Hope Chess

So, I was reading a book by Dan Heisman in Branes and Noble last night and he kept mentioning "hope chess." This means to play a move you think is pretty good and hope it works instead of playing a move based on sound analysis.

How many of you still play hope chess?

I do.

Depends on the level of my opponent tho, usually the lower rated they are the more chance it has of working.

Funny that.

I do too. As I read through his analysis of the various classes of playing strength it felt like he knew me and was talking right at me.

Many time I see my move based on a quick glance at the board think what it will do for my positon and make my move hoping it will work out...like you it works a lot against lower ratede players and even if I make a mistake i can recover a lot of the time, but against guys who are careful and really analyzing it never works.

I am going to work to stop playing hope chess and play only based on my analysis.

I am trying to use CC precisely because I have a life long hope chess problem.

It is a difficult problem to cure OTB. I can avoid it for a sequence of moves, but inevtiably in a long game I play some move that looks good but doesnt have sufficent analysis of the opponents response. Its my most frequent cause of lost games.

There's a fine line between hope chess and "this could be interesting but I'm unable to calculate long enough to determine it's objective merit..........f**k it I'mma play it anyway"

tactics trainer has been weening off of that bad habit... so has the loss of a number of games over stupid blunders... so no more guessing for me, just working harder to recognize my opponent's threats and to improve my calculation C:

I do that as well. But it's the lack of sound analysis that cause most of my blunders. The rest are just caused by temporary insanity.

Isn't trusting intuition over sound analysis bad?

yes, unless of course your intuition is faultless ;)

Right. Then it couldn't really be called hope chess anymore as one need not hope for something one knows will occur.

A complete analysis is often not possible

I play something that's more like crap chess. I submit a move, then see my blunder, and then say AW CRAP!

Dan says that if you have not used all your time by the end of the game then weren't really trying and if you want to make moves without trying you should play very fast time controls.

Thing is that even one single "hope chess move" can utterly ruin an otherwise fine game.

Hope chess is what you do until you are sick and tired of making the same stupid mistakes ;)

That's quotable! lol

I play "hope chess" when I'm in a blitz game. :D

once you get better and "see" the board, and realize the goals of the position at any given time, hope chess goes out the window for sound responses.  :)

"Hope chess" is merely a condescending way of describing chess below the 2600 level