Koeksisters road to experience - Objectivity

Our 2nd round of the PRO Chess League concluded yesterday, with a crushing loss 14.5-1.5 to the Norway Gnomes. Never the less, we learned a lot from the loss, and have decided to write about it. The main thing when entering the league was to gain experience, and this is what we shall share with you.

Objectively winning doesn't equal a win

One of the most interesting aspects of chess is the balance between practically and objectively evaluating a position. Obviously if we could all make the objectively best moves in a position we could all challenge for the world title, but sadly we are human . However this should never stop you from striving to evaluate objectively, and try and play the best move in every position, as after all as we become stronger, our objectivity becomes more accurate.

Several of our players had objectively winning positions, but the time pressure, coupled with the strong opposition lead to several swings in the evaluation of the position, and result.

Daniel was impressively beating Hammer, and was objectively winning before taking a draw by perpetual. A strange decision.

It was clear from the above game, that Roberto was comfortably winning but was unable to capitalize on his objectively winning position, it had nothing to do with time pressure, but everything to do with black always forcing white to make one more move, I guess that is a strength of stronger players.

Ironically it was the Gnomes' turn to mess up an objectively better position, upon which Roberto returned the favour.

Another objectively drawn position that is lost. This was down to a lack of familiarity with the ending. Study your endgames.

After being outplayed for the whole game against Hammer, who was objectively winning for the majority of the game this position arose. Can you see how to win for white?

Well as you can see there was a lot of errors in the games above, and it was not the most objective of rapid games . However the only way to improve is to strive to be as objective as possible, as that is when the results will start going the way the they are (objectively speaking) supposed to.

Photo taken from http://combiboilersleeds.com/images/objectivity/objectivity-1.jpg