In a practical over the board game it is of great importance to play sufficiently quick and also to play with confidence. It pays off to have some knowledge of the opening of course so as to be able to play it with the wind in the sails and also have a feel for the more critcal phases of the game when you really need your time to think. At the same time you have the responsibility – playing white – to make a fist against the black position, and – playing black – to try and equalize, while having some positive imbalance of your own to build on.
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The psychological and thinking aspects of this game are interesting and add so much to the analysis in the PGN-file. When the two of you looked over the game afterwards, did your opponent share with you his thoughts at various points in the game?
Hi Greg,
Yes he did.
He was disappointed by the fact that he had not managed to put up a real fight.
He attributed it partly to the fact that he was not really familiar with the Alapin.
But then again, I’m quite sure he wanted to put me out of book also.
Based on some of his comments on the first few moves, I also believe he was trying to be too perfectionistic in the opening, loosing valuable time.
As far as psychology goes: I played quickly and with confidence.
At a certain moment that put me 30 minutes ahead on the clock!
It is almost inevitable that your opponent starts to feel more and more nervous under such circumstances.
And that’s exactly what Nf3-d2 was, a nervous move that he “happily” discovered at the end of his thinking period but did not falsify sufficiently.
I was walking around and watched his body language: shifting, and head in hands deep over the board.
That can give valuable information: under these circumstances you may consider playing “nasty” moves.
You can choose f.i. the more complicated one of two decent looking moves.
Just make sure the move is not entirely besides the point 😉
Having said that, I normally prefer and advise to just objectively play the position, because most chess positions are complicated by nature anyway 😉
Of course we looked at more agressive options for white and the post-mortem showed that in that case I too, would have had something to think about…
You can only expect to create winning chances if you put some real pressure on your opponent, unless you only want to sit around and wait for his/her mistakes of course.
But that’s not the right attitude.
Cheers,
Waldemar
Thank you for a very thorough response. These are important points for me because I’ve been approaching this part of the game all wrong.