If the lethal eyes of a grandmaster are not immune to such tactical oversights, how can we, the aspiring professionals, club players and beginners of the game, stay away from such mistakes?

This blog post highlights three psychological phenomenons to watch out for!

Aronian isn’t alone here. The scythe of the grim reaper hasn’t forgotten other elite players.  Here’s a famous example.

And another one…

1. Decision Fatigue:

A grandmaster playing a typical tournament makes a variety of decisions each day. Right from what to eat for breakfast to the more complex move-by-move decisions at the chessboard. Decision fatigue refers to the deteriorating quality of decisions due to weariness after a long and continuous session of making decisions.

Famous personalities like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Barack Obama are said to limit the number of decisions they make each day to escape Decision Fatigue. One famous example is Zuckerberg and his grey t-shirt.

2. Inattentional blindness & Tunnel Vision

I like this famous test by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris.
All you have to do is count how many times the players in white pass the ball.

Ready? (Check the video below)

Did you get the answer right? Here are two scenarios (below) where Inattentional blindness & Tunnel Vision play a sneaky role in toppling strong players.

Failure to notice an unexpected object right in front of your eyes. Petrosian played Ng5 here and lost his queen (Against Bronstein).

Constricted peripheral vision when you focus too much on something. Kramnik played Qe3 and fell into a mate in #1 elsewhere on the board.

3. The Einstellung effect:

Another unforgiving phenomenon that affects chess players, even grandmasters is The Einstellung Effect.

“Einstellung” is a German word meaning “setting”, meaning your mind is fixated on a known pattern. The Einstellung effect can also trick a doctor into misdiagnosing a disease by inducing cognitive bias towards a particular ‘known’ pattern.

Here is an example. White to play and checkmate the black king in both the positions below. The pattern is also highlighted. But one of them is designed to trick your mind.

Einstellung Effect in a real game: Carlsen Vs Topalov, Linares, 2007.

Topalov resigned here. An Einstellung Effect?

Black could have played Qd5+ but after f3 Qd2 Kh3, there are no more checks and hence he resigned here. White’s idea of sneaking into black’s position with Ng5 – Qh7 – Qh8 is a common trick except there’s usually a pawn on g7 instead of a knight.

What did Topalov miss here? Can you spot the hidden resource?

Many of the games have been hard fought, with at least one big surprise: the resignation of Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, No. 1 in the world, to Carlsen in Round 5 in a position that could have been a draw. Topalov overlooked a simple resource that Carlsen was kind enough, or perhaps cruel enough, to point out immediately afterward. In the final position, Topalov should have played 64 … Qd5, when 65 f3 e5 66 Qh7 Kf8 67 Qh8 Qg8 68 Nh7 Kf7 69 Ng5 Kf8 is a draw because of perpetual check.

~ The New York Times 

Awareness & Practice:
An awareness of our own state of mind (during the game) and alertness to possibilities of psychological errors is the first step to ensure that such tragedy does not befall us.

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1. Interactive board using Brush Tool –  web app.

Whether you solve problems with your audience on Twitch or work with your students in your online class, the brush tool on our web app is something that would add value to your experience.

Brush Tool allows the following options:

– Square highlight

– Drawing arrows

– Pen Mode for writing on the board

– Eraser / Clear option

– Options to change color & drawing size.

– And more on the way!

2. Opening Book & Games database: 

Our desktop version for Windows & Mac has an added functionality to assist with your opening preparations – The opening book & Games search feature.

3. Tactics Trainer – Web & Desktop.

Fond of tactics training websites? Forward Chess has an in-built Tactics Trainer for selected book so that you can solve and follow your progress through the book.

The following books currently have tactics trainer enabled:

Sac and Mate: Volume I, II & III.
Improve Your Chess Tactics
Greatest 525 puzzles from practical games of 2018
1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players
The Woodpecker Method
Chess Tactics from Scratch
Chess Tactics: Volume 1
Chess Tests
The Power of Tactics – Volume 1
Chess Calculation Training For Kids And Club Players, Level 1
A Modern Guide to Checkmating Patterns
Practical Chess Puzzles

4. Wish List: Have you ever noticed the heart icon on our website? Yup, this is what they do!

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When I think about multitasking in the Chess context, I find that giving multiple responsibilities to a piece is not always advantageous to us. Let’s admit it. Bishops and Rooks are not as good as humans when it comes to multitasking. Or even their royal highness, the Queen; Or their guards, the fearsome knights. In this blog, we’ll review a simple Chess Tactics concept called “Overloaded Pieces” and how we can exploit this to our advantage.

Identifying over-worked or overloaded pieces: Identifying pieces that are doing too many things is the first step to imagining a possible combination. Take the below position for example. Can you identify the overloaded piece?

In the above position, the black queen on e7 prevents the checkmate by controlling the f6 square and also protects the bishop on a3. This leads to a simple tactic Rxa3.

In the below position, Nd7 and Qh7 are two potential threats that are prevented by a single piece – The knight on f6. The overburdened knight easily breaks with the move Nd7!

The above positions are handpicked from the chapter “Crucial Defender/Overloaded defender” in the book “Chess Tactics Antenna” by Emmanuel Neiman.

The Fischer game example is from the chapter “Overloading” in the book “Chess Tactics from Scratch” by Martin Weteschnik.

No?

Then imagine the following position.

White to play. What are you going to do?

In this position, the great positional master, Karpov slowly squeezed the life out of his opponent and outwitted him with a clever plan.

He maneuvered his bishop, yes, that odd-looking lazy b1-Bishop all the way to h5! Meanwhile, his opponent ran out of good moves to play, and slowly suffocated to death (uh, not literally). Here’s the full game!

In chess we have the obligation to move; there is no option to skip a turn if you can’t identify
anything to do. This obligation can be a burden to a player without strategic vision. Unable to form
a plan when there isn’t an immediate crisis, he is likely to try to precipitate a crisis himself, usually
succeeding only in damaging his own position.

                     ~ Garry Kasparov in “How Life Imitates Chess”

[Credits: @Bunicomic on Instagram. Ironically that’s how it’s been so for some of us, including me. Got to get back to shape!]

(Morphy isn’t going to be very happy with me gulping down a month’s worth of snacks and biscuits in just a few days )

The Caro-Kann Defense remains a very popular option for Black at all levels of chess. It has always enjoyed a solid reputation, but if anything its popularity has increased in recent years with the realization that the Caro-Kann can also be employed with the intention of reaching sharp dynamic positions, rich in possibilities for both sides and with a guarantee of genuine counterplay for Black. In this book, International Master Jovanka Houska presents a complete Caro-Kann repertoire, which is based primarily on her own repertoire she has used with success over many years at international level. Houska provides a comprehensive update on her popular 2007 book Play the Caro-Kann and focuses on key new developments since then. She offers solutions against all of White’s main options and efficient methods to deal with tricky sidelines. She examines important tactical and strategic plans for both sides and deals with key move order issues.

Check out the video below.

Learn More: Opening Repertoire: The Caro-Kann.

“Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack.” – Wilhelm Steinitz (Former World Champion, 1886-1894)

Our BOOK OF THE WEEK is The Art of Sacrifice in Chess by Rudolf Spielmann.

Austrian Grandmaster Rudolf Spielmann’s The Art of Sacrifice in Chess first appeared in the mid-1930s. It was immediately recognized as a classic, a masterpiece that examined the nature of chess sacrifices. In this modernized, 21st century edition, all of Spielmann’s original work has been preserved (the original book contained thirteen chapters categorizing and teaching thematic sacrifices). But the German grandmaster has gone far beyond simply inserting clarifying commentary. Müller has virtually doubled the size of the original work by adding eleven new chapters, including:

— The Greek Gift Sacrifice Bxh2/7+
— Disaster on g7; The Achilles’ Heel f7
— Strike at the Edge
— Destroying the King’s Shelter
— Sacrifices on f6
— Sacrifices on e6
— The Magic of Mikhail Tal
— Shirov’s Sacrifices
— The Fine Art of Defense.

There are exercises at the end of each new chapter to help you hone your skill of sacrificing.  Here is an excerpt from Chapter 1:

Chapter 1
Positional Sacrifices

To this class belong all sacrifices which have the object of effecting an improvement in position by temporarily giving up material. The recapture of the material given up is an essential characteristic. It is not necessary for the compensation to be in the same currency. But the quid pro quo, in the material sense, must be adequate. In effect the positional sacrifice need not necessarily lead to an advantage in position. Undertaken in a bad position, it may barely save the game or merely prolong resistance.

However, if when all is said and done the positional sacrifice is only an exchange, it is nevertheless an exceedingly valuable weapon. Of course, one must gauge accurately the consequences of such a deal. This should not be difficult as a rule.

“I earned my first IM norm after studying centralization.” – FM Anish Vivekananthan

Our BOOK OF THE WEEK is The Center: A Modern Strategy Guide by Adrian Mikhalchishin & Georg Mohr.

Everyone knows that it is important to control the center. However, the methods for center control and the implications for each type of center control are not as well known. The center is such a complicated topic to understand that two schools of chess (classical and hypermodern) debated each other for decades about the occupation of the center vs. piece pressure against the center. And that’s just the start, understanding of the center has developed a lot since those debates, and understanding the center is as crucial as ever. The Center: A Modern Strategy Guide teaches you typical methods to fight for the center and what to do once you obtain it, categorized by typical themes and structures. Here is an excerpt from the book.

About strategic play in the center

It was said in the introduction that control over the center is one of the most important strategic elements in chess. Usually, both players face this problem of the center responsibly and with varying tactics. They put their pawns in the center and use them to control the central squares, or one of the player gives up his control of the center and leaves it to the opponent – and then tries to weaken the opponent’s pawn structure or even destroy it. Every square in the center is important because even if you control only one square it could leave you with the advantage. The placement of a certain piece in the center, knowing that it cannot be driven away by any of the opponent’s pawns, is beneficial for the development of the game. But it doesn’t bring you an automatic advantage as we will see later on. In any case, control over the center is of great importance. It is not important if we control the center with pawns or with the pieces, but what is important is to control it. The next example will demonstrate the dangers present if we give up the center.

Why choose the Forward Chess edition? It is cheaper than the physical version and the variations are more efficient to play through on a digital board.

Learn More: The Center: A Modern Strategy Guide

“For 99% of players, the endgame is the most important phase of the game.” – IM Mikhail Shereshevsky

Our BOOK OF THE WEEK is Amateur to IM: Proven Ideas and Training Methods by IM Jonathan Hawkins.

How did Jonathan Hawkins manage to go from being an average tournament competitor to a player on the brink of clinching the Grandmaster title?

The secret was knowing what to study and how to learn as efficiently as possible. Focusing his attention firmly on the endgame, Jonathan devised a number of building blocks and identified a number of very important areas of study. The result of his hard work was a meteoric rise through the ranks, as he became firmly established as a prominent GM killer on the English tournament circuit. These pages reveal the secrets of his notebooks for the first time.

IM Hawkins presents special material aimed to help you become a much better practical player, one armed with a deeper understanding of key aspects of chess. A careful study of the lessons presented in this book should enable the chess student to gain significant improvement.

Here is an excerpt from lesson 2.

LESSON AIMS

• >  Recognize the basic methods by which an endgame can be won.
• >  Understand how to identify the long-term goals of both sides in a given endgame.

The first question which arises in any position is a general one: “What should I be doing?”

It is, of course, nice to have a grand plan, even if its realization is distant and move-to-move matters are more reliant on smaller, shorter plans (more on this later).

Strategy (or the accumulation of strategy) is ultimately either an attack on some aspect of the enemy position or the promotion of a pawn. If we reduce this specifically to the endgame we can amend this slightly and state our two fundamental ideas as:

• >  Promoting our pawns.
• >  Attacking the enemy structure.

In an endgame, the material will often be too reduced to mount a successful attack on the king, so in most cases when we discuss objects of attack we are talking about pawns and pawn structures.

We should also keep in mind the defensive corollaries of this:

> Improving our own structure.

> Blockading passed pawns.

We will now examine five positions and decide which of these ideas (or both —greed is always good in chess!) is appropriate for each. Some of the positions also occur elsewhere in the book.

My aim is not to do a rigorous analysis of games or positions (although some of the positions will be subjected to this in later chapters), but rather to draw some logical conclusions and make verbose assessments.

Let us begin!

Why choose the Forward Chess edition? It is cheaper than the physical version and the variations are more efficient to play through on a digital board.

Learn More: Amateur to IM: Proven Ideas and Training Methods

“I like Jonathan Hawkins’s “Amateur to IM” for beginning/intermediate players.” – IM John Bartholomew
“One of the best I’ve read. I recommend it. A few eye-openers in it for me and that’s rare!” – FM Ingvar Thor Johannesson

Our BOOK OF THE WEEK is My First Chess Opening Repertoire for Black by Vincent Moret.

Every chess player needs to decide which openings he or she is going to play. But where do you start? The risk of drowning in the turbulent sea of chess opening theory is only too real for beginning amateurs. Often your goals and ambitions will be misguided. If you are trying to win in 20 moves, copy what’s in fashion among top-GM’s or memorize variations, you are wasting your time. Most likely you will never get to play your ‘preparation’ and end up aimlessly switching from one opening to the other. After the success of his volume for White, Experienced French chess trainer Vincent Moret now provides a complete, ready-to-go chess opening repertoire for Black. It consists of a sound set of lines that do not outdate rapidly, do not require memorization and are easy to digest for beginners and post-beginners. To show the typical plans and the underlying ideas in the various lines of his repertoire, Moret not only selected games of Grandmasters. He also uses games of young, improving players to highlight the errors they tend to make.

The recommendations are generally gambits and sidelines that allow Black to reach a position in which he can fight for the initiative, an ideal battleground for a club player who spends most of his study time on tactics – as he should.

Here is an excerpt from the book on the author’s recommendation of the Scandinavian.

And here’s what this set-up could give if White plays logical and natural developing moves (but not necessarily the best ones):

After the move …e7-e5 Black’s pressure on the d-file has become unbearable due to the pin on the d4-pawn, and the situation can very quickly turn disastrous for White. Let us look at two example games, both played by the multiple French Girls Campion Mathilde Congiu against strong opponents.

Black won these games with impressive ease, one might say. Unfortunately, if White is not as cooperative as here, Black will rarely get to this dream position through the usual Classical Variation.

Indeed, White can (and should!) very quickly attack and even harass the black queen. Let us not lose sight of the fact that the early development of the queen is the major disadvantage of the classical Scandinavian with 2…Qxd5.

We should not get carried away by these two exciting games by Mathilde Congiu. Let us now see how things can sometimes turn out very badly for Black.

(… the author then proceeds to give two examples where the Black queen is targeted, then show how Black can play for compensation after 2…Nf6 where he either obtains compensation for a pawn after 3.d4 Bg4!? due to his lead in development or transposes into the ideal setup while avoiding the traps. See the book for more details.)

Why choose the Forward Chess edition? It is cheaper than the physical version and the variations are more efficient to play through on a digital board.

Learn More: My First Chess Opening Repertoire for Black

Before you can learn to think, you have to learn to see.

And it’s not enough to see, one must observe!

Observation:

One of the most important tools when it comes to effective problem solving is Observation. Paying attention to tiny tactical fragments inside a position helps us paint the bigger picture. The problem solving mind requires data to churn and come up with suggestions which you can use. It’s just like the different pieces of a jig saw puzzle. The more pieces you are able to recognize, the quicker you’ll be able to put everything together.

“I can protect the f4 pawn with the natural looking Qf6. But what will happen if I let white capture the pawn?”

“oh, look a pin! King on c1, Knight on f4 and my queen on g5”

” But he seems to have Qd2. Doesn’t seem to work”

A momentary observation can change the whole course of a game. Every little detail you notice, like a detective at the board, is a clue, a data for your imaginative mind.

Here’s another example, where a punch from your intuition can be a good thing.

I (white) was consider castling on the king side and e6 (!?) in this position. But a little deeper observation pointed out a few facts…

The pawn on d5 is a critical point ( number of defenders = number of attackers) after exchanging on c5 and giving a bishop check on b5. This observation was a turning point. Instead of having to fight a long three or four hours game, a simple observation helped me finish my game in an hour and grab a hot cup of cappuccino in a nearby Cafe.

And answer? I’ll leave it to the reader to figure it out! I’ll be eagerly checking the comment section for your answers

Happy solving