Defending correctly

I know that its much more interesting to study wild attacks then the stubborn defense. I am an attacker who likes to attack even if I see that my combinations are dubious, and I won a countless of times even though I find refutation for my combinations myself, my opponents didn't found it while playing. I was playing against very good players, about equal chess strength as me who also failed to refute my combinations even though they were real pseudo attacks.

What dose it means pseudo attack? Well when I say that I mean attack that look pretty strong but in fact its not really dangerous unless your opponent doesn't blunder and then your pseudo attack is no longer pseudo attack.

How to recognise pseudo attacks? Well you really have to calculate and you have to be familiar with some basics of the defensive ideas. This tips are for guys under 1800 because I saw many of them failed to refute pseudo attacks of mine. Firstly if your opponent sac some material to get open lines, around your king, and you know that his attacking forces are small but powerful then its very good to give back some material for consolidation. Also in almost every non master attacks there is some key pieces which without them attack cant work, its very important that you see which piece is a critical piece on the board, and to play against that piece. Also your key defenders, you must know always which piece is holding your ground. Also, pins are very bad, I know that you all already knows that, and yet many little people have performed very logical thing, after for example the king side castle, when after your opponent create a rook lift and his rook is pinning your pawn in front of your king, just move your king away from the pin. Do not think that pin is not important, it will kill you.

I know that when talked this way some of you may be little confused, so I will put two games of mine, played here on chess.com online chess for which I think that are perfect examples of erors in defending the position which backfires on my opponents because I used their mistakes to create very strong attack and eventually to win.



Both of this games are in some fact strange, because I don't really play correspondence chess, and I wasn't really comfortable with the knowing that my opponent can analyzed every move for 3 days (although no one really does that). I play fast myself, I play fast in correspondence chess also which is not good, but its a habit and I cant get rid of it.

First game was against a guy who had better rating then me for 70 points when we started, but in the meantime he lost some games, and I won some, so in fact now I got better rating then him for over 100 points. Never the less I was impatient and I attacked, he made a mistake while defending and I won the game by resignation.

As we can see he start his defensive moves very nicely, then he could took my bishop with his pawn on move 23. but he thought that he could go to some complications after I play 23.Rxf3 so he rejected a bishop, which I also think that is correct move, but then on move 24. he should have played Rxe5 and my attack would be dead stopped, my opponent would be way ahead in material, and my possible attacks after that move just couldn't worked, but he made a mistake and I won the game. Lesson is give up some material for consolidation, because my bishops were key attackers, in this position if he would get rid of one of my bishops, I would have no attack.




Next game is against a guy who was rated about 1880 and his rating didn't change drastically, in the matter of fact, he maintained his rating even after the lost game against me (and I was in the time of playing the game rated about 1770). And also this game is very special because its my best win so far (on chess.com) , so its kind of dear to me. He was also only guy over 1800 against I was playing until this game, so again I was a kind of impatient, and I wanted to attack. My entire game was very aggressive, and this game is quite different then previous game. In this game my attack was a real deal, I had very, very nice opportunities on the king side and in this game my opponent made subtle errors which cost him a position, and then he made an only blunder of the game on move 24, after which I won the game pretty nicely.

I think that both games were preety instructive, and that they are perfect examples of bad defending, I hope that all of you guys who read this articles are satisfied with content of an article. This article is primary made for guys under 1800, if you have any idea for a new article or question I would be glad to answer. I hope that you have enjoyed, every commment is welcomed.