Attitude

Win with grace. Lose with dignity.
Susan Polgar

During morning coffee today, I reviewed three games on Chessgames.com, then played a single blitz game. When the blitz game began, I spoke my opponent's name, DarklordCOBRA, and then said, "this could be loss number 10,000." My wife can attest that I was calm and ready to accept defeat. She does not recall my tone of voice. Lack of recall is proof. Expressions of anger and despair do not go unnoticed. Last night, for example, after she went to bed, she called from the bedroom to ask, "what's wrong?" I was in the living room playing blitz on my iPad and had dropped a piece in an otherwise equal position, uttering some profanities.

Losses torment me. They bring out such fury that it seems that I hate the world and everyone in it. I yell such obscenities at the computer screen when losing online games that even the deaf dog heads outside for safety.

It need not be this way. It is possible to "lose with dignity", as Susan Polgar advocates. As a youth chess coach, I have spent years urging children to understand, "when you lose, you learn." In truth, however, I am a little half-hearted expressing this sentiment. I know that children hurt when they lose. A cliché offers minimal comfort at such times.

I have a more serious problem with the "win, draw, or learn" saying popular among other coaches. Often, victories should be subjected to the same scrutiny as losses. One of the students whom I coach one-on-one tied for first in his tournament last Saturday, winning his first trophy. During the tournament, he brought one of his game scores to my director's table and we analyzed the victory with his opponent. She missed at least two opportunities to checkmate him with a two move sequence. Although he finished at the top and she finished near the middle, the final standings could have been much different. It is very important to learn from one's mistakes in victories, as well as from defeats.

I recently won the Spokane Chess Club's Winter Championship. It would be easy to find comfort in my success, but it is more important to find humility. I had a lost position in four out of five games (see "Perseverance"). My success stemmed from a lot of help from my opponents who failed to put me away when they had the chance. However, I kept my own chances alive by never giving up. Throughout the course of the event, I tried to remain focused on having fun, finding the best moves, and learning. I found help from the prescriptions Paul Powell puts forth in The Fighting Dragon: How to Defeat the Yugoslav Attack (2016), which I reviewed recently.

I will explore new ideas and open my mind to new patterns. I will learn new patterns and become a stronger player.
Failure is not measured by wins and losses; failure is continuing to play without learning.
Paul Powell, The Fighting Dragon, 18.

When I play too much blitz, the quality of my play suffers. My attitude suffers also. The problem, however, stems less from the quantity than from the mindset. It may be possible to play for many hours and still cultivate a positive attitude. It is less likely when play is aimed at getting to that next rating goal (such as the rating I had yesterday).

Facing an opponent whose rating was higher than I have been in the past two weeks, I resolved to learn. I aimed to find strong moves and not get caught in the rut of playing without thinking. DarklordCOBRA essayed the Advance variation against my French. I commented, "I have played this over-the-board against a titled player and done well." Nonetheless, I went for the old main line instead of what I usually play. My opponent built up an advantage through the opening and early middlegame.

DarklordCOBRA (1946) -- Ziryab (1872) [C02]
Live Chess Chess.com, 24.02.2017

After 21.Bc3

Black to move

21...Qh4

I wanted to play 21...a5, but miscounted the number of pieces that I had supporting this push. It's kind of hard to count to two during a blitz game. After the game, I looked again at this idea, thinking White would reply 22.a3. Initially, in my postgame analysis, I did not see how 22...Qb6, intending b5-b4 fails to 23.Bxg7!

My move was an effort to play b5-b4, and shows also that I was instinctively aware of some vulnerabilities on the kingside. But, my queen was kicked around a bit.

22.g3 Qh5 23.Re1 Rfd8 24.Bd1 Qc5 25.Rc1 Qf5 26.Bc2 Qh3

My queen has a nice aggressive post, but my opponent is not going to give me time to put my bishop where my knight stands in order to support Qg2#.

White to move

27.Qg5

27.Re4 should prove decisive, as my queen is running out of safe squares.

27...g6 28.Re4 b4

I am losing my queen, but at least I can get a rook and bishop for it.

29.Rh4 Qxh4 30.Qxh4 bxc3 31.bxc3

White has a decisive advantage, but also has only sixteen seconds. I have thirty.

Black to move

31...Ne5 32.Qf6 Ng4 33.Qf4 f5 34.h3 Nf6 35.Bb3 Nd5

After the game, I thought I should have played 35...Kf7. Even here, Black is busted.

36.Qe5 Bc6

White to move

37.h4

With only nine seconds remaining, my opponent came up with a plan that seems to lead to checkmate.

37.Qxe6+ Kg7 38.Bxd5 Bxd5 39.Qxd5+- ends matters more quickly.

37...Nxc3 38.h5

My opponent should have found 38.Bxe6+ Kf8 39.Qf6+ Ke8 40.Qf7#

38...Bd5 39.h6 Ne2+

White to move

40.Qxe2??

40.Kh2 leaves Black with no checks, and only the possibility to delay checkmate. Black had five seconds in which to find Kh2.

40...Rxc1+

Now, for the first time in the game, Black has an advantage.

41.Bd1 Kf7 0–1

After the game, I went back through the battle looking for errors and opportunities. Mainly, I found my opponent's missed opportunities. Immediate postgame analysis of wins, losses, and draws with an aim to learning can help cultivate the correct attitude.

The Fighting Dragon

A Book Review

The Fighting Dragon: How to Defeat the Yugoslav Attack (Boston: Mongoose Press, 2016) by Paul Powell is not a repertoire book. It does offer suggestions to meet White's normal lines of play against the Dragon variation of the Sicilian Defense. Unlike repertoire books, however, it does not offer a large number of heavily analyzed lines of seemingly endless variations. The book consists of ten main chapters--the first nine each cover one particular variation, and number ten covers "odds and ends". The shorter second part offers quizzes, a series of positions to solve. Something more than half of these positions occur in games found in the ten chapters.

The Fighting Dragon offers 52 games, all of which end with victory for the player of the Black pieces. Despite this record, these games do not reveal that White's ideas against the Sicilian Dragon are refuted. Rather, both sides have chances until a fatal error by White. Black's play, too, could be improved upon in some of the games.

With one exception, all of the games are shorter than average. More than half are miniatures (25 moves or less). Thirty games conclude by move 25. Ten games are decided in 20 moves or fewer. Only one game lasts longer than 35 moves. Powell, who is a USCF Life Master, explains that he intends his focus on short games to cultivate "inspiration and pattern recognition instead of memorization as a critical element of [the reader's] opening study" (9). Short games reveal catastrophic errors. Learning to identify these errors develops the reader's understanding of tactical themes.

Although I am more likely to find myself on the White side of the Yugoslav Attack, this book has inspired me. Powell's prescriptions to avoid "the rut" have helped me maintain a somewhat healthier focus both in play and in study.

Let us consider the Dragon player who is stuck in a rut. He revels in showing you his favorite game from 2002 where he crushed a master in the main-line Dragon. Great result, but sadly for him he's been playing the exact same line for over a decade in the hopes that another strong player will fall down the same rabbit hole. (16)

Start thinking sooner, even after the first move, even while playing your pet lines, Powell urges. "Comfort turns into complacency," he notes (15). He lays out a plan for reading this book and profiting from it. Take several ideas from each chapter. Play them fearlessly--intending to learn whether winning or losing. Play them in blitz and in slow games. As the reader tries new ideas, some will fit better than others. Refine those.

In The Fighting Dragon, Powell offers light annotations, emphasizing verbal explanations of the core ideas more than alternate variations. After the moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.O-O-O Rb8, he notes, "The historical main-line Dragon finds the rook on c8 with pressure on the semi-open file. With ...Ra8-b8 instead, Black intends to use his b-pawn as a battering ram to open up White's castle" (120).

White to move

In his notes to the longest game in the book, Domínguez Pérez,L -- Carlsen,M, Linares 2009, he suggests, "If 10...Rb8 is worthy of being part of a world champion's repertoire, it should be one of the tools at your disposal too" (130). The skeptical reader might note that Magnus Carlsen was not yet world champion in 2009, but the point has merit.

The book uses figurine algebraic notation and prints the diagrams upside down--Black on bottom. This unorthodox printing of diagrams might bother some readers, but may comfort others. For some readers, it might have been helpful to have the coordinates included with the diagrams. These coordinates are missing in The Fighting Dragon.

The writing is mostly lively and interesting. Powell offers fresh metaphors ("One of the most difficult things in chess is deciding whether to paint your house or to go on vacation" [27]), but also weak and tired similes ("they avoid these lines like a zombie virus" [9]). The book reveals Powell as a person who would be entertaining during the social times at a chess tournament and who might say useful and memorable things during post-game analysis.

Chess players looking to start playing the Dragon will be well served reading this book. It facilitates quick grasp of the main ideas. A Dragon player who has studied a shelf full of repertoire books for years could still benefit from reading through this short book (183 pages) as much from the discussion of chess psychology as from the selection of entertaining games. Even players of other opening systems should consider Powell's approach to studying openings via tactical themes revealed through miniatures. The Fighting Dragon deserves some credit for cultivating habits of study that led to a nice win against our City Champion and his Queen's Indian Defense (see "Home Preparation"). After reading this book in December and early January, I began to apply some of its methodologies in my study of other openings.

I heartily endorse this book.