Comfort at Your Opponent's Expense
Hi friends! There’s nothing quite as embarrassing as not being in on the joke. Everyone’s laughing, and you’re not even sure what was so funny. Know the feeling? Maybe they are just laughing at you and that you lack their secret knowledge. Open almost any intermediate lesson on chess.com or read much about chess, and the professional will say, “Now White has a comfortable position.” What do they mean?
This post is all about increasing your comfort level at the chessboard. Let’s explore the secrets of comfort together so we can incrementally improve our ability to reach comfortable positions (and make our opponents miserable in the process).
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Defining Discomfort
Learning about Comfort from a First-year
Squeeze: Apply Pressure as Needed
Novelty: 1. g3, anyone?
Imbalances and Tension
Defining Discomfort: An Amateur’s Perspective
The place to start is with good working definitions for comfort and discomfort. If you have memorized a few opening lines, you may feel comfortable in that part of the game. The same would be true for pattern recognition in the endgame. The clock and your opponent have little to no impact on what you will do. But I will argue this isn’t playing comfortably. This is just preparation. It’s easier to navigate to a familiar location. In fact, you can even make turns on autopilot. But once you are out of your preparation, are you able to make things easier for yourself and harder for your opponents? Can you reach a comfortable game position or are you hoping for your opponent to blunder? (Sadly, at lower levels, this is often enough to win)
For most amateurs, comfortable play hinges on two crucial variables:
- The power to dictate play
- The capacity to limit what an opponent can do
While professionals might define a comfortable game as a position that has fewer weaknesses and more opportunities to exploit, lower-level players want control of the board.
Learning about Comfort from a First-Year
Beginners and intermediate players often rush to play pins or sharp tactical lines to quickly create a sense of discomfort (or even panic). One of my 5th-grade students (Tyson), who has less than a year of chess experience, has reached the enviable point where he can beat his uncles. They only know how the pieces move, but not much more about the game. My student can coordinate pieces. Here's a game that he played against another, more mature student (James). Tyson's weapon of choice: the Wayward Queen.
With a bit of experience, an early onrush attack won’t intimidate or unnerve you. The Scandinavian defense is another favorite at lower levels among players who want to dictate play from the start. But White has nothing to fear in these lines. As with the Wayward Queen, the calm White player can gain a foothold and create excellent attacking chances.
Squeeze: Apply Pressure as Needed
Another simple way to make an opponent feel uncomfortable is to force the action and bring our pieces into their half of the board. It’s easy to make a mistake when an opponent’s attack encroaches on our half of the board. Comfortable positions are those that allow our opponent to go on the merry way. Nate Solon shows a practical way to reach across the board and apply pressure in the English Opening.
I had a game in which the psychology of the squeeze worked against me recently. A few of my moves weren’t bad, but they allowed my opponent (hi @David_Krahn) to camp on my side of the board. In an effort to be aggressive and unwind some of their pressing attack, I made a huge gaffe. I list this here just to illustrate how effective extra pressure can be.
For the last couple of months, I have been reviewing a Chessable course (Gledura’s Lifetime 1.g3). My goal was to see if I could add some different startups than e4 or d4. I guess I was tired of going to Italy and London. This course isn’t for the faint of heart, but it does offer novel ways to get off the more well-trodden path. Here’s the start of an OTB game I recently played based on that preparation. The early middlegame position becomes uncomfortable for Black because White controls the central dark squares at a distance.
Another interesting line is if White plays 1…e5 as a reply to the opening 1.g3, Gledura suggests the provocative 2.Nf3. This move should raise an eyebrow because it allows Black to claim space by hitting the knight with 2...e4.
Is this a reversed Alekhine where White might play 3. Nd4? The answer is no because those lines have been analyzed since the 1920s; White is not winning here. Below is a famous game in which Richard Reti played a reversed Alekhine against Alekhine himself! He was not amused with Reti's ploy.
Instead, Gledura shows the move 3.Nh4 is not grim or dim. In fact, following his advice can lead Black into an uncomfortable setup. Here's a game from the London Open last month (11/28/25) in which Marcus Harvey followed one of lines suggested by Gledura (at least for a bit). His opponent is quickly in uncomfortable waters.
GM Maurice Ashley doesn't talk about comfortable positions in his very fun Secrets of Chess Geometry course. But he calls for readers to notice when multiple pieces--either your own or your opponents--fall along the same diagonal, rank, or file. He calls out the collinearity of pieces in these positions, noting they are tactic-rich.
In the diagram below, White has a more comfortable position, despite the imbalances that stand among various pieces.
Thanks for exploring the idea of comfort with me. As 2025 winds down, I hope you find yourself in a good place. Enjoy time with family and friends. Prioritize the things that matter.
