WARNING: This is a very advanced technique (I mess it up a lot and even messed up in the game I'm putting here although I generally did it ok) so don't worry if you struggle with this.
Introduction
I am sure not many of you have ever heard of this technique. I'd actually be really surprised if some of you have, because the first time I ever came across this was in the "Endgames for Masters" section of "Silman's Complete Endgame Course" (fortunately, I actually realised I did a little bit of this during middle games but very rarely and never before in an endgame), but here's the general gist:
Your opponent cannot play anything against you because they have no counterplay
You yourself do have a functional move you can play and therefore a plan (often a pawn break)
You improve your position as much as possible before playing it (and after this, you play your move)
In fact, sometimes you may delay the move so much because this technique also has the benefit of being a torture weapon as the person facing you has to keep waiting, but I will come onto this later.
The Technique in action
Improvement
Imagine you have the current position below:
White has just sealed off all their play on the Kingside, but black still has infiltration points on the Queenside. And yes, the position is drawn (black is better though), but a little Cat and Mousing to test your opponent may scratch out a more pressing position. If black could infiltrate successfully, they would most likely win the game...
But first, we must improve the position. To begin with, the Knight seems to be more potent if it could reach the Queenside:
In the final position (though it didn't quite happen in the game but what I intended to do originally), the N has been outposted to a much stronger square than a5 where it forces the Rook to defend the f-pawn and controls many squares. I outposted the N on e4 instead, but I still managed to place it on a very strong square.
Waiting game
As it is a very good psychological torture weapon too, you must be alert as to when the opponent makes tiny inaccuracies in the position. Sometimes you may have to poke at their position to get them to do so, but by waiting you also make your opponent believe that you can't actually do anything in the position. The key to this technique is to keep testing your opponent, especially testing their patience to actually mistake-check their moves. In the game, I actually didn't need to do too much of a waiting game and just improved my position slightly:
Conclusion
Well there were some moments which were misplayed during the game (one even throwing the win into a "draw") but it can be clearly seen how the technique works.
If the enemy does have counterplay, then of course the technique cannot work, but while you control all the remaining plans in the position, why not savour it? It will take a lot of practice to master it, but this can convert many slightly-better or better positions into wins. This is mainly an endgame technique but also appears in many middlegames too as a positional bind.
WARNING: This is a very advanced technique (I mess it up a lot and even messed up in the game I'm putting here although I generally did it ok) so don't worry if you struggle with this.
Introduction
I am sure not many of you have ever heard of this technique. I'd actually be really surprised if some of you have, because the first time I ever came across this was in the "Endgames for Masters" section of "Silman's Complete Endgame Course" (fortunately, I actually realised I did a little bit of this during middle games but very rarely and never before in an endgame), but here's the general gist:
In fact, sometimes you may delay the move so much because this technique also has the benefit of being a torture weapon as the person facing you has to keep waiting, but I will come onto this later.
The Technique in action
Improvement
Imagine you have the current position below:
White has just sealed off all their play on the Kingside, but black still has infiltration points on the Queenside. And yes, the position is drawn (black is better though), but a little Cat and Mousing to test your opponent may scratch out a more pressing position. If black could infiltrate successfully, they would most likely win the game...
But first, we must improve the position. To begin with, the Knight seems to be more potent if it could reach the Queenside:
In the final position (though it didn't quite happen in the game but what I intended to do originally), the N has been outposted to a much stronger square than a5 where it forces the Rook to defend the f-pawn and controls many squares. I outposted the N on e4 instead, but I still managed to place it on a very strong square.
Waiting game
As it is a very good psychological torture weapon too, you must be alert as to when the opponent makes tiny inaccuracies in the position. Sometimes you may have to poke at their position to get them to do so, but by waiting you also make your opponent believe that you can't actually do anything in the position. The key to this technique is to keep testing your opponent, especially testing their patience to actually mistake-check their moves. In the game, I actually didn't need to do too much of a waiting game and just improved my position slightly:
Conclusion
Well there were some moments which were misplayed during the game (one even throwing the win into a "draw") but it can be clearly seen how the technique works.
If the enemy does have counterplay, then of course the technique cannot work, but while you control all the remaining plans in the position, why not savour it? It will take a lot of practice to master it, but this can convert many slightly-better or better positions into wins. This is mainly an endgame technique but also appears in many middlegames too as a positional bind.