Recent Losses - Revisited

I recently had a coaching session with @chess_rehab - who I found via excellent YouTube videos.

Here are a few high-level takeaways.

Assessing Positions => Middlegame Plans

Lately, I've trouble forming middlegame plans. I'm never sure where to start, and principles like "improve your worst piece" have been no help.

First step...assess the position:

• Clear Disadvantage
• Disadvantage
• Slightly Worse
• Equal
• Slightly Better
• Advantage
• Clear Advantage
• or..."Unclear"

NEVER: "Winning" or "Losing." These absolute non-assessments just lead to making lazy - or desperate - moves.

Once you have your assessment, you can act on it:

• Worse position => Solve the problems or create problems for your opponent
• Better position => Reinforce the advantage or capitalize on it (if there's an immediate opportunity)
• Unclear / Equal? => Make an incremental improvement, or consider a thematic move for your opening (see below)

All of this with concrete calculation - of course!!

Worse Position? Look for the Positive

A mistake I've made is not looking at the positive aspects of a worse position - and not finding "tries."

After all, the position may be worse, but your opponent still has to find the best response to any counter-play or complexity you introduce!

Examples:

• Open files and diagonals where you can place your pieces for activity.
• Potentially hanging pieces you could win in a combination
• Sacrifices with compensation / attacking the enemy king.
• Annoying moves that complicate the position for your opponent or create a threat
• DON'T just make moves out of desperation!

Truly "lost" positions are only those where your opponent has a mate on the board or won endgame (i.e unstoppable passed pawn).

• In such cases, find a move that makes the position complicated - maybe several such moves - before resigning.

Example: Assessing a "Worse" Position

In this position, I had just walked into a particularly trappy line of the Jobava London - where white plays an early g5. This is an objectively worse position - true - but in the game I had already hit the mindset of "walking my king to safety" rather than "look for the positive attributes."

Attributes in this position include:

• Open f-file for my rook
• Queenside piece activity for my Queen, bishop and knight - maybe setting up a queenside attack?
• White's f4 bishop is potentially hanging i.e. 14. ... Bd6 15. 0-0-0 d4 16. exd4? Bxf4!

"Go For It"

Stop dismissing moves that you've calculated because you *might* have gotten something wrong.

You need to have self-confidence somewhere between "optimistic" and "delusional."

If you see a piece capture - and don't find any downside in calculation - take it! Don't be afraid that you missed something.

Better to be wrong on a piece sacrifice where you miscalculated the long-term compensation - than losing 10 moves later because you made a passive move instead. And you'll learn more.

Another example from one of my recent games, white to play:

Know "Thematic Moves" in Your Chosen Openings

Calculating on every move is not practical and leads to time-trouble. And memorizing theory 15-20 moves deep in multiple variations is beyond the reach of mere mortals like myself. In fact, often my games are "out-of-book" by move 8...

But that doesn't mean all opening theory / prep is wasted. If you know the thematic moves in your chosen openings, you'll always have at least one otherwise "non-obvious" candidate move on hand in unclear middlegame / early opening positions.

A classic example is Black's f6 pawn break in most lines of the French Defense. Here's another example from one of my games, white-to-play:

Another example from a recent game, White to play:

The above position is literally the same as in @chess_rehab's video on the Austrian Attack Bb5+ line. Again: this isn't about buying a Chessable course on the Pirc Austrian Attack and memorizing 50 variations. It's just about learning the key moves / themes / ideas of the opening. I have been hearing "learn ideas not moves" but it still hasn't really sunk in (I'm trying!).

One Final Reminder on King Safety

This isn't a huge revelation, and so I'm mentioning it here mostly as a reminder to myself for upcoming games:

Don't move pawns in front of your King unless you are forced or it is a clear win.

Tragic example from a recent game - where I held equality all the way to an endgame until this moment:

Anyway, I have a lot of OTB games coming up the next two weeks. We'll see how things go!