VEER OFF THE SANE PATH

The human brain is highly selective, and this comes at great cost especially for chessplayers. When making decisions over the chess board, only 'rational' moves will be considered. Most other options won't be looked at. But what is rational to one player might not be exactly rational to another. Alexey Shirov, known for his love for razor sharp positions, admitted he grew up playing chess at a local chess club which the former World Champion, and tactician, Mikhail Tal frequented. Watching the “Magician from Riga” do his thing, in the mostly smoke-filled room, no doubt molded Shirov into the violent chess player he has become. The human brain judges what is rational or not based on previous experiences. A chess player can stretch his 'rational radius' as much as he wants. Peter Leko, during a post mortem interview just after his first loss in his World Championship match against Kramnik back in 2004, said he decided against playing a particular move because he felt it would be too "ugly" for a World Championship game. For one to spot extraordinary moves over the board, one has to think in an extraordinary way.

After the following moves – 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.dxe5 Nxb5 7.a4 Nbd4 8.Nxd4 Bc5 9.Nf3 h6 10.Nc3 O-O 11.Bf4 Re8 12.Nb5 a6, the position below arose from the L'Hermet Variation of the Ruy Lopez Berlin Defence.

 White had just played 12.Nb5 to which Black responded 12... a6, effectively 'kicking' the knight. As most ‘mere mortals’, the first thing we would ask ourselves is "Where do I retreat my knight to?"

Here White played 13. e6! (notice how 13.e6 exposes the c7 square to a double attack from White's knight and bishop, effectively threatening to fork Black's rooks with the looming Nxc7). The game continued... 13…axb5 14.exf7+ Kxf7 15.Qd5+ Re6 16.axb5!? Rxa1 17.Rxa1 Bb6 18.bxc6 bxc6 19.Qc4 d5 20.Qc3 c5 (=) with an equal position. Nothing out of the ordinary, of course, but most players would first consider retreating the knight at first glance before any other considerations are permitted to creep in.

Chess engines look at everything. Before making their move, they consider every legal sequence of moves. This is why Komodo 9, for instance, won't make any shallow oversights. While it would be time consuming and counterproductive to consider every legal sequence of moves during a chess game, it is worth a million bucks to always keep an open mind. Take a cursory look at the position, sweep for intermezzos, useful checks and other hidden tactical continuations before getting back to your 3 or 4 sane candidate moves. Always keep the option of veering off the sane path in hand.

Alexander Grischuk, when asked how he managed to keep a poker face when Fabiano Caruana had the option of playing 46.Qg6 during their game in the just concluded London Chess Classics 2015, replied, “I didn’t see it.” This will probably offer some consolation to less successful chessplayers. You are only human and will miss a lot of things over the chess board.

Keep an open mind. Train your mind to veer off the sane path, for therein lies the ‘secret’ of masterpieces!