Meet The Reason People Keep Beating You With The London System

Mick

May 15, 2024, 7:00 AM | 29 | Other

Has someone ever crushed you with the Jobava London? Thwarted your plans using the Caro-Kann defense? There's a chance that this is the man responsible for teaching them.

IM Alex Banzea has many accolades: Romanian U-18 champion, recipient of the 2023 Chessable Author of the Year and Best Presenter awards, and instructor to an audience of 88,000 loyal YouTube followers. Perhaps the most important distinction of all, a random person on Reddit recently said: 'Alex Banzea is the goat of instructive videos.'

Alex took some time out from educating thousands of people and talked to us about how he got started on YouTube, why the London System (objectively the best opening) gets so much hate, and the joys of watching historic over-the-board games.

What made you decide to start creating chess content?

It's pretty easy: because I wasn't good enough to make a living with chess! I had to switch to something else. My parents tried to push me into other things, but having spent so much time on being a professional player for almost 10 years, it felt like a bit of a waste to start anything else from scratch.

I saw many people were doing this chess thing online maybe four or five years ago when I started, and I wanted to give it a try. At first, I wasn't sure if it was gonna work out or anything, but from that point on it took most of my time.

I mostly make videos, and also write courses in the background, but it’s all chess-related. So yeah, I'm happy and grateful for that. What can I say? It's been a really long journey, and hopefully it’ll continue!

How did you start out?

At first, I tried to do some YouTube videos; the first month or so was learning how to do a window capture in OBS, that kind of thing. I didn't know how to do that properly for the first months and then I tried making a few videos. I got no views, like most creators, then I switched to streaming a little bit on Twitch.

... I tried making a few videos. I got no views, like most creators, then I switched to streaming a little bit on Twitch.
— IM Alex Banzea

In the beginning, I was mainly streaming for fun, just trying to see what it’s like to be on camera, and what it’s like to speak English. That was also not the easiest thing to do for somebody like me who’s been living in Romania my whole life!

It was a mix between Twitch and YouTube, but I slowly transitioned into YouTube since I saw much more potential in making something that could get traffic even years afterward. In a stream, you’re there in the moment and then it kind of just disappears.

What have been some of your proudest or happiest moments along the way?

I would say the biggest moment was when I first won Chessable’s ‘Course of the Year’ with the London System course [in 2022], because I spent a lot of time and effort on it and that was kind of the goal. When I started making courses, it was like a dream to have a course of the year one day.

It didn't happen overnight, I was making courses for maybe two years at first before I started getting a bit more used to it and tried to understand what I was doing better, and really putting myself in the shoes of students.

A big part of the course was based on feedback that I gathered across YouTube and across the online lessons that I did with people around 1000 to 1500 Elo. At first, I was just focused on all these engine lines, trying to find the best move and get an advantage. Then it switched more towards this approach of helping newer players and making it easier for them while also keeping the theoretical part at a high level.

I try to use GM Magnus Carlsen's main life concept to never play for cheap tricks. In general, that's advisable, though sometimes I’ve been including some cheap tricks as well! But yeah, I've been really focusing on making it easier for people to understand and improve at chess.

It's an ongoing process for me still; I don't feel like I'm in a position where I’ve found this thing that's working and I just need to keep doing the same thing over and over again. It's still a learning process, always!

Are there any content creators who inspire you?

I watch a lot of content creators from different niches in chess. Of course, the big names like GM Daniel Naroditsky, IM Eric Rosen, WFM Anna Cramling, the C-Squared Podcast… Also, it’s not really a content creator, but I love to watch old over-the-board matches—that’s one of my favorite activities to relax. I just put on some old game between GM Hikaru Nakamura and GM Vladimir Kramnik that was happening 10 years ago or something. I watch a lot of that!

That used to be one of my favorite things when I was a kid. I remember when going to bed, I would watch a video and try to guess the moves of the players. Sometimes I was guessing it right because I was already close to FIDE master at 14 or 15, but I didn't really understand much. I was just trying to look for active continuations and all that. But now if I watch it with today's experience, it's a completely different overview and I can see more details.

For example, back in the day, I would appreciate some nice tactic or a beautiful combination. But now I appreciate more; for instance, I was recently watching a player who instantly played a waiting move. He instantly realized that there was nothing he could do to improve the position, and he didn't have to overthink. His opponent then did something kind of random on the attack and got immediately refuted; so just this fact of winning the game by playing a waiting move is something that would have gone unnoticed by my younger version.

I also try to watch some videos to learn and be a better content creator as well, because you still have to improve at that. It's never just the chess itself!

You also recently did commentary on the BotezLive channel. How was that experience?

It was interesting. I did it alone a few times, and also as a team with WGM Dina Belenkaya. I've been coaching Andrea Botez, and I try to help them as much as I can because I think channels like BotezLive just have a huge impact on growing the game of chess—so if I can give a hand, I'm more than happy to support that! I think it just helps the whole ecosystem in the long run.

About my commentary, it's nothing serious. I just try to give my sense of the position and some feelings about preparation. But yeah, I like to watch chess, and commentary used to be one of my main recreational activities as a kid, especially when I was 15 and was just getting started. I used to watch the Sinquefield Cup and stuff like that, big events with commentary. So it's interesting to do commentary from time to time, but I definitely don't have a lot of experience at all.

The London System gets a lot of hate in the online chess world. It also gets a lot of results. Why do people hate on it so much?

It's a bit of a controversial topic! I think it goes back to the mentality of old coaches, because I noticed it when I was growing up. There was a discussion amongst my coaches at the chess club because some coaches have this opinion that as a kid it's optimal to play openings that lead to open games, so you develop a sense of danger, let’s say, and get used to playing a lot of structures and get more experience.

Many coaches have their own overview about how they want to work with a student in the long term. If, for instance, you're working with a talented kid who's starting just at the age of five or six? It’s probably gonna be a better approach to teach them 1.e4 instead of the London System; but I think realistically for people who have a limited amount of time and whose goal is not to become world champion, but more to get a reasonable opening without studying that much, the London System fits much better.

For people who have a limited amount of time and whose goal is not to become world champion, but more to get a reasonable opening without studying that much, the London System fits much better.
— IM Alex Banzea

The nice thing about it is that even if you prepare a lot as Black—and this is something I actually try to do in preparation against the London—there are just so many annoying ideas that don't let you kill the game, basically. If you play 1.e4 as White, Black has all kinds of annoying things like the Petrov or Berlin Endgame, or other things. In the London, even if you’re prepared against it, you’ll still keep a pretty complex position on the board where you can try to outplay your opponent, which is why Magnus Carlsen was so successful with it.

At the top level, you cannot get away with playing only one opening. However, if you’re a beginner, you should play only one opening to maximize your results because not many people will prepare online! If you learn a few variations in the Caro-Kann and London, that’s all you need to start gaining rating. It doesn’t matter that you don’t understand the Queen’s Gambit if you don’t play the Queen’s Gambit!

You recently came back to competitive over-the-board chess. Your comeback event was the strongest tournament ever held in Romania?

So I played the recent rapid tournament in Romania, which was I believe the strongest so far—it had a lot of strong players, like GMs Ruslan Ponomariov and Bogdan-Daniel Deac, I can’t recall so many names right now, but players from all over the world. I played because it was super convenient since it was in my home city!

I just wanted to play a bit of rapid chess and show up at the playing hall and show people that I’m still alive, and not just an online ghost. I tried the Jobava London, and unfortunately lost one game in the Grunfeld because I played a new line, which I’m still mad about.

I just wanted to play a bit of rapid chess and show up at the playing hall and show people that I’m still alive, and not just an online ghost.
— IM Alex Banzea

I’m ready for the next tournament if it happens here, but apart from that I’m not focusing on over-the-board chess right now, mostly on the YouTube and content side! Maybe in the future if people would really like to see it.

One of the big problems of over-the-board chess, if you play classical time controls, is that you often need to travel somewhere, and it takes two weeks, and every game lasts on average for five hours daily—and then you still need hours to prepare for the game. This is why I think speed chess can be a very convenient alternative, just combining the best of both worlds.

Imagine you can make a YouTube video collaborating with anyone in the world. Who would it be and why?

Probably Joe Rogan! Or Lex Fridman, if he comes back from the jungle. I know Lex Fridman is into chess. Joe Rogan not so much… I know he has a story one time how he got beat at chess by one of his girlfriends and he felt humiliated so he didn't play again. He’s probably just too busy playing pool all day.

I like pool as well. It's just that I am very good online, but I cannot play in real life! I'm more decent at ping pong, which is apparently a common thing for chess players. Whenever they play tournaments and there’s time to hang out, there are usually some people playing ping pong. Something that you can play while drinking is ideal.

Your most recent Chessable course was on IM Jeremy Silman’s Endgame Course. That seems like a pretty massive undertaking.

It was a big project because I don't study theoretical endgames much in general! Of course, I studied a little bit when I was an aspiring chess player, but I generally focused more on, let’s say, practical endgames with a lot of pieces on the board, and not theoretical positions. It was definitely challenging and a bit of a learning experience for me as well, and I had to spend extra time double-checking my own knowledge.

I definitely felt some pressure as the book has a very good reputation.
— IM Alex Banzea

What made it easier was that the explanations in the book were pretty intuitive and had many analogies and jokes, which made it easier. In general, I would say I was relatively comfortable with 70% of the book, but when it gets to more complicated examples, like un-intuitive triangulation where you have to ‘lose a move’ and then put the opponent in zugzwang five times… that wasn’t very natural for me!

I definitely felt some pressure as the book has a very good reputation, and it’s expected that I do it justice. So far it has turned out fine, even though some reviews that I read said that you don’t need to buy the course with the videos, it’s okay just to get it with IM Silman’s comments—but I still check daily to see if anybody has said anything about my commentary!

You'll find IM Alex Banzea sharing his chess knowledge on YouTube, Instagram, and Chessable.

Previous Streamer/Creator of the Month articles:

Meet The Reason People Keep Beating You With The London System

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