In part one of this article, we discussed three principle causes of blunders in chess.
- A heightened emotional state of some kind (getting close to victory, a feeling of self-satisfaction, excitement)
- Insufficient skill in tactics and combinations
- Failure to penetrate the position and account for all its features
In this article we discuss how to work on these three things.
A heightened emotional state
Many chess players flat out refuse to accept that there is emotional arousal during a chess game. This is categorically bad thinking and will only result in a dampening of the results you could potentially achieve. The truth is that a chess game between players of a reasonably close strength is filled with tension. A chess game is complicated, full of surprises and in the case of a tournament game we have invested considerable time and effort into achieving our aim – the prospect of a result (winning OR losing) is very influential on our state of mind.
I’ll assume that you don’t need to be convinced of this and move on to suggesting how to help yourself diminish the blunders which go along with our inherently subjective nature when we examine chess positions.
The most important thing is to be aware of certain tendencies of thought and their corresponding dangers. I’ve already mentioned in the previous article that more than anything, one should be on guard against feelings of self-satisfaction or excitement at the prospect of winning (or equalizing against a stronger player). When you find yourself getting close to achieving a result or even a positional aim of some kind the most important thing is to slow down and insist on accounting for the whole board and for the opponent’s intentions. The surest way to make a blunder is to temporarily forget about your opponent’s right to exist and his inevitable cunning. And by “temporarily” I mean even just one move. For just one move you eagerly pursue your plan, and suddenly the opponent demonstrates that you’ve missed something obvious and devastating – such as hanging a piece. It happens every day.
Thus before every move you must constantly be sure that you’ve asked yourself, “What are his intentions? What are his plans? What will he play after I play that move? What does my move weaken?” You simply must get in the habit of asking these questions during the course of the entire game and always directly before you make your move. The sooner you can develop this as an absolute habit – one from which you never vary – the sooner you will see a drastic decrease in your blunders.
Insufficient skill in tactics and combinations
This is perhaps the simplest problem to correct. The best way to gain skill in tactics and combinations is through solving tactical puzzles on a regular basis. Visit www.kebuchess.com for a low-cost program (which offers a free version) with hundreds of tricky puzzles taken exclusively from recent games.
Failure to penetrate the position and account for all its features
The remedy for this is simple. During your opponent’s clock time (while he is pondering his move) simply ask yourself a lot of questions about the position. I often ask (and attempt to answer) such questions as “What is my opponent’s most principle plan here?” “What features of the position am I not noticing?” “Where are the potential pitfalls in my position?” “If I had to summarize what’s going on here in a single sentence, what would I say?” … you can be creative here, the main thing is that your churning the position around in different ways in bringing attention to your opponent’s intentions, and the salient features of the position.
This may not seem connected with blunders, but you will find that establishing control over your thoughts and feelings about the position in this way will lead you to make far less oversights of a tactical and even strategic nature. Now when the moments of tension arise (and they surely will) you will consciously and subconsciously be able to make a use of all the extra information you’ve gained during your opponent’s time. This has a magical way of reducing mistakes.
If you practice the suggestions listed here you will see a reduction in your “silly” oversights and be in a position to take advantage of your opponent’s!
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