The sword of Damocles

Here I present you the analysis of a game I played recently.  I would haved liked to be more active and haved played more games from which to choose for study.  Hopefully, I'll be able to find more time for chess in the next few weeks and a little less of work, work and work.

The game of chess is not just about knowledge and mastering concepts.  An important part of the game is based on psychological aspects including the attitude of the player, his level of confidence, his anxiety, etc.  Unfortunately, I believe the delay between my last games had a negative impact.  For this game, I felt more nervous and felt like I had forgotten some of my openings knowledge, even the ones I'm playing regularly.

Before starting the game, I probably starred at the big green button labeled PLAY nervously for 30-60 seconds before misclicking it.  Strangely, I never had this feeling when playing anonymously or against a bot.  Could it be that the perfectionist in me is back, the desire to do well, the fear of failure?  Could it be the fear of losing a few Glicko points despite the fact that I don't own them and they are more of a measure?  It would surely be interesting to do a psychological analysis on the subject, but it would be outside the scope of this post.

I remind you that the original idea was to analyze my games and try to improve myself as a player by doing so.  Much to my dismay, for this game the psychological aspect was probably more interesting than the game itself.  For reasons I will explain later, I did not really appreciate the game, the moves I played and the resulting positions.

Self analysis

My first observation after an opponent was assigned to me was that I was playing with the black pieces again.  So I thought I was probably going to play the Caro-Kann defense like last time.  However, my opponent played his first move 1. d4.  It was clear that I was going to have to choose another opening.  Usually, when white plays this move, I reply with 1. d4 d5 and try to play the Slav or Semi-Slav defense.  Currently, I want to better understand the positional aspect of the game and therefore, I am looking to play openings that promote this type of positions.  Also, I find (probably incorrectly) that the Slav defense follows similar ideas to the Caro-Kann defense and therefore, reduces the amount of theory I need to memorize.

For this game, I have to mention that very early on I noticed that my opponent was playing very slowly.  Except for a few moves, I found that he/she took longer than necessary to play moves that seemed simple to me or followed a logical sequence.  At the end of the game, I had the advantage of time, which allowed me to win in a position that I felt was about equal.

Analysis with Stockfish 12 - Depth 18

As I mentioned several times in my analysis, the white's bishop on the a8-h1 diagonal was just too strong and dominant.  I felt I was on the defensive, disadvantaged and always 1 or 2 moves behind most of the game.  I believe that the psychological aspect was very present in this confrontation.  Now is the time to seek advice from Stockfish and get a more down to earth look at the position.

Tactic(s) / improved position(s)

During the game, it is possible that my opponent or I missed a tactic or move that would have allowed us to improve our position or at least maintained it.

Lesson(s) to remember

I believe that anxiety, nervousness, self-confidence are all psychological factors that came in early in the game.  Towards the end of the opening, even though I knew I hadn't delivered the best moves, I had regained enough confidence and was all in all happy that I had survived and not fallen into a trap.  The anxiety and nervousness had disappeared and had given way to another type of discomfort, worry.  Indeed, I constantly had in mind a thought for my opponent's white square bishop who signaled to me his presence on the long diagonal and which prevented me from developing my pieces properly.

I would love to say that the lesson to remember is to stop feeling anxious, nervous or worrying and still have self-confidence, but that would be rather an inhuman advice.  There might be a few tips and tricks to try to temper these emotions, but I still believe that they are a part of me, of us, and that they are always going to show up in one game or another.

On a more technical level, I believe that for this game, I did not play the best opening there is, that I underestimated the strength of my opponent's bishop and therefore I should not have played 5... c5, which weakened my position and yielded the diagonal.  It is clear that I have some opening knowledge gaps and I do not hide it.  Despite everything, I still prefer to wait before fully studying openings.  It seems to me that I still have so much to learn about strategy, pawn structures and end games.  For now, I think I will remember that giving up a long diagonal can severely hamper the mobility and development of my pieces and therefore be careful in the choice of certain moves as soon as opening.

Until I play new games and analyze them, be well.

Une traduction française de ce billet se trouve ici.