I hate computers, I hate speed chess, and I especially hate myself for playing speed chess against computers. And here’s why…
Position after 33. … g6. White to move.
FEN: 1R3b1r/4nk2/p2pNpp1/P1pP2PP/4P3/q1N1Q1K1/8/8 w – – 0 1
While you think about what you would play in the position, I’ll tell you the back story. Last weekend I played in a speed chess tournament, and in order to prepare I decided to play a few speed chess games against the computer. Bad idea. I hadn’t played against the computer in three or four months, having sensibly decided there were better uses of my time.
Playing “a few speed games” got me hooked again. After the tournament was over I still found myself playing several games a day against Shredder, always looking for that “one more game” that would give me satisfaction. So today I was on my fourth game, having lost the previous three in disastrous ways, and I finally played what I thought was a really nice game, until I reached the above position. I’m playing White, and the computer (with its strength set at 2165) is playing Black.
Of course my initial inclination was to play 34. gf attacking the knight, but then I saw that the computer could play 34. … Bh6 with a counterattack against the queen and the rook. “Damn! I blew it again!” I thought. But there are lots of other attractive possibilities, and I finally decided that I could get a winning position simply by trading down:
34. Rxf8+? Rxf8 35. Nxf8 Kxf8 36. gf Ng8
Once again I realized that there was a flaw in my plans. I had planned to play 37. fg here and thought the two connected passed pawns would be crushing. However, Black just plays 37. … Nxf6, and after 38. Qh6+ Kg8, there is no checkmate! In fact, White is in trouble. Fortunately, I found a pretty good plan B:
37. e5 de 38. Qxe5 gh 39. d6 …
But here the computer, always cool as a cucumber, hit me with 39. … Qb4! and I realized that I could not play 40. d7 because of 40. … Qg4+ forking the king and pawn.
Position after 39. … Qb4. White to move.
FEN: 5kn1/8/p2P1P2/P1p1Q2p/1q6/2N3K1/8/8 w – – 0 7
Here I felt things spiraling out of control, and in fact after 41. Nd5?! we ended up drawing in just a few more moves. The computer says that White is still winning after 41. Ne4! I had rejected this because it allows 41. … Qe1+, which I thought would probably lead to a draw by repetition, but the computer says that White can actually escape the checks, primarily because the knight on e4 controls some useful defensive squares on the second rank. In practice, though, computers (even weakened to 2165) will play this sort of position much better than a human, especially one who is low on time, so a draw would have been the likely result anyway.
Now, back to the original position. Have you seen the winning move that I missed?
In fact, my first idea was correct! I should have played 34. gf! And after 34. … Bh6, I have the spectacular answer, 35. Rxh8!! offering a queen sacrifice. To make things even more frustrating, I even considered this, but I didn’t see the mate after 34. … Bxe3. Obviously, I only looked at 35. Rh7+? which leads to nothing after 35. … Kxf6. But I missed 35. Rf8 mate!
Why did I miss this? In speed chess lots of crazy, irrational thought patterns come into play (at least when I play speed chess, maybe not when you do). I probably thought that the ghost of Black’s bishop would still protect f8 even after the bishop has taken my queen on e3. “Ghosts,” which are pieces that you think are still there even after they have been taken or moved to a different square, are a problem to watch out for when you’re doing either a long analysis or a very hasty analysis in your head.
This was the sort of game that makes me feel as if I am not cut out to be a real chess player. After setting everything up beautifully, all I had to do was see the simple, Morphy-esque queen sac. And I didn’t.
But two good things may have come out of this game. One is that it will (I hope) give me sufficient incentive to “kick the habit” of playing blitz against Shredder. Again. After kicking the habit two or three times before. The other good thing is that it perhaps gave me an instructive idea for a blog post.
