I often get questions from people who have just retired, downshifted, or reconsidered their priorities and now have more free time on their hands than before. They recall that they used to have this fantastic hobby and wonder what they should do to make a smooth comeback to chess.

In 2004, I basically quit chess only to return to the game after meeting WGM Natalia Pogonina in 2008. The 5-year gap between tournaments felt like ages. I was extremely rusty and kept falling into time trouble every game, blundering pieces left and right. The result was rather harsh: I lost 36 rating points in the first event after the comeback in March 2009.

To be honest, the outcome wasn’t astonishing. I didn’t prepare for the tournament in any way and later had to make adjustments on the go, eventually leading to much better results. 

After a second hiatus from 2015 to 2021, I decided to make yet another comeback. In fact, I am still in the transition process, so it’s reasonably easy for me to tell what the most relevant aspects are. 

Tip #1. Assess your resources. How much time per week and what budget can you allocate for chess? If you genuinely want to improve, you will probably have to invest in chess accessories, software, trips, coaching, and so on. 

Set a chess goal for yourself and evaluate whether you have everything you need to reach it. When in doubt, consult your chess pals or coach (see tip #4 for more details). If your goal is too far away and thus demotivating, break down the journey into small steps. For instance, if you aim for a title or a certain rating, you can keep track of every 100 points gained along the way and award yourself for every step made. 1500-1600-1700-1800-1900-2000 is a smoother path than 1500-2000, when you will be waking up each day and feeling stressed about your progress not being substantial enough. 

Tip #2. Now that you know your goal, develop a training schedule. It is preferable to consistently dedicate some time to chess every day, even if you can’t spare much. Having the right routines and religiously following them is crucial for becoming a strong player or generally succeeding in any field.  

Magnus Trainer is the perfect one-stop solution in this sense since the lessons and game levels there are fun, interactive, and reasonably short so that you can complete them in a single session. 

Tip #3. Don’t walk alone. Unless you are a fanatic whose intrinsic motivation to succeed at chess is otherworldly, you could use some support from your relatives and friends. It is helpful to inform your inner circle about your decision to pursue chess more seriously so that there are fewer potential misunderstandings. Adults have many commitments, so you must sacrifice something to free up the space for chess! Hopefully, watching TV series will go down the drain, not your family life. Just kidding. It’s up to you to decide, of course! 

Tip #4. Catch up. Since your information about the chess world has probably become outdated, it is recommendable to update yourself on the state of affairs by reconnecting with some training partners or your coach. They will tell you about the recent developments in theory, share links to the apps and software you should download, advise what books to read, where to play, etc. 

Tip #5. Chess + traveling = ❤️. Even though the expression “chess tourist” has a negative connotation due to the Kasparov vs. Akopian beef, for many adults, the combination of playing chess and visiting a country they have never been to is a way to kill two birds with one stone. You may want to check if there are interesting open tournaments in the countries on your wish list and plan accordingly. 

Tip #6. Tactics every day keeps the patzer away. It would be great to create a daily routine of solving exercises for 30-60 minutes. Sounds like too much work? Start with 15 minutes then! Anything is better than nothing. Experiment with timed/untimed modes. Find a healthy mix of tasks that require a powerful combinational vision and those that are tackled by rigorous calculations. Check out the solutions and realize what you did wrong and why. Tactics Frenzy is a fantastic tool for becoming a tactical wizard. It has all the functionality mentioned above and much more. 

Tip #7. Give your openings an overhaul. If you have more time at your disposal than previously, you may want to add new ambitious openings to your arsenal. Or conversely, if you don’t have that much time and your memory is no longer as good as it was in your youth, you may have to find a quick fix for this in the form of opening setups that can be played without excessive analysis and memorization. 

At this stage, unless you are a professional player, it isn’t recommendable to book up too much. Finding a brilliant novelty is nice, but after a long break, you can expect silly blunders to be a more critical factor that determines the outcome of your games. Overall, the opening series from Magnus Trainer should allow you to form a solid foundation upon which you can build up material as you play more and gain additional experience. 

Tip #8. Make sure you are fit and healthy before entering an event. The psychological and physical pressures at chess tournaments are immense. I have seen players get strokes over the board, and there have been cases of people dying during the game due to one medical condition or the other. Please consult a doctor beforehand, especially if you are in the danger zone age-wise and if you have any serious chronic diseases. 

Tip #9. Enjoy the process of playing the game. Don’t overdramatize things; avoid being too hard on yourself if your play doesn’t live up to your expectations! Your performances should improve eventually as long as you are passionate about the process and having fun.  🤗

Haven’t played chess seriously in a long time? Check out our guide and return like a king!   

Returning to Chess After a Long Break: A Checklist

There are way too many fantastic and even more horrible books out there to attempt to name them all. Instead, I would like to offer you a few recommendations on how to efficiently choose what chess books to purchase. 

Tip #1: critically assess the title. Epithets such as “lazy”, “quick”, “for dummies”, “easy” etc., usually imply that the reader will be treated with second-rate material, especially if we are talking about openings. One of the ideas behind such adjectives is to capitalize on the naïve get-rich-quick crowd who believe that one can become a GM in a month or so. Also, the words “winning”/”crushing”/”steamrolling” are typically a sign that the author is not fully sincere with you, especially if the featured opening is a relatively obscure one or presented from Black’s perspective. 

To prove the validity of the claim on the cover, the author will likely rig the analysis and try to portray the main variations favorably, as if the opening was actually “winning”. This can only be done by omitting the strongest replies of the opponent. 

Tip #2: see if the author’s personality strikes a chord with you. Impressive credentials are a bonus, although having a Ph.D. or a GM title doesn’t prevent some authors from releasing mediocre books. Ask yourself whether the author’s personality is interesting enough to you. Is the writer special in any way compared to others? 

Also, there is a limit on how many decent books an individual is capable of writing over his lifetime. To produce a work of art, you must be passionate about it and put your soul into your creation. And don’t forget polishing that takes a lot of time!

If the so-called “prolific writer” has over 100 titles to his pen, there is a high chance that you are dealing with a graphomaniac & easy buck pursuer. They tend to avoid editing their texts, offer faulty analysis, recycle their writings, plagiarize, and hire ghostwriters. 

Tip #3: check out the date of publication. When it comes to opening theory for reasonably advanced players, it makes sense to prioritize books that were published over the last two years. Chess theory evolves extremely fast nowadays. If the book is five years old or more, you should expect quite a few plans there to be outdated, the novelties – played out already if they were of any good, and some of the lines that used to be main ones get replaced by others. Of course, there are some great old books that dwell on general principles of the opening, but those are more of an exception. Moreover, well-written modern books will still be more relevant since they will be based on state-of-the-art theory instead of demonstrating lines that have faded into obscurity. 

Even when it comes to books about middlegames/endgames/tactics, it is still preferable to focus on recent material. The main reason for this is that chess engines have made a giant leap forward over the last few years. When I check out the analysis of, let’s say, the 2010s or even 2015, Stockfish laughs at quite a few suggestions that used to be the top choice of the engines back in the day. 

Naturally, some chess books, such as memoirs, are timeless classics. In such cases, it may be advantageous that they were written a while ago by people who personally knew the legendary players featured in the narrative. 

Tip #4: see how reputable the publisher is. It is useful to be aware of the reputation of the publishing houses in the industry. For example, in the case of New in Chess, Chess Evolution, Quality Chess, Chess Stars, and a few others, one can generally expect top-notch works. Meanwhile, there are also publishers that are…OK, let’s skip this part to avoid offending people and starting a holy war. 

Tip #5: don’t get dazzled or discouraged by the cover. It is well-known that the cover is one of the critical factors that influence the customer’s choice. Please keep in mind that the authors usually have no control over what the cover is going to look like. Don’t get carried away if you see a fantastic cover, and please don’t dismiss a book just because its exterior is terrible.

Tip #6: take reviews and prizes with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, there is too much subjectivity here. Some reviewers start hating on decent books for no particular reason. Others publish cheesy panegyrics for their friends’ or influential colleagues’ works. Even online rankings at sites such as Amazon can easily get manipulated: some authors ask their friends to rate their books “five stars” and leave positive reviews there. Similarly, some haters downvote the books of the competitors. I can see that it’s a pretty tempting path of least resistance to sort the titles by rating and choose something that is on top of the list. But going with the crowd is not necessarily the best way of discovering a jewel. 

The same warning goes for the “book of the year” chess awards: all I can say about them is that they guarantee that the book is not utter rubbish, but it is by no means an indicator that such a title is indeed the best one that has been released over the past year. Some, if not all, of these awards are run by small teams of people who specialize in giving out trophies to each other or their close friends. 

Tip #7: a quick overview. Briefly scan the contents page and read a few passages across the book. Do you like the author’s style? Do you find his musings original and worthy of attention? Is the analysis detailed enough to the extent that you need, too shallow, or too complicated? I have seen many people disappointed with books just because they were either too simple or way over their heads in terms of chess content. 

Best of luck in discovering the chess books of your dream! 📚❤️

Looking for cutting-edge chess education that would give you an edge over others? 

Check out Magnus Trainer, an edutainament app created under the guidance of World Champion Magnus Carlsen. Becoming a better player is rewarding and fun! 

One of the most popular questions asked by chess fans is, “What chess books should I read to become a better player?” Since lists get outdated quickly, let’s discuss the general principles of deciding whether a chess book will be helpful to you. 

Seven Tips to Help You Choose a Good Chess Book

One IM friend of mine, rated about 2400, told me fondly a few times a story how he first “held his own” against a 2650-rated GM, then got an “almost winning position” only to lose it in the end. The implied meaning of his glorious tale is that his true strength should be close to 2650. Typically, such a psychological mistake is typical of club players. You hear similar complaints all the time: “I have totally outplayed him, but…”. There is always this “but”! So, what’s wrong with this attitude? And why do we see so many rollercoaster games between Davids and Goliaths?

First of all, a lot depends on the strength of the opponents. For example, in a 1700 vs. 2000 match-up, both players are relatively weak by chess engines’ standards, so the computer is likely to find many mistakes for both sides. The one who makes the last blunder loses. 

In a nutshell, humans are terrible at chess by computer standards. If you revisit the books written in the pre-engine era, you will realize that many games there have this narrative of one player consistently outplaying the other, flawlessly executing his master plan. However, if you check the masterpiece with a modern engine, you will often realize that the opponent had chances to escape or even turn the tables with a brilliant tactical strike unacknowledged by the players and the commentators. 

Secondly, the stronger players often underestimate their opponents, which results in such undesired scenarios as playing superficially and waiting for the game to win itself; attacking too vigorously and recklessly in a position that doesn’t allow it because “it’s time to show the patzer who the boss is”. 

One experienced GM coach told me that the best way to play against candidate masters and below is to put your pieces on nice central squares, after which either the opponent’s position will fall apart by itself, or he will self-destruct. This recommendation is useful to some extent. You can often see experienced GMs not trying too hard against their amateur opponents. They quickly play the moves that are supposed to be “good enough”, and the amateur becomes excited, starts sweating, gets into time trouble, and blunders something silly. However, sometimes the rating favorites play too sloppily and get punished. There is a thin line between playing practically and quickly and making second-rate moves because you believe you can get away with them. 

Thirdly, the rating difference makes the favorites take more risks to avoid drawing the game; many of them overpress and end up losing.

Fourthly, there are fluctuations in form, especially among non-professional players. On a given day, a 2200 might play at a 2400 level, while his 2400-rated opponent might perform at 2200 level, basically reversing the roles in the match-up. 

Fifthly, nowadays, when you see the pairings, it is often not even exactly clear who the favorite is. I have briefly touched upon this topic in the post about rating inflation in chess. 

The ratings of some players haven’t scaled up yet due to them not having played an adequate number of rated games. For example, 16-year-old GM Rameshbabu Praggnanadhaa, one of the most talented chess prodigies in the world right now and the finalist of the recent Chessable Masters event, has an official FIDE rapid rating of…what do you think it is?

2700? 2500? What if I tell you the answer is 1927? 

Oh, how I pity the chess players who will face him in official rapid tournaments!

What is harder: to beat Pragg or to spell his name right? 

To summarize, it is essential to avoid the typical reaction of amateur players after such a loss. For them, the story goes: “At first the position was rather balanced, then complications started. At a certain point I was winning, but he GOT LUCKY, so I ended up losing”. The real story is that, as they say in Russia, “class has prevailed”, meaning that no matter how messy the game itself was, in the end, the more experienced player had the final say. 

So, the weaker players should focus on their own mistakes in such a case and try to make sure they don’t happen again rather than ridicule the weak play of the higher-rated opponents. 

Similarly, Goliaths who suffer a loss at the hands of Davids should also carefully analyze what went wrong and adjust their approach accordingly. 

It is impossible to completely eliminate mistakes from your chess game. What you can do, however, is take it to a new level by utilizing Magnus Trainer – a one-stop solution aimed to help you become a proficient chess player. Don’t miss your chance to study under the guidance of the reigning World Chess Champion! 

One does not simply win a chess game without making any mistakes! 

Why do Stronger Players Make Mistakes Against Weaker Players?

There is no such thing as chess talent. Some people just have f…ed up brains, and this is it!

International Master Vyacheslav Osnos, the coach of Grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi

This column was inspired by my recent conversation with a mother of a 11-year old girl who is into chess and studies it with a personal coach. Just like many other parents out there, the lady wanted to know whether her daughter has enough talent for chess to keep going. Her question was simple as pie: “How do I know if she is gifted chesswise or not?”

You may be wondering the same about your kids or even yourself. Indeed, how can you tell that you or your children have what it takes to become strong chess players?

You improve in chess faster than people around you. Having a natural talent in a certain field essentially means that you grasp things easier there than most people. It is similar to studying in school or at university. Some of us have to read the same page a few times to understand what it is all about, while others take a glance and can work out the details themselves. In any chess club where kids train in a group, there will be students who make impressive progress and those who lag far behind.

There are a couple of crucial disclaimers that I should make here. First of all, a lot depends on the environment. One thing is to be able to outshine the kids in your typical suburban chess club, where most of your competitors won’t progress beyond 1600 FIDE before quitting. However, if you were to enroll in the Kasparov-Botvinnik chess school and be pitted against the likes of Vladimir Kramnik or Alexei Shirov, you may easily become demotivated and decide that your chess talent is so-so. Everything is relative. 

Can you imagine what it feels like to be coached by Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Botvinnik in a class featuring Vladimir Kramnik, Alexei Shirov, Vladimir Akopian, Sergei Tiviakov, Konstantin Sakaev, Konstantin Landa, and other top players?

Secondly, especially for kids, experience plays a critical role. Some parents become discouraged if they see that some other kids are ahead of their children. However, you must consider how long and under what circumstances the people have been training. For instance, your 7-year-old children may be making their first steps in chess, and the kid you are comparing them against may have been training with a couple of coaches and playing competitively since he was four. Now, regardless of how talented the kids are, the early bird may be currently miles ahead of your kids. However, it doesn’t mean that they can’t surpass him in the future. Of course, he has a better start, but nothing is assured. Quite a few prodigies reach their ceiling and get burned out at an early age, especially if their chess studies are mainly imposed by parents. This smoothly brings us to the second item, which is of utmost importance.

You genuinely love playing chess and studying the game. There are some kids who have an immense natural talent for chess, yet they are not interested in developing it. Basically, they do only the exercises the teacher gives them. Their scores might be close to perfect, but they are unwilling to take that extra step into the unknown. Of course, it is also essential to find the right approach to studying chess that fits you best. Some kids become demotivated to study chess just because they don’t like the coach, the format, or other class members. 

To become truly good at chess, you should be immersed in the game and willing to study on your own for hours and hours. It is a good sign if you or your children jump at the opportunity to squeeze in a few more puzzles, check out a Magnus Trainer lesson, or play a couple of blitz games when you have the time for it. Becoming a professional chess player requires the right combination of talent, hard work, and environment. And, as Garry Kasparov once put it, the ability to work hard is a talent by itself. Focus, focus, focus. 

Finally, if you love what you are doing, your time is not wasted anyway. Even if you don’t become a top pro, the chess journey will still be memorable and worth it. 

You are ambitious and have a fighting spirit. Let us start from afar and travel to Ancient Rome. According to a popular anecdote, one of the ways how Julius Caesar used to decide if the recruit would become a good legionnaire was to check how the latter reacted to danger or insults. If his face became red, it was a good sign, showing that he was prepared to fight. If he turned pale, it was perceived as an intention to run away, which is not recommended for someone who serves in the military forces. There is a similar thing in chess. People who don’t care about losses, for whom chess is “just a game”, hardly ever make it to the top. However, overdramatizing defeats is no good either. There are GMs who collapse after a tough loss: they can’t sleep; they have to resort to alcohol to soothe their mental wounds; their performance drops. In contrast, there are true warriors who become enraged after a loss and bounce back. Kasparov, back in his heydays, or Carlsen as of today, are such examples. They may lose a game, but they usually come back in style and prove that they are legendary champions. 

It is normal for kids, and not only kids, to cry after bitter losses. For instance, Bobby Fischer was doing this all the time when he was young. However, what is important is what happens next. If your son becomes dismayed and says he will never play chess again, this is a bad sign. Conversely, if his eyes shine furiously, and he says he will strike back and recover his rating, it is a sign that he may have a future as a chess player. 

The three points above are probably the most important ones. Also, they have the advantage that you don’t even have to be proficient in chess to “diagnose” yourself or your kids using this short list. Now let’s mention a few more specific, purely chess-related items. 

Magnus Carlsen is arguably the finest positional chess player of all time. 

Do you have a natural positional feel? Of course, every skill needs to be developed. Still, some kids seem to intuitively feel where the pieces belong on the board. While some of their peers make random moves or ardently chase an irrelevant pawn in the middle of nowhere, these future Capabancas, Karpovs, and Carlsens are busy fighting for the center, occupying key outposts, targeting weaknesses in the opponent’s camp, and so on. They might not even be aware of what exactly they are doing, yet here they are! As long as you invest enough time and effort, this skill alone should generally take you at least to master level.

Ian Nepomniachtchi is absolutely amazing when it comes to spotting chess tactics.

Are you a tactical wizard? This is a different breed of kids. They blurt out long sequences of moves, calculating them in the blink of an eye. They are very inventive and effortlessly come up with mind-blowing tactical strikes, original defensive resources, and cunning traps. Similar to what has been said about being a strategy expert, it is possible to become a master if you are gifted at tactics. 

Vasyl Ivanchuk is rumored to remember thousands of chess games.

How good is your chess memory? Whether we like it or not, chess is a game of patterns. Gifted players memorize them easily. Once they see a tactic, an opening setup, or a middlegame plan, they add the information to their memory banks and are able to use it in their own games. Also, modern chess is demanding in terms of the amount of computer-generated theory that you have to remember. Not being able to recall the one and only continuation at the critical moment of the game can lead to a quick and painful loss against a well-prepared opponent. Therefore, even though there are still some strong GMs who don’t remember their games and opening lines well enough, most chess pros have an admirable chess memory.

Naturally, similar to the previous items, this ability can be developed somewhat. With proper training, most people should be able to memorize a 15-move line or play one game blindfolded. However, you will probably need a much bigger talent to look at a dozen pages of analysis before the round and remember all the data or give a blindfold simul on ten boards or more. 

Fabiano Caruana takes physical training extremely seriously and is known as a great calculator who can endure chess marathons without losing focus.

What about your health? Competitive chess is a grueling sport that requires maintaining full focus for hours. Even though laymen who have never played a serious event themselves tend not to view chess as physically challenging, you surely know that you should be fit and exercise a lot to play chess at the top level. Chess is an inclusive game that is quite popular with special people, but it is still demanding if you plan to pursue this activity professionally. 

Overall, to become a Grandmaster, you must be multi-faceted. Especially if we are talking about super GM level, where you will likely require all the positive traits mentioned above. When comparing Carlsen to other top players, some of his colleagues noted that he is untouchable due to being extremely well-rounded. In most aspects of chess, his scores would be in the 80s or 90s on a scale of 100. There may be people out there who, let’s say, have 90 in a field where he has 85, but Carlsen will likely have 90 in an area where they have only 70. 

Don’t hesitate to see how talented you are at chess by taking on Magnus Carlsen, Judit Polgar, Wesley So, and other remarkable opponents in the Play Magnus app! 

How do you know whether you or your kids have the talent required to become a strong chess player?

What thoughts are running through your brain when you get paired against someone rated a few hundred points above yourself? Are you an “eternal student” type of person, meekly expecting to lose, but to get a free lesson in return? Or do you spend your evening before the round trying to find a drawish line for White which is supposed to help you earn a much-desired draw? If so, I believe you are hurting your chess future! 

A true champion does his best to win every game. If he loses, he takes the medicine and learns the lesson. Players of a weaker spirit think in a different fashion. They rely on ratings and titles and start making calculations: “this guy is a GM, so a draw would be nice”; “that dude is 2200, so I have to beat him for my IM norm”. In fact, this shortcoming is typical even of average GMs, while only the very top guys have this ambition to excel and to take risks. 

In 1988, Garry Kasparov was giving a simul to six promising US juniors. In one of the games, Daniel Edelman (2360) started repeating moves against his opponent with White, clearly hoping for a draw. Garry was disgusted and shocked by such behavior: "You have White; you have to play. That is my opinion, sorry. When I was young, I would never have missed a chance to play the World Champion." Kasparov offered Daniel a chance to continue the game, but in the end the conflict was settled, and a draw was agreed. Since I have never heard about Edelman, I decided to check out his chess bio. It turned out that the guy has “only” reached IM level and the rating peak of 2420 over the course of many years. Now that’s not what one expects when being a 2360-rated junior, right? However primadonnish Kasparov’s outrage has been, one can’t deny that he was right in the sense of discovering a glaring flaw in Daniel’s psychology. Judging by what we know about his further chess career, lack of fighting spirit probably wasn’t Edelman’s only problem in chess. 

Unfortunately, all the videos of this accident seem to have been removed from YouTube. You can see the footage in the "American Gambit" (1989) documentary. 

Some people think that if their opponent plays a beautiful game, it’s OK to lose. I don’t. You have to be merciless.

Great champions are well-known for dominating their contemporaries. When Kasparov was in his prime, quite a few other top GMs had this aura of hopelessness right from the start of the game when facing him. For most of them, even making a draw was considered a good result, and very few dared to dream about defeating Gazza. On a psychological level, this is not particularly surprising when you realize how devastating the scores of most super GMs were against the 13th World Champion. Here are some of Kasparov’s stats in classical chess against the world-class players of his era:

·       8 wins, 0 losses, 5 draws against Evgeny Bareev

·       15 wins, 0 losses, 14 draws against Alexei Shirov

·       9 wins, 0 losses, 8 draws against Boris Gelfand

·       7 wins, 0 losses, 2 draws against Judit Polgar

·       3 wins, 0 losses, 8 draws against Valery Salov

Similarly, people from Carlsen’s generation, +-5 years, seem to be utterly intimidated by him. This reminded me of a joke that a much older person, chess legend Vladimir Kramnik, made when he finished second in one of the tournaments, right behind Carlsen. He stated that he had essentially won the event since Carlsen was in a different league compared to others. And this revelation was coming from a man who whitewashed Kasparov in a WCC match! Unsurprisingly, a common belief these days is that Carlsen’s peers will probably not be able to wrestle the crown away from him unless he decides to walk away undefeated. In contrast, the young and upcoming chess prodigies don’t seem to idolize him as much as players of the older generations. Even though they are still considerably weaker that Magnus, you can see how passionate they are to show their best when facing him. No chickening out into a draw from most of them. 

I am trying to beat the guy sitting across from me and trying to choose the moves that are most unpleasant for him and his style.

One may point out that the experience of the top players who face each other repeatedly in closed event is very much different from what most of us deal with. This is partially so, but the point still stands true. Besides, even if you play at the club level, you typically have your own “bosses” around, such as nemeses who keep crushing you over and over again in friendly blitz, or people who win the championship of your city year after year, and so on. If you want to overcome them one day, you should believe in your ability to give them a run for their money when you meet over the board. 

I can’t count the times I have lagged seemingly hopelessly far behind, and nobody except myself thinks I can win. But I have pulled myself in from desperate [situations]. When you are behind there are two strategies – counter-attack or all men to the defenses. I’m good at finding the right balance between those.

Another related topic that comes to mind is the “every Russian schoolboy knows” advice to play solidly in an event where the caliber of opponents exceeds your out. Some old-school coaches believe that, especially when reaching GM or super GM level, you should first learn how to handle the pressure and to make draws, and only then aspire to beating the rating favorites. However, I believe this tip works best for people who are relatively faint-hearted and easily dismayed by losses. On a separate note, even some very top GMs have this “glass jaw” issue: if they suffer a painful defeat, they have trouble pulling themselves together. Also, this approach can be detrimental to the young talent’s development in the sense that they get used to 50% being a great result. Consequently, some of them grow up too cautious and not ambitious enough. And if the audience was applauding them for being able to hold their own against the chess elite at age 15, when they hit age 25 or 30, they still hug that coveted 50% mark, but the applauses are no longer there. In my opinion, people who want to unlock their potential fully shouldn’t be afraid to take risks or discouraged by losing streaks. If you can’t cope with a few losses in a row, you will probably not stick around for long in competitive chess anyway. 

So far, we have mostly been discussing the psychological aspect of this issue. However, even in purely chess terms, it is much more preferable to play for a win than for a draw, not to mention feeling doomed and marking time before an unavoidable loss. Stronger chess players don’t like being pushed around, challenged. They enjoy being feared and love seeing the opponent naively try to exchange as many pieces as possible, usually making one small concession after another along the way. Then, when the underdogs reach a drawish or worse endgame, the favorites capitalize on their experience and grind it out rather effortlessly. I have seen this a gazillion times in my tournament practice.

While learning from other people’s mistakes is what we should all strive for, most of us learn the lesson better when it is a firsthand experience. For me the moment of truth was a game against an experienced candidate master rated 2200+. I was a kid back then and felt intimidated by the opponent’s rating and patronizing look. The fight fizzled out into an endgame where I was slightly better due to having a bishop pair (two bishops and a few pawns vs. his bishop and knight with some pawns). I was so proud of myself that I offered him a draw. This is the worst thing you can do in such a situation! The veteran gave me a stern look and played on. I felt insulted and disappointed and collapsed quickly, pushing pawns on the side where I was weaker, allowing him to create a passed pawn and eventually promote it. From that moment on, I have been going for the throat of any opponent, including top GMs when I was Black. And, I have to tell you, they didn’t like that, since when the opponent goes all-out against you, you can’t expect an easy walk in the park like the one I described above. 

Self-confidence is very important. If you don’t think you can win, you will take cowardly decisions in the crucial moments, out of sheer respect for your opponent. You see the opportunity but also greater limitations than you should. I have always believed in what I do on the chessboard, even when I had no objective reason to. It is better to overestimate your prospects than underestimate them.

Bottom line: I suggest you put up a fight in every game. You will enjoy chess more this way, and opponents will be afraid of you, even if they are higher rated. However, of course, playing for a win doesn’t imply being reckless or pressing the position too much when it doesn’t allow it. Also, there are certain situations when a quick draw is useful, for instance, when you are ill. Still, the “play for a win in every game” rule applies to most situations in chess.

The Play Magnus app does have an “offer draw” feature. However, when you challenge Magnus Carlsen, Judit Polgar, Wesley So or other character there, I highly recommend that you do your best to knock them out! 

“Not winning a tournament is not an option for me unless it’s no longer theoretically possible – then of course winning becomes impossible. But up to that point, not winning is just not an option.” – Magnus Carlsen. 

When playing classical tournaments, do you keep track of the amount of time you spend per move? Or, alternatively, do you analyze your online chess games, paying special attention to how long it took you to make a certain decision? 

For a time-trouble addict who always ends up playing on increment, writing down the time spent on each of the moves is crucial for eliminating the shortcoming. Prestigious events have electronic boards which do it for you, while online sites are also quite convenient in this sense. However, most of us have to resort to the good old “pen and paper” method. The “chess poor” have no servants!

In one of the books, I encountered an amusing advice: if you notice that the opponent is keeping track of his time distribution, then he is probably prone to getting in time trouble, so it makes sense to try to exploit it. This statement is only partially true, because many great players keep track of the timing for different reasons. For example, when going through Garry Kasparov’s junior games and Judit Polgar’s books, one may notice that they often refer to the time spent on a move by them or their opponents, viewing it as an important factor. Even as an outsider, I found these notes quite illuminating since they give you a sneak peak into the thought processes of top players, allowing you to understand better how they manage their time during the game. 

Recently, someone contacted our support department and inquired if we have a database of Carlsen’s games with timestamps for every move. I believe such a database doesn’t exist, unfortunately, but it would be instructive to have access to such information for every player. 

Anyway, how can you use this data to your advantage? After the game, you can analyze not only the quality of the moves, but also how long it took you to make them.

Feel free to come up with a list of typical time-wasters for yourself and classify the situations that occurred during the game into the appropriate categories:

·       Not deciding in advance what opening to play.

·       Thinking whether to deviate from a well-known opening line. 

·       Forgetting your home preparation.

·       Not being familiar with the opening or the corresponding middlegame plans.

·       Failing to make the only move right away.

·       Being afraid to intuitively sacrifice a piece, but still doing it after burning a lot of time on the decision.

·       Losing focus due to thinking about other matters, such as your personal relationship, work problems, etc.

·       Going to the WC at the wrong moment and returning 10 minutes after the opponent has pressed the clock.

·       Being a perfectionist and choosing for a long time between two continuations of roughly the same strength.

·       Calculating for the sake of doing so even though it was not necessary. For instance, some people have a soft spot for imagining outrageous attacks for themselves and spending a lion’s share of their time bank on their fantasies which never materialize on the board since the position doesn’t justify such play. 

Obviously, the list is by no means exhaustive. When analyzing the game, think carefully what exactly was the cause for spending too much time on a move. 

Alexander Grischuk is notorious for being a time-trouble addict despite having three World Blitz Chess Champion titles to his name! 

Another curious situation is when you believe you have spared a reasonable amount of time on your move, yet you made a mistake. The basic questions you should ask yourself in such cases are the following:

·       Am I lacking some theoretical knowledge? For instance, there is a sophisticated opening setup that is well-known to experts which you failed to find over the board. Or maybe you should have found a combination, but never seen the pattern before? Or you may have not known the theory of the endgame you ended up in. If so, try to learn from your mistakes and cover the gap. 

·       Did my skills let me down? Maybe your tactical vision was not good enough, or you miscalculated something. Obviously, you can focus on eliminating these weaknesses once you discover them.

·       Was it what they call an “inexplicable blunder”? For example, you are far more proficient and knowledgeable than what it takes not to make a mistake. Still, even super GMs sometimes hang pieces or blunder a mate in one. Make sure you understand what happened. Were you stressed out? Did you get distracted? Were you having some health issues? Did you feel tired? How good was your sleep before the round? Were you on some sort of meds or under the weather? For professionals who are merciless in their self-analysis, there is no such thing as “I was unlucky today and made a bad move.” Each mistake has its own prerequisite. 

Finally, playing too fast and superficially is a common shortcoming among chess players of any level. Let’s review some of the typical reasons why this happens:

·       Blitzing out moves in the opening on autopilot and recalling something wrong. In classical tournaments, make sure to spend a few seconds to check what you are doing even if you believe you remember the line well.

·       «Racing» your opponent, such as trying to intimidate him by playing quickly or keep up with him if he makes his moves swiftly. For some players, it seems to be a matter of prestige to prove they can play as quickly as their opponents. This is a bad idea since what you should be doing instead is taking your time properly and punishing them for their hastiness. 

·       Losing your head over an alluring combination and playing it out right away, only to discover that it was flawed! 

·       Failing to realize that the position is critical and requires a careful assessment. 

·       General nervousness and inability to concentrate when you feel pressured by the necessity to take your time for each move. 

·       Dopamine addiction. Some people get hooked up on the thrill of having to play fast. They start off by spamming 5m games, then move on to 3m per game, 1m per game, 30s per game. Back in the day, one of the playing zones had a 1m/game and 1s/move DECREMENT, and I knew a guy who enjoyed playing with this time control! 

·       Neglecting the “do not rush” endgame principle and forcing the issue too early instead of preparing carefully and giving the opponent a chance to err. 

·       Rushing to close out the game as soon as possible when you have a large lead and not paying attention to your opponent’s resources. This is how you occasionally blunder pieces or end up stalemating the opponent! 

·       Trying to wrap up the game since you have other plans for the evening, such as a date, following an important match live, etc. This sounds rather amateurish, but sometimes even super GMs become anxious in such situations. 

I realize that some of the readers may be bored by the recommendations presented above. It’s OK; not everyone is so serious about chess! Some of us lose or win a game and press “rematch” or “new game” right away, not bothering to analyze much what happened. In such cases and in general, it is useful to have an outsider’s perspective. You could ask your coach or training partner look at some of your games and come up with a list of problems that seem to be haunting you game after game. 

For example, I have a training partner rated about 2200 FIDE and roughly 2450 in blitz on Lichess. He is more of a practical player who prefers action to burning the midnight oil. By following his games, I made these observations and shared them with him:

·       He had poor time management overall, trailing pretty much every opponent on the clock and playing on increment from the middlegame in most games. That being said, he was reasonably strong in time trouble and often managed to outplay opponents despite them having a considerable time advantage. 

·       His knowledge of openings was rather limited. In some cases, he was out of book by move 5 or 6, and by move 10 it was more of the norm for him. For a person of his rating, this is unacceptable. The conclusion was that he was to give his opening repertoire an overhaul and focus on creating the necessary opening trees and checking out model games to become familiar with the associated plans and not waste time on reinventing the wheel. 

·       He was scared to sacrifice material for initiative or unclear complications. Trying to always calculate the line to a clear win, sometimes he wasted lots of time and didn’t dare to make the move. Or he went for it but was so down on the clock that he couldn’t handle the tension later on. In his case, it is important to learn to trust your gut instincts in blitz and to go over annotations of games played by GMs who are good at gambling and sacrificing material for initiative. 

·       Sometimes he would think too deeply. Knowing that the position is probably not critical at all, he would spend a couple of minutes on a small nuance, such as whether to insert the move h6 or not. In such cases, I advised him to ask himself how critical the decision is. If the difference in the evaluation is expected to be small (e.g., 0.2 pawns), then you just make the move suggested by your instincts. This is unlikely to break your game, while wasting two minutes like that may lead to blundering away the entire house in time trouble. 

·       He often missed tactical opportunities or spent too much time calculating them. The obvious cure is to solve puzzles daily and to study more tactical games, as well as adding some sharper openings to the arsenal in order to feel more comfortable navigating complications. 

Of course, he didn’t fix everything at a time, but he has made quite some progress since I had first pointed these issues out to him. Also, the result greatly depends on the person’s willingness to improve, which requires regular study and practice. 

Overall, I hope that from now on you will be paying more attention to your time management in chess! Improving in this area that is often ignored by people can make you a much better player. 

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Recording the time spent per every move can provide more information about your game than you might expect!

The question whether there is rating inflation in chess or not is one of the most hotly debated topics in the chess community. Some players accept it as a universally acknowledged fact that the ratings keep growing year by year and hence assume that top masters from the past would have been rated higher today than they were back then. This belief is further enforced by interviews of former world-class players who are currently inactive. Some of them like fondly recalling their glory days when there was a limited number of 2600s in the world, and only a couple of 2700+ GMs. By mentioning this fact, they proceed to make a claim about the ratings having inflated. But is this true if we consider objective playing strength, not ranking? 

Jose Raul Capablanca was a merciless chess machine who hasn’t lost a single tournament game from 1916 to 1924. 

In his article titled “Would Carlsen have beaten Capablanca?” , GM Daniel Gormally tried to explain to the audience that chess standards have risen a lot over time. As a result, if we used a time machine to bring any of the masters from the past into the modern day, they wouldn’t stand much of a chance. The article attracted an incredible amount of attention from the readers and was received rather poorly. Let’s see what Daniel opined about Capablanca:

But what about Capa? How would he compare strength-wise to the players of today? I think he would come off rather badly. The difference in terms of knowledge and understanding between the players of today and the players of the 1920s and 30s is enormous. I know people who think Capablanca would struggle to break a 2500 rating if he came back today. I'm not sure if I completely agree with this, because Capablanca's raw chess talent is much higher than a 2500 player, but chess is also a game of information. It's difficult to see how Capablanca would have coped with the greater knowledge and sharp chess theory of today's chess elite. Sure, give him six months, and he might be able to bridge the gap, but it really is a huge leap. It's like trying to compare Jesse Owens to Usain Bolt, he'd be left many yards behind.

Here is what Dr. GM John Nunn had to say about one of the participants of the Karlsbad-1911 super tournament featuring such legendary names as Alekhine, Rubinstein, Nimzowitsch, Tartakower, Spielmann, Marshall, etc. In fact, they were all contemporaries and rivals of Jose Raul Capablanca to one extent or another. The quote is from “John Nunn’s Chess Puzzle Book”:

In order to be more specific about Karlsbad, take one player: Hugo Süchting (1874-1916). At Karlsbad he scored 11.5/13.5 or 'minus 2', as they say these days - a perfectly respectable score. Having played over all his games at Karlsbad I think that I can confidently state that his playing strength was not greater than Elo 2100 (BCF 187) - and that was on a good day and with a following wind. 

Let me quote one more passage from the same source:

Returning then to the question as to how Süchting scored 11.5 points, the answer is simply that the other players were not much better. If we assume Süchting as 2100, then his score implies an average rating for the tournament of 2129 - it would not even be assigned a category today.

This assessment seems quite reasonable to me. I also had an impression that the winners of the tournament used to play at below IM level by modern standards. However, when you tell that to typical chess fans, they start puffing, rolling their eyes wildly and accusing you of blasphemy! The same people also love whining about the “overrated” top players nowadays and claiming that someone like Morphy would have beaten them all. They seem to fail to acknowledge the difference between the terms “talent” and “playing strength”. Paul Morphy was definitely an extremely talented individual who was miles ahead of his contemporaries in terms of chess skills. However, back then the overall level of chess in the world was so low that he had no chance to become a proficient player by modern standards. After all, our knowledge about all aspects of chess has increased tremendously since that time, especially in the last few decades of computer revolution. That being said, some ex-World Champions remain objective and admit that. For instance, when people start bugging Garry Kasparov who is the better player: Magnus Carlsen or Garry in his prime, Garry always points out that the next generation tends to surpass the achievements of the previous ones and offers analogies such as that modern students know more about science than Isaac Newton, but it doesn’t diminish his discoveries. It’s just that you can’t directly compare chess players (or scientists) who have lived in different eras. 

Another reason why people tend to overestimate the prowess of the players of the past is that we typically remember only the best masterpieces of their lifetimes. And if you check out all the games, you will realize that they have been blundering left and right on their offdays. Even with game collections, it is not that simple. I recall a funny conversation with IM Vladislav Akselrod on this matter. One of his students asked him whose games to study as an example of attacking chess. Vlad’s first instinct was to give him a tip of advice that dates to the Soviet days: “Study Alekhine’s games since he was an exceptional tactician!”. However, when Vlad himself opened a book of Alekhine’s selected (!) games…at this point he made a vivid grimace as if he had tasted something sour! As a result, he decided that, with all due respect to Alekhine’s greatness, nowadays there are probably better role models for aspiring competitive chess players. 

What about the statistical evidence? In the paper titled “Intrinsic Chess Ratings” by Kenneth W. Regan and Guy McC. Haworth (May 18, 2011), the authors posed two important chess questions:

1.     Has there been ‘inflation’—or deflation—in the chess Elo rating system over the past forty years?

2.     Were the top players of earlier times as strong as the top players of today?

They have arrived at the following conclusion:

…there has been little or no ‘inflation’ in ratings over time—if anything there has been deflation. This runs counter to conventional wisdom, but is predicted by population models on which rating systems have been based [Gli99]. 

The results also support a ‘no’ answer to question 2. In the 1970’s there were only two players with ratings over 2700, namely Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov, and there were periods as late as 1981 when no one had a rating over 2700 (see [Wee00]). In the past decade, however, there have usually been thirty or more players with such ratings. Thus the lack of inflation implies that those players are better than all but Fischer and Karpov. Extrapolated backwards, this would be consistent with the findings of [DHMG07], which (like some recent competitions to improve on the Elo system) are based only on the results of games, not on intrinsic decision-making.

Since Elo ratings were introduced in 1971, only three players were able to set new all-time records.

If you talk to players whose careers have spanned decades and who are still active, they will probably acknowledge that the standards have risen dramatically. In the past, Mikhail Tal used to say that he would have crushed his former self from the days when he was the World Champion since his understanding of chess has improved a lot. And that was before the computer age, which has revolutionized chess! To give you a more recent statement, last month I have stumbled upon an interesting quote by Sergei Tiviakov in the “Chess for Life” book by Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan, published in 2016:

What areas of your game have improved and worsened? 

In general, my level of chess playing has become better. I am playing a better level of chess than before. But the problem is that the general level of playing chess in the world has increased much more than my level of chess. In comparison, I am falling behind. Sometimes I look at my older games and I’m really surprised how poorly I played before. In general, I think I’m playing better than before.

Sergei is one of the most experienced players on the circuit, who has played a few thousand tournament games, winning dozens of events and visiting a plethora of countries. At one point, he had a streak of 110 consecutive games undefeated. He knows what he is talking about, and I can totally relate to what he is saying.

When I and my friends were starting on “serious” chess and received ratings of about FIDE 2000, we had no opening files and could play pretty much anything we wanted from scratch. Our “preparation” was finding a scoresheet from the previous round and checking out what first move your opponent made. We were rather clueless about endgames, even very basic ones, such as the Lucena position in rook endgames. Our defensive skills were pretty much negligible. Nowadays, thanks to chess engines, databases and other modern technology, kids learn to play like engines from the very start. They know sharp lines up to 15-20 moves and have much more middlegame experience due to being able to spam online training games against a diverse field of opponents. They prepare carefully with databases, engines and opening trees, relying on statistics to pick the optimal weapons against the opponents. They are much more resistant since engines teach you how to sacrifice material for the sake of getting counterplay, or to defend stubbornly in general even when things look bleak. I could go on about this for a long time, but my informal assessment is that someone rated 2000, let’s say, 20 years ago, would probably be 1700 or so by modern standards. That is, if we are talking about a time machine type of scenario. 

COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on chess ratings as well. Namely, the improving players didn’t get much chance to compete during the last couple of years. As a result, nowadays in open tournament there are many kids rated like 1500-1600 who tear apart experienced 2000+ players. This, in its own turn, affects players with higher ratings as well, since if you were farming those 2000 guys before, now their ratings will probably plummet to 1800-1900, and you would be expected to score much more points against them than previously. I have seen GM discussions on FB on this topic, and we are talking about active professionals who are close to their peak in terms of strength, not some washed-up has-beens who need to come up with excuses to justify their poor performances. 

Anyway, no matter what the research findings, logical arguments and empirical experiences of the leading GMs and computer scientists are, I still realize that I am fighting an uphill battle here when trying to prove my case. The eyes of most chess fans will remain dazzled by the very best masterpieces of the good old times and by the scale of the personalities of the maestros. 

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Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you must have heard about “rating inflation” in chess. Is it a scientific fact or a popular myth that deserves debunking? 

Rating Inflation in Chess: True or False? 

If you are following the Oslo Esports Cup (don’t tell me you aren’t!), you have surely noticed that Magnus Carlsen has been struggling with some health issues throughout the event. He looks weary and is sometimes on the verge of falling asleep over the board, has a nasty cough and walks around shakily, trying to speak to the reporters as little as possible. 

Unfortunately, sicknesses are an unavoidable part of a tournament player’s routine. Let’s say you find out before or during an event that you are ill. How do you handle this dire situation? 

In a perfect world, you should seek medical help and then decide whether to continue or not. However, quite often the symptoms are not that scary, and you have no possibility to consult the right doctor in due time, so you have to take risks and make decisions on the spot.

We have had a long discussion on this topic in the 2000s with Natalia Pogonina. I was arguing in favor of withdrawing when you are sick. My points were that when you are ill, you might worsen your condition by playing on. Also, you tend to perform poorly, hurting your rating and not winning any prize. Overall, the whole process feels more like a torture than entertainment. Moreover, even when you are not ill, some players, for instance, participants of open events in the US, routinely drop out of the tournament if they start poorly. The reason for this is that the prize fund there typically has a pyramid shape, and only finishing in the top spots allows you to reap tangible rewards. Therefore, if you start with, let’s say, 2/4, you are out of contention and may as well save yourself some time by withdrawing from the event. 

Natalia, however, disagreed and pointed out that one should have a fighter’s spirit and be ready to play on even if things are not going your way. What she said was essentially “Winners never quit, quitters never win”, even though she doesn’t like such simplistic motivational quotes. As far as I remember, regardless of the issues she has been having, she only withdrew from one tournament in her life. And that was in the Russian Women’s Superfinal in 2009, when the doctors stated that playing on was an absolute no-no. 

I can see where she is coming from. Once you start nurturing your inner weaknesses, you will eventually fall apart psychologically and be giving up on tournaments not only when you are seriously ill, but when you feel tired, distracted, burned out, demotivated and so on. This is a slippery path that can lead to quitting competitive chess in general. 

Also, she has this attitude of a player who regularly competes at the most prestigious individual and team women’s tournaments and/or gets appearance fees. The responsibility in such events is on a different level compared to someone who plays local open events just to have fun. Of course, one does not simply bow out of a World Championship or Chess Olympiad after catching a cold. 

Overall, I believe there is some truth to both her and my arguments. A lot depends on whether you are an amateur, semi-pro or pro player. For most of us, our wellbeing should arguably be of a much higher priority than tournament standings or FIDE ratings. For pros who live by the “chess is my life” motto, the conclusion could be different. 

In 1961, Mikhail Tal was scheduled to play a rematch against Mikhail Botvinnik. The conventional narrative is that in the 1960 match Botvinnik didn’t take his opponent seriously enough and lost the title, 8.5-12.5. Then the Patriarch of Soviet Chess did his homework, revamped his openings, and came back in style, convincingly defeating the Magician from Riga, 13-8. This story has another plot as well. Mikhail Tal generally had fragile health and therefore died young. Before the rematch, he was having serious issues with his kidneys and asked for a postponement. Mikhail Botvinnik, a formalist and someone who argued that one should never do your opponents any favors, demanded that Tal undergo an extensive examination in Moscow. Indirectly, he was hinting that the illness was a cover-up. Tal was insulted and, according to his coach, Alexander Koblentc, blurted out, “Even if I am half-alive, I will still beat the old fart!” As a result, aged 24, Misha Tal became the youngest Ex-World Chess Champion and never got another shot at the title. 

Bobby Fischer visiting Mikhail Tal in a hospital in 1962

I have known some selfish chess players who made such decisions based only on their personal wellbeing and even joked about "evening the odds" by infecting the opponents. However, if you believe the illness you have may be contagious, there is an important aspect of caring about other participants. 

At the FIDE World Cup 2021, Levon Aronian, who was the #3 seed, forfeited both games in the second round of the event for health-related reasons. As far as I know, his decision was based not only on his personal problems, but also on the unwillingness to put other participants of the tournament at risk. 

Let’s say you have weighed all the pros and cons and made a responsible decision to keep playing on. 

Interviews with Vladimir Kramnik have been eye-opening for me when it comes to dealing with illnesses as a chess player. His tips are especially useful for people like me, perfectionists and control freaks, who try too hard to perform well.

According to Kramnik, in general, no matter how well you prepare for an important event, there are no guarantees that everything will go smoothly. There is always some magic involved. Sometimes you do everything “right”, and the result is terrible. In other cases, you are facing one obstacle after another, but the outcome is favorable. 

Kramnik has been known for playing tournaments with an extreme fever, sleep-deprived, experiencing pains in his body and so on. According to him, especially as you become older, you are getting used to the new norm of not feeling totally OK on pretty much any day. If you embrace it and treat it as an exciting challenge that is part of every person’s life, it is much easier to deal with the issues. Moreover, it is a good way to shake off the stress and tension that haunts some people who are obsessed with their tournament performances. In other words, if you let go of the burden of performing at your best and focus on (literally) surviving the day, sometimes your results even improve! In fact, Kramnik has won some tournaments feeling extremely poorly, and his opponents were not even aware of this! 

Some friendly trolling from the 14th World Chess Champion

If you are experiencing health issues, think how to make life easier for yourself.

In 1985 in Tilburg, Tony Miles was going through severe back pains. To soothe them somehow, he took painkillers and played while lying flat on a massage table. One of his opponents, Roman Dzindzhichashvili, said that in return he will stand throughout the entire game! He also smoked over the board, which was not forbidden back then. It is hard to say whether Miles’ decision was justified or not. As far as I know, his doctor lamented that lying on his belly with such a condition was the worst thing he could have done. Still, from a chess perspective, it was a lifehack that allowed him to play on in the tournament. Notably, Miles shared the first place there with Robert Huebner and Viktor Korchnoi, scoring 8.5 points out of 14. 

When you are feeling sick, it makes sense to fall back upon your solid, bulletproof opening repertoire that you know from a to z. That is, if you have it, of course! In contrast, experimenting with openings and trying out new sharp lines that you haven’t mastered yet can lead to a disaster. When you are sick, you need to minimize the amount of calculation required, because blunders are much more likely to come as compared to when you are your normal self. 

You would normally not expect Magnus Carlsen to make such blunders. However, when you are sick, everything is possible! 

If you are one of those people who spend hours rehearsing their opening lines before the round, it may be a way of shooting yourself in the foot when you are ill. If your head is dizzy, you are unlikely to memorize the lines well, and getting yourself tired before the match even starts can become your undoing. However, if you play your trusted openings (see the previous item), you are less likely to need a lot of time for rehearsing. 

This tip is particularly useful when you are struggling with a short-term issue that lasts only a couple of days, such as a cold. When you face a friend or someone lower-rated than yourself, there is an option of trying to make/offer a quick draw to save some precious energy and buy yourself some time for recovery. Of course, you had better not show weakness by desperately begging for a draw after the first few moves. Otherwise, the opponent might figure out that something spooky is going on and turn down your offer.

Back in the XXth century, so-called “Grandmaster draws” were quite popular. In long round robins, players would make early draws with opponents whom they knew well and respected and focus on beating the underdogs. Bobby Fischer was particularly mad about this practice since the Soviet GMs would regularly draw each other, saving energy, and target the rest of the field. 

I recall sitting next to a guy who had the habit of showing up at tournaments drunk. This time, he was so under the weather that he could barely move the pieces. He started out with 1.d4, made a couple more moves and, shaking his head and scratching his long beard, squinted through his glasses and muttered: “The position is so CLOSED. I guess it is a draw!” The opponent knew him quite well, had a lower rating and was Black, so he agreed. The arbiter, who was observing this spectacle all along, finally intervened and lectured the first guy, warning that he will be excluded from the tournament if this happens again. As a result, I have added another catchphrase to my arsenal about the position being “closed” and hence drawn. Of course, you should use it for comic relief when the situation on the board is as far from this description as can be. 

That being said, I wish you to stay healthy and be able to play your best chess!

Let’s return to the Oslo Esports Cup. So far, Magnus 10 has proved out to be a formidable opponent for some of the best chess players in the world. Can you do better than them? Download the Play Magnus app and give the challenge a try! 

Returning to Chess After a Long Break: A Checklist

Seven Tips to Help You Choose a Good Chess Book

Why do Stronger Players Make Mistakes Against Weaker Players?

How Big is Your Chess Talent?

Play for a Win in Every Game

Recording Your Time Distribution

Rating Inflation in Chess: True or False?

Should You Play Chess When You are Ill?

The Infamous Touch-Move Rule

Happy 100th Anniversary to GM Yuri Averbakh!