Don’t Concede the Aura

Fischer famously said, “I don’t believe in psychology, I believe in good moves!” Did he really believe that? I don’t think so. Intentionally or not, he kept opponents under constant psychological pressure by being unpredictable about whether he’d show up, what he’d play, or what he’d say.

Anyone who has lived inside competitive chess knows psychology is a big part of the game. Of course, if the strength gap is large, psychology won’t save the weaker side; the board will tell. Psychological warfare starts to matter when players are close, say within ~100 Elo (I’m talking about classical chess. Not long ago “chess” defaulted to classical; now we have to specify.)

When two similar-level players meet often, the stronger one usually pulls ahead. But not always. Sometimes, an objectively inferior player can score evenly or even better against a stronger opponent. The best-known example is Kramnik vs. Kasparov. Kasparov was the stronger player overall, yet their head-to-head stayed close, and the World Champion title changed hands in 2000.

How does someone become an “unpleasant” opponent, especially when he isn’t the stronger player?  The more interesting case is the second one; unfortunately, I don’t have a good explanation.

When the stronger player is unpleasant for the weaker one, everyone shrugs and says, like in Carlsen’s case, “He’s just better.”  There’s no doubt Carlsen has been better than almost everyone for a long stretch (2018 with Caruana was the closest challenge; Carlsen won the match, then his 2019 run reminded everyone who was on top).

But even before that, it was hard to explain some lopsided head-to-heads like Carlsen’s huge plus score versus Nakamura purely by “being better.”

I recently watched an interview with Dubov about Carlsen’s dominance. He mentions, similar to what I heard from another top second, that when someone was getting close to the top, Carlsen often invited that player to a training camp. On the surface, it’s collaboration; in practice, it helped Carlsen and the team to map the other player’s tendencies and weaknesses. Not every top player did camps with him; Caruana, for instance, kept his distance, maybe that’s part of why he pushed Carlsen so hard in 2018.

A short story to end. After the 2011 Bazna Kings super-tournament, where Karjakin tied with Carlsen but finished second on tiebreak, a smiling photo of Karjakin next to Carlsen made the rounds. Carlsen was already number one at that time.  As the story goes,  Victor Korchnoi saw it and scolded Karjakin: “Don’t forget you want to be World Champion!” The message wasn’t “don’t smile”; it was “don’t concede the aura.” 
If a player believes another is superior, happy to draw, eager to praise that player, is already giving up psychological ground.

Moral: before you can beat the best, stop treating him like the best.