Guessing My Opponent’s Rating in Classical Chess (Zen Mode)

In this video, I play a game in lichess.org’s Weekly Classical Arena. I played the game while in “Zen Mode” which is a feature on lichess that hides the opponent’s username and rating. The game featured the unusual 1.d3!? and then transposed into a Closed Sicilian. I intended to play the whole tournament, but as you’ll see in this video, it wasn’t meant to be.

Analyze the game here:

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56 Comments

  1. I said this on your stream, but I'm not sure you saw it. Similar to this, viewers could send in their games and you could analyse them and at he end you guess their rank. Using a poll the twitch chat could be your opponents voting for 0-1000, 1001-1500 etc. Either you or chat could get a point for whoever said closest. You could call it "Guess my rank".

  2. I'm watching while getting paid by my work to stay home

  3. 13:27

    Eric: This move is also crossing my mind…
    Me: and what if Knight takes?
    Eric: the thing is if I take there's…idea of…
    Me: and what if Knight takes?!
    Eric: the more I look at this move the more I like it…
    Me: and what if Knight takes??!!
    Eric: it looks so unusual, I allow white to strengthen the center…
    Me: asndd whta if knight trakess????!!!!!!!!
    Eric: Knight takes….knight takes is also a move… … ….actually knight takes could be a bigger problem.
    Me: Finally^^

  4. I watched this whole stream and now the video…

  5. Chess and commentary by Eric Rosen ft. Lil Fridge Noise™

  6. Your content helps me fight my depression. Thank you

  7. I donated $10 to Lichess, let's hope more people do so, so we can enjoy our tournaments again!

  8. 80K players? about the same as the largest minecraft server at the moment

  9. This game should have white winning once Rf4. You were fortunate to win this.

    I will say it again and again…you play way too much speed chess. Your regular play suffers because of it.

    Your choice…

  10. If I ever watch you play in person, I’m gonna yell “Leets goo” exactly how Alexa always says in your videos

  11. Would love to see some more classical chess

  12. Getting to watch a new video of yours always makes my morning better, thanks Eric!

  13. Hi Eric, what font are you using for thumbnails? Thanks

  14. nice video. your channel has been really helpful which has help me improve my own chess and even inspired me to make a channel of my own .

  15. You know this is a really cool idea. If you're interested in using this idea as well as keeping teaching scalable then you could review games of subscribers and try and guess the ratings of the players involved; then you could explain what the giveaways were and cause people to consider their weaknesses. Some may be obvious like calculation depth and speed but it's a fun way for students to get their games analysed. Plus if you use lichess games then everyone should know that we use open source platforms and in doing so we contribute to the public domain. If someone came up with a browser extension to link lichess with twitch for challenges, someone could do this.

  16. How can you get a provisional eating that high ??

  17. I’ve played with the board flipped before. It helps me understand better what my opponent’s trying to do but, idk it’s weird how chess works: in your perspective the opponent’s moving down the board but in his eye he’s actually moving upwards, like heightening, towards you it’s weird eek. The highest point is just the center. It’s like gravity just flips itself and you lose total concentration but yeah i mean shit. Think about ur chess games that way i dare u. And plus. Idk.

  18. Finally a long YT upload for YT ppl. Thanks +Eric Rosen

  19. I've been watching your videos a lot lately! Excellent content!

  20. This guy lost a winning game… Would love to see the mistake reel

  21. I really think this guy was stream sniping. He made the moves Eric said was best for him. Then Eric stopped saying the best moves for white for a while and the moves were a lot more straight forward. Then at the end White was low on time and moved the bishop quickly to the spot that Eric pointed out saved the bishop and pawn. But it didn’t actually save the bishop because Eric put white in check. It’s like white made the move Eric said was best but didn’t see the obvious threat. Idk maybe I’m wrong tho

  22. Eric Rosen!! THE GREAT MANNN!!
    You have been a great motivation to many people and to me (a 16 year old boy) by promoting chess. You have been my role model and you have inspired me to get off my comfort zone and to start popularizing chess. In order to do so, I have opened a youtube channel and put some chess videos and this 16 year old boy would love if you and your audience subscribe to my channel so that I can promote chess and happiness. Thank you for being my role model and a popular hero amongst all chess fans
    -By yours true 16 year old fan
    from Nepal

  23. Why "guess" the rating when he knows it before the game?

  24. Listening to your calm voice always puts me into Zen mode… Keep up the good work. We all need some peace of mind these days!

  25. Zen mode really suits you. You're very calm focused and always seem very grounded. Perfect to watch!

  26. I don't know if I just haven't seen enough master games, but this was one of the most intresting games I've seen

  27. JFK was only know as JK before the assassination, they added the F for respect

  28. The zen mode with large board layout looks really good on YT! I understand you won't use it on twitch, but for YT videos it's really perfec

  29. You are the worst chess player I've ever seen you are just a bastard

  30. I’m so lucky I get 3 ads a video 😂

  31. I would like to be as much calm as you.

  32. Nice and relaxing to watch in these days of lockdown 👍🏻🙂🇬🇧

  33. 25:32 And I really thought the idea of c4 was nxc2 qxc2 cxd3… would this have worked?

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