Tap to unmute
17 Pawn Moves in a Row?! This Chess Genius Was Banned from Playing! The Immortal Pawn Game
Embed
- Published on Mar 10, 2026
- ♔ Play Chess for FREE: bit.ly/3KP29yz
Witness one of the most unpredictable and brilliant chess games ever played - featuring 78-year-old Emil Diemer, a man whose life was as wild as his opening moves. In this legendary 1984 game, Diemer launches a relentless pawn storm, sacrifices his queen, and creates a masterpiece filled with unexpected tactics, positional brilliance, and cinematic drama.
In this video, we break down every move, explaining how Diemer’s aggressive Blackmar-Diemer-inspired style overwhelmed his opponent Thomas Heiling. From unstoppable passed pawns to shocking sacrifices, this game is a must-watch for anyone who loves creative and fearless chess.
If you're into wild chess games, historical players, and insane tactics - hit that subscribe button and enjoy the ride!
➡️Enjoy my videos? Donate Here: bit.ly/4nOdSeW
Support me on Patreon: / brainychess
More Chess:
Magnus Carlsen vs "Cheater"? This Game BROKE the Champion! Blitz Chess
• Magnus Carlsen vs Hans...
The Most EPIC Time Trouble in Chess! Magnus Blunders His Queen & Hikaru Sacrifices for a Pawn
• The Most EPIC Time Tro...
Hikaru SACRIFICES Two Pieces by Move 4 - The Craziest Chess Gambit Ever
• Hikaru SACRIFICES Two ...
#chess #chessgame #chessmaster Contact: contact@brainycheck.com
![Carlsen's 10 Simple Rules to Win [Copy His Easy Strategy]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/T8GaQhVpbJg/mqdefault.jpg)
♔ Play Chess for FREE: bit.ly/3KP29y
Doesn't work your hyper link
0😊😊
8:23 why not knight to d4 by black here?
Is this some AI shit?
he would have promoted to a pawn if he could
Free palestine from nazi-zionists
Emil really said:
Ah yes, Qe8=e8=Q+
"So you wanna promote to a queen now I assume?"
"Nah, I'm good."
😂😂😂
Strategy: forget all your pieces, just move your pawns until your opponent gets crazy .
@corbeau-_-it relies on your opponent making certain moves. If someone bad at chess was playing against Emil this strategy wouldn’t work. They’d be too focused on capturing pieces.
😂
The one thing that completely drove me nuts as a kid was when my opponent unnecessarily runs down the clock early on in the game, i.e. we've each moved a piece and they want to take 5 minutes to think about each move that follows 😂, it works, I can't play while I'm actively trying not to tear my hair out 😂
@303Thatoneguyyour wrong watch the whole video it's not just pawns
simplicity is the fools game
You're playing chess while Emil is apparently playing Checkers...
Touché.
Immensely underrated comment
And he's winning
😂😂
no he's playing chess the other guy is just watching him play
A drama in three parts:
Part 1: Bullying
Part 2: Incredible Chess
Part 3: Bullying
🤣
A good example of how to win by constantly making your opponent make difficult choices.
Ive tried playing like this before, reasonable stratagy i do say
This is Dynamic play, potentially dangerous in many diferent ways
This guy, queen side pawn to d4 + asks them what they want for lunch. 😆 Alternate move. This guy, surrounds a player with ninjas because he is secretly Raz Algool from Batman. 😆
@AndersonAlves-xf3hpSpeaking of dynamic play. One day I need to learn how to play with the most interesting opener on white which is h pawn moved first.
@lanceknightmareAlphazero is a old engine but Very strong (3500+ elo) and learned chess with a diferent way Just by self playing. I a Lot of games he launches h4 or h5 trying to break enemy kingside, but This generaly happens in the midlegame. Another amazing thing is some games vs stockfish (old version more weak 3400+) Alphazero centralized his king in middle game trowing ALL the principles to a window... but wining the games playing creatively, in the same way the Grandmasters play chess.
“In chess, the pawns move first. And second, and third , and fourth, and fifth….” -Emil Diemer, probably
Lol 😂
After watching, I tried this immediately, and my opponent abandoned the game 😂
He can't abandoned ,cause you can only abandoned after 1 move and clearly you made more moves than 1
@Tanmayt-07 You can't abort the game after 1 move from each side, you can abandon the game at any point
@Tanmayt-07 abandoning is just like auto-resigning
@Tanmayt-07that's called aborting, not abandoning.
Oh ya bro my bad
The opponent who is about to lose his sanity:
PLEASE LET ME JUST DEVELOP ONE PIECE
Emil Diemer: NEIN!
_Moves a pawn by a single square_
"FÜHLE JETZT, WAS ICH GEFÜHLT HABE!"
.... *_ONE PIECE IS REAL!!_*
....HEHEHEHEHEHE
Dude joined the guys who tried to save europe from exactly what is now happening in the europe. What a chad.
@NotEvenDeathCanSaveU he was against jews, not islamic colonialists 🥀💔 study history bro.. this dude (mustache guy) even paised islam
@NotEvenDeathCanSaveU Even with the false dichotomy of A: Nazism or B: Modern Europe B is still the preferred option.
I like how you say "he often played the Blackmar-Diemer gambit" as if it wasn't named after him!
Lol.
Same as Lou Gehrig.
It's a chatbot created script narrated by a chatbot voice generation... there is no "you"
@MachPotato Ugh yeah listening back it's really obvious now. Makes me miss the text-to-speech reddit readers, at least they were honest in their laziness!
@SpaceRaccoon22I believe you but how can you tell so I can tell? The script is believe, but I can't tell the reader
Imagine being banned from chess because your opponent can't cope with pawns
The title of the video is very misleading, it was a clickbait (although the game itself is indeed phenomenal). He was banned from chess because of mental instability, not because of this pawn tactics.
Those F-ing germans
@potterman28wxcvMental instability ban? Hmm...
He got banned because he remained being a nazi as a press chairman of a regional chess association and he personally and openly attacked several members of the former german chess association.
@potterman28wxcv he was banned to dull his mind 🫠 if only there was a game that rewards pattern recognition, would be a shame if multiple world class players would be labeled conspiracy theorists and/or mentally ill.
78 years old, what a legend.
I wonder i magnus will still be playing at 78? Either way this was a legendary match
Just a kid.
Dude! He was a nazi!!! Wtf are you talking about???
Just a nazi
little bit of a nazi, but who's counting?
The only rule in war is deny your opponent nice things.
I think no chess player since then break his record by playing 17 moves of pawn in a row and wins.
ain't that hard I could do 20 on a low level player.
@alanfitz9547 Modesty obviously ain't your strongpoint.
i mean low elo chess does this just cause
Gentelmans he obviously spoke about serious games, low elo can produce literally anything
I mean, chess has evolved tonconsider this strategy disadvantageous. Probably developing pieces and castling, while not shoving forward the castle pawns is a better strategy. And we're not likely to see AlphaZero or Stockfish, nor any of their peers, doing this
He was 100% playing chess in his mind during the ban. It's what kept him alive and sane.
Why can't "crazy" ppl play chess? Seems like discrimination to my outsider perspective.
@ຈິຕຕະຈິຕຕັງHe's not saying you have to be sane to play chess, he's saying playing chess kept Emil sane. Given his unstable mental state even before institutionalization, I can believe chess kept him from going completely looney
@CaptainShenanigans42 He was referring to how he was banned from playing chess.
@ຈິຕຕະຈິຕຕັງ Oh here comes gen z 🤣🤣
Nazis are far from sane.
chess players when someone doesn't play the 16th century king athlestan's coca cola gambit opening sequence : 😲😲😲😲
Alt title: senior chess master pulls a successful Leroy Jenkins
"Knight on b8 is a miserable creature" 😭😭 bro
It's a chatbot
@MachPotato still a great roast
He masterfully demonstrated the value of position over material. Games like this blow my mind, but I am odd. Thanks so VERY much for this.
Why is it that all of the greatest chess players in history ended up going insane?
There’s a fine line between genius and insanity
My grandfather is a brilliant Chess player, refuses to play online because “they” may listen to him and steal his thoughts. He has a bright mind, now slowly deteriorating due to age (82 years old now). He’s always been able to calculate long sums in his head faster than most can write them down, remembers small details from decades-old conversations, and can tell you the exact day of the week for any date you give him, whether it’s from the 1800s or in the year 2030, in a matter of seconds. His mind has been drifting into madness gradually since adulthood. I am playing less Chess with him since the last two years because his conversations sometimes gives me chills. He was a club player with an estimated rating of 2300 (Nothing too high), but he has only ever played over the board.
We have no clue why his mind drifted so far from reality, but he did spend a lot of time alone in his house after grandmother died and gradually became more irritated and angry. I too have been amused by this since bobby Fischer also drifted into madness. Like the other person commented to you, there is a fine line between genius and madness.
@jagi7976a fine, dangerous line
Nothing about genius and insanity. It's war, just war.
Fischer was a winning device for Cold War
This guy joined the Nazi party and was obsessed with Nostradamus
Bobby Fischer was near insane.
I tried this. My opponent googled my name
I'm 60 and just returning to chess after 40 years. This gives me hope.
buy a dedicated chess machine, either a super constellation or an mephisto europa. You'll be amazed.
We can play together if you want
Look for the fun in chess, not for higher ranking, and you'll get higher ranking faster.
And yet you joined the Clippy movement!
move your pawns gramps
Gotta love the vivid descriptions.
"The knight on B8 is a miserable creature"
lol
Emil Diemer was a legendary pawnstar 🗿
😂😂😂
RIP The Old Man
I'm amazed that 17 straight pawn moves didn't slow him down in the end game absolutely amazing I've never seen a chess game like that I've never seen a strategy like that
Black played the position horrible. Even on move 17 , instead of taking he could have pushed the pawn. And checked White with his bishop. Leading to a attack that favors black
I did an analysis and Black would be -1 and have all their peices developed, plus able to castle
Pawn-mower-man
Hobo with a pawn
A gem of a match
that's awesome
kind of
@Kip_Drordy
HAHA!!! It's better than a shotgun.
I worked with a guy from soviet days who was just under grand Master level. He taught me to control the center and play pawns as much as possible like Emile,
I’ve been playing chess for 3 years and this is far by the most outstanding game I’ve seen. Completely ignoring opening tradition and coming out on top. I think it was Bobby Fischer that promoted this type of play style. That’s why he created Fischer Random.
As someone who has used pawns repeatedly to harass knights, I love this.
I’m gonna study this and use it! Looks really powerful
Legend has it he once promoted a pawn to a pawn
would benive to have a PGN
@Victoria-moon lol. I bet there are 10 chess puzzles with that as part of their solution.
That's was a hell of a strategy
Never knew Master Roshi was a Chess genius 😂
Meister Reichi.
I love playing chess when you stop looking at the pieces as pieces, and think of them like an army, the pawns your infantry and the others being the support. It leads to fun tactics like "I'm going to start this game with nothing but pawns" and the beauty of chess is that an unorthodox approach like that can be just as effective as the tried and true.
you're most likely gonna lose
@rupertedtell that to Emil Diemer and Bobby Fisher.
@THEMEEKARELOVED2who are barely even grandmaster level today
@HelloHello-r7l they will destroy the GM of today!!!!
@THEMEEKARELOVED2no, they are statistically rated much much lower then the GMs of today. In fact, I bet Magnus could beat both of them at the same time. Blindfolded
11:18 King to last officers: 'Guys.. pls'🙄
I have tried to do that too as a kid, but i didn't know how to counter attack
This is what insane chess looks like breaking all conventional rules he had to literally become one to reach this level. I love it!
3:18 just nailed that coffin closed hahahah
Wow... I'm shocked that I watched all that. But it was fascinating!
Dude looked absolutely sick af
“Positional initiative can become everything.”
Also the knoght "sacrifice" on b5 was gangsta 😮😮
This was the most fun I've had watching a chess game 🎉
Crazy that this move is working perfectly
Thank you for the video, it helped me to understand the game better!
Dangerous move pushing pawns like that this guy is crazy nice
This game is at least 30 years ahead of its time! Every white pawn move has a purpose breaking all the common opening rules. a4! was insanely powerful ( note that, if black takes Nxa4 white plays c4!) giving a pawn for initiative. The rest of the game is a demonstration for sacrificing material to get the initiative. Nb5! was very nice, too! White played precise till the end finishing a masterfully played game.
It wasn't a masterfully played game: white had "overreached" and was *completely lost* at one point. The commentator kind of brushes this under the carpet by saying something like "if black would have castled now, they would have been better", but the truth is: after castling on move 17 (instead of allowing the white queen to check on h5), black would have had a totally winning position. White hasn't developed anything yet and the white king is vulnerable in the wide open center. Black would already have had a strong rook on f8 aiming at the white king, the knight would jump to the strong outpost on e5 and then the bishop c8 can develop to g4 with tempo. Then only the knight on b8 needs to be developed to d7 and black is completely mobilized and will sooner or later hunt down white's unprotected king along the open e- and f-files.
So to make a long story short: Diemer won this game only because his opponent made some bad moves in a winning position...
If you want to become better at chess, don't look at mediocre and obscure games like these, look at the games of real masters. (Neither Diemer nor Heiling was playing master level chess in this game...) E.g. if you like brilliant attacks and sacrifices, look at Aljechin, Tal and Kasparov. They played brilliant attacks based on sound strategy. Diemer's strategy here was unsound and succeeded only because his opponent blundered.
@ulrichschmidt5559 Thx for the detailed reply, but I can`t agree fully. Yes, it wasn`t a perfect game, far from that. With "Masterfully" I meant more of the concept, but you have to agree there were some nice moves in this game, too. Now back to the concept, I think the art of overreaching is to stop right before it gets bad, so in this game the turning point was already move 16. If w had played 16.Nf3 he would get a good position even for modern standards. We can argue forever if this is really master level and what was the exact definition of masterlevel at this time period. I think for me it was a very instructive game about whats possible and whats not, plus some nice tactics throughout the game. For myself, I studied all players you mentioned, but they were all world champions and no! even those players didnt play perfect chess. So, my point is, b made some mistakes (yes, not to castle was the biggest), but he played overall decent moves with some sort of plan. Looking at mediocre and even obscure games can reveal a lot about chess, but perhaps its unwise to look at this game as a beginner. For me personally, its still an instructive and well played game especially after b played 17...gxf5.
What a game, insane.
I just seen this after playing a match where we went through the first 10 moves before either of us moved a real piece. I was gonna keep going pawn only, I thought we were gonna have a ranked game with no pawns but the enemy pulled out the knight after we got 4 of eachothers pawns
I wish I could analyze and annotate a game like this. Remarkable skill.
This was awesome! I can't believe someone did that with pawns
Incredible use of pawns
This opening feels like it should be called pawnmageddon.
I call it "the swarm"
Wow! My biggest jump in understanding the highest thought processes in chess.
I’ve been doing this for years, never knew it was a thing
great breakdown, what a game
This guy was crazy
A Chess Masterpiece...
👍👍👍
Unbelievably brilliant. It's like he redefined Chess principles.
After the game, Emil went on to start an evil scheme against 007! LOL
That's crazyily insane 😅😅😅 he already put the nail in the coffin the moment he sacrificed his Queen
I recently did this in a game, I only moved pawns and soon had half the board under control, then trapped the queen and my opponent quit before I had even moved a single piece
Post the moves (if you can remember them), would be interesting.
@rgnotdeadit was but sadly it was just a casual otb game, I can't remember move sequences that well
@franzpattison pity
@franzpattison pity, would have made a nice study.
@rgnotdeadI often wish I wrote down the notation for my games and I usually regret it partway through the game when it's a really interesting position I wish i could analyze 😅
Diemer was a crazy man
This is just the chess equivalent of trolling. There are so many other moves they both could've made that would've worked better.
plus he was a nazi. f nazis.
Some matches are so incredible, not because of their high precision, but because of the unique and beautiful situations that are created on them.
"Yeah, yeah. Well, uh, you know it's, uh, it's kind of easy to win when you, um...NEVER MOVE YOUR BACK ROW!" - Chris Farley in Black Sheep
this is magical strategy really ,taking the game along unknown lines .
Closest I'll ever see to a jail break in Chess.
never thought i'd ever see a crossover of capture the flag and chess!
My Dad literally did this to me whenni was a kid😂😂😂😂😂i was devastated
9:38 THE ROOOOOOOOK!!!!
Exactly what i thought
Man was so op at the time the way to stop him was a mental.Yet that didn’t stop him.
00:15 funny how that was glossed over like he went to work for the Post Office or something😆
ah that nutty professor!
yeah...
0:34 That sentence also ended differently than I expected.
So did millions of others in Germany in between the wars - it was not something that only fringe extremists did, it was a major political party. It's not like he was personally responsible for the events that unfolded later in any way. What's your point?
@RandomButBeautiful Sounds to me like someone bought in to the Myth of the Innocent Wehrmacht.
That's borderline between genius and madman, I guess it fits his character perfectly!
So many sacrifices yet brilliantly strategic - never even thought of
Such a game - nice - that was a lot of fun
Pawn on D5 was the beginning of the End , WOW
Superb game😮😮😮😊😊😊😊❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Just incredible pawn strategy
It's blitzkrieg
I also moved my pawns 20 times before moving the King. But it was checkers.
Super nostalgic game, saw this 15-20 years ago too. Seriously, pawn spacial advantage cannot be underestimated. When your pieces have less squares than your opponents you feel cramped and have less options too. This game is a masterclass in spatial advantages
crazy that the agadmator video has gotten so old people are having to do it again for the new audience
4:03 The ai script writer and narrator is a savage
Another edgy booyyyy
@Lawos1 guess bros favorite word
opponent did put up a fight tho
0:13 Time traveling Twitter user discovered.
didnt know chess is this intense
at 3:41 why not take the pawn at A4? That looks like a better move than what he did.
Yeah that was a head scratcher...
@Krk-the-Bird
Maybe there was a trap in there that I don't see. I admit, I'm not a good chess player. I make dumb moves all the time.
Still, I'm curious if there's a reason why that wasn't the move.
I am not an expert to analyse this position…My view is that if pawn captures a4… square to c4 is not supported any more and a potential knight move there is no more a case. A white c4 may would follow that strengthens d5 and whites centre position. Moreover opens room to c3 for white’s knight. Blacks pawn at a4 is supported only by knight at b6 and i think that would be a matter of time to fall since no other pawn supports it.
Well, one one hand, trading the opponents center pawn for your off-center one is generally a good trade to maintain control, but by not taking a4 he is keeping the rook off the playing field, which White might otherwise be able to develope early.
By my reckoning, opening up the center was more important at the moment, since Black was severely underdeveloped, while also giving the possibility of a counterattack with the queen, had white simply recaptured the pawn.
Brutal game. Black defended surprisingly well actually. Diemer offensive plays are astonishing.
Can't believe I subbed for this AI slop
What??? It's AI?, damnnn...
Wow! It is wild! Thanks for that.
Ive seen this game so many times before, makes me wonder, if theres any 20 pawn moves in a row games?
On Wednesday when I go visit my friends at my local chess club, I'm gonna try to play 20 pawn moves against our strongest player. I don't think it's possible to play that many but I'll try. And then I'll try to remember to find this video and let you know what happens. But I really don't expect 20 safe pawn moves. That's really asking a lot. 😂
@since1876good idea! Ill try to do it as well, my personal record is 14 pawn moves and i did it with a simular opening to this guy
@since1876how’d it go
@since1876 legend has it he never won a game
@griffinbastion I forgot to come back. Thanks for the reply. 😂 I managed to do 13 and then lost hard. But it was fun.
I was just thinking if this was a legitimate strategy
At 12:25, black could have moved rook to h2 to attack the promotion pawn?
How does the rook go to h2?
H1*
From what i calculated. After Rh1 black has to give up a rook for a pawn so white doesnt queen.
from what I can see, white can respond with rook to g7 with g8 check next turn.
Also Be5, to protect the promotion, if take white has a bishop in the endgame
I wonder if any GM has used that stragedy since then.
The mind numbing ai commentary on this video isn't even accurate
Yeah. Sad that this vid is getting so much positive attention.
I've been watching a lot of games as of late, and this was by far the most entertaining one yet.
He finally got tired of watching pawns being sacrificed so he protected them and sacrificed the elites
as it should be
That's the easiest way protect the pawns the Elites you trade😂 you will destroy your opponents, by the time they realised they won't recover,pawns are a guarantee that the opponent doesn't play what they want
Respect++
He is an actual pawn addict and master baiter
Couldnt the rook take the knight and end the attack at the 10:00 mark?
That's exactly what I thought. After the black rook takes, the dark-squared white bishop would take back,and it'd be a rook knight endgame for black vs. 2 bishops for white. With black admittedly down a pawn, but appears to be a more tenable scenario vs. the one he chose.
I'm pretty sure that would be much worse. After dark-squared white bishop takes rook, knight and other rook still are frozen. So maybe one of the pawns will be developed or smt, then next turn dark-squared bishop takes C5 black pawn. Knight rook still frozen, so opponent does whatever, then B6 White Pawn moves forward, rook has to move meaning its taken by bishop.
So its then a knight vs two bishop endgame, and if knight moves then pawn can promote
i mean there a bishop that takes up that square
@naan1166 No, incorrect. Knight and the other rook are not frozen. Knight to D7, bishop takes knight, king takes bishop, then it's black rook vs white bishop in the end game. How is that a bad position?
8:24 black missed the fork with the knight, check and attacking the rook.
The black pieces made a mistake in the second move. After the first move d4, f6, when the second move by the white side is f3, the black side should have played d5 or f5. However, in the actual game, the black side instead played d6, giving the white side the opportunity to play e4 safely in the third move. The blunder of the black pieces began right here
Just subscribed!!Great Breakdown!!!