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How Not to Beat Jack Rudd

Submitted by DrDave on Tue, 07/04/2009 - 00:00

Local International Master Jack Rudd, known as the fastest pawn in the West, visited us recently to give a simul.  In characteristically quick time he defeated all challengers with a score of 13-0, leaving most wondering what had hit them and a few mournfully looking for crumbs of comfort in a post mortem dissection.

Jack gave us a demonstration of how many different ways to win a chess game: being alert to tactics (Simon, Sean), positional grinds (Tim), lordly attacks (Sean) or simply taking advantage of elementary mistakes (Brian, Richard) with a bit of endgame technique (Richard, Tim).  Both Simon and Tim probably had a draw in hand with more accurate play.  Looking a little deeper at the games you can see how he often took his chances (Simon, Sean) while we let some go (Jonathan).  Jack was also content to pick up small advantages as he went along (Tim) without searching always for the very sharpest move.  Interestingly, he used a greater range of opening moves than I've seen used in a simul.; Fischer and Spassky would open 1.e4 on every board.

Here are some of the games with notes by DrDave and Fritz.  Fritz is typically cryptic in some of its suggestions and assessments, so I haven't tried to interpret them all.  They're all worth a look, if only to decide for yourself why they're wrong!

 
Ish Ramdewar has rather splendidly annotated each of the games too, and his comments are below:

In previous years I have tried to milk these events for some general coaching points.  Lessons from this year's crop seem rather prosaic: if you can't positively do what Jack does (above), then eliminate the negative...

  • Don't blunder material (Brian, Jonathan, Richard, )
  • Don't give your opponent an obvious plan (Richard, Sean).
  • Don't push your luck (Jonathan, Dan).
  • Don't make unforced concessions (Sean, Brian, Dan) and a related point:
  • Make sure you know your openings (Jonathan, Sean, Dan)

At a more general level, I think I'd say that we made Jack's life easier by often playing too passively in the opening (Simon, Brian, Sean, Jonathan, John...).   Where we stood our ground and played for some concrete goals (Richard, Tim and very nearly Dan) I was more optimistic.

Chess Quotes

from: The Psychology of the Chess Player
— Reuben FINE (the man who put the 'anal' into analysis)
"Chess is a contest between two men in which there is considerable ego-involvement. In some way it certainly touches upon the conflicts surrounding aggression, homosexuality, masturbation and narcissism which become particularly prominent in the anal-phallic phases of development. From the standpoint of id psychology, Jones' observations can therefore be confirmed, even enlarged upon. Genetically, chess is more often than not taught to the boy by his father, or a father-substitute, and thus becomes a means of working out the son-father rivalry."

So now you know... It's easy to be dismissive of this, but if you don't think there's anything in it, and are not easily offended, then I invite you to look at a few statements quoted in Dominic Lawson's The Inner Game. The most obvious caution against a psychodynamic interpretation of chess is that Short's anal rape fantasies here seem anything but "unconscious" or "repressed"!