2000

  11. at school i loved playing the kings Indian in tournaments thought i alone felt so safe with it🤣
    thank you gotham

  12. i played the kings indian setup from 1200 up to 1400 but i have realized that its getting harder to develop the queen side pieces and i started to lose games cuz i don't know what to do

  13. I just checked my stats bad lmao I have 45% win with white and 45% win with black and 10% draws 🤣

  14. Levy: "Over my years, I've probably taught openings to close to a thousand people"

    No Levy, you have taught at least 2.5 Million people from this video

  15. I'm at 750 rn (pretty wild down here btw.) and I actually would encourage everybody at this Elo to play e5.

    Yes, that is how they will try to mate-in-4 /Scholarsmate you but that is in reality a good thing.

    Because learning how to defend scholars mate and early fried liver is actually super simple
    and in 90% of game where someone tried to scholars mate me I won their Queen and a Rook in the first like 10 moves
    AND Most opponents will just resign after that.

    So: Try it out and have fun💪

  16. these r literal hacks, I'm a 500 elo player, using the london system and kings indian and im literally winning 9/10 games, tysm

  17. Do you not acknowledge players under 1100? Because my rating is around 800 and I feel like a huge majority of players are around 5-800 rating.

  18. Thanks Levy, I was a 500 elo in blitz (1100 in rapid) and I just learned the advanced opening with very deep analysis. I play one game everyday and then analyse it. I have been winning every match for the past week. My opening is always of best moves so I already get the advantage. Nice tactic to crush my opponents LOL

  19. How can you play the dutch 100% of the time? You have to be white 50% of the time…

  20. one opening that I've been mastering is the kings fianchetto (hope its correct) and I've been winning all my games, its super easy and super flexible

  21. Tried the Dutch for the very first time. Opponent resigned after being suffocated.

  22. You know your cool when you play the: Hyper Accelerated Sicilian Dragon Defence

  23. Is the "Fools Opening" good for beginners? 🤔

  24. First chess opening i learned was scandavion defence from you because magnus played it 😄

  25. I love to destroy Caro-Kann players with the Tal variation (including the pawn sacrifice on e6), check it out, I have won much higher rated players than me with it (I'm 1400-ish).

  26. bro said beginners are like 1100 when my elo is 200 😭😭😭

  27. How does the London follow the basic principles when I thought the basic principles were always knights before bishops?

    I am desperate to learn more openings, and more chess in general but the more I learn the more I seem to be getting flustered and worried about doing the wrong thing 😫

  28. I showed one of these videos to a friend and now she thinks I only play chess because I fancy GothamChess 🤦‍♀️

    On the positive side tho I've now got her playing chess and every time I go to hers I take my board and chess set now 😁😁😁

  29. Is your name gotham chess because you look like a young penguin? Love the videos by the way… really helping

  30. problem is the opponent doesnt play the "best moves" and the whole plan falls apart quickly then what?

  31. You barely look 1000 days old and you've taught chess to a thousand people?

  32. Timestamps stolen from @firreflame and reformatted:

    (0:35) = Beginners (LIKE <1100) =

    – White: –
    [d4]
    (0:40) London System
    (1:53) Stonewall

    [e4]
    (2:37) Opening Principles / Fried Liver

    – Black: –
    [only against e4]
    (4:18) Kings-Indian Defense
    (5:32) Scandinavian Defense
    (6:34) Sicilian Dragon

    (17:16) = Intermediate (LIKE 1100+~) =

    – White: [play e4] –
    (7:23) Gambits
    (8:10) Vienna/Vienna Gambit
    (8:45) Closed Sicilian
    (10:08) Advanced Caro-Kann

    – Black: –
    (10:28) [against e4] Caro-Kann Defense
    (11:04) [d4/anything else] Dutch Defense
    (12:23) [e4, e5] Traxler / Sneaky Stuff
    (13:12) Stafford Gambit

    (13:29) = Advanced (1800+~) =

    – White: –
    (13:43) Try to stray away from/don't allow mainline theory, apply pressure
    (14:11) [d4] Trompowsky
    (14:59) [d4] Catalan
    (15:18) [c4] English Opening

    – Black: –
    (16:18) e4, e5 sidelines/g6 systems
    (17:10) Nimzowitsch/2 Knights Sicilian
    (18:02) The e6, b6 Setup

  33. I didn't know Daniel Radcliffe was good at chess

  34. Yo beginner here,in the fried liver attack,after you move the bishop and getting ready to move the knight to g5 and getting ready to fork the queen and the rook,WHAT IF THE QUEEN TAKES THE KNIGHT IN G5?(if she/he doesn't move the knight)

  35. I got scared all of a sudden when i saw the thumbnail…

  36. Londen doesnt work everybody knows how to counter it its to overplayed

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