tricks they don't tell you about.

Hi. I wanna open this tread to share tricks people use in chess that are unusual, and that have litle or nothing to do actually with the game.

This usually are pshicological tricks.

I start by sharing this one.

The other day an I was studying the game of an IM and I was very confuse by a move he made with his bishop, so as I know him I asked him the idea behind that move and his answer was totally out of logic. He claims that he place the bishop in a square where the other player can't see it.

This is call a "blind spot". It happens becouse the nerve of the eye covers part of the cornea (or something like that, I am not a doctor), and so we actually don't see in some area of the picture, the brain compensates by creating the rest of the pitcture from information coming from the other eye or from pure imagination.

So when the other player stays in a static position and the head close to the board it is posible to place a pice in a calcualte spot and the other player will just no see that pice, it will desapear in front of his face.

Here a link explaining this better.

http://www.vonrechenberg.ch/blindspots.html

Now, how many times that had happend to you that the other player move a pice you missed to see it was there and sorprices you?

And please share some ofthe tricks you know.

Try it against Kasparov and let us know how it works.

You know, I'm convinced that this trick can even be used on 2D boards (it happened to me last week). Place a bishop "behind" a queen on a cluttered board. If you leave the combination up there for a bit of time, the opponents attention will be so taken up by the queen he may forget about the bishop entirely.

Mind you, I would never actually deliberately base a strategy around that sort of thing.

Well, I don't see how it would work unless his opponent only had one eye open, or was so severely crosseyed that the blind spots on both eyes were intersecting.

Also, how does he know where the blindspot is? It could be different for different people and it would change depending on how far he was from the board. It would also only work if he constantly stared at the same spot on the board, keeping the piece in his blindspot. Remember that the blindspot should be pretty small as well.

Considering all the stuff I just said, this psychological tactic would be practically impossible to pull off.

A children's trick is to set a trap and immediately act like it was a blunder so your opponent will take the bait.

Tucking a Bishop away on a2 (or a7 for black) usually does the trick.

ie:

But I always thought it was less to do with actual eyesight than "board vision".

When you start playing, its hard to work out everything going on 2x2 squares or 3x3, as you get better your board vision increases (and there are some good specific exercises to increase it further) but its still hard to see EVERYTHING going on on the full 8x8 board, and if there is a lot of action at the other end, its easy to miss the tucked away Bishop, especially if its in with a lot of pawns, it blends in with them and camouflages itself. heh.  Won many a game with that one. 

You hit the nail on the head - several times! The literal (i.e. retinal) blind spot idea is totally flawed, for all the reasons you gave. There may be some truth in a psychological blind spot, but is it worth making a sub-optimal move on the off-chance of it actually working? I don't think so!

I think this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.  You can try something like that against a lower-rated player, and it might work, but stronger players have developed good enough "board vision" and it will have no effect.  You might even be worsening your position or losing a tempo by playing moves like that.

This reminds me of a story about a player who castled long, so to speak. Casting his eye over the position in the center, his hand sliding down the table to pick up the rook and execute the move, he did not take note of the fact that his hand had fully cleared his own board and was yet empty. Persevering, his fingers eventually felt a wooden crenel, and he picked up the piece and placed it on d1 before touching the clock.

No one took note of this foreign rook until the owner of the absconding piece returned to his board. At first accusations fell upon the opponent's neighbor, who professed innocence. The debate became rather intense, whereupon the man across the board from our hero thought to glance at the rook in his hand and two across from him!

Eyes fell upon the gallant man who had quested in foreign lands for his rook. He insisted that he had broken no rules- his king was not in or moving through check, and neither his king, nor the rook in question, had previously been moved.

The escaped rook was forcibly returned, and the neighbors settled into a discussion as to whether there was some voluntary blindness involved and if there would soon be involuntary blindness...

addresing some of the points:

"how does he know where the blindspot is? It could be different for different people and it would change depending on how far he was from the board. It would also only work if he constantly stared at the same spot on the board, keeping the piece in his blindspot. Remember that the blindspot should be pretty small as well."

He have a whole study in this theory. He clainms there is some areas on the board where this happend. Everybody have the blind spot at the same point, it is like anathomy, everybody have the arms on the same place. And yes, he tries this only on people who think in a fix position, bending lil bit forth. It is crazy theory but he claims it works.

"You can try something like that against a lower-rated player, and it might work, but stronger players have developed good enough "board sight" and it will have no effect."

Talking about "board sigth" there is a trick that can be use on bullet chess, where you pick a pice and pretend you place it in a square, then placing it on a diferent square. The other player may asume it was placed on the square you pointed at and build up game on that, and as being bullet chess have not time to relice this until is too late. So be aware that board sigth can be use agaings you.

I don't understand the picture of the caw.

Here is another one people on my chess club pulled out. For a tornament there was coming some players from Cuba, We learned that one of them was alergic to cats. So some of the people whent to the board with some cat hair on them...

I pretty much figure I am going to be told this only works with low level players and Kasparov can beat me even if he is sneezing the whole game. But still the other cuban players mention they never saw this partner of them playing so bad so many games. So it did afected him.

Yeah, I agree - not a real "blind spot", but a gap in your Board Vision.

what is this?

When the oponent atack the drink still have to say check or can juts take it?

When I play, every time I check my opponent's king, I say proudly "checkmate!". The other demonstrates the simple move prominently and we go on. When my opponent says "checkmate!" after all this, I say "no it's not", and I take a captured piece and block the check. Blocking double check unnoticed takes a skill very few have.

A particularly flagrant example of this in professional play was in Kasparov vs Short match of 1993. I don't think anyone could argue that Short's use of his coffee mug (not sure - it may have been tea!?!) didn't completely thwart the world champion. Some have described Short's attacking style as "incredibly imaginative", but personally I feel he went too far with the cabbage, let alone the surprise crustacean. You'll know the game I'm referring to!

It's on Youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FmwxrCQutE

Shocking, isn't it? I thought there were meant to be FIDE rules to prevent this sort of gamesmanship.

Here's one from an international match - Wales vs Tajikistan, Olympiad 2006. IM Leighton Williams playing GM Farrukh Amonatov.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1411911

Leighton's account of what happened is as follows: On move 33, black, realising his position was lost, tried a cheap trick which didn't come off. Both players were in time trouble. Black picked up his queen and placed it on h1, and called check, without letting go of the piece. As white looked away to write the move down, black quickly shifted the queen to g1, where it is en prise from the bishop. Leighton realised what was going on and simply took the queen, winning the game. Of course, had he not noticed and blocked the check with the rook, the bishop would've been gobbled up.

 I'm really amazed that Kasparov was able to win that one.  Such a tough position!

LOL