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The Secret of Not Losing

Submitted by DrDave on Tue, 29/07/2008 - 00:00

With my newly published plumetting grading, it is clear that I haven't yet got the hang of this... Anyhow, in the Introductory Session in June this year, I asked everyone to name the three main reasons you lose chess games. These turned out to be:

GENERAL ATTITUDE

  • Moving rather than taking more time
  • Poor psychology: making mistakes and then making worse ones
  • Letting my opponent off when I was ahead on material with a better position

EXAMPLE GAMES:

  • I fail to win with an extra piece:
  • I manage to lose with the exchange:

    General advice:

    This is a list of symptoms, not diseases. The disease may be... relaxing? ...wishful thinking? But it needs a good hard look at yourself to find the disease, which may be a long step towards curing it. Why are you making these mistakes, what are you doing that is wrong, what are you not doing that would be right? Is there a point you can identify in a game where you chose a wrong move or plan, and can you recall what you were thinking or saying to yourself at the time?

    Further study:

    Try WEBB: Chess for Tigers

    THINKING PROCESS

    • Blunders -- mainly after 1 hour+ -- due, I suspect, to lack of recent practice
    • Careless loss of material
    • Miscalculation (poor vision)
    • Playing a middlegame sequence in the wrong order
    • Running out of time

    EXAMPLE GAMES for analysis and playing out:

  • Positions for analyis:
  • Positions for playing out:

    General advice:

    [This set of symptoms may be related to themes in the last and the next category.]

    I struggle with this issue constantly myself; I expect I do best when I practice, with slow games against real people, and faster games against computers who of course are utterly unforgiving of errors...

    The main thing to do with blunders is to look: make the first and last thing you think about be, what are they threatening? and having chosen a move, what do they threaten now?  You might have a look at some of the thinking schemes laid out by Purdy and Silman, reviewed in last year's programme: 17th July 2007: A thinking process

    The other thing I think makes a difference is getting a tournament in early in the season, so I'm up to speed when I take on the less frequent club and county games. There aren't very many books which particularly focus on analysis (as opposed to the 'spot the bonecrusher' tactics books); Dvoretsky recommends 'playing-out' positions chosen from fiendishly complicated games, and points to a couple from Nunn.

    Further study:

    KOTOV: Think like a Grandmaster

    NUNN/GRIFFITHS: Secrets of Grandmaster Play

    JACOBS: Analyse to win

    Simon I know likes flexing his analytical muscles against the deceptively simple-looking compositions of endgame studies.

  • John Nunn's favourite study: a whole-board tactics workout! One naturalistic approach is found in the 'How Good is Your Chess' features in Chess magazine, where you are thrown a sequence of strategic and analytical decisions, rather like a real game.  Dvoretsky's famous Secrets of Chess Tactics throws you a succession of problems and exercises in a rather unstructured way; you might find some of the examples too chewy.

  • Further study:

    TROITZKY: 360 Brilliant and Instructive End Games

    BARDEN: How Good Is Your Chess

    KING: How Good Is Your Chess

    DVORETSKY: Secrets of Chess Tactics

    EGOISM

    • Moving without working out what my opponent can do in reply
    • Not seeing the opponent's intended move
    • Not being completely aware to what my opponent up to

    EXAMPLE GAME: Short-Belyavsky (Helpmate in 2)

    General advice:

    In a sense, if you could cure this problem, itwould be impossible to lose a game of chess.  Underestimating your opponent or their resources is really the only mistake we ever make... So this is going to be a tricky one to solve!

    However, there are some useful routines to get into.  A junior player might do well just to say to themselves as the FIRST and LAST thing they think about when it's their turn: "What can my opponent do to me now? What can they do to me if I make this move?"  Adults might have a look at some of the thinking schemes laid out by Purdy and Silman, reviewed in last year's programme: 17th July 2007: A thinking process

    Further study:

    Try PURDY: The Search for Chess Perfection

    or SILMAN: Reassess your chess

    STRATEGY

    • Lack of strategy
    • Not looking for outposts enough
    • Moving pieces which leave holes in my position
    • Failure to spot strategic weaknesses early enough

    EXAMPLE GAME: Pope (not that one) -Regis

  • A masterly example:
  • Read and learn:
  • A game for playing-out:

    General advice:

    I am inclined to think that simple strategy is easier to teach than tactics; the general structural feaures of a position hang around for a long while and club players seem quite good at listing these features when asked.  The hard thing is making your knowledge work in a real game.  The main things are to learn to identify the key features, to make a reasonable plan, and develop enough technique to exploit an advantage.  Silman has done some interesting work in 'playing-out' of strategical positions with his students, which you could try for yourselves.

    Further study:

    Try CHERNEV: Logical Chess

    EUWE/KRAMER: The Middlegame Vol.1

    SILMAN: Reassess your chess

    GOLOMBEK: Capablanca's Best Games

    OPENINGS

    • Opening inaccuracy
    • Inferior opening preparation
    • Poor openings
    • In opening, occasionally make over-easy moves which weaken my position

    EXAMPLE GAMES:

  • The worst opening I ever had:
  • Maybe the best:

    General advice:

    It's as simple as 'Study and practice your openings'.  Study with books (the fewer the better) and practice at the club or online or against a machine. Find a player who uses your favourite openings and play over some games by them; I like Botvinnik.

    I would be delighted to give your repertoire an MOT.

    Further study:

    Under 100

    Try WALKER: Chess openings for juniors

    KEENE/LEVY: An opening repertoire for the attacking player (1977) (Scotch Gambit, Pirc, and Benko Gambit)

    100-125

    1.e4 Try

        KEENE/LEVY: An opening repertoire for the attacking player (1994) (Scotch Game, Scandinavian, and Tchigorin Defence)

        EMMS: Attacking with 1.e4 (Bishops' Opening, Closed Sicilian, French KIA)

        RAETSKY: Defending against 1.e4 (Sicilian Four Knights')

    1.d4 Try KEENE: An opening repertoire for White (Queen's Gambit Exchange Variation)

        SUMMERSCALE: A killer opening repertoire (Colle-Zukertort)

        DUNNINGTON: Attacking with 1.d4 (Queen's Gambit Exchange Variation)

        AAGAARD/LUND: Defending against 1.d4 (Tarrasch Defence)

    125-150

    Try three single-volume opening books on your main White or Black openings.  I rely on KOSTEN: English Opening, WATSON: Play the French and WILLIAMS: Play the Classical Dutch. (I would eschew a video [poor value] but CDs are fine if you get on well with screens.)

    There are opening books out there which I don't recommended:

    GUFELD: An opening repertoire for the attacking player (Vienna, Sicilian Dragon and Leningrad Dutch) [a maze of complex variations suitable only for a computer or a GM]

    BAKER: A startling opening repertoire for White (Scotch Gambit/Max Lange, Sicilian sidelines and French Two Knights') [again, very variation-heavy, I can't imagine anyone going through all this detail and retaining any of it.]

    COLLINS: A White opening repertoire (Scotch Game, Alapin Sicilian and Advance French) [unforgivably careless [p.15: exactly how do you reply to 15...Be6 16.O-O Nc4?*], and someone should shoot the editor too] (* P.S. I discover he reveals all(?) in his book on the c3 Sicilian for Gambit)

    ALBURT et al.: Chess Openings for White, Explained (Scotch Game, Sicilian Grand Prix and Classical French) ["The main point is not that so many of the lines the authors have given us above are bad, or ineffective, although that is certainly an issue. Rather, it's the lack of integrity throughout." -- WATSON]

    ALBURT et al.: Chess Openings for Black, Explained (Accelerated Dragon and Nimzo-Indian) [I can't guarantee this is any better.]

    ATTACK AND DEFENCE

    • Playing unsound attacks
    • I can be over-keen to attack, i.e. launch an attack before I've prepared the necessary back-up
    • Over-extension in the middle-game (trying too hard to win)
    • Getting shafted on the diagonals

    EXAMPLE GAMES: first, preparation to the max!

    well, it was Kriegspiel...
  • The attack works (1):
  • The attack works (2):

    General advice:

    The affliction needs only be named for a treatment to suggest itself: "Set up your attacks, so that when the fire goes out, it isn't out!" (Pillsbury).  However, it might not be so easy to learn how to do that... Playing over example games in the usual intructional books I'm sure will go a way to giving you a feel for it, as well as games by great attackers like Pillsbury, Marshall, Tal, Fischer, Stein and even Nezhmedtinov.  [These GM games will be more close to call than anything we play, of course.]

    Further study:

    Try WALKER: Attacking the King

    CHERNEV: Logical Chess

    COZENS: Lessons in Chess Strategy

    VUKOVIC: The art of attack

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    I was glad you all had an opinion about what were the most common reasons that you lose games.  Self-criticism, or at least self-awareness, is the starting point for improving.

    "I'm going to stop saying I'll kill him, and kill him!" -- Sid James as Sid Abbott in Bless This House

    Turning intention into action is a puzzle I have been battling with personally and professionally all my life...

    "Ask yourself the following question, “Of all the games I have lost recently, what percent were lost because of something I did not know, and what percent were lost due to something I already knew, but were not careful to look for?” " -- HEISMAN

    ZNOSKO-BOROVSKY: How NOT to play chess

    HARDING: Why you lose at chess

    SOLTIS: Chess Mistakes

    HEISMAN: The Improving Annotator

    BAKER: Learn from your chess mistakes

    SILMAN: The Amateur's mind

    ROWSON: The Seven Deadly Chess Sins

    • Chess Quotes

    Ask yourself the following question, “Of all the games I have lost recently, what percent were lost because of something I did not know, and what percent were lost due to something I already knew, but were not careful to look for?”

    — Dan HEISMAN