Happy Halloween! Since it's Halloween today, I will be writing a blog called “Pretend Chess” where I will be discussing Lmao rippp moments, checkmate pastor moments, and Are you mad moments as well as the psychology for OTB play when you encounter these moments. For those of you who don’t know “Lmao rippp” was a witty catchphrase that started in the Impact Chess discord last year; I also explained the origin behind that catchphrase in detail in the end credits/acknowledgement in my April Fools vid. “Checkmate Pastor” and “Are you mad” were other witty catch phrases that started in my undergrad years in chess club and in the fellowship that I was a part of. For the purpose of this blog I will be showcasing some games that involve Lmao rippp moments, checkmate pastor moments, and are you mad moments and what to do when you see them happen in my chess games and chess games that I witnessed as well.
The first game I will be showing is one game that I witnessed at a DMV chess online rapid tournament. It was very funny and you will see why.
GG. So as you saw in this game, white was winning like the whole time, but at the end, white tried to be very fancy and it backfired completely. White got the checkmate pastor moment, are you mad moment, and Lmao rippp moment right in his face when he blundered stalemate. He had so much time when he took the rook. The biggest are you mad moment was that the player with the white pieces failed to realize it was stalemate and claimed that he won. He finally conceded after like the 3rd round. Wowzers, imagine if this happened OTB, then there will be a lot of chaos. Since rapid and blitz don't require chess notation, they can't use it as proof to claim "stalemate". They have to heavily depend on other witnesses which can lead to all sorts of biases such as confirmation and reporting bias and there will for sure be lots of screaming and arguing.
The next game I will be showing is how Lmao rippp looking moves save me from worse positions. In this game, I was playing the top girl in her age group.
GG, As you saw in my game above, I managed to complicate the position well enough to save the game. She was very strong.
I will be a showing parts of a game where I drew when I was worse in the most critical position against one of the top 9 year olds. I won't be showing the whole game because it was like more than 200 moves long but let's get into the critical moments.
Then after shuffling pieces like 100 moves we reached this position
GG. He was very strong and he will be stomping me in the coming years when he potentially gets to super GM. Ok enough showing my drawn games. In the next game, I will be showing a game where I got completely lucky. I was losing out of the opening but I found a mate in 3 after my opponent blundered with an Lmao rippp move.
GG, I guess even strong players blunder simple stuff too. Yeah, because in the other game I won at the World Open, my opponent also blundered a simple tactic. I did spend a few minutes again to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I won't be posting the game because the game was even and not as exciting as I thought it would be until that blunder happened and that simple blunder was very similar to the blunder you saw in the game above except it just led me to winning an exchange. And Funny enough, I ALSO BLUNDERED A SIMPLE TACTIC MYSELF in one of the games I lost. I will show that game because it is fair since I showed the games that I won and drew already with tactics in my favor.
Yep GG. I ended up getting the "checkmate pastor" moment right in my face this time. This game above taught me well and I told myself that I will never blunder something simple like this again in OTB. In bullet or blitz, I may be able to get away with this but classical NO WAY at this level. You saw how terrible my last game was. I played the losing move like I had less than 5 seconds.
Speaking about fast chess I will show how Lmao rippp moves can however potentially save you in blitz and bullet. These time controls stimulate your parasympathetic system known as the fight/flight system especially when you have under 10 seconds because you have to move instantly with intense speed to avoid getting flagged. The adrenaline kicks in super hard. I will show the tricks on Lmao rippp moves that can save you in online bullet or blitz because I have experienced them myself.
1. FREE PIECE GRAB
Whenever your opponent is premoving like crazy, there is a good chance that they will hang pieces left and right and miss mating threats. In the above pic, black has a passed pawn and he is premoving like crazy. White pretends to blunder by playing Rh7 and black will just assume there's no threat and focus on premoving every pawn move until it promotes and white grabs the free rook. White will eventually win or at least draw if white doesn't have less than 1 sec.
2. CHECKMATE PASTOR TRICK
Similar to the first pic, black and white are just premoving and black wants to queen not knowing that white has a sneaky trap. White doesn't anticipate that black will move his king and just hangs mate.
3. WORST MOVE EVER
Your opponent is on the verge of flagging and so are you and he or she is premoving like crazy. Well this trick helped me win a good amount of bullet games. Just pretend to play the most unexpected move like throwing a piece away by giving a check. The opponent will flag first because of having to readjust to the premove.
Disclaimer*** It doesn't work in time controls with increments or when the opponent has enough time (more than 5 seconds)
Now I will be discussing how to handle OTB scenarios when you experience Lmao rippp moves/moments or blunders.
1. Never move instantly (unless if it's blitz or bullet) if you feel like your opponent's last move was terrible. Pretend that it is a normal move. Spend time to make sure it isn't some trap. You saw in the game I won that even though I knew my opponent's move was losing, I pretended that it was fine so I spent time on it. Remember, it is classical chess. There is no reason that moves should be played instantly unless if you have 1 legal move or if the move is so obvious such as recapturing back from a trade but at the same time don't spend way too much time that you get yourself in time pressure unnecessarily.
2. When you feel like you reached a better position or a clearly winning position, pretend that you are playing an even position or even a worse position. It's never good to start celebrating early and moving instantly like bullet because you will most likely miss something and get swindled except if you're in time pressure. It's not over until it's over. You saw what happened in the first game I showed.
3. When you are playing lower rated opponents or little kids, you may assume they will blunder or make Lmao rippp moves. Well it's the wrong mindset to assume that. You can't trust the ratings of opponents these days since many people are underrated especially after covid. Never underestimate your opponent because if you do, you most likely will blunder yourself and lose by getting too complacent. Pretend that everyone you play is some super GM and that they will find all the best moves possible. And play your best chess as always.
4. If you blunder yourself or make a terrible move, don't show any emotion. There may be a chance that your opponent misses it and lets you back in the game. Showing obvious emotion will give things away, and in chess, it is never good to give your opponent hints in my opinion.
That's it for this blog. I hope you learned a lot about the real psychology behind chess and how to handle Lmao rippp moments, checkmate pastor moments, and are you mad moments when you play chess especially over the board.
Thanks for reading.
