Poise

Something about chess club is good for prying words loose from the depths of my memory. A few months ago I wrote about how a night of chess helped me remember the word “oxymoron.” Tonight’s word is somewhat simpler, but it’s a beautiful one: “poise.”

Here’s what brought that word to mind. Before chess club I was feeling really confident, for some reason. I think it was because I had been looking back over my chess notebooks from 1988, and it kind of brought back the frame of mind I was in back then. I had just won my second North Carolina championship, reached a National Master rating (and gotten the certificate that goes with it), and won an open tournament for the first time. I think that I have never been quite as confident about my chess as I was in the first half of that year. And of course (as you know from my last entry) I had just fallen in love, which made everything in the world seem happy and wonderful.

So this confident frame of mind carried over into chess club tonight, and I managed to win all three of my games in spite of the fact that they were played at a fast time control of game/15, which I usually detest. After chess club I was trying to think of the word to describe how I played tonight, which is a way that I don’t usually play, and the word came to me.

Poised.

I’m always impressed by people who remain calm throughout the ups and downs of a chess game, and especially during time trouble. But an even better, more powerful way to be is poised. The state of poise includes being calm, but it also includes something else. It brings to mind a sense of balance and preparedness. It comes from the French word “poids,” meaning weight. So think of weights, perfectly balanced. A tightrope walker crossing a chasm: that’s poise. Poise is not about avoiding trouble, but being ready to cope. That is what you are aiming for as a chess player.

My most interesting game tonight was the third one. Actually, I’m not sure how good this example is, because I made a really stupid move and then got outrageously lucky. But at least I never panicked. It was my opponent who panicked, even though he should have been winning.

What do you think about this position? What should White do?

I’m playing White against Sam Sternlight, who usually doesn’t get to play in the top quad, so he was a little bit intimidated. He has sacrificed an exchange for a pawn, but he’s actually in quite good shape here. He’s got pressure on my pawn on e5, and lots of nice squares for his knight on c7, which is threatening to go to d5 or b5 and from there to c3 or d4. Also, White’s position is kind of loose, with lots of undefended or weak pawns or pieces. Finally, White has to come up with a defense to the specific threat of … Nc7-b5-c3, winning an exchange.

Thus I think the best move is 1. Rb2, which prevents the fork and prepares to swing the rook over to f2 after 1. … Nb5. The rook also defends the pawn on a2 and may be able to create threats against f7 at some point.

Instead, I succumbed to the temptation of winning a pawn and played 1. Qb7?? A really misguided move, abandoning the center and leaving even more squares unprotected in my position, such as d4 and d3. My only excuse is that I had about 3½ minutes left and my opponent had 6, so basically we’re playing speed chess here. 1. Qb7 is a real speed-chess kind of move; hopefully I would have better sense in a tournament.

Sam continued naturally with 1. … Nd5 2. Qxa7 Nc3 3. Ra1 (again, 3. Rb2 might have been better) Qd5 4. Nb6 Qxd3 5. Kg2?!, reaching the position shown below.

Black has lots and lots of ways to win. The one that looks most convincing to me is 5. … Ne4, which threatens 6. … Qxg3+ followed by mate, so White cannot afford to take on d7. The knight also blocks the rook’s defense of e5, so Black is threatening also 6. … Nxe5 with really big threats. The computer gives Black a 7-pawn advantage here!

But Sam played 5. … Qd2+?, which I think you can find in Wikipedia under the entry “pointless check.” Again, it’s very much a speed-chess move; in speed chess you tend to play checks first and ask questions later. The game continued 6. Bf2 Nxb6? (6. … Nxe5 still wins) 7. Qxb6 Qd5+ 8. Kb1 Bxe5 9. Qxc5.

Sam explained after the game (well, actually even during the game he said this) that he just missed this move. The momentum has shifted once again — I’ve navigated the tightrope and gotten safely to the other side of the chasm. However, Black still has a very playable position, if he does the right thing here. What would you do?

Sam did exactly what I expected — he played to win back the exchange with 9. … Qxc5? 10. Bxc5 Ne2+ 11. Rxe2 Bxa1. But luck was with me again — it turns out that winning the exchange wasn’t the best idea for him, because I played 12. Bxb4 and my queenside pawns started running. Instead, after 9. … Bd6! 10. Qxd5 Nxd5, Black would have had excellent drawing chances. White’s extra pawn on the queenside is very hard to activate, maybe even impossible.

I don’t know if this game had to do with poise or just plain luck, but anyway, that’s the kind of night it was.