{"id":6043,"date":"2019-12-30T08:49:52","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T16:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=6043"},"modified":"2019-12-30T08:50:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T16:50:05","slug":"quiescence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=6043","title":{"rendered":"Quiescence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday Mike Splane hosted his last chess party of 2019. Though somewhat lightly attended (only eight people this time) it gave Eric Steger and me a chance to show our games from the last round of the Kolty Chess Club championship, in which we tied for first. Also, Mike showed his last-round game, which I thought was quite instructive, though not for exactly the same reasons Mike did. I think it\u2019s a great illustration of a concept I just learned a name for: \u201cquiescence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Position after 9. \u2026 Bf5. White to move.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FEN: rn1qr1k1\/pp3pp1\/2pb1n1p\/3ppb2\/2P5\/1P1P1NP1\/PB1NPPBP\/R2Q1RK1 w – – 0 10<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this position, Mike startled us by saying, \u201cWhite wins by force,\u201d and further saying that he had to analyze ten moves deep to find the win. He gave us some time to \u201cfind the win,\u201d and this turned into one of the longest and most awkward silences I\u2019ve heard at one of his parties, as nobody could see anything remotely resembling a win for White. Finally Richard Koepcke broke the silence by saying, \u201cMike, I think you\u2019ll just have to show us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Mike\u2019s first two moves were the same moves that I\nwould have played: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. cd \u2026<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is useful, as it loosens up Black\u2019s center and moves a\nstep closer to opening the long diagonal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. \u2026 cd 11. e4! \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it is a good, thematic move, it\u2019s just not right to say that this move is winning. Richard pointed out that 12. … Bg4 is certainly okay for Black. If 13. h3 Bh4 14. ed Nxd5, 15. g4? would be a bad idea, leaving many weaknesses in White\u2019s position (h4, f4, d3). Instead, the computer recommends 15. a3 (keeping the knight out of b4, and also preparing b3-b4) with a minuscule, 0.1-pawn advantage for White. This seems like a fair evaluation to me; both sides have targets, and after 15. … Nc6 Black has caught up in development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, my main purpose isn\u2019t to criticize Mike\u2019s\nover-optimistic evaluation, but to talk about the very interesting mistake his\nopponent now made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11. \u2026 de?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black should have realized that this is exactly what White\nis hoping for. Now the play gets really tactical for a really long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12. de Nxe4?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pouring oil on the fire. There was still time for Black to cut his losses with 12. \u2026 Be6 or 12. \u2026 Bh7. By \u201ccut his losses,\u201d I mean that Black has to sacrifice the e-pawn for probably insufficient compensation. The second capture on e4 turns an already risky position into a catastrophe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the game Mike asked his opponent (Raymond Fergerson, a\nclass-A player), \u201cWhy did you play this move?\u201d Fergerson\u2019s answer was extremely\nrevealing. He said, \u201cI thought you blundered a pawn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just contrast the approaches of these two players. On move 10, Mike spent 20 minutes thinking about the position and analyzed the tactics 10 moves deep. His opponent, on the other hand, analyzes two moves deep and concludes that his opponent blundered a pawn. In a nutshell, that is the difference between a master and an amateur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A question that people often ask masters is, \u201cHow many moves ahead do you calculate?\u201d or \u201cHow many moves ahead should I calculate?\u201d There are many answers to this question, some facetious and some serious, but I recently read one answer that I thought really hits the nail on the head. In his book Is Your Move Safe?<\/em>, Dan Heisman (well-known chess teacher and national master) says that you should calculate until the point where the position becomes quiescent<\/em>. He defines this as follows: \u201cA quiescent position is one where further checks, captures, and threats either do not exist, or further analysis of them would not change the evaluation of the position.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cQuiescent\u201d is a great concept that I have struggled to put into words. When I teach my kids in chess club, they have no sense of quiescence. Sometimes they want to keep analyzing way past quiescence, in positions where one player has won a rook or a queen. More often, they want to make a very superficial, snap judgment about a position where there are all sorts of things happening (as Fergerson did here). The first is a waste of time, and the second one is an invitation to blunders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t want to pretend that quiescence is an easy concept. In fact, I think that many games are won and lost right up to the grandmaster level because one player sees a position as quiescent, while his opponent keeps on analyzing and finds a deeper tactical resource. It\u2019s very often a judgment call, as the last words of Heisman\u2019s definition indicate (\u201cfurther analysis of them would not change the evaluation\u201d). But Heisman has at least given us a standard that you should aspire to. You should not stop analyzing until the position calms down tactically \u2013 unless you are low on time, in which case you might just have to go with your instincts and roll the dice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here, on move 12, no one was low on time. And the\nposition is anything but quiescent. There are discovered attacks and loose\npieces galore (f5, e4, potentially d6, and finally the little prizes at b7 and\na8 that are waiting for White at the end of many variations). Black has to be\nattuned to that and play a move like 12. \u2026 Nxe4 only if he is absolutely sure\nhe has a way to hold everything together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13. Nh4 \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This move is so obvious that I would probably have hardly\nlooked at anything else. It forces an immediate crisis: Black has two pieces\nhanging and he cannot defend them both. His only hope is to keep capturing\nmaterial and hope that he ends up with more in the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13. \u2026 Nxd2 14. Nxf5 \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, really obvious, although I give Mike credit for\nlooking at several other options. The key point to me is that this move turns\nthe knight into a powerful attacker, while any other move leaves it on h4 where\nit is potentially going to be a bystander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One key point is that after 14. \u2026 Nxf1 the knight is trapped on f1, so White can very comfortably play 15. Nxd6. Although White is down the exchange, quiescence has not been achieved yet. Black has a rook hanging on e8, a knight hanging on f1, a pawn (and then a rook) hanging on b7, and a weak pawn on e5. Therefore we should keep analyzing. The most reasonable moves seems to be 15. \u2026 Re6 16. Nxb7 Qxd1 17. Rxd1. Still not quiescent: White still has back-rank threats and discovered-attack threats. After 17. \u2026 Nc6 18. Na5 White threatens to win the exchange. Still not quiescent. 18. \u2026 e4 stops the threat \u2013 but only for a moment, because 19. Nxc6! Rxc6 20. Bxe4 is a lethal skewer. White wins the exchange back and will also win the knight on f1, thus ending a piece ahead. We may now consider the position quiescent. Before playing a move like 12. \u2026 Nxe4, this is how deep Black should have analyzed. (And we have to give Mike a lot of credit, because the combination is ten moves deep, just as he said. Actually eleven, if you start with 10. cd.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, we\u2019re still not done with our analysis, because\nBlack has other variations besides 14. \u2026 Nxf1. In fact, he played one of them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14. \u2026 Bc5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here White could play 15. Bxb7, but Mike has prepared some\neven stronger medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15. Qg4! \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

White gains a free tempo because of the mate threat on g7.\nThis gives him time to save his threatened rook on f1. The only slight worry\nafter that is his sensitive pawn on f2. But Black has a zillion things to worry\nabout, while White has only one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15. \u2026 Qf6 16. Rfd1 g6 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black\u2019s position is so bad that you have to consider really desperate alternatives like 16. \u2026 Bxf2+ 17. Kxf2 Qb6+ 18. Ne3 f5. At first it looks as if Black may be getting somewhere, because 19. Qxf5 runs into a skewer with 19. \u2026 Rf8. Or does it? We have to keep analyzing to quiescence, and if we do that, we quickly see that 20. Bd5+ turns the tables. But 19. \u2026 Nc6 might still leave some room for argument. So I think that White’s most precise move order (after 18. \u2026 f5) is 19. Bd5+ Kh8 (or 19. \u2026 Kf8 Qxf5+) 20. Qa4. Now all the problems for Black come home to roost: the loose rook on e8, the loose knight on d2, the weak pawn on e5. And don’t forget, Black has already sacrificed a piece to reach this position. I think the most fitting finish is 20. \u2026 Nc6 21. Rxd2 f4 22. gf ef 23. Qxf4 Rf8 24. Bf7 Rae8 25. Qxh6 mate! In this variation we never really got a quiescent position until checkmate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The actual game continued<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17. Rxd2 Nc6<\/strong>, and White eventually won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally Black finishes developing, but his 17th<\/sup>\nmove basically puts up the white flag because he is a piece down with no\ncompensation. The last try was 17. \u2026 Qxf5, but then White can simply trade\nqueens and take the b-pawn: 18. Qxf5 gf 19. Bxb7. White isn\u2019t just winning the\nexchange, he\u2019s winning a whole piece because the knight has nowhere safe to\nmove to. Once again, it has taken us ten moves to reach quiescence and a\nposition that is safe to evaluate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can legitimately query whether Mike really had to\nanalyze ten moves deep in this game. Maybe he could have stopped somewhere\naround move five or six: White just had too many threats, so it was extremely\nunlikely that a miracle move would come along to get Black out of trouble.\nHowever, I would warn you that the penalty for stopping your analysis too early\nis much greater than the penalty for stopping your analysis too late. Black\nfound that out the hard way in this game. Don\u2019t let it happen to you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday Mike Splane hosted his last chess party of 2019. Though somewhat lightly attended (only eight people this time) it gave Eric Steger and me a chance to show our games from the last round of the Kolty Chess Club championship, in which we tied for first. Also, Mike showed his last-round game, which I […]<\/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":[1363,25,16,171,12],"tags":[3526,4441,4442,4082,1924,858,1638,548,4443],"class_list":["post-6043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-news","category-people","category-positions","category-ruminations","category-tournaments","tag-amateur-mistakes","tag-dan-heisman","tag-discovered-attacks","tag-eric-steger","tag-kolty-chess-club","tag-loose-pieces","tag-mike-splane","tag-richard-koepcke","tag-stopping-too-early"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6043","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=6043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6045,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6043\/revisions\/6045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}