Chapter Six

Practical Tournament Strategy

A well-planned tournam ent chess strategy can have an incredible impact on the
results o f the tournament chess player. Contemplating and developing a refined
approach to playing chess tournaments is critical to success, as you w ill surely fare
better than the casual and uninformed chess player that simply arrives for round
one and focuses only on the moves. There are a variety o f factors that contribute
to chess tournament success; however, any master will tell you that preparation is
one o f the most important.
Psychologically, y ou have to have confidence in y o u rself and this confidence
should be based on fa c t. - Bobby Fischer

The Importance of Off-the-Board Preparation

Its fantastic that many chess player devote hours o f study per day to modern
opening theory, tactics, common m iddlegam e concepts, and endgam e technique
- but this is only polishing your on-the-board preparation. What about all the oth
er ingredients to success: confidence in your ability to see the best line in a very
complicated position, or confidence in your ability to accurately convert a small
advantage in the endgame, or simply understanding your tournament standing,
and what risks are appropriate and what risks are just not worth taking.
Chess psychology is a complicated problem because there are an infinite number
o f possible answers, and it is difficult to encounter a tangible scale that will defini
tively tell you if one perspective is the most correct. It is important to identify and
evaluate all factors as objectively as possible. Chess psychology is the fo rce behind
every move y o u make, and it is essential to understand and appreciate its im por
tance as you attem pt to improve.

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7

believe most definitely that one must not only grapple with the problems on

the board, one must also make every effort to com bat the thoughts and will o f the
opponent. - Mikhail Tal

Risk Assessment during Tournaments

Anyone who has ever played a com petitive sport will recall their favourite coach
drilling the follow ing expression into the back o f their brain: Finish the Drill. It
doesnt m atter if you came out swinging in the first 75 percent o f a chess tourna
ment - if you fizzle in the most critical last-rounds, you will fail. At 25 years old
and with a 2767 FIDE rating (March 2013), Hikaru Nakamura is the best chess
player the United States has had since Bobby Fischer. Nakamura is a legitim ate
monster on the board, coming in at #8 in the world on the latest chess-rating up
date. However, even the greatest players make mistakes sometimes. At the
2011/12 Reggio Emilia Super-Tournament, Nakamura built a sizable 1.5 point lead
over his nearest rival after seven o fte n rounds. Nakamura continued to play as
aggressively as possible and proceeded to lose all three remaining games, finally
finishing in third place.
This is a perfect exam ple o f a badly conceived chess tournam ent strategy. Tak
ing a fe w draws after a ferocious start is not timid; its practical. And on the flip
side o f things, if y o u a re chasing a tournam ent leader - you have to hit the gas
and bust out all o f the gambits and tricks you know to make a comeback. As you
get closer to the end o f a tournament, understanding your overall position and
applying the necessary changes to your game is critical to success.

Maximize Your Level of Focus during Play

Achieving the optimal state o f mind during a chess gam e is a very difficult thing
to do. It is very easy to becom e distracted b y the littlest things, to have your m en
tal energy diverted b y some com pletely irrelevant and trivial detail. The best chess
players in the world are able to find the exact balance between using their mental
and emotional energy while remaining completely calm and relaxed. Understand
ing the importance o f achieving an aggressive state o f mind while staying 100
percent calm and objective will certainly help your chess gam e grow, enabling you
to brush o ff the distractions and put all o f your mental capacity to work.

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Identify Problems and Enforce Solutions
Lack o f focus is the most common obstacle to a chess players improvement, de
tracting and devaluing the tim e you have spent working hard to study and pre
pare fo r tournaments by allowing anxiety and nerves to affect your game. It is ab
solutely imperative to keep a firm grip on your emotions during a chess tourna
ment, being careful not to allow them to negatively spill over into a game. Many
players are simply unable to play their best chess without emotional energy and
inspiration, but the best players are able to keep this energy in check and allow
only its positive effects on their game, such as more energy in critical moments
and an extra stubborn defence.
Garry Kasparov exem plifies the ability to harness the benefits o f turning em o
tional energy into a powerful m otivational tool, enabling him to push harder and
harder for the win in difficult positions. Kasparovs games show an enormous
amount o f mental energy, and it was his fierce desire to win that pushed him to
win and defend with longevity the title o f world champion. Every chess player
must individually find his/her perfect mental balance, that fine line between in
vesting and pushing yourself emotionally while still playing an objectively sound
gam e with machine-like analysis. After every chess tournament, you should ana
lyse you r games to persistently find ways to improve - and your psychological
conduct should be exam ined under this auto-critical microscope with the same
level o f scrutiny as the moves themselves.

Get Your Mind Right!

The greatest deterrent to playing your best chess is allowing yourself to be dis
tracted. Whether you re playing an opening you ve played a thousand times b e
fore, or attem pting to launch a decisive attack out o f a complicated position maintaining the maximum amount o f concentration possible is going to permit
you to play your best. This topic is especially relevant to the amateur and interm e
diate chess player, regardless o f age or experience, because this is the single larg
est limitation to success in the game. And the worst part is - most chess players
have no idea that they are afflicted with this terrible disease o f being continually
distracted. In the age o f mind-numbing hyper-stimulation, its easy to understand
why many chess players have a hard tim e dedicating 100 percent o f their mental
capacity to the board in front o f them. But this quality is exactly what separates
the great players from the good - the ability to ignore all possible distractions and
wrap their entire mind around the im m ediate problem on the chess board.
Only through focu s can you do world-class things, no m atter how capable you
are. - Bill Gates

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Without Focus and Execution, Potential Means Nothing
Mothers love to make excuses for problems or failures o f their children: Oh you
know he just has so much potential. He just made this mistake because hes not
trying. And this type o f excuse is terrible because it is doing nothing to correct
this maladaptive behaviour - its actually encouraging the kid to make more mis
takes because his mom continues to rem ind him how incredibly potentially tal
ented he is.
Lets cut the nonsense and get to the facts. Failure to maximize your focus and
use every ounce o f potential you have equates to achieving sub-optimal results.
Basically, if you cant control yourself to clear your mind and achieve optimal fo
cus on the task at hand - your potential is completely irrelevant. The real world is
focused on results, not potential outcomes if you had just tried a little bit harder and the same m axim applies to chess!

Nothing Good Comes Easy

Successful men and wom en nearly always accredit hard work, dedication, and
preparation as the vehicles o f their success - however, these things are simply im
possible to achieve if you cant command your mind to operate on an optimal lev
el. Rising to the occasion in one chess gam e and trying your hardest is a good
thing, but this is only one small step in the ladder to success. Real victory comes to
those who deserve it, who dem and absolute focus from their mind at all times o f
work - extracting every ounce out o f their potential on a daily basis. It is not
enough to merely put your mind to work when its convenient - if you really want
to succeed in chess (and life?), you have to push yourself by constantly expanding
your limits o f work. The best things in life are not given freely - they are usually
fought fo r with every grain o f mental energy and resolve.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optim ist sees the oppor
tunity in every difficulty. - Sir Winston Churchill

The Out-Gangster Effect

For one reason or another, a mysterious aura o f excellence seems to exist around
all advanced chess players. Beginner and interm ediate chess players regard the
advanced player with an incredible degree o f respect, often resulting in an overes
timation o f abilities. Im sure the follow ing scene w ill be quite fam iliar to any
chess player w hos attended a handful o f serious tournaments:
Its a huge Swiss tournament and in the early rounds ayoung/rising 1700
player is facing o ff against the local FIDE Master (FM). The young player has pre

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pared well for his experienced opponent, em erging from the opening with a
strong initiative and a dangerous attack. The FM is able to push back the attack
and the position becomes roughly equal, although both players are low on tim e
after the complicated opening and m iddlegam e - but there is still a lot o f chess
left to play.
A crowd gathers around the board and even though the position is completely
equal, everyone is whispering how the FM has got the kid on the ropes and how
Hes going to close this ou t justlike always. The FM senses a critical moment and
plays more determined than ever. Looking at the body language o f the tw o players,
you can tell that the experienced FM feels very comfortable in this situation and is
thriving on the nervous energy/anxiety o f the young 1700. Soon enough, the nerves
get to him and the kid starts making passive/defensive moves. The FM becomes
even more determined to win, and just like that - the kid makes a fe w small errors
that lead to sudden defeat. Now why does this always seem to happen?

Strong Chess Psychology Will Win You Games!

When the gam e is equal and dynamically balanced as you approach the later
stages, the mental fibre o f the chess player will be tested. Your objective playing
strength becomes less important and your psychological strength becomes the
guiding factor to success. Understanding the importance o f aggressive chess psy
chology can take your gam e to the next level, although you should be careful not
to let previous defeats lead to continued feelings o f anxiety or nervousness in
such situations. Instead, you should feed o ff o f these painful past experiences and
learn from them.

How to Be on the Giving End of the Out-Gangster Spectrum

Personally, I hate losing more than just about anything else. This happens to be a
great motivational tool... to win! Learning from previous defeats should not in
clude perpetuating the same maladaptive behaviour. Giving due respect to a
strong opponent is one thing, but overestimating him and constantly thinking in
the back o f your head that you know how bad hes going to beat you in the end is
quite another. Playing 75 percent o f a gam e well does not mean anything - the
most important phase is the fourth quarter. So the next tim e you re entering the
final phase o f an important gam e and the stress is building to a maximum - this is
the exact m om ent when you need to buckle down and become extremely stubborn
in y o u r mission to win this gam e at ail costs, no m atter who the opponent is.

Chess Tournament Preparation

Chess tournam ent preparation, whether at the junior, local or world level is al

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ways a nerve-wrecking activity. Soyouve been studying and playing a lot o f prac
tice games. You register fo r the next local tournament, take it easy on Friday night,
sleep well, and even arrive 20 minutes early at the tournam ent hall to make sure
youre comfortable and everything is set. Then the tim e comes to sit down and
play, and you literally fall apart at the board and get destroyed in 13 moves. Where
did it all go wrong?

Calm Your Nerves!

Chess, above all, is a game o f nerves. You can study all you want, bu t if you cant
control yourself at the board - you w ont have a chance. Learning to be calm and
collected is vital for chess tournament preparation. Make sure you take a deep
breath and chill out. Sometimes I like to close my eyes at the beginning o f a game,
even if the clock is ticking, and completely clear m y mind and remind m yself that I
am there to do one thing - win. So, maintain composure at all times. Focus on tak
ing your tim e during chess tournaments. Many beginner players will impulsively
grab pieces and make critical moves without taking any real tim e to think. This is
a terrible idea! In a normal tournament, you usually have about 90 minutes for
the entire game. You dont get bonus points for having extra tim e on the clock at
the end o f the game, so make sure you take all the tim e needed to make the best
possible moves.

Critical Moments
There is no such thing as moves that dont matter in chess - every move is im por
tant. Nevertheless, some moves do mean more than others. Finely tuning your
sense o f critical situations is a requirement to excel. When you reach this im por
tant point, take your tim e! CleaT your mind, fo rget everything that happened be
fore, and identify the best course o f action. When practicing fo r the tournament,
see if you can fe e l when these moments hit.

Forgetting Past Blunders

This really applies not only to chess tournament preparation but to your chess
preparation, your chess psychology - essentially your chess gam e as a whole!
Dont keep harping on a blunder; i f it happened, then its done. After you make a
move, instantly forget about the previous positions and focus exclusively on the
present and the future possible positions. This is extrem ely important. If you
made a mistake on the m ove before, or five moves before - it does not matter an
ymore, so just m ove on. Play your best to win the gam e with what you have right
in front o f you.

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Play the Board, Not the Opponent!

It is very easy to pay too much attention to the pairings, and specifically your op
ponents rating. Over-emphasizing your opponents rating is one o f the most
common mistakes a beginner player can make, potentially resulting in a lack o f
confidence, feelings o f anxiety, hopelessness, and generally bad play. Its okay to
check the pairings and try to get a h ead start by trying to prepare against an op
ponent if you ve played him or her before and are fam iliar with his or her style,
b u tyo u never want to get too caught up in pre-game preparation - as it is very
easy fo r your opponent to diverge from your last-minute preparation.
Getting anxious about playing a much higher-rated opponent is never going to
help your game, so in many o f my chess classes, I recommend a very simple solu
tion to my students: when you look at the pairings, only check what board you re
playing on and completely ignore your opponents rating. This tem porary solution
will also help you avoid another dangerous common beginner pitfall - underesti
mating your opponent.

Dont Gamble, Play the Best Move!

From my brief experience in casinos, I know enough to stay away from gambling
because the house always wins! The same principle applies in chess, in that a player
who gambles by playing very loose moves against a lower-rated opponent, hoping
his opponent doesnt find the flaws, is sure to get busted badly in the long run.
Its easy to look at the pairings and get nervous about playing against a higher
rated opponent, but it can be even easier to becom e over-confident about playing
a lower-rated opponent - and even more dangerous. Playing sub-optimal moves
against lower-rated opposition opens the door to embarrassing defeats and
should not be taken lightly. The best chess players in the history o f the gam e have
m aintained the ability to play the highest level o f chess against all opponents,
never permitting even the slightest chance o f losing to an inferior rival.
In answer to the question: Who isy o u r opponent tonight?: 'Tonight I am playing
against the Black pieces. - Akiba Rubinstein

Maintaining Equilibrium
Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer are tw o o f the best chess players ever. Kas
parovs main strength was in the opening, where his incredibly deep level o f
preparation in the sharpest lines o f his tim e enabled him to obtain dangerous ini
tiatives very early in the game. Bobby Fischers opening preparation was also fan
tastic, permitting him to challenge the Soviet regim e in the middle o f the 20th

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o f a gam e certainly depends on the tim e control, but for your standard chess
gam e (usually around 60 or 90 minutes) - each side has plenty o f tim e to dissect
and punish the mistakes o f an opponents hasty opening moves.
You will play y o u r best chess byfin d in g the ideal balance between trusting y ou r
instincts with fa irly quick evaluations and moves, and developing y o u r intuition to
detect critical situations where you need to use more tim e on the clock to success
fully navigate y o u r way through a complicated position.

How to Find Your Correct Speed

Its not easy finding your unique, optimal speed fo r moves in chess - bu t the best
place to look for improvements in speed o f play can be found in your previous
games. One great way o f evaluating y o u r move speed is to write down how much
tim e you have left on the clock right next to each move as you take notation during
a game. You should be analysing your games after each tournam ent anyway, but
if you think you might not be moving at the best speed during each game, then
this exercise can definitely help you pinpoint your problem. In my chess classes,
this easy trick enables me to identify if there is a problem with my students move
speed - and if so, exactly where it occurs. Its easy to see if someone is m oving way
too fast in the opening, but sometimes this problem goes a little deeper than just
blitzing ou t the first 10-15 moves.
I frequently encounter students who completely lose track o f tim e in compli
cated positions - resulting in debilitating tim e trouble later in the game. By check
ing the students notation matched up with the tim e remaining after each move,
Im usually able to determine where these types o f problems occur. If a student is
taking way to o much tim e in complicated positions, I have often found that this is
because he or she is suffering from a lack o f confidence, resulting in the inability
to take decisive action.
Constantly analysing past games and tweaking y o u r individual chess style with
an honest eye f o r scrutiny will lead to a guaranteed ju m p in improvement.

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century with unparalleled success. Fischer also happened to play the endgam e
with computer-like precision, capable o f making even the most experienced
grandmasters defence look flimsy and disorganized.
Incredibly deep and sharp opening preparation is great. Near-perfect precision
in the endgam e is definitely a good thing as well. But what really distinguished
these tw o world chess champions from their contemporaries was their ability to
recover from surprises on the chess board - taking everything in stride and pa
tiently regrouping to regain their mental balance and continue to play a t an op
timal level.
'Chess is a unique cognitive nexus, a place where art and science com e together
in the human mind and are refined and improved by experience. -Garry Kasparov
Its not a bad idea to take a fe w pointers from Fischer and Kasparov. If you take
a good look at their careers, you will undoubtedly notice that they almost never
lost tw o games in a row. Now Im pretty sure thats not a coincidence. In fact, they
were much more likely to comeback from a loss with a win in their next game.
This is a great example o f how a strong chess psychology and mental fibre can
take your gam e to the next level. So just how can you start pointing your gam e in
the right direction?

Baby Steps
The most basic elem ent o f mental balance is to focus on the position im m ediately
in fron t o f you. You must train yourself to ignore all external factors such as the
tournament standing, whether you drew or lost a gam e in the previous round that
you should have won, etc. The only thing that matters is the next move that you
need to make. You also dont want to let high-pressure situations throw you o ff
your normal gam e and style o f play. Make sure you stand up in these tense m o
ments and stick to the openings and types o f positions you k n o w best - play to
your strengths. So the next tim e the road gets a little rocky and it starts becom ing
difficult to think straight, make yourself step away, calm down, and focus on the
position in front o f you and the next move you need to make. Clear your head and
ignore all distractions, because a balanced mental equilibrium is sure to guaran
tee optimal results.

Dont Get So Emotional!

It is very natural that the more energy you put into a chess game, the more you be
come emotionally invested in the outcomes o f your efforts. This can cloud your

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judgm ent and lead to second-best decisions, which is exactly why you should be
fully aware o f the dangers o f emotional thinking in chess. It is absolutely critical to
play your best chess in every single game that you play, and to do that you will need
to be thinking like a computer, calculating and strategizing with pure objectivity.
The more cognizant you are o f the negative impacts o f emotional and irra
tional thinking in chess, the easier it will be to avoid this maladaptive behaviour.
Ive noticed that beginners are especially afflicted by this problem in the opening
stages o f the game, playing their most excited (and usually worst) chess shortly
after shaking hands with their opponent and beginning the game.
'Emotional instability can be one o f the factors giving rise to a fa ilu re by chess
players in im portant duels. Under the influence o f surging emotions (and not neces
sarily negative ones) we sometimes lose concentration and stop objectively evaluat
ing the events that are taking place on the board. - IM Mark Dvoretsky

Control Your Emotions from the First Move

The opening is an essential part o f chess, as the structure and pressure you are
able to achieve will form the fram ework fo r the rest o f the game. The amateur
chess player is very prone to m oving too fast in the opening and downright gam
bling, hoping that a rapidly achieved tim e advantage in the opening will carry
over into enduring tim e pressure in the middlegam e and endgame. While tim e
pressure is a very real and dangerous elem ent in chess, it should certainly not be
overestimated.
Gambling with you r emotions by impulsively m oving too fast with the inten
tion o f putting pressure on you r opponent via the clock is a very long-shot bet, and
the percentages are definitely not in your favour. So the next tim e you feel your
self becom ing too em otionally attached in a gam e and your judgm ent becomes
affected - take some tim e to slow down, walk away, and clear your head to make
sure you are making moves from a completely objective perspective.

Clock Management
Every chess player has their ow n unique individual style, and it is very important
to understand the positive aspects that are conducive to success and the negative
characteristics that contribute to failure. One o f the most common beginner chess
mistakes is clock mismanagement, specifically playing too fast in the opening in
an attem pt to save tim e for later in the game. Sacrificing the quality o f your
moves because you want to achieve a big advantage on the clock in the opening is
simply ineffective. O f course, how much tim e you consume throughout the course

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