Fearless Chess

We all have our favorite openings. Ones that we have studied thoroughly and have played dozens of times. Whenever one of our games begins with that opening, it evokes warm memories of brilliant wins from the past and naturally gives us a feeling of invincibility, since we are “playing in our own backyard”, so to speak. As we trot out our book moves, we hope our opponent plays lines we know to be inferior, so we can show off our deep reservoir of opening knowledge and quickly gain the advantage, if not an outright win.

Occasionally, however, our opponent plays a move that we have never seen before. At first, we are insulted by his impudence: “That’s not a move!”, we yell without speaking. “I know this opening inside out and I have NEVER seen that move, so it CAN’T be any good!” But after the initial contempt for the move fades, we get down to the task of formulating our required reply. Can we just ignore it and continue to play as we usually do against the “correct” move? Is it a trap? Does it contain some sort of threat? Or is our “uneducated” opponent merely unaware of the motifs of this opening and is simply “making it up as he goes along?” As we continue to analyze the move, we notice that perhaps it does have some point to it. It may allow him to persue ideas that are normally not available to him in this opening. Maybe he has studied this line inside and out. Maybe (perish the thought!) he knows more about this opening than we do. Maybe HE has scored dozens of wins with this opening. Maybe we have entered HIS backyard!

All of these emotional undercurrents can cause us (and even Grandmasters) to react poorly to such a move. That is why it helps to have a mental checklist onto which we can fall back when we are confronted by a new move in the opening. Such a checklist will help us clearly evaluate the pros and cons of the new move and come up with an appropriate reply, rather than lashing out with the first move that pops into our heads.

Checklist For Replying To A New Move

1. Does the move threaten something immediately?
A check? A capture? A fork? If so, this threat needs to be dealt with right away. Don’t miss anything obvious just because you are surprised by a new move.

2. What is the normal move in this position and what is it’s purpose?
Does the new move accomplish this purpose as well, or does it allow you to play a shot that is not normally possible? Sometimes this elementary question can instantly lead you to the correct reply. For example, if the normal book move prevents you from playing a very unpleasant pin that you were threatening and the new move does not, maybe you should just play the pin and gain an immediate advantage.

3. Is the new move designed to prevent you from playing a key move in normal line?
Sometimes the purpose of a new move is merely to prevent you from playing a string of book moves and to steer you into a new or less well known position. This new position may be objectively worse for your opponent than the main line, but he is hoping to throw you off. In this case, there must be a reason that this new move is not the main line. Perhaps it takes too much time. If the new move is a pawn move, maybe it leaves you too far ahead in development. If the main line is for him to castle, maybe the new move allows you to open lines and attack. Instead of trying find out what the moves DOES, find out what it DOESN”T do. In other words, sometimes you need to look at the hole instead of the doughnut.

In the following game, White’s fifth move comes as a surprise to Black. Not seeing any particular threat in the move, he continues as per the normal line. After making some preliminary arrangements of his pieces, he seeks to exploit a perceived drawback to the new move. White plays somewhat passively and allows Black to build an attacking position, which, with the help of some tactical strokes, crashes through for the win.

The lesson here is that when you are confronted by a new move, you need to:
1) Remain calm and don’t respond quickly or emotionally.

If you think responding quickly will upset your opponent by making him think you have seen the move before, or you think that taking time to analyze the move will encourage him by letting feel as though he has stumped you, you are wrong. A quick, dumb move will encourage him, but a well thought out move and follow-up plan will upset him.

2) Try to find out what the new move is designed to do.

Any move, even ones that are proven to be bad by good play, usually has some threat and will be effective against poor play that does not respond to that threat. Don’t fall victim to simple traps just because they are new to you.

3) Try to remember what the purpose of the normal move is.

The normal or book move is usually the book move because it is thought to be best in that position. Other moves can range from game-losing blunders that can be defeated in one move to mere variations in style, with effectiveness equal to the book move, but requiring a different plan to combat. Don’t dismiss a new move, but don’t fear it either. Calm analysis will guide you to the best reply.

In this game, White plays the initial phase of the opening well enough, but then he starts to drift with some questionable and unnecessary moves, which allow Black to work up a strong queenside initiative. At that point, White: recognizes the problem, evaluates its severity, examines options, chooses one and implements it. All of this is done without panic or self-recrimination. It’s more of a self pep talk: “It looks like you may have messed up here, and you have to do something about it right now. It looks like you can’t stop what he’s going to do, so let it go, think of your best shot, and keep your fingers crossed.” The good thing about this game is that it helped me defeat a master 13 years later from the exact same position this game had after move 11. I eliminated the unnecessary moves and played much more directly. That game can be found under the title “Playing On Both Sides Of The Board”, which has the game Till-Collier (2005). The link is http://brucetill.com/Test/wp/blog/?p=237.

So once again, the steps for saving a losing game are: A) Realise you are in trouble, B) Stay calm, C) Solve real problems, and D) Look for counterplay. The sooner you realise that you have made a mistake, the more options you will have for dealing with it. Just burying your head in the sand and hoping your opponent won’t capitalize on your errors won’t work. A bad plan is better than no plan at all. So just do it.

In this game, the players castle on opposite sides, which usually signals attacks on both sides. Both players pursue their chances on each side, but Black misses something that costs him the exchange. But he stays calm and uses the time White spends winning material to advance his attack, rather than being upset over his error. In the end, everything works out as if Black had planned it all along.

The lesson here is that even losing material can result in new advantages. In this game, White captured Black’s pawn on h3, which (after White’s h- and g-pawns disappeared), resulted in an open h-file for Black’s queen and rook. Also, the white-squared bishop that White used to capture Black’s rook was defending the weak white squares around his king. Once it was gone, Black was able to exploit those squares. Black was in a position to utilise his new advantages much more quickly than White could use his extra rook. Black realised this and even sacrificed a knight to create maximum counterplay. The old saying is true: look at the pieces on the board, not off the board, to see if you are winning. It’s not what’s been captured that matters, it’s what’s left and what you do with it.

This article is the first in a series that will illustrate what a player needs to do and how he needs to think when facing a losing position or one that appears to be going from bad to worse. The first step is to realise that we all throw in a few clunkers now and then and get ourselves in a mess. Beating yourself up, telling yourself how stupid you are, lashing out with desperate, crazy moves is not the answer. What you want to do are the following:

1) Put on a poker face. That is, don’t let your expression show that you are upset or even that you know you have made an error. Sometimes your opponent doesn’t even look for your error unless you tip him off with a sad face. Or they see the error, but don’t know if it was a mistake or a trap, since you look so calm.

2) Evaluate your position to see exactly how bad it really is. Sometimes when things don’t go your way, or when your opponent plays an unexpected strong move, you get depressed, which leads you to believe that your position is now hopeless, when, in reality, there is just one problem that can be dealt with, or you have counterplay that you may not have noticed right away. Let initial panic be replaced with calm analysis.

3) Solve the biggest problem first. If your opponent is threatening mate in one, you have to deal with that immediately. If he is only threatening to double your pawns, you have more options.

4) Look at the unique features of your position. Continuing with the doubled pawns, you could prevent the doubling or perhaps put a rook on the soon to be opened file. Or ignore it altogether and make a move that promotes your counterplay. Think about exactly what would happen if your pawns got doubled. Maybe you are just thinking about standard chess advice like “Doubled pawns are bad” instead of looking to see if they are bad IN THIS EXACT POSITION. There are often unusual configurations of pieces in a position that make standard chess advice irrelevant. Look for those unique counter chances.

5) Never underestimate the role of overconfidence. How many times have you been way ahead in a game only to get lazy and miss a shot from your opponent that turns everything around? So why can’t you be the one delivering the shot this time? Maybe he’ll be the one to get lazy or overconfident or hallucinate and blunder. You need to stay in a good, alert state of mind to see such game-changers.

6) Fighting back often upsets your opponent. You made a mistake and lost material and, objectively, he has a won game. You know it, he knows it, the onlookers know it, your computer knows it. So you will play a few more moves and give up, right? No. Make him show you that he knows how to convert his advantage into a win. He’s not a GM or a computer. If you can make a mistake, so can he. Of course, losing a whole queen for nothing is just about impossible to come back from, but losing a pawn or the exchange is not the end of the game. Some people get nervous when they are winning because they keep thinking about not messing up instead of winning. Or they trade down so much material, that they make the win harder instead of easier. Sometimes the only way to cash in an advantage is to attack and some players are no good at that. Or the only win is in an endgame, and they are bad at endgames. Make him show you he knows what he is doing. Don’t help him out by resigning out of anger or playing dumb moves.

In the following game, Black gets too many ideas in his head and plays all of them at the same time, which invariably leads to trouble. At one point, he realises that he is getting in trouble, analyzes the position, decides exactly what is wrong, deals with it, finds some counter chances, then White panics and ends up losing a rook. Then White finds counter chances, but Black is able to find a shot that takes the full point.

So the lesson here is to A) Realise you are in trouble, B) Stay calm, C) Solve real problems, and D) Look for counterplay. Sometimes a good attitude is worth more than a good move.