{"id":6193,"date":"2020-04-19T20:09:27","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T04:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=6193"},"modified":"2020-04-19T20:22:29","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T04:22:29","slug":"long-think-wrong-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=6193","title":{"rendered":"Long Think, Wrong Think"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There’s a saying that I’m really starting to like: “Long think, wrong think.” In game after game, both against the computer and in tournaments, it seems as if my weakest moves are the ones I take the longest on. A long think is usually a sign that I’m trying to talk myself out of the move my gut tells me to play. The longer I take, the more likely I am to go against my gut, because otherwise, what was the use of taking all that time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An irony that often happens with long thinks is that the actual move I end up playing is not well thought out at all. Typically what happens is that my instinct tells me to play move A. But I see something that I don’t like about it; sometimes with good reason and sometimes not. But once I decide not to play move A, I very often play move B without really thinking about it — certainly without thinking as hard as I did about move A. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, this faulty thinking pattern is well known; I’m pretty sure that it comes up in Kotov’s Think Like a Grandmaster<\/em>. Even so, it’s something I fall prey to over and over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s a really extreme example, from a game I played against my computer a few days ago. The game is so short I’ll show you the whole thing. Warning: Prepare to cringe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fritz 17 — Dana, 40 moves in 10 minutes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Bf4 …<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This variation, the Jobava Variation, is practically the only opening Fritz plays that’s a real opening. Usually it plays crazy stuff. In this game, for a change, I get to play the crazy stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. \u2026 Nh5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I prepared this for my game against Paulo Santanna in the Kolty Club championship and it worked pretty well. Fritz plays it very differently from Paulo, who played 4. Bg5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Be5?! …<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t think this is actually good, but it’s very tactical and that’s what Fritz loves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. \u2026 f6 5. e4 g6 6. g4 fe 7. gh Nc6 8. de d4 9. Nd5 Bg7 10. hg hg 11. Bb5 …<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Position after 11. Bb4. Black to move.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FEN: r1bqk2r\/ppp1p1b1\/2n3p1\/1B1NP3\/3pP3\/8\/PPP2P1P\/R2QK1NR b KQkq – 0 11<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who knows if any of these moves are right? I think Black is doing pretty well, but in a semi-random position like this, it’s harder for a human to orient himself than it is for a computer. Sure enough, I start going wrong here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11. \u2026 Bxe5?!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too materialistic! Fritz prefers 11. \u2026 O-O. Development first, material second! The point is supposed to be that 12. f4 is met by 12. \u2026 Nxe5! 13. fe c6. One very entertaining line found by Fritz is 14. Bc4 cd 15. ed b5! 16. Bb3 Qa5+ 17. Qd2 Rf1+! deflecting the king away from the queen. Of course I never would have found this, but it shows that White’s position is every bit as loose as Black’s and maybe even more so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12. Nf3 Bg4 13. Rg1 Bxf3 14. Qxf3 …<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Position after 14. Qxf3. Black to move.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FEN: r2qk2r\/ppp1p3\/2n3p1\/1B1Nb3\/3pP3\/5Q2\/PPP2P1P\/R3K1R1 b Qkq – 0 14 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here it seems to me that Black has an extremely obvious move. The g6 pawn is under attack, so I should defend it, right? So I was all set to play 14. \u2026 Qd6. But then the “long think” virus started to get to work on my mind. The trouble is that after 14. \u2026 Qd6 15. Qg4, I could not see any way to get my king to safety. But the computer says I don’t need to worry about that. Black’s plan is to play \u2026 Bxh2, \u2026 a6, \u2026 b5, and \u2026 Ne5, holding everything together. If White tries to prevent this plan by playing Qxg6+ at some point, Black says fine and trades queens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I just couldn’t work up the nerve to keep my king in the center. After 2 minutes of thought — an eternity in a 10-minute game! — I played 14. \u2026 Qd7??<\/strong> “I’m giving up a pawn but at least I get my king to safety,” I thought. “And besides, his h-pawn is a goner, so I won’t even be down in material.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the extent of my analysis of 14. \u2026 Qd7. After 2 minutes thinking about 14. \u2026 Qd6, I played 14. \u2026 Qd7 with, like, 5 seconds of thought. This is the classic “long think, wrong think” pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, by the way, can you work out what is wrong with my move?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14. \u2026 Qd7?? 15. Rxg6 O-O-O??<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Whew!” I thought. “Made it to the promised land!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16. Rxc6! …<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know, sometimes playing against your computer is like having your own personal Paul Morphy. Stuff like this just comes at you out of the clear blue sky. I could have resigned here but I decided to play it out, just so I could say I got mated in less than 20 moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16. \u2026 bc 17. Ba6+ Kb8 18. Qb3+ Ka8 19. Qb7 mate<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s something almost sadistic about this game, the way that I thought I had solved all of my problems only to step right into a mating net.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lessons learned: 1) Don’t use 20 percent of your time on one move. 2) Sometimes the obvious move is the right move. Just do it. 3) Sometimes your king is actually safer in the center than anywhere else. Especially if he has a lot of active pieces to defend and create counterthreats. “I get by with a little help from my friends.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n


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There’s a saying that I’m really starting to like: “Long think, wrong think.” In game after game, both against the computer and in tournaments, it seems as if my weakest moves are the ones I take the longest on. A long think is usually a sign that I’m trying to talk myself out of the […]<\/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":[37,11,9,171],"tags":[4534,89,1869,432,4530,92,4532,1928,4390,4533,4531],"class_list":["post-6193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess-clubs","category-games","category-openings","category-ruminations","tag-beatles-lyrics","tag-blunders","tag-computer-chess","tag-development","tag-faulty-patterns","tag-fritz","tag-jobava-variation","tag-paul-morphy","tag-paulo-santanna","tag-poor-time-management","tag-under-20-moves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6193","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=6193"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6199,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6193\/revisions\/6199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}