If I had to name the thing I like most about chess ... it would probably be winning. Winning feels really good. A close second would be the joy of figuring out a hard problem. There's something magical about working on a puzzle and then finding the key move that snaps everything into place. That also feels really good.
That said, I can win at any game, and there are loads of intellectual puzzles to keep me busy. Chess offers something else I find fascinating: a glimpse into the psychology of our opponents. I can look at my opponent's moves and, frequently, predict what sort of player he is, what he wants to do, what his preferences and weaknesses are. I can then use this prediction to inform my own strategies.
It doesn't work all the time, but anecdotally, it seems to work more often than not. Winning is nice, but winning while figuring out the psychological make-up of your opponent, that is next level. It reminds me of that old Bobby Fischer quote.
Today, I want to share one such game where, very early on, I predicted my opponent's psychology and then used it against him. It's a nice game, I won in 18 moves, but more importantly, I felt like I won the mental battle long before he resigned.
2020 01 01 - tomsk - SmithyQ
This game was played just over four years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. Here's the link if you want to follow with a dynamic board. At the time, I had just finished my first semester at law school and filled my downtime with chess. I don't think I had played much previously, and certainly not during the exam period.
Part of my New Year's Resolution in 2020 was to learn the King Indian's Defence, and that's exactly what we got out of the opening:
This is the Saemisch variation, which I didn't really know. Honestly, I knew almost nothing about the KID: in the Classical variations Black goes for the Kingside deathstar pawnstorm, but in other variations ... he just does stuff and gets play out of nowhere. That's how it always felt when I faced it, at least.
More relevantly, I know that aggressive players like to play these f3-systems. Playing f3 secures e4 and prepares the pawnstorm with g4+h4. Many White players hate being attacked in the classic KID, and so they look to play systems that let White do the attacking. Already, right here, I got the first hint that my opponent was a hacker. That got confirmed just two moves later.
White immediately set up the classic Be3 + Qd2 battery. I mean immediately: they were practically premoved. It now seemed clear to me: White will castle long and start his own attack. White has murder on his mind. There was no doubt about it.
At this point, I don't know theory, but I know psychology: if White wants to attack, then I need to do something against that. I can either a) transition into a dry position where attacks are impossible, b) try to disincentivize his natural attack plans, or c) start my own attack faster, sacrificing material if necessary. Achieving any of these three things will work against my opponent's psychology, likely causing self-immolation in the process.
That's why I played this:
What is special about this move? Well, it aims to make long castling more unpleasant. If he goes for 0-0-0, then he has to immediately worry about ...b5!?, sacrificing a pawn to open lines. I will be the one attacking, he will be defending. My attack goes first. His natural attacking plan is now just a little bit more unpleasant, psychologically speaking.
Indeed, my opponent decides not to castle. He just develops his pieces, and we reach this position:
The computer says I haven't played very well and that White can get a nice position via dxc6 en passant and then doing normal positional moves: 0-0, Rd1 and Nd5, all pressuring the open d-file. Notice, though, that this goes precisely against my opponent's psychological make-up. If he castles Kingside, there goes his hope of attack.
He's an aggressive attacking player. He can't let that happen. He does this instead:
This allows a tactic that I missed, but that's fine, let's keep going with the psychological narrative. White is doing the normal thing, getting ready to trade the fianchetto Bishop to then prepare the pawnstorm. That's exactly what happens:
Bishops are traded, and White wants to attack. However, he can't play g4 yet, because that would hang f3 and his position falls apart. If he wants to attack, he needs to trade on d4 first. That's exactly what happens:
Okay, White is now ready to play g4 and h4 with impunity, and he can play Ng3 to reinforce the attack. White will have the ideal attacking set-up.
Here is where psychology takes over. I don't think I was even calculating variations at this point, not in any real sense. I was entirely focused on psychology. I had this sense that if I could attack him first, that he would fall apart. I just need to figure out how to do that. The idea is simple: open lines and get to his King. The only question is figuring out the best way forward.
I started with ...b5, and White, on only 20s thought, continued with his attack:
And when he recaptured, I immediately, in less than a second, sacrificed on g4:
Boom. Just like that, the position is completely changed. I want you to imagine White's psychological state: two moves ago he was thrilled. He has his attack, he had his normal position, and he knew what all his follow-up moves would be. He had life on autopilot. In a 15min + 15s game, he currently had more time than when we started. Easiest game of his life.
Instead, he now reaches this position:
Suddenly the center is opening up and his King is in mortal danger. My Knight is the best piece on the board, my Queen has a choice of beautiful diagonals to deliver checks, and I have a mound of central pawns ready to fly. Sure, White is up a piece for two pawns, but life is far from easy. How does White hang on?
Do you see that? "How does White hang on?" That's the question now. It's not "how does White attack?", it's "How does White survive the next few moves?" This is a radical shift in thought process, and it is incredibly tough to do it. My opponent ended up spending more time on his next two moves than the rest of the game combined ... and he immediately blundered.
Why did this happen? For one, my play was sound, so that always helps. I wasn't just playing for tricks. Rather, I think White collapsed because the psychological make-up of the game completely changed. He had to go from attacker to attackee in literally one second. He had to change his mental gearshift, and he couldn't do it. He spent nearly three minutes and blundered into a simple royal fork.
Is it because he is a bad player? No, he's around 1900 in all important time controls. Normally, he could see that fork in a heartbeat. In this game, though, he had to battle not just me but his own psychology. The tables turned and he couldn't keep up.
I don't know if I'm the better chess player, but in this game, I was the better psychologist.
Conclusion
Winning feels nice, sure, but winning like this, where I predict my opponent's psychological make-up and actively play against it, that is the ultimate in chess achievement, as far as I am concerned.
This works time and time again. I see the aggressive attacker and I start the attack first, or I trade into a dull position which they then self-destruct. It also works in reverse, where I sense a calm, positional player and so I light the board on fire. My opponents get uncomfortable, not from a chess sense but from a psychological sense, and then their game goes downhill. It doesn't get any better than that.
Of course, I get this wrong. There are times my predictions fall flat. Sometimes I'm completely wrong. Sometimes my psychological warfare simply gets in the way of playing chess and finding good moves. Sometimes I spend so much time thinking like this that I miss simple tactics. Heck, in this very game I missed a simple tactical shot. I'm not perfect.
When it works, though, it's the best feeling in the world. I look into my opponent's moves and I predict who they are and what they want. When it works, it is heaven, and for that little moment I get to feel like Bobby Fischer.
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