{"id":2175,"date":"2013-05-08T08:07:09","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T16:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=2175"},"modified":"2013-05-08T08:07:09","modified_gmt":"2013-05-08T16:07:09","slug":"questioning-assumptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=2175","title":{"rendered":"Questioning Assumptions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my last post I wrote about one of the most ubiquitous kinds of mistakes, in life as well as chess: the kind of mistake where you assume you know what is going on, and the assumption seems so obvious to you that you aren’t even aware of making it.<\/p>\n

Here’s a nice chessboard example of this kind of mistake.<\/p>\n

Last weekend I analyzed a game I played on New Year’s Day against Rayan Taghizadeh, who is currently the #5-rated 10-year-old in the country with a rating of 2078. At the time of this game his rating was around 1980, so he has gone up 100 points in just a little over four months! That shows you how rapidly he is improving.<\/p>\n

The game ended in a very curious fashion. It was even for the first 35 moves, and in fact on move 35 I could have basically forced a draw. But I wanted to play for a win. As so often happens, in trying too hard to win I played a dreadful series of moves, and by move 44 I was in desperate circumstances.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Position after 44. ... Kh5. White to move.<\/p><\/div>\n

FEN: 2r5\/2p5\/3p3p\/pP1n1p1k\/b2PpP1B\/4P2P\/P3NK2\/1R6 w – – 0 45<\/p>\n

Here Rayan has just played 44. … Kh5<\/strong>, attacking my bishop. Now I saw a surprising opportunity to stop the downward death spiral of my position. Do you see what my saving move was?<\/p>\n

(Space inserted in case you want to think about it.)<\/p>\n

The answer is 45. Ng3+!<\/strong> You want my bishop? Go ahead and take it!<\/p>\n

Well, there isn’t much of a choice for Black here. If he plays 45. … Kg6 White could just try for a three-fold repetition with 46. Ne2. However, even better, White could play 46. Rg1, setting up a murderous discovered check threat. If 46. … Kf7 to get out of the discovered check, White plays 47. Nxf5 and the tide is very definitely turning in White’s favor.<\/p>\n

So Rayan played 45. … Kxh4 46. Nxf5+<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Position after 46. Nxf5+. Black to move.<\/p><\/div>\n

FEN: 2r5\/2p5\/3p3p\/pP1n1N2\/b2PpP1k\/4P2P\/P4K2\/1R6 b – – 0 46<\/p>\n

Now Rayan wisely avoided taking the poisoned h-pawn. If 46. … Kxh3?? it’s mate in two: 47. Rh1+ Kg4 48. Nxh6 mate! A nice “out-of-the-blue” combination. Instead he played 46. … Kh5<\/strong>, and I slammed the door shut with 47. Rg1<\/strong>, and the game concluded 47. … Nf6 48. Ng7+<\/strong>, with a draw by repetition. Ironically, thirteen moves earlier I would have been disappointed with a draw, but now I was quite relieved!<\/p>\n

So what does this have to do with questioning assumptions? Well, somewhere in the analysis I have given you, I have deliberately written a lie. But it’s a lie that I told myself during the game, and I suspect that it’s a lie that Rayan told himself too. We were both guilty of making an incorrect assumption. I didn’t realize it until I looked at the position with Rybka yesterday.<\/p>\n

Have you found the lie yet? It’s after 45. Ng3+. I wrote that Black could not play 45. … Kg6 because of “46. Rg1, setting up a murderous discovered check threat.” Those are pretty much the words I used in my head when I was thinking about the position. But it’s not true! The only one getting murdered is White.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Position after 46. Rg1 (analysis). Black to move.<\/p><\/div>\n

FEN: 2r5\/2p5\/3p2kp\/pP1n1p2\/b2PpP1B\/4P1NP\/P4K2\/6R1 b – – 0 46<\/p>\n

Here Rybka came up with the amazing, cold-blooded move 46. … Rf8! Now if White plays his “murderous” discovered check 47. Nxe4+ Kh5! White has two pieces en prise! You might say, “Wait a minute, can’t White just go 47. Ng3+ as before?” But it’s different now, because after 47. Ng3+ Kxh4, White doesn’t have 48. Nxf5+. Even though Black’s king seems to be in a mating net, White has no way of delivering check. Meanwhile, Black is simply a piece up and has lots of useful moves, such as … Bxb5 and … Nc3-e4, that will get him out of trouble.<\/p>\n

Lesson 1.<\/strong> Not all discovered checks are murderous.<\/em> Look very carefully at the followup, and don’t just assume that the side that plays the discovered check is winning. Positions with hanging pieces can be very tricky.<\/p>\n

Lesson 2.<\/strong> Sometimes the best move is to take back your previous move.<\/em> Psychologically this is extremely difficult to do. When I unexpectedly played 45. Ng3+ in response to his move 44. … Kh5, Black had to have the presence of mind to say, “Okay, I didn’t see that. Let me go back and look for another plan.” Indeed, if he plays 45. … Kg6 and I play some other move than Rg1, say 46. Ne2 trying for a threefold repetition, then he can play 46. … Rb8, which is what he should have done in the first place. Black just wins a pawn with a dominating position.<\/p>\n

Lesson 3.<\/strong> A rook and knight can often force a draw (or even win) against a king that is trapped on the edge of the board.<\/em> This is a lesson I learned a long time ago. It helped me save a draw when I was three pawns down against IM Tim Taylor (a game I showed once on ChessLecture), and remembering that fact enabled me to save a draw here, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my last post I wrote about one of the most ubiquitous kinds of mistakes, in life as well as chess: the kind of mistake where you assume you know what is going on, and the assumption seems so obvious to you that you aren’t even aware of making it. Here’s a nice chessboard example […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,16,171],"tags":[2534,2535,2533,254,2036,1151,2536],"class_list":["post-2175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games","category-positions","category-ruminations","tag-admitting-mistakes","tag-discovered-check","tag-draw-by-repetition","tag-mating-net","tag-rayan-taghizadeh","tag-rybka","tag-tricky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2175"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2181,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions\/2181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}