Fearless Chess

In my previous blog entry, I gave a game illustrating the virtues of the Exchange Variation of the Caro-Kann and reasons that I play a line that has a reputation of being harmless. In this game, my opponent gives me an easier time of it playing a different line than the first game, but having no better luck preventing mate. Notice if you will how White is able to transfer pieces to the kingside once the key defensive knight is driven away after 13. dxe5. This is a tactic well worth remembering, as it occurs in many openings. That knight of f6 prevents Qh5 and guards h7, both very important jobs if Black is castled on the kingside.

What exactly did Black do wrong? Here’s a list:
1) He allowed his queen bishop to get trapped on d7, when it should have been making the moves Bg4-Bh5-Bg6 to neutralize White’s bishop on d3.
2) He exchanged knights on e5, allowing his other knight to be driven away from the defense of his kingside by dxe5.
3) He simply allowed White to win the pawn on h6, opening the h-file with devastating effect. However bad you think a move might be (like Kh8), you can’t allow another move which is obviously crushing (Qxh6).
4) He activated White’s dormant rook on a1 (which ended up supporting the queen and mating Black) just to grab a few meaningless pawns. You always need to consider if taking a pawn is worth opening a line for your opponent.
5) He basically gave up when he played 23….Bb5, leaving his e-pawn hanging with check. Although, as the old saying goes, “If he had played differently, he would have lost differently”, so by that point, it didn’t matter too much what he played. Still, you should try to put up the toughest resistance that you can, since your opponent may not see the alternate winning line and let you back in the game, which can be depressing and lead to subsequent inaccurate or desperate moves. In tennis, they say the good players always “make you hit one more ball” even when you are in a dominating position at the net. Despite the extra ball being easy to put away, it provides one more opportunity for the opponent to make a mistake (hit long, wide, or into the net) if he gets too cute or lazy with it. The same applies to chess. Make him make one more move or play one more tactic. He might not see it.

All of these mistakes by Black could come under the heading of “Lack of Precision”. He probably gets away with it against players around his rating, but against a stronger player, you have to find another gear and squeeze the maximum out of each move, because that is exactly what he is doing to you!

Look in any chess opening book about the Caro-Kann Defense and you will find a very small percentage of the book devoted to the Exchange Variation. Usually only a page or two, the book will site a few lines as giving Black easy equality and dismiss the whole variation as completely harmless. Then why do I have a huge plus score using this seemingly innocuous opening? First, since the variation begins on move 3, I get to play it every time my opponent plays the Caro-Kann. He has to be ready for the whole book, but I only have to know this line. Second, I get a lot of practice with this line, since the Caro-Kann is relatively popular among amateur players, having a reputation as a “safe” opening. Third, having gotten all of this practice and having read every book dealing with this line ( I even have a rare Italian book about this line only!), I am fully aware of what I am trying to do, how to do it, what Black might try and how to prevent it, and what Black should be doing and what to do if he fails to do it. Fourth, all of the preceding gives me absolute confidence that I will be calling the shots and Black will be groveling for a draw in an opening he was told was “harmless”.

The lesson here is that you can defeat even strong players with a pet line in which you are well-versed in all of it’s intricacies. All you need in addition to that is a pinch of patience, a taste for tactics, and a dash of imagination. Then you’ll have a recipe for success!

James West is a Life Master from New Jersey (where I used to live also). Although he has for most of his carrer played the Sicilian Defense as black in response to 1. e4, he later switched to the Philidor Counter Gambit (PCG) (1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 f5). Mr. West became so enamored with this opening, that he wrote 2 (!) books on it. He also has a blog at http://jimwestonchess.blogspot.com/.
So when I was scheduled to play White against him in the 1996 NJ Open, I knew the PCG was a definite possibility. So what do you do? Do you play some opening that you don’t know just to avoid the PCG, or do you try to study up on it, against the guy who literally “wrote the book on it”? I looked in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO) vol. C (1.e4 e5 openings) at the book store set up at the tournament. The main line was given up to move 14 and evaluated by famous GM Paul Keres as “slightly better for White”. Unfortunately, the book store did not have West’s book on hand, so I had only ECO to go on. I liked White’s position. It seemed like “my type” of position, so, as crazy as it sounds, I decided to plunge into the main line of an opening that my opponent had written a book on (and I had never played in my life!) and see what happens.

So what’s the lesson here? There are a few.
First, it’s just a game, so there’s no need to be “afraid” of playing a strong player, or playing an opening he knows well, or sacrificing a piece in that opening. If you get a position that you like and play reasonable moves, you should be confident that good things will happen. What if you fall into a prepared trap that you knew nothing about and lose? Well, now you know! And you were probably going to lose anyway, statistically speaking, given the rating difference.
Second, I went into the game thinking “I know how the game is going to go start, and he doesn’t” (since I knew he would play the PCG main line, but he didn’t know I knew at least 14 moves of it). Also, he might be shocked or disturbed by the temerity of my playing the main line of “his” opening. Doesn’t he know I wrote a book on this? Has he read my book and discovered a flaw? Is this a trap?
Third, even a strong player can be surprised by an unexpected move and react poorly to it. Especially when they felt they had anticipated all possible moves and one they hadn’t looked at gets played, it can make them uneasy–”His move isn’t a blunder, yet I hadn’t considered it. How did I miss that? Is it good? What should I do? I thought I had this all figured out. He’s rated lower than me. Why hasn’t he played any bad moves yet like he’s supposed to?” Just keeping yourself in the game and not doing anything stupid can often make your opponent take some chances to try to tip the scales, but they sometimes tip in your favor!

William Morrison is one of the top players in Maryland. He is nicknamed “The Exterminator” for his “ability to process lower-rated opponents” (I read that somewhere). I presume that means he grinds them up like a food processor and points come out the other end. Although rated 2509 at the time of this game, we all know that a player’s rating is just an average measure of his ability to play all types of positions. A player can play some positions like a GM if he really studies and understands them. He can also play well below his rating if he is just making moves without a plan and waiting for mistakes from his opponent. I think that is what happened in this game.

White didn’t play any brilliant moves in this game, just as Black did not commit any blunders. But White, from much experience with this opening, stuck to a plan of maximizing his one advantage (his kingside majority of pawns), while Black did not do the same on the queenside until it was much too late. He also failed to trade off a key White piece (the rook), which dominated the endgame and was poised to deliver mate at the end.
The point is that, no matter what your rating is, you can be a master of a given opening or position through study. Players with high ratings have mastered more of these positions than you have. But once in a while you might get lucky and get into a position that you have mastered and they have not. When that happens, they are in for an unpleasant surprise!

Some chess books about tactics have puzzles for you to figure out. Most of them are neat, but you never see them in your games, so you wonder if studying them is even worth the effort. IT IS! But they don’t just appear. You have to:
1) Know the tactic
2) See the makings of it in your current position
3) Set it up to work

Here is an example of the Greek Gift (Bxh2+ or Bxh7+) sac:

The next uses the same idea, but it needs a little extra preparation, since there is a bishop waiting to take the knight. But White makes it work anyway:

So I guess going through all those books with tactical quizzes wasn’t a waste of time after all! As a matter of fact, improving your tactical ability gives you the most “bang-for-your-study buck” when it comes down to winning games. Anyone rated below 2200 can always benefit from studying tactics. They are like tools in your chess toolbox.

Just when you think you’ve created something original, it turns out it’s been done before. This happened to me in 2007 at the United States Amateur Team East tournament in Parsippany, NJ. In Round 4, I played the Black side of a King’s Indian Defense in which I got a tremendous kingside attack at the cost of a rook and some pawns. The game is given below:

I thought I had played rather brilliantly, and there were those who agreed with me, although it turns out they agreed with me 54 years before I played the game! How? Well, the following game was awarded the brilliancy prize at the Zurich International Chess Tournament of 1953 (found in Bronstein’s classic book of the same name):

I was stunned when I played over that game! Can you believe how many identical moves we made? I still think my game was MORE brilliant in that 1) I sacrificed a whole rook and 2) my bishop saved time with Bg7-h6-f4-e3 rather than Najdorf’s Bg7-f8-e7-g5-e3. Perhaps I had played over this game at one point (I do have the book at home) and subconsciously recalled it during the game. Anyway, it just goes to show you that studying master games is not a waste of time and can win games for you. You might even recapitulate a brilliancy!